January 1, 2005
Viktor Yanukovych vowed to fight on for the Ukrainian presidency despite his resignation as Prime Minister this week, claiming that although he doesn't have much hope of reversing the election, he won't stop trying: Viktor Yanukovych vowed to fight on for Ukraine's presidency, despite handing the opposition of this ex-Soviet Republic a begrudging victory by announcing his resignation as prime minister. ... The pro-Russian Yanukovych announced his resignation as prime minister on Friday in a televised address, his first significant concession since losing Sunday's vote, but said he will maintain his claim to the presidency. "I have made the decision to submit my formal resignation," Yanukovych told the nation. "We are still fighting, but I don't have much hope," he said. "I will act as an independent politician, as the rightful winner of the legitimate Nov. 21 election." Some speculate that the real reason Yanukovych resigned now is to avoid...
The United States has long opposed a second term as IAEA chief for Mohammed ElBaradei. The BBC now reports that the nomination period has completed, and only one candidate qualified for the post. Guess who? The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohammed ElBaradei has emerged as the only candidate for the post of the agency's next director general. Mr ElBaradei hopes to be re-elected for a third term, but the US does not want his mandate to be renewed. Privately, some US officials have complained that Mr ElBaradei - who has held the post since 1997 - has been too soft on both Iran and Iraq. The IAEA had inspectors in Iraq for years and yet did not ever resolve the issue of WMDs. For instance, Saddam managed to keep hidden all of the core research of his nuclear-weapons program from the IAEA and UN inspectors in the yard...
A Washington judge has denied a woman a divorce from the husband who beat her after she disclosed her pregnancy to the court. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the AP report that Judge Paul Bastine took the unusual step in order to, er, preserve the family unit for the unborn child: A Spokane woman trying to divorce her estranged husband two years after he was jailed for beating her has been told by a judge she can't get out of the marriage while she's pregnant. The case pits a first-year attorney who argues that state law allows any couple to divorce if neither spouse challenges it against a longtime family law judge who asserts that the rights of the unborn child in this type of case trump a woman's right to divorce. "There's a lot of case law that says it is important in this state that children not be illegitamized,"...
Don't forget that the Northern Alliance returns from its Christmas hiatus with a live show today, from noon to 3 pm CT. We plan on talking about the week and the year in review -- and if Nick Coleman doesn't figure in somewhere, pigs will fly over The Patriot today. Be sure to catch us on air or over the Internet, and call in to chat with us at 651-289-4488. If you have a cell phone, you probably have free calling on weekends. We'll look forward to talking with you!...
I normally support efforts to remove tobacco influences from minors, especially as a former smoker myself. However, the lawsuits that plagued the tobacco industry for several years bothered me tremendously, as did the capitulation of the growers to what I felt was legal blackmail. After all, tobacco products have carried warnings about their deadly effects for over four decades -- and anyone foolish enough to start smoking (or not to stop) should be understood to have willing borne the health risks. The settlement proscribed the advertising that tobacco companies could use to promote their products, ostensibly to avoid the aforementioned influence on minors. Again, some of the restrictions made sense. However, the Ohio Supreme Court has managed to push the settlement into another expression of foolishness: Matchbooks given out at bars and stores cannot bear advertising for cigarettes or other tobacco products under the 1998 settlement involving 46 states and...
Over the past three months, all we've heard about elections in Iraq is a steady drumbeat of pessimism -- that the violence of the so-called insurgency will keep Iraqis away from the polls, and even that the Iraqis don't truly want democracy. Despite our men and women in Iraq telling everyone they can that this meme doesn't apply in their experience, the mainstream media in America insists on reinforcing this dreadful analysis with every terrorist bombing, making the Islamist strategy pay off in spades. Tomorrow's Washington Post takes a surprising point of view instead: The number of Iraqis making sure they are properly registered to vote has surged dramatically, officials said Saturday, calling the rise evidence of enthusiasm for the Jan. 30 elections despite continuing security concerns that have blocked the process in two provinces. After a slow start to the six-week registration process that began Nov. 1, the number...
January 2, 2005
In a sign that George Bush had more in mind than just humbling the UN, Reuters analyzes the role India is playing in relief efforts for the massive tsunami damage and how that may transform India-US relations: Within hours of the tsunami, India geared up for its biggest-ever relief operation, but not just with its own devastated coasts in its sights. As New Delhi launched a relief effort along the eastern coast, ten warships -- backed by helicopters and transport aircraft and loaded with relief supplies -- also headed for Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Maldives, three neighbours badly hit in one of world's worst natural disasters. A country campaigning for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, India refused to portray itself as a helpless victim. "India has been trying to convey the image that it is a regional power, and a credible power in terms of having the...
Two articles on the Internet this afternoon show that the Democrats and their candidate still have no clue why they lost the presidential election, even after eight weeks of soul-searching. Adam Nagourney reports on the analyses promulgated by party leaders about their loss and what it means for their future: With exception of a few Democratic outliers in Ohio, few people dispute that the election for president is done and decided: President Bush won and John Kerry lost. But as the new year begins, no such consensus exists among Democrats about why Mr. Kerry was defeated, and the party is locked in a battle of interpretation over just what went wrong. Was it values? Terrorism and Iraq? A better Republican get-out-the-vote operation or a rush of Hispanics to President Bush? A gawky candidate with little to say? Presidential elections often produce a clear story line, a lesson for winners and...
The First Mate and I both are fighting off colds, and so we cut short a shopping day after a few stops to spend the rest of the day in bed. I decided to keep tabs on my two NFL teams, both of which played early games, televised in the Twin Cities. My favorite team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, had little to gain from this road game in Buffalo. Their tremendous rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had been injured in the last game and the Steelers listed him only as the emergency QB for the game. In fact, most of the Steelers sat out this game, allowing the Buffalo Bills to hope that they could squeak into the playoffs against the second- and third-string Pittsburgh lineup they faced. However, even with the replacements, the Steelers dominated the Bills while rolling to a 29-24 win. With future Hall of Famer Jerome Bettis sitting...
Sometimes Western journalists really make us all look so callous that Third World resentment becomes much more understandable. Case in point: London Times columnist Matthew Parris, who asks us to enjoy the tsunami and its aftermath, as natural disasters keep the world from being too boring. No, I'm not kidding: If it were our choice to trigger this seizure, our hand upon the lever of human fortune, would we have pulled the lever? Of course not. So why the thrill? I have hesitated before using that word “thrill”. It is easily misunderstood. It might seem to make light of the blackest few days ever experienced in the lives of millions. But all the reciting in the world of the scale of these miseries, all the acknowledgement we can make of the sympathy which they evoke, cannot hide a small, uncomfortable thought which (I am pretty confident) has occurred to you...
The New York Times reports on what can only be called an intervention for Kofi Annan in a Manhattan apartment that recently took place. Former US diplomat Richard Holbrooke hosted a conference that told an impassive Annan that he needed to clean up his act and that of his staff in order to quit poking the American bear: At the gathering, Secretary General Kofi Annan listened quietly to three and a half hours of bluntly worded counsel from a group united in its personal regard for him and support for the United Nations. The group's concern was that lapses in his leadership during the past two years had eclipsed the accomplishments of his first four-year term in office and were threatening to undermine the two years remaining in his final term. They began by arguing that Mr. Annan had to refresh his top management team, and on Monday he will...
Syria has started an initiative to facilitate voting amongst its Iraqi expatriate community in the upcoming elections, according to the AP: Iraqi expatriates in Syria will have the opportunity to vote in this month's Iraqi elections under an agreement signed Sunday between the Syrian government and the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration. More than 250,000 Iraqis are believed to be living in Syria. Many of them fled here to escape worsening security conditions since the onset of the U.S.-led war that ousted former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein last year. The agreement says Iraqis wishing to cast their votes in Syria must prove their eligibility and register at a Damascus election center from Jan. 17 to 23. Polling will take place over three days, from Jan. 28 to 30. Does anyone in the State Department think this is a bad idea? The Iraqis in Syria likely will be the Saddam loyalists...
Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has long been one of my favorite blogs on ... well, a whole range of topics, especially matters of faith. Joe and I started blogging within a couple of weeks of each other and we've occasionally corresponded on our progress in our avocation. Tonight Joe provides his readers with a primer on successful blogging that is much too kind to me: Not being a member of this elite circle of bloggers, I can’t provide advice from my own personal experience. But just as a biographer can glean insights from a study of great presidents, I think a study of the “A”-list can provide a few clues into what makes them successful. After giving the subject a considerable amount of thought and attention, I’ve noticed three specific ways for breaking into the top tier of bloggers: A. Possess the attributes of the top ten bloggers (e.g.,...
January 3, 2005
The New York Times reports today on the sudden distaste for asylum-seekers from North Korea with the Russians, but James Brooke's report talks more about South Korea than the Russian Federation. Defections from Kim Jong-Il's workers paradise has always neen an issue for the Russians (as well as the Chinese), but one that the Russians had tolerated until now. The change appears driven by North Korea and, surprisingly, South Korea as well: In a new twist, diplomats from South Korea now work to discourage defectors from North Korea. Under new rules, South Korea is reducing resettlement payments to North Koreans by two-thirds. Defectors are to be scrupulously investigated. South Korea says that will help weed out criminals, spies and ethnic Koreans from China. Human rights advocates say South Korea's stricter policy is intended to curry favor with China and North Korea, and to slow a rising influx of refugees, which...
US helicopters flew missions into Aceh yesterday, airlifting the badly wounded they found and distributing crucial water and food supplies to the survivors they found in the tsunami-devastated region: U.S. helicopters shuttled the injured and the homeless, many of them children, out of some of the worst-hit parts of tsunami-devastated Aceh province on Monday, as reports surfaced of trafficking in orphans from the disaster. Pilots skimmed low over flattened villages and jungles on the west coast of Sumatra island looking for signs of life, touching down briefly to collect the badly injured and fling out packages of food and water. "They were ecstatic as we flew in. They were blowing us kisses. I think they were really amazed to see us, although some of the children seemed a bit spooked," U.S. Seahawk pilot Lt. Cmdr. Joel Moss told Reuters after his second mission. "Yesterday was the best day of flying...
Drudge links to a Broadcasting & Cable item that reports on a meeting between beleaguered CBS News president Andrew Heyward and the White House. Heyward, rumored to be on the chopping block when the long-awaited internal investigation of the Rathergate fiasco is released, may need a truce with the White House to save his job: Let the fence-mending begin. According to a Broadcasting & Cable source in Washington, D.C., CBS News president Andrew Heyward, along with Washington bureau chief Janet Leissner, recently met with White House communications director Dan Bartlett, in part to repair chilly relations with the Bush administration. ... Heyward was “working overtime to convince Bartlett that neither CBS News nor Rather had a vendetta against the White House,” our source says, “and from here on out would do everything it could to be fair and balanced.” CBS declined to comment. On its face, Heyward's mission appears doomed....
Mitch at Shot In The Dark drew my attention to a piece by local crank Mark Giselson on his blog that calls into question the Christianity of the Northern Alliance bloggers. (No, I'm not kidding.) He manages to figure out a search engine well enough to find how many times we've all mentioned Jesus on our blogs and from there discerns that we have little faith in our Christianity. Mitch explodes this drivel in great detail. I won't go that far, although anyone who presumes Power Line is some crypto reference to Christianity clearly needs the enema of a really good fisking. (Missing the fact that at least one of the three Power Line bloggers is Jewish also demonstrates Giselson's idiocy.) Here's what Giselson has to say about me: Despite higher hopes for Captain’s Quarters, I got an immediate negatory noise when I searched for Jesus on their front page....
Claude Salhani at the Washington Times presents an analysis of Osama bin Laden's reaction to the two outbreaks of democracy in Southwest Asia this month, and talks about how desperate the terror chief is to stop them: Osama bin Laden, the man who since 9/11 brought fear into the hearts of millions, is now running scared. The master terrorist is afraid; he is very afraid. What frightens bin Laden today are not American B-2 super-stealth bombers capable of dropping tons of high explosives on him from unseen heights, nor the tens of thousands of troops and legions of intelligence officers looking for him since September 2001. He knows how to cope with them. What frightens bin Laden today is the ballot box. The leader of al-Qaida appears particularly concerned over the prospects of pending elections in two Arab countries -- the Palestinian Authority and Iraq -- both scheduled for later...
I'll be on Hugh Hewitt's show at 5:30 PM CT tonight to discuss World Relief Day. Be sure to tune in!...
January 4, 2005
Off to a slow start today, obviously -- fighting a cold and fever. I'll be posting this afternoon as soon as I go through some e-mail. The World Relief Day has skyrocketed, thanks to all of you!...
Al Gore's new TV "network", dubbed INdTV for now, recently sent out a prospectus for potential partners that outlined the type of original programming the former VP plans to air. Richard Leiby reports in today's Washington Post that INdTV hardly appears ready to raise the level of politics in the US: An insider cautioned us yesterday that the e-mail represents just a sliver of the conceptual pie, but the potential must-see lineup includes: • "That's F*&#ed Up: Is there something unfathomable going on around the corner or down the street? Some state of affairs that just doesn't make sense? You can rant all you want -- it just better be good TV." It looks like Gore aims at what he and his backers see as the hip-hop audience, complete with expletives -- even if they don't have the cojones to spell it out. In fact, the rest of the lineup...
In a move that calls into question Hillary Clinton's expected run for the presidency in 2008, Harold Ickes has pulled out of the race for chair of the Democratic National Committee: Former Clinton aide Harold Ickes and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk let top Democrats know Tuesday that they won't be running for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. ... Ickes, a longtime Democratic activist, also let party members know he would not be running. "I just decided I probably did not have enough of the attributes (a chairman needs) to do the party justice," Ickes said in an interview. Ickes has strong ties to the Clintons. He served for years as Bill Clinton's deputy chief of staff and has been a big money man for both Bill and Hillary. While the DNC chair may have been more high-profile than usual for Ickes' comfort zone, having him ensconced at the...
The uncertainty surrounding the gubernatorial election in Washington continues to grow, as even the Seattle Post-Intelligencer now reports wide discrepancies between ballot counts and voter rolls: Thousands of "mystery voters" in the counties of King, Pierce, Snohomish, Clark and Kitsap appear to be Republican Dino Rossi's best prospect for challenging the legitimacy of the closest and most contentious gubernatorial election in the state's history. The state Republican Party yesterday called on county election officials to explain what the GOP says is a nearly 8,500-vote discrepancy between county vote tallies and the number of people credited with actually voting in the election. Democrats claim that the GOP used preliminary lists and that the discrepancies will narrow once counties update their voter rolls. However, no one now disputes that the election will have little credibility if the margin does not significantly decrease. The difference gives the appearance that several thousand more ballots...
Power goes to a person's head, sometimes more quickly than others. The new sheriff of Clayton County, Georgia seems to be one of the former. Victor Hill celebrated his first day in office by firing 27 people, stationing snipers around the office and driving the fired officers home in prisoner transports: The sheriff, Victor Hill, 39, defended the firings and said he had the right to shake up the department in whatever way he felt necessary. Sheriff Hill also said it was necessary to fire the workers the way he did, including taking some deputies home in vans normally used to transport prisoners because the deputies were barred from using county cars. A Georgia judge disagreed with Sheriff Hill, ordering the 27 officers to be reinstated. Hill tried to use the murder of Derwin Brown in nearby DeKalb County as an excuse to not just fire the 27 officers but...
January 5, 2005
The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof channels his inner Jan Egeland and scolds us for being stingy in our assistance to poorer nations. Using both public and private aid, he lambastes the US as a "Land of Penny Pinchers": The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the margin of error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria. Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them children and most in Africa, or maybe it's three million - we don't even know. But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS (240,000) than died in the tsunamis, and almost as many will die because of diarrhea (140,000). And that's where we're stingy. Kristof points out that America spends 15 cents per day per person on official development aid...
North Korea issued civil-defense guidelines to its people in anticipation of attack by the United States, with preparations ranging from the mundane to the ridiculous: North Korea has ordered its people to be ready for a protracted war against the United States, issuing guidelines on evacuating to underground bunkers with weapons, food and portraits of leader Kim Jong Il. ... The manual urged the military to build restaurants, wells, restrooms and air purifiers in underground bunkers where government offices and military units will move in if war breaks out. When North Koreans evacuate to underground facilities, they should make sure that they take the portraits, plaster busts and bronze statues of Kim and his parents so that they can "protect" them in a special room. Kim signed the order himself as the chairman of the Central Military Committee, a position that had not been publicly associated with anyone after the...
The attack on Sinclair Broadcasting by Media Matters for America has claimed its first scalp. Staples, the huge office-supplies retailer, has pulled its advertising for all Sinclair news programming, effective January 10th: Office-supply retailer Staples Inc. is pulling its advertising from news programming on Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. television stations, saying the decision was fueled in part by e-mails from customers angry at what they consider to be the broadcaster's right-wing bias in news and commentary. ... Staples, which has 1,400 stores, will continue to buy advertising during other programs on Sinclair's 62 stations but, as of Jan. 10, no longer will advertise during news programs, which include "The Point," a daily conservative commentary by Sinclair Vice President Mark E. Hyman. MMA claims a "partial" victory, stating that all they want is to raise the issue of fairness in regards to the Sinclair commentary rather than a boycott. However, listing...
Drudge carried a report from the Detroit Free Press that the staff of Rep. John Conyers took turkeys from a Detroit food bank and passed them to their cronies, rather than to the poor people in Conyers' district. The Grinches at Conyers' office has thus far refused to provide an accounting of the food: The director of a Detroit food bank wants to know what happened to 60 turkeys -- 720 pounds of frozen birds -- that his charity gave to members of U.S. Rep. John Conyers' local staff two days before Thanksgiving to give to needy people. Conyers' Detroit office promised an accounting of any turkey distribution by Dec. 27, but the Gleaners Community Food Bank had received no paperwork as of Tuesday, said the charity's director, Agostinho Fernandes. Fernandes said he became suspicious that the turkeys didn't get to poor people after hearing from a friend that a...
The IAEA announced that the UN will inspect an Iranian military site that the US believes was used for nuclear weaponization activities: The inspection will be part of the U.N. investigation into allegations Iran has carried out work linked to nuclear 'weaponization,' the process of testing or assembling a warhead and attaching it to a delivery system. ... According to globalsecurity.org, a Web Site run by a private Washington-based research group, the massive Parchin complex, around 30 km (19 miles) south of Tehran, is the center of Iran's munitions industry. Officials from the United States and several other countries said in September that Parchin may be a site where Iran was testing explosives that would be appropriate for an atom bomb. Although ElBaradei played down the U.S. allegations at the time, agency inspectors asked Tehran to visit the site. They want to take environmental samples to rule out the possibility...
We have been experiencing a number of technical difficulties today with Hosting Matters, which they have diligently worked to correct. If you have had problems loading the page, just keep trying back. The problem affects everything, including the comments programming and my access to the system. Please be patient and keep checking on our status. In the meantime, don't forget to check our progress on World Relief Day! NOTE: Unfortunately, the system ate my gracious and generous post congratulating USC for winning the national championship last night in the Orange Bowl. I know this will disappoint James from Folsom, but I just can't recall what I wrote. Darn. UPDATE 5:45 PM: Still more problems this afternoon. Sorry for the down time; this second outage appears to have affected all Hosting Matters servers....
Human nature dictates a particular need for order in the midst of chaos. It's one of the driving forces behind our capacity to believe in conspiracy theories to explain random, tragic events. That being said, this still surprises me: Just 11 days after Asia's tsunami catastrophe, conspiracy theorists are out in force, accusing governments of a cover-up, blaming the military for testing top-secret eco-weapons or aliens trying to correct the Earth's "wobbly" rotation. In bars and Internet chatrooms around the world questions are being asked, with knowing nods and winks, about who caused the submarine earthquake off Sumatra on December 26, and why governments were so slow to act in the minutes and hours before tsunamis slammed into their shores, killing almost 150,000. "There's a lot more to this. Why is the US sending a warship? Why is a senior commander who was in Iraq going there?" whispered designer Mark...
In a sign that the Democrats are determined to pursue their scorched-earth policy on elections to its bitter conclusion, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has filed an objection to Ohio's presidential electors. John Conyers of Detroit published a report that claims irregularities in Ohio's election accounts for more than the 118,599 votes that George Bush won over John Kerry: The 102-page report titled "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio?" lists such problems as unusually long lines, a shortage of voting machines in Democratic-leaning areas, confusion over provisional ballot rules and computer problems. The report also contends there were widespread instances of intimidation and misinformation, improper purging of voter registration lists, a lack of inspection for about 93,000 ballots where no vote was cast for president, and vote totals not matching registration numbers or exit poll data. "In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct...
January 6, 2005
Colin Powell announced today that the tsunami relief "core group" of India, Japan, Australia, and the US would disband and fold itself into the UN effort -- now that the world body finally met to organize its relief efforts: "The core group helped to catalyze the international response," Powell told a tsunami relief conference in Jakarta according to a prepared text released by the State Department. "Having served its purpose, it will ... now fold itself into the broader coordination efforts of the United Nations." The analysis by Reuters' Arshad Mohammed credits formation of the group to criticism that George Bush and the US were slow to respond. However, the four nations formed the core group and began distributing aid before the UN even called its meeting to discuss it -- which, coincidentally, occurred today. The UN proved itself to be little more than a lumbering roadblock. Had we waited...
USA Today and the AP have two different analyses of the reception US aid to tsunami victims has received from Muslims in the Middle East. Barbara Slavin and Kathy Kiely take a rosier view of the effect on the Islamic world that our efforts may bring: U.S. relations with Indonesia have been strained in recent years. Though most Indonesians practice a moderate form of Islam, the country is home to a number of extremist groups that have advocated violence against Christians and other non-Muslims. The U.S.-led war in Iraq prompted protests in some Indonesian cities; a group known as the Islamic Defenders Front claimed to have signed up 400 volunteers in "jihad registrations." But in Aceh, the province where Islam first took root in Indonesia and where a less tolerant, more conservative form of the faith is practiced than elsewhere in the country, residents this week were showering praise on...
Barbara Boxer signed onto John Conyers' challenge of the Ohio electors this morning, setting up a useless two-hour debate in both chambers on the election won by George Bush two months ago: Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., signed a challenge mounted by House Democrats to Ohio's 20 electoral votes, which put Bush over the top. By law, a challenge signed by members of the House and Senate requires both chambers to meet separately for up to two hours to consider it. Lawmakers are allowed to speak for no more than five minutes each. While Bush's victory is not in jeopardy, the Democratic challenge will force Congress to interrupt tallying the Electoral College vote, which is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. EST Thursday. It would be only the second time since 1877 that the House and Senate were forced into separate meetings to consider electoral votes. "I have concluded that objecting...
Not according to blogger James Behan, self-proclaimed as the first elected blogger. He predicts a healthy margin of victory for the GOP nominee for Virginia's governor in 2005, and he's picking James Kilgore to be that standardbearer. Behan gives a great look at Virginia state politics. Don't miss it....
Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych keeps swinging and missing on his appeals to overturn the results of the last run-off election. The Ukrainian Supreme Court turned back another challenge by Yanukovych today, one considered an "intermediate" challenge while Ukraine certifies the results of the December 26th balloting: Ukraine's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected losing presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych's appeal of last month's repeat election, bringing the former Soviet republic a step closer to resolving its political crisis. Yanukovych has not exhausted all of his options, however. His campaign has said that his main appeal would be filed with the court only after the Central Election Commission announces the final results of the Dec. 26 vote. Preliminary results of the balloting showed opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko winning by a decisive margin. Yanukovych has only one last at-bat left. Apparently, he's determined to go down swinging -- and go down he will....
Pennywit draws my attention to a comment on an earlier CQ post by Bostonian, which suggests a new way to vote with safeguards built in for each voter to ensure their vote was counted. In addition to making sure that every ballot is legal (for which many proposals have been floated), we need two things: 1) Independent verificiation of the totals 2) Certainty that every vote was counted For 1, when a voter submits his ballot, he provides one copy to a Republican and one copy to a Democrat. There's a unique ballot number on the ballot, which can be used to verify that the identical ballot was included in both totals. Both parties tally up the votes separately, compare the results, and if the error is too large, nail down every last discrepancy. For 2), the voter takes home a paper stub with the same ballot number, and he...
I've been fortunate to have received tremendous support from many friends in the blogosphere for World Relief Day, our January 12 fundraiser for World Vision and tsunami victims in the Indian Ocean region. Hugh Hewitt has put the link at the top of his blog every day, and Kevin McCullough has even created a Blogad for his site, which he's donated to promote the cause. I can't thank both men enough for their friendship and support. Kevin says that other bloggers can add this to their sites as well: I created a powerful blog ad - I had even had my in house test marketers run the phraseology through a demo. It came back with high marks. I have linked to your WORLD VISION PAGE. If people want to place this ad they can copy from my web-site or send me passcodes for free blog ads and I will go...
January 7, 2005
As predicted, Islamists have begun their own relief efforts in Indonesia in an attempt to establish their credentials in the Muslim nation. In Banda Aceh, the Washington Times reports that Western military units providing humanitarian assistance have been warned about the potential security risks: An extremist Islamic group with links to al Qaeda has set up relief operations in Aceh province on Sumatra island, raising concerns that international relief workers will become terrorist targets as in Iraq. Amid hundreds of aid workers near the airport in Banda Aceh, Laskar Mujahidin posted an English-language sign that reads "Islamic Law Enforcement." The group, known for hunting down and killing Christians during a long-running sectarian conflict in another part of Indonesia, said yesterday it is collecting corpses, distributing food and spreading Islamic teachings among refugees. U.S., Australian and South Korean government officials said they were aware of security threats in the region and...
The inspector-general of the CIA has completed his investigation into the agency's performance prior to 9/11 and has readied his report to Congress, according to the New York Times. Douglas Jehl reports that the conclusion reached by John Helgerson points to George Tenet and Director of Operations James L. Pavitt for poor performance and providing inadequate counterterrorism resources: An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that officials who served at the highest levels of the agency should be held accountable for failing to allocate adequate resources to combating terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks, according to current and former intelligence officials. The conclusion is spelled out in a near-final version of a report by John Helgerson, the agency's inspector general, who reports to Congress as well as to the C.I.A. Among those most sharply criticized in the report, the officials said, are George J. Tenet, the former...
One of the recent memes abounding on the Left these days is that George Bush and his administration surrounds itself with "yes-men", people who agree so closely with Bush's policies that Bush gets no dissenting information. (They also claim he's a puppet, which seems a bit contradictory to me.) The biggest issue for this meme is the war on terror and specifically in the Iraq theater, where Democrats claim the administration has lost touch with reality. Those people should delight in the presence of Donald Rumsfeld if that is what they believe. The Defense Secretary has selected a retired four-star general, Gary E. Luck, to take a team of analysts into Iraq and perform an open-ended review of the situation and progress there: The Pentagon is sending a retired four-star Army general to Iraq next week to conduct an unusual "open-ended" review of the military's entire Iraq policy, including troop...
Ukrainians celebrated Orthodox Christmas today, hopeful that the Presidential Election That Wouldn't Die has finally been laid to rest. The Central Election Commission is now expected to officially declare the election for Viktor Yushchenko, giving Viktor Yanukovych one last appeal to the Supreme Court. However, that avenue looks rather bleak: The ruling cleared the way for the central election commission to publish the final, official results of their historic December 26 rematch election and officially declare Western-leaning Yushchenko the winner -- a declaration that the pro-Moscow Yanukovich has vowed to challenge. But the speed with which the court handed its ruling -- it deliberated for about an hour after a four-hour hearing -- has led to speculation that it may not even accept for consideration a second appeal from Yanukovich. That means that Yushchenko could be inaugurated as the third president of an independent Ukraine as early as next week,...
A time existed in American politics when politicians kept foreign-policy disputes at the shoreline. In a time of war, criticizing US policy from foreign locales used to be considered a craven and disreputable act. But having a sitting US Senator and a failed presidential candidate go to the theater of war to stage a protest against the current administration goes far beyond the pale: Baghdad -- Sen. John Kerry, whose seemingly shifting positions on the U.S. war in Iraq plagued him throughout his presidential campaign, came to this war- torn capital Wednesday to see for himself whether the country was moving toward stability or deeper into chaos. ... The senator said he was more interested in asking questions of soldiers, U.S. officials, Iraqis and even the journalists themselves instead of rehashing the political battles of the past campaign season. But in several instances, Kerry attacked what he called the "horrendous...
Radioblogger (aka Generalissimo Duane) has the finalists ready for your vote in his Blog poster contest. Photoshopped entries from around the globe have been submitted -- 325 in all -- an Duane has whittled it down to 10 deserving finalists. Make sure you take a look at all of them, but don't forget to vote for your favorite. If you're from Seattle, you can vote for dead relatives as well. (And don't forget to demand recount after recount until your candidate wins, either.) For those looking for a little guidance, I'm trying to stay neutral ... but longtime CQ reader/commenter Peyton Randolph has made it into the finals. I'm not going to tell y'all which one is his, but let's just wish that the Force is with him on Sunday evening! UPDATE: I should also have noticed that another CQ reader, Derek Brigham, is in the lead right now with...
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports today that Christine Gregoire can credit her disputed victory in Washington's gubernatorial election to an aggresive get-out-the-vote campaign. In fact, Democrats succeeded so well at motivating their base that they managed a few resurrections: At least eight people who died well before the November general election were credited with voting in King County, raising new questions about the integrity of the vote total in the narrow governor's race, a Seattle Post-Intelligencer review has found. The evidence of votes from dead people is the latest example of flaws in an election already rocked by misplaced votes and allegations that there were thousands more votes counted than actual voters. County officials say they are investigating the cases pointed out by the P-I. "These are not indications of fraud," said Bill Huennekens, King County's elections supervisor. "Fraud is a concerted effort to change an election." Who is Huennekens kidding?...
Thirteen years ago, a natural disaster in the South Pacific killed hundreds and left thousands more homeless. The eruption of Mount Pinatubo created an emergency for Filipinos and the American dependents of the servicemen and servicewomen station in the Philippines. George Bush (41) sent the US Navy to provide disaster relief and to evacuate Americans from the area, in a manner similar to what we are doing with tsunami relief today. One of the people sailing to the relief of the tsunami victims understands exactly what they have experienced -- because she was rescued from Pinatubo by the same ship she serves now: Standing in the hangar bay of this mammoth aircraft carrier, Seaman Joviena Kay looks across the waves toward the devastated coast of Sumatra, remembering a time 13 years ago when she huddled on the same deck with evacuees from another great Asian disaster. Joviena was 6 years...
Editor and Publisher reports today that five embedded reporters working with Coalition forces in Iraq have been booted from their privileged positions for transmitting information that endangered the security of the troops: As Iraq moves closer to its first democratic elections later this month, the number of news organizations requesting embedded slots with military units there is on the rise, according to officials. But those new embeds better watch their step. E&P has learned that five journalists have been kicked out of embed slots in the past three months for reporting secure information. "They were all for operational security reasons, (revealing) something that would have been of use to the enemy," Maj. Kris Meyle, who runs the embed program, told E&P from Baghdad this morning. "Generally, it gets done very quickly. Usually it was something that was not done intentionally by the reporter." Meyle did not disclose the identities of...
After a day of capitulation to Media Matters for America, Staples must have read its e-mail this afternoon. Reversing course from its statement published in yesterday's Washington Post, Staples now claims it never intended to stop advertising on Sinclair news broadcasts: To clarify that Staples does not have a policy against advertising on Sinclair Broadcasting news, Staples has the following statement: Our media buying process with Sinclair Broadcasting stations has recently been misrepresented by an organization with no affiliation to Staples. Staples regularly drops and adds specific programs from our media buying schedule, as we evaluate and adjust how to best reach our customers. We do not let political agendas drive our media buying decisions. Staples does not support any political party. We advertise with a variety of media outlets, but do not necessarily share the same views of these organizations or what they report. As we have done for...
In a blow to her presidential aspirations and possibly her re-election run for the Senate, Hillary Clinton's money man from her first Senate run has been indicted on election-fraud charges stemming from one of her fundraisers. Her fundraiser failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in in-kind contributions, allowing Clinton to spend more hard cash in her campaign: The indictment of David Rosen, unsealed in Los Angeles, focuses on his fund-raising for an Aug. 12, 2000, gala for Clinton in Los Angeles. The New York Democrat was still first lady at the time. While the event allegedly cost more than $1.2 million, the indictment said, Rosen reported contributions of about $400,000, knowing the figure to be false. The indictment charged that Rosen provided some documents to the an FEC compliance officer but withheld the true costs of the event and provided false documents to substantiate the lower figure. The...
January 8, 2005
For those of you who have experienced some difficulties in accessing CQ, Power Line, Instapundit, or other blogs over the past eight hours, you were not alone. I intended to post last night on one or two more topics, but I could not access my site either. It turns out that our service provider, Hosting Matters, had to turn back two DDOS attacks overnight. These malicious attacks take some time to identify and counter, and the good folks at Hosting Matters worked as quickly and diligently as they could. It appears the attacks are over and access should be no problem. Thanks for your patience....
The blogosphere buzzed yesterday with the revelation that pundit Armstrong Williams received $241,000 from the Department of Education to promote the No Child Left Behind Act and push other commentators to do the same. Williams did not disclose the payment while pushing NCLB in several columns and on his television appearances; instead, he represented his opinions as his own independent views. Howard Kurtz writes in today's Washington Post: In taking the money, funneled through the Ketchum Inc. public relations firm, Williams produced and aired a commercial on his syndicated television and radio shows featuring Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige, touted Bush's education policy, and urged other programs to interview Paige. He did not disclose the contract when talking about the law during cable television appearances or writing about it in his newspaper column. ... Alex Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein media center, said he is "disgusted" by what he called...
Carrying out terrorist operations contains a certain amount of risk, as operatives get exposed during planning and rehearsals and witnesses watch as action unfolds. These risks usually get minimized by using "cells" to shield higher leadership in the organization. So it is surprising that the US has captured its second major leader of the Zarqawi organization within hours of each other, this time the chief of operations in the Mosul area: A statement identified the man as Abdul Aziz Sa'dun Ahmed Hamduni, also known as Abu Ahmed, and said he had assumed command of "terrorist operations" in the northern city of Mosul. He had served as the deputy of the top Mosul militant leader identified as Abu Talha, the statement said. "Abu Ahmed admitted to receiving money and weapons from Abu Talha as well as coordinating and conducting terrorist attacks in Mosul, the statement said. It said Hamduni was detained...
Earlier this week, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column on Western -- and particularly American -- stinginess when it comes to helping poor nations and their struggles. He gave full marks to the US when responding to emergent tragedies like the tsunami and its victims, but claimed that on more chronic and devastating issues like the rampant malaria that claims as many victims monthly as the tsunami did (so far), we pitch in little money for assistance: The 150,000 or so fatalities from the tsunami are well within the margin of error for estimates of the number of deaths every year from malaria. Probably two million people die annually of malaria, most of them children and most in Africa, or maybe it's three million - we don't even know. But the bottom line is that this month and every month, more people will die of malaria (165,000 or more) and AIDS...
Don't miss our Northern Alliance Radio Network show today -- we'll have Charles from Little Green Footballs in our second hour, and we'll be talking about the issues of the day, including tsunami updates, Armstrong Williams, Washington state governor's race, and much more. We're on from noon to 3 pm CT! Addendum: Don't forget to call in and chat with us at 651-289-4488! UPDATE: That's 1-4 pm Eastern, for the time-challenged ... in other words, now!...
Florida has granted immunity to a well-traveled political consultant that has implicated politicians of both parties in illegal absentee brokering: A campaign consultant said he was hired by several Florida politicians over the past seven years to gather absentee ballots during their elections, a violation of state law. Ezzie Thomas, who has been granted immunity, told prosecutors that he was paid numerous times since 1998 to gather absentee ballots, most recently by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer's campaign last year, his attorney said Friday. Thomas told prosecutors four months ago that he was hired to do similar work for U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez when he ran for Orange County chairman in 1998, Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood's 2000 campaign for Orlando mayor, and two other minor campaigns. Florida made it illegal in 1998 to pay or accept money "for distributing, ordering, requesting, collecting, delivering or otherwise physically possessing absentee ballots."...
That little mnemonic could have saved the United Nations a few million dollars in contractor fees, according to UN audits demonstrating outright incompetence and relatively minor corruption. Among other issues, the UN completely missed the repeated billing for 31 days of work in June over several years: Internal audits conducted by the United Nations of its oil-for-food program revealed lapses in U.N. oversight that allowed contractors to overcharge by hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to copies obtained by The Associated Press. Two of the audits examined irregularities including overcharging by two companies who were hired to monitor oil sales and the import of humanitarian goods under the program. Another detailed financial mismanagement by a U.N. agency administering humanitarian aid under the program. ... But the panel distributed the documents to congressional investigators two days early. A congressional aide provided the AP with copies of three of the 56 audits,...
In a shocking development that may put a quick end to Hollywood's infatuation with their latest spiritual fad, a leader of the modern Kabbalah discipline blamed Jews for the Nazi Holocaust, claiming that they disdained the "Light" and brought the genocide onto themselves: Eliyahu Yardeni, of the London Kabbalah Centre, made the astonishing claim to an undercover reporter investigating high-pressure sales techniques employed by the group, which promotes its own brand of beliefs, part ancient Jewish mysticism and part pseudo-science. The probe also revealed how Kabbalah Centre representatives claimed bottles of "healing" spring water sold by the group could help cure cancer - and how they sold a batch to a sufferer for hundreds of pounds. Talking about the wartime massacre of the Jews, Mr Yardeni said: "Just to tell you another thing about the six million Jews that were killed in the Holocaust: the question was that the Light...
January 9, 2005
The New York Times and other news outlets report this morning that George Bush has finally heard the outcry from traditional budget hawks in the GOP and will focus on curbing the growth of federal government. Bush plans on building enforceable caps into the next budget, putting a leash on Congress to prevent additions to entitlement spending: In his budget request to Congress, President Bush will try to impose firm, enforceable limits on the growth of federal benefit programs, and the chairmen of the Senate and House Budget Committees say they strongly supported that effort. Administration officials and Congressional aides said Mr. Bush would also seek cuts in housing assistance for low-income families, freezes or slight increases in most domestic programs, and larger increases for domestic security. The spending plan for 2006, like the appropriations enacted for this year, would give priority to military operations and domestic security over social...
The New York Times reports on the travails of Kevin Shelley, one of the most prominent Democratic officeholders in California, who now faces numerous investigations for corruption and malfeasance. Nor is Shelley the only Democratic leader that finds himself on the defensive on the legal front: Six months ago, Kevin Shelley, the California secretary of state, was generating national attention for his efforts to ensure the integrity of the voting process and was considered a promising candidate for governor or the Senate. Now Mr. Shelley, from a well-known San Francisco Democratic family, finds his political career in tatters because of scandals involving fund-raising and the way he has spent tens of millions of dollars of federal election money to carry out the voting overhaul he trumpeted. He is facing investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a federal grand jury, a state personnel board, the California Legislature and the...
Today our family will put aside our labors for a long-planned event, one that has my daughter-in-law, her sister and her sister's boyfriend and I giddy with anticipation. Now that we have all three Lord of the Rings director's cut releases, we plan on watching all three in a row today, starting at 10 am today. We think that the day should last around 12 hours of hobbits, Elves, Nazgul, and the One Ring that binds them all. I plan on live-blogging from time to time to let you know the effects of intense Tolkien on an otherwise sane mind. Keep checking back in! Oh, by the way -- the First Mate disputes the "already sane mind" part of that last statement, and insists that the Rings marathon provides prima facie proof. I report, you decide ......
11:23 - We're deep into the Fellowship of the Ring now, and the Fellowship of the Marathon are all in rapt attention. One of our number decided to take a pass (my naturally sensible daughter-in-law), but the three true fans still hang in there. Right now we're hearing about the Hobbit habits of second breakfasts and "elevensies", while Frodo makes his way to Weathertop. The First Mate has wisely avoided coming downstairs to the home theater since the beginning... 11:57 - Intermission, which means that Arwen and Aragorn are speaking Elvish to each other with choruses of sopranos in the background. It's a good thing, too, because I'm noticing some hair growing on the top of my bare feet. Andy just pointed out that all of the good guys in the movies -- at least the main ones -- have blue eyes. Some of that was accomplished digitally by director...
The long-awaited elections in the West Bank and Gaza seem to have come a bit of a cropper. Despite the high hopes of many involved in the peace process, the Palestinians themselves have demonstrated a curious and disappointing lack of enthusiasm, with turnout so low that the polls were left open an additional two hours to get more votes: Mahmoud Abbas, the candidate of Arafat's ruling Fatah movement, was expected to win easily. But he was struggling to capture a clear mandate to push forward with his agenda of resuming peace talks with Israel and reforming the corruption-riddled Palestinian Authority. Palestinians initially said polls were being kept open another two hours because of heavy turnout. Subsequently, however, officials said the polls were being kept open to encourage turnout, which was only about 30 percent of 1.8 million eligible voters by noon local time (5 a.m. EST). The poll extension came...
January 10, 2005
The New York Times reports on the release of the preliminary Volcker Report on the morass of the UN's Oil-For-Food program. While the Times laughingly describes the Volcker Commission as "independent" when they reported and answered to Kofi Annan, the report makes clear the arrogance of UN management on following accepted standards of management and accounting. Out of 179 key recommendations made by auditors during the life of OFF, only 22 ever got implemented: The release of the confidential documents shows with new depth the loose financial controls over the sprawling program, which has become a major scandal at the United Nations. While neither the audits nor the accompanying briefing paper from the commission contain allegations of bribery or corruption by United Nations officials, the audits make clear that many of the deficiencies were known in the late 1990's, at a time when indications of corruption of the program by...
The election victory of Mahmoud Abbas gets the "landslide" treatment in the world press this morning, despite low turnout and an election commission that changed the voting rules halfway through the day. At least the British newspaper Guardian acknowledges the problems with the election in its coverage: Mahmoud Abbas last night won a landslide victory in the Palestinian presidential election and was today expected to outline his vision of a post-Yasser Arafat future. ... Mr Barghouti praised the process as a victory for Palestinian democracy, although earlier he had complained that thousands had been unable to vote. The central election commission changed voting procedures midway through the election, keeping polling stations open an additional two hours and allowing voters to cast their ballots at any location, not just in their hometowns, One election official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the changes came after heavy pressure from Mr Abbas's Fatah...
The Orange Revolution reaches its climax today when Ukraine's Central Election Commission certifies Viktor Yushchenko as its new president. The re-run Ukrainian election has survived all challenges from the outgoing "establishment" candidate and PM, Viktor Yanukovych, and the electorate impatiently awaits the transition to true democracy: The final certification would end more than two weeks of political limbo during which Yushchenko's Moscow-backed opponent, former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, stalled with repeated, unsuccessful challenges to the outcome. Yushchenko said the challenges were "torturing the nation" and his supporters accused allies of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma of spinning out the transition to buy time to cover the tracks of shady deals. ... A tent city set up to protest against the election rigging has yet to be dismantled. Those living in it say they will stay until Yushchenko is inaugurated. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have been replaced by throngs of young...
Today's lesson in upholding standards comes from Principal Jim Bennett of Lemoore Union High School in California, who followed through on a warning to his students to stop simulating sex during school-sponsored dances. When students ignored their principal, he responded by canceling the rest of the school dances for the entire year: Principal Jim Bennett of Lemoore Union High School said he warned students at a winter formal dance last month to either quit dirty dancing or face the possibility of not dancing at all. But he said the students continued "freak dancing," a form of sexually suggestive dancing that involves grinding the hips and pelvic area. The ban on dances includes the school's Sadie Hawkins dance in February and the junior and senior proms in the spring, but Bennett said they could be rescheduled if students modify their behavior. "It's really up to the kids at this point. They...
CBS has produced its long-awaited report on the TANG/Killian documents fiasco it started in September last year, when its news program 60 Minutes Wednesday published four memos purporting to document preferential treatment for George Bush. The hammer fell on four CBS employees as well -- three executives and producer Mary Mapes: Four CBS News employees, including three executives, have been ousted for their role in preparing and reporting a disputed story about President Bush’s National Guard service. The action was prompted by the report of an independent panel that concluded that CBS News failed to follow basic journalistic principles in the preparation and reporting of the piece. The panel also said CBS News had compounded that failure with “rigid and blind” defense of the 60 Minutes Wednesday report. Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard;...
I would encourage everyone to make sure they read the entire report coming from the Thornburgh-Boccardi panel on the Killian memos. I have read a number of comments on my earlier post, and most of you see the report as a whitewash. I agree in part with this analysis, mostly on the question of motivation. The report gives way too much credence to the notion that the only motivating factor involved in Mapes' and CBS' decision to run a story without ever checking its central "evidence" was competitive pressure to air their exposé first. CBS and Thornburgh-Boccardi never discuss in any detail Mapes' five-year quest on Bush's National Guard service, nor does competitive pressure explain how so many safeguards and direct orders from management were ignored, both before and after the segment aired. (See also this excellent piece of reporting by Michelle Malkin.) However, on the question of authentication, the...
One last thought on the CBS response to the Killian memo debacle, prompted by CQ reader Jim in Chicago. After seeing its storied news division humiliated and its credibility destroyed from its false reporting and the subsequent lies and stonewalling that its team produced, what did CBS do to correct the situation? They fired the producer of the segment, demanded the resignations of a senior VP and two executive producers of the news show. Last I looked, Andrew Heyward runs CBS News and Dan Rather is its managing editor. Neither one took any positive action to contain the damage or to uncover the fraud. Yet Les Moonves left both men employed with CBS News -- Rather in a new, prominent position and Heyward in place as its president. Are we to conclude that both men are empty suits with no real function, and therefore no responsibility? Or is CBS just...
The Thornburgh-Boccardi report on the CBS debacle avoided casting the Killian memo story as definitively caused by political bias in its conclusions. Some of their reluctance, I think, has resulted from a legalistic mindset that pushed the panel to only state what they felt could be proven in a lawsuit. However, if one reads the entire report, the actions of Mary Mapes leaves little room for any other conclusion, and that CBS tolerated or even encouraged it also seems beyond any doubt. Mapes denies it, but she quite obviously used her position as a CBS News producer to pursue stories which interested her. No one at CBS assigned Mapes to pursue "intermittently" the TexANG story. As far back as 1999, Mapes was opining on internal e-mails to CBS management and Dan Rather that “in his military career, Bush was truly born on third base.” She believed that Bush had received...
January 11, 2005
One of the questions asked by many of my friends and relatives, and not just a few from the blogging clique, concerned blog traffic after the presidential election. Everyone expected traffic to cool off, but no one knew how much it would drop, and in the age of blogads, that question was not merely academic or ego-driven. At CQ, I told people that I expected unique visits to drop to about half of what they were in October, and given that such a number would be a dramatic improvement over what we had earlier in the year, I would be thrilled. As it turns out, my guess wound up being fairly accurate, but no one I know has done much more to analyze post-election blog traffic. Now N.Z. Bear of the TTLB Ecosystem (where I'm currently ranked 12th for links and 23rd for traffic) has written his own detailed analysis...
The fallout from the Thornburgh-Boccardi report continues today with a moderately critical analysis from the New York Times' Bill Carter. Carter notes that the once-glorious CBS News division now suffers from a badly-damaged morale, with people questioning why division president Andrew Heyward avoided any disciplinary action whatsoever. Carter notes that staff discontent has caused other executives to make unplanned departures and wonders what the future has in store for Heyward: What exactly that will mean is still uncertain, though several staff members reported the morale in the department to be devastatingly low. "We are all sad and miserable," said one CBS production staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect against criticism from superiors at the network. One lingering question is how much accountability should be laid at the feet of Andrew Heyward, the president of the division. In several of the prominent journalism scandals that have...
While the New York Times writes its moderate critique of CBS News' response to the Thornburgh-Boccardi report, another New York paper presents a devastating look at the network's decision to keep and protect the two people who should have taken responsibility for allowing the Killian memo segment to air. David Blum writes in the New York Sun that both men should have resigned in the wake of the scandal, and specifically their responses to it: [W]e are supposed to accept Mr. Moonves's contention, in his statement that accompanied the report's release yesterday, that Mr. Heyward deserves to keep his job because "he issued direct instructions to investigate the sourcing of the story" and "pressed for his staff to come up with new and substantive information." But the report itself makes clear that Mr. Heyward (who personally screened the piece in advance of air) wrote his first significant questioning e-mail after...
Howard Kurtz and Dana Milbank collaborate on an analysis of the CBS debacle for the Washington Post, determining that the damage done by Mapes & Co. goes far beyond the gates of Black Rock. They surmise, correctly, that the overall credibility of American mainstream media has taken a body blow, and that their audiences may never give them the authority they once had. Unfortunately, and for Milbank unsurprisingly, the two couch that analysis within a deeply partisan slant: President Bush was reelected, and Dan Rather wasn't. That, in a nutshell, is the outcome of a bitter four-month struggle between the White House, which insisted there was no basis for the "60 Minutes" report casting doubt on the president's National Guard service, and a major network whose controversial anchor chose to give up his job before the release of the outside panel's report that sharply criticized him yesterday. Many Republicans couldn't...
Jonathan Last writes an excellent (and blessedly brief, if you've been reading my posts) on the CBS report. I highly recommend that everyone read "Whitewash", even though it isn't exactly complimentary to my initial analysis. I still think that the CBS report does a lot more damage than Last and Hugh Hewitt think, but they are absolutely correct that the result whitewashes the political-bias angle at CBS. Keep scrolling down here at CQ for much more detailed analysis on that score. NOTE: For those of you who think we're still taking this too easily, I did do a rather extensive analysis of the bias evident in the report. It had to wait until I could get home from work and read the panel report in detail. It's very long (4200 words), but I think it captures the pre-publication decision points that clearly demonstrate a political bias from Mapes and from...
Twenty-four hours after the other shoe dropped at CBS and their long-awaited independent report was released, the mainstream media and their cousins in the blogosphere have analyzed and debated its meaning. Some bloggers see some small victories in the otherwise tepid and timid conclusions reached by the Thornburgh-Boccardi panel. Others, especially Hugh Hewitt and Jonathan Last, understandably call the entire exercise a whitewash for failing to reach the obvious conclusion that producer Mary Mapes and CBS allowed Memogate to occur because of their deep political biases. Some, oddly, have hardly bothered to comment at all. The mainstream media has analyzed and opined on the report all morning. Every major news outlet has its own take on the situation, although as Hugh notes, they mostly want to declare the war over and look towards a new era of accountability with a jaundiced eye. Given their proximity to the same pressures and...
The survival of Dan Rather and Andrew Heyward has become one of the more puzzling and infuriating developments to come out of CBS' response to its internal investigation into the Killian memo scandal. In a USA Today report, CBS staffers also question how four medium-level people got kicked out of Black Rock but the division president and its managing editor kept their jobs. One of the more prominent names at CBS spoke for the record: "It's a sad day" is all Wallace would say of the fallout from the 60 Minutes "Memogate" story that questioned President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. So it was left to Andy Rooney, the 85-year-old 60 Minutes commentator, to weigh in. "The people on the front lines got fired while the people most instrumental in getting the broadcast on escaped," Rooney said He was referring to the firing of producer Mary Mapes...
Tomorrow is the day we picked for the blogosphere to donate one day's take-home pay for World Vision's relief fund for tsunami survivors. I originally set a goal of $5,000. You broke that in about two days. I reset the goal for tomorrow's fundraiser to $25,000. Y'all broke that yesterday, and the total is now $27,145! So now, thanks to my friend King, we have a new goal for tomorrow: Our many donors have already raised $25,000; I am hopeful that a concerted push tomorrow can double that number. Sounds absurd? Let's prove 'em wrong, shall we? That may be quite a stretch, but it's a goal worth shooting for! One of the many who have signed on to help is Chris Lynch from A Large Regular, who writes: I want to help make your World Relief Day tomorrow a success in my own small way. I have already donated...
January 12, 2005
Today's Guardian (UK) reports on the first apparent British blogger to lose his job over his online journal. Joe Gordon worked for Waterstone's, a bookstore in Edinburgh, for eleven years and by all accounts was a valued employee -- or at least he was until he nicknamed his manager "Evil Boss" and called the store Bastardstones on his blog: A bookseller has become the first blogger in Britain to be sacked from his job because he kept an online diary in which he occasionally mentioned bad days at work and satirised his "sandal-wearing" boss. ... "This wasn't a sustained attack," Mr Gordon told the Guardian. "I was not deliberately trying to harm the company. I was venting my spleen. This was moaning about not getting your birthday off or not getting on with your boss. I wasn't libelling anyone or giving away trade secrets." ... Named after Monty Python's fictional...
Howard Kurtz continues his reporting on the CBS scandal and Thornburgh-Boccardi aftermath this morning, to his credit; most of his industry colleagues have busied themselves with other work and pretending that the controversy has passed. In today's lengthy look at the post-report reaction, Kurtz addresses the inconclusiveness of the report on the question of bias: If there is one line in the 224-page report on CBS News that has set critics aflame, it is that there is no "basis" for concluding that Dan Rather and his colleagues had a "political bias" in pursuing their badly botched story about President Bush's National Guard service. What, they say? No evidence? "In any fair-minded assessment of how CBS performed and why they so badly butchered their own standards, that has to be part of the explanation," said former New York Times reporter Steve Roberts, now a professor at George Washington University. "It's not...
Rarely does my jaw hit the table with such force as it did today when I read Nicholas Kristof's latest column in the New York Times on infant mortality. Kristof compares a rise in infant mortality rates in the US for 2002 and uses it to compare us to Cuba and, shockingly, China: In every year since 1958, America's infant mortality rate improved, or at least held steady. But in 2002, it got worse: 7 babies died for each thousand live births, while that rate was 6.8 deaths the year before. Those numbers, buried in a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, didn't get much attention. But they are part of a pattern of recent statistics dribbling out of the federal government suggesting that for those on the bottom in America, life in our new Gilded Age is getting crueler. Apparently, it got better before it...
In a column appropriately titled "It's Worse Than You Thought," Jonathan Last at the Weekly Standard takes a close look at Appendix 4 of the CBS panel report. The Thornburgh-Boccardi investigation declined to make any firm conclusion on the authenticity of the Killian memos at the heart of the scandal, allowing Mary Mapes and Dan Rather enough cover to claim that their story still had not been repudiated. As Last points out, however, their own expert definitively concluded otherwise: On September 12, 2004, Newcomer, one of the fathers of modern electronic typesetting, published a 7,000 word essay about the fraudulent documents used by CBS. Newcomer's conclusion was simple and unequivocal. "These documents," he said after much explanation, "are modern forgeries." So why did the Thornburgh-Boccardi panel turn their back on Newcomer and the rest of the body of expert opinion? What caused them to suspect that the documents might indeed...
After a three-cycle losing streak for Democrats, one would think that the party might take a look at the more extreme elements of their platform in order to broaden their appeal. However, longtime Senator Ted Kennedy -- from that incubator of political moderation known as Massachusetts -- urged Democrats to go farther in their progressivism: Democrats must do a better job speaking about the principles they believe in and that have guided the party, said Kennedy, D-Mass., in a speech to the National Press Club. "We cannot move our party or our nation forward under pale colors and timid voices," said Kennedy, who has served 42 years in the Senate. "We cannot become Republican clones. If we do, we will lose again, and deserve to lose." With his protegé John Kerry taking the opposite tack on abortion, Kennedy insisted that the path to winning elections lies not in regrouping towards...
I wanted to thank Michelle Malkin for another kind link to World Relief Day when I read her other posts today. I guess I'm just spoiled by the wonderful CQ community, but I cannot believe the vile nature of the hate-mail Michelle receives. Now that Armstrong Williams has been exposed as a sell-out, she expects to see even more of this coming her way: As a result of the Williams/Department of Education payoff, the rhetoric against the rest of us will get even nastier. In the name of "minority outreach," the Republican education bureaucrats who cooked up their pathetic scheme with Williams have done more damage to our credibility than all the unhinged liberal cartoonists and race-baiters and grievance-mongers could ever hope to do. Thanks for nothing. If you get a chance and you like Michelle and the work she does, why don't you drop her a note and tell...
Today's the day, folks! You've all done a wonderful job getting funds to tsunami survivors and their communities, and we've already blown past the $25,000 goal we set earlier. Let's see if we can't push that past $50,000 by the end of today. Thank you all so much! CQ readers, fellow bloggers, and friends, We have before us one of the world's greatest natural disasters in terms of lost human life. Over 120,000 now (12/31) have perished, and unless we get immediate and effective assistance to the survivors, many more will die. (1/2: CNN now reports 141,000 dead, and tens of thousands missing.) Our friends around the world have given of themselves through their governments, and the US has also risen to the challenge. Our government has pledged $35 million to date, as well as ordering thousands of our military personnel and two US Navy task forces to the Indian...
Continue reading "CQ's World Relief Day Set For January 12 (Today!!)" »
I will appear on Kevin McCullough's radio program today at 1:20 CT to promote World Relief Day. Kevin is giving me his prime spot, the one he usually uses for his most prominent guests. Kevin has been tremendously supportive of CQ and World Relief Day. Be sure to tune him in or listen live on the Internet! UPDATE 12:42 - We're up over $30,000 already! UPDATE II, 1:22 CT: On the air now! And this will re-stream several times over the next day from Kevin's site, so if you missed me, you can easily catch me again ......
I'm about to pack it up for tonight, and my latest look at the World Relief Day fund shows that we have had a tremendously successful day. CQ readers raised over $6,000 in a single day, and we have raised $33,000 overall for tsunami victims. We are the top individual fund-raising effort at justgiving.com as well, something I didn't realize until I happened to click the wrong link earlier today. Thanks to the multitude of bloggers who pitched in with their links to get the word out. Huge thanks to Hugh Hewitt and Kevin McCullough, both of whom plugged this daily on their blogs and on their radio shows -- this couldn't have been anywhere near the success it was without them. Michelle Malkin also has my deep gratitude, and tonight she's pointing out that some weather-related catastrophe victims closer to home could use our assistance, too. Mostly, I want...
January 13, 2005
The Los Angeles Times reports that major-league baseball will announce a new steroid-testing regime that promises to take a much tougher stance than their previous agreement with the players union. Stung by a federal investigation that has cast doubt on historic performances by its marquee players, it appears that MLB and the players finally agree that public confidence must be restored in the game: Baseball has hardened its policy against steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs in an agreement reached between the players' union and owners that will be announced today, sources familiar with the negotiations said Wednesday. The amendment to the Collective Bargaining Agreement will mandate more frequent testing, random off-season testing and suspensions for first-time offenders, baseball sources said. ... In light of growing concerns about steroids because of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative scandal, and fearing an erosion of the public's trust in the game, [MLB commissioner Bud]...
Today's New York Times takes a fair look at the men and women most at risk in Iraq's upcoming elections -- the workers themselves. Christine Hauser paints a portrait of a group literally under fire for trying to bring their dream of self-government to the Iraqi people: Threatened, attacked, kidnapped and killed, Iraq's election workers are finding that being at the forefront of the electoral process means surviving the frontlines of an insurgency determined to stop it. Things are so bad that one of the officials from the Independent Electoral Commission, Adil al-Lami, compared the workers to a clandestine political movement. "They function like an underground," he said in an interview. This particular worker says he does it to serve his country. "There are a lot of people around the world who also would fight for what I do," he said after finishing his day recently at the election commission....
With the election of Mahmoud Abbas, all sides expect the Israelis and Palestinians to return to the negotiating table with new motivation to reach a deal ending the 37-year-old occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The last such serious negotiations occurred in 2000, when a recalcitrant Yasser Arafat refused to back down from any of his demands, touching off a second intifada and forcing Israel to finally get serious about eliminating terrorist leaders. Now, with a peaceful transition of leadership accomplished by the Palestinian Authority, Abbas can finally become a legitimate -- and hopefully serious -- negotiating partner with Ariel Sharon. However, Abbas fanned the flames of the most radical planks in the Palestinian platform and raised hopes beyond reason that he would deliver Jerusalem and the so-called "right of return" to Israel. The New York Times reports on the effect Abbas' campaign has had on Palestinian refugees...
In a move that raises fears for her safety, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has been ordered to appear before Iranian judges without any explanation of cause: Ms Ebadi, a lawyer and human rights activist, told the AFP news agency that she had no idea what the specific reason for the summons was. She said she has not yet decided how to respond to the summons, which she has until Sunday to answer. The 57-year-old Ms Ebadi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work on women's and children's rights. "In the summons, it simply says that I must present myself to the court within three days to provide some explanations and that I will be arrested if I refuse," she added. No one misunderstands the intent of that summons. Ebadi won her Nobel for criticism of the Iranian regime and its oppressive rule. The BBC reports...
Australian News reports this morning that the massive tsunami-relief staged by the "stingy" Western nations has had a profound effect on victims. Many in the heavily-Muslim Indonesian areas most affected by the killer waves now see the US, Australia, and other Western nations in a much more positive light. This has caused dismay in predictable circles: THE spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiah says he is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of Aceh's tsunami survivors because of the humanitarian assistance from Australian and US military forces. A spokesman for Abu Bakar Bashir said the Indonesian cleric, who is on trial for terrorism, regarded the relief operations by Australian and US military personnel as a dangerous development, overshadowing the role of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI). "We are suspicious of the presence of foreign soldiers and their show of force and the minimum publicity given to assistance from Arab...
I have a full work schedule today, mostly on the road (locally) and sitting in meetings, so I haven't had much chance to take a look at my e-mail or the news. I decided to stop by Panera for lunch, as all of their Twin Cities outlets offer free wi-fi service. I know that chain locations like Panera are the epitome of corporate evil and all that, but it's really hard to beat for good food at a low price. They offer a pick-two combo of soup, salads, and sandwiches that allow me to eat healthy food at fast-food prices, or just a few cents more. (Lunch cost me $8.29, and I had a special bottled soft drink instead of the less-expensive fountain drinks, which have free refills.) Combine that with comfortable surroundings and the free wi-fi and Panera has an almost unbeatable combination. Too bad I have to go...
Wired runs a provocative article today which argues that journalists find it increasingly difficult to maintain blogs along with their reporting. Media outlets have started to actively discourage even their free-lancers from blogging, and analysts question the effect on credibility when reporters opine on line: For all the press that bloggers have received for revolutionizing journalism by bringing Gutenberg's printing press to the digital masses, when push comes to shove, journalists who operate personal weblogs face an inherent conflict of interest. In the end, it's the blogs that usually get short shrift. And according to some, that's the way it ought to be. As Jason Calacanis, founder of Weblogs and publisher of the defunct Silicon Alley Reporter, put it in an e-mail: "Blogger + reporter = big problem. I wouldn't do that, and I'm sure it will end in tears. I know as an editor of a magazine or newspaper...
A familiar voice weighs in on the bias that Richard Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi couldn't find at CBS News. Van Gordon Sauter, the onetime chief of the Tiffany Network's news division, writes in today's Los Angeles Times that an "unremitting liberal orientation" at the Unblinking Eye has made its news programs unwatchable: What's the big problem at CBS News? Well, for one thing, it has no credibility. And no audience, no morale, no long-term emblematic anchorperson and no cohesive management structure. Outside of those annoyances, it shouldn't be that hard to fix. Personally, I have a great affection for CBS News, even though I was unceremoniously shown to the door there nearly 20 years ago in a tumultuous change of corporate management. But I stopped watching it some time ago. The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too much for me. I still check in, but less and less frequently. I...
I created a new category for the CBS Memogate scandal and re-categorized by posts on the subject in order to allow readers to easily read through CQ archives. Most of the commentary comes from the first couple of weeks after the September 8 airdate (the rest over this week), and has details which I'd forgotten. I hope you find it helpful. UPDATE: Charles at LGF and Instapundit note that CBS and the Thornburgh-Boccardi site at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP have modified the CBS report file to keep bloggers from copying and pasting from the report. I just tested it myself and found the same thing. All I know is that I copied the first edition, which is how I was able to excerpt so much of it and use it in my blog posts. Now you can too....
January 14, 2005
Dan Rather escaped punishment for the Killian memo fraud he helped foist on CBS' viewing public, as well as his part in the cover-up afterwards -- or at least we thought he did. Now CBS chairman Les Moonves, the man who supposedly saved Rather, reveals that Rather's next safe haven might wind up being nothing more than the exit door: As much as he would like to recover from the blows his reputation has suffered recently, Dan Rather may not have a chance to work very long on the program that he expected would be his next professional address. The future of CBS's "60 Minutes Wednesday" - the program that broadcast Mr. Rather's report, now discredited, about President Bush's National Guard record - is in doubt, both the top CBS executive and the program's new executive producer acknowledged yesterday. Leslie Moonves, the chairman of CBS and co-president of the network's...
The San Francisco Chronicle reports on a middle-school Career Day where a guest speaker started extolling the economic benefits of dancing naked in front of strangers to young teen girls. Ryan Kim reports that between the fighter pilot, heart surgeon, and concert pianist, salesman William Fried was allowed to extemporaneously broaden 13-year-old horizons with financial details about bust sizes (via Michelle Malkin): The hubbub began Tuesday at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School's third annual career day when a student asked Foster City salesman William Fried to explain why he listed "exotic dancer" and "stripper" on a handout of potential careers. Fried, who spoke to about 45 eighth-grade students during two separate 55-minute sessions, spent about a minute explaining that the profession is viable and potentially lucrative for those blessed with the physique and talent for the job. According to Fried and students who attended the talk, Fried told one group...
In a sure sign that the Thornburgh-Boccardi report and Les Moonves' following announcement has backfired, a groundswell of criticism continues to grow against CBS News and Moonves for its half-hearted corrective actions and its refusal to admit to the bias at the heart of the scandal. Yesterday, Van Gordon Sauter slammed CBS for its "unremitting liberal orientation" that makes its news shows "unwatchable." Today, two new front-line essays reject the whitewash. Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today, calls out CBS for its inaction: Rather absented himself from the newscast Monday evening, the day the independent investigators' report and Moonves' response were made public. Then on Tuesday he was back in his usual role, after issuing a statement to CBS News colleagues that concluded: "I have seen us overcome adversity before. I am convinced we can do it again." No apology. No acknowledgement that the buck stopped with him. Rather has...
In a surprising but welcome slap at the rationalization provided by his own Cabinet officer, President Bush scolded the Department of Education for its surreptitious arrangement with conservative commentator Armstrong Williams. Bush not only denounced the payola, but called for all levels of government to learn from this mistake: President Bush expressed disapproval Thursday of the Education Department's decision to pay conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to promote the government's education policy. Bush said he wants his Cabinet to prevent a recurrence. “There needs to be a clear distinction between journalism and advocacy,” Bush said in an interview with USA TODAY, which reported last week that Williams had been paid $240,000 to advocate for the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. ... In the interview, Bush said, “I appreciate the way Armstrong Williams has handled this, because he has made it very clear that he made a mistake. All of us,...
Hugh Hewitt talks about the first book-signing appearance for his new book, Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World, held in the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Orange, CA last night. I alerted my mother, who occasionally posts comments here as Vayapaso, about Hugh's appearance and told her to get a signed copy of the book. Hugh himself talks about meeting the bloggers at the event: A couple of blogger/authors dropped by my book signing tonight which made it great fun: Bill Whittle of Eject, Eject, Eject (and author of the critically acclaimed Silent America --which may be the first entirely blog-derived book, and which proves, I think, that publishers have a huge gold mine in front of them packaging the best of the blogopshere between covers for easy transport. MarkDRoberts also stopped by to wish Blog well. As did einvolved's Stacey Harp, Kicking Over My Traces, and...
CNN reports that George Bush expressed "regret" over his July 2003 response to assertions that terrorists would attempt to drive American troops out of Iraq: President Bush says he now sees that tough talk can have an "unintended consequence." During a round-table interview with reporters from 14 newspapers, the president, who not long ago declined to identify any mistakes he'd made during his first term, expressed misgivings for two of his most famous expressions: "Bring 'em on," in reference to Iraqis attacking U.S. troops, and his vow to get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." "Sometimes, words have consequences you don't intend them to mean," Bush said Thursday. "'Bring 'em on' is the classic example, when I was really trying to rally the troops and make it clear to them that I fully understood, you know, what a great job they were doing. And those words had an unintended consequence....
The more that one hears of the testimony in Spc. Charles Graner's court-martial over the Abu Ghraib abuses, the less supportable that a high-level conspiracy to commit war crimes were at the heart of them. The New York Times manages to bury the relevant portions of the testimony near the bottom of their report: Megan Ambuhl, who has been discharged from the military for taking part in the events seen in the photographs, said interrogators had ordered her to humiliate male detainees by pointing and laughing at them as they showered. Interrogators, she said, "encouraged us all the time." "We were all going to save the lives of the soldiers who were outside the wires," she testified. "The detainees had information that the interrogators had to find out." Questioned by the prosecution, Ms. Ambuhl acknowledged that she had been sexually involved with Specialist Graner for a month before the investigation...
CQ reader Ken Stepanek sent a link to a message board for the Yahoo group Texas Democrats with a message purportedly from Bill Burkett's wife Nicki. The message alerted Texas Democrats to the Cory Pein article from the Columbia Journalism Review that turned out to be incorrect on most of the points the panel's report addressed. According to this January 3rd message, the Burketts believed they had frightened the CBS panel into a change of course: This past week, we may have scared the Devil out of senior folks at CBS and throughout the journalistic World. We are now negotiating with the VIACOM panel for an in-depth interview to explore the facts and documentation of the story; the roles of CBS, ABC, the Associated Press, New York TImes, USA Today and numerous others who actively sought Bill out as a source on the story and their backlash after the story...
Spc. Charles Graner was convicted in his court martial on all specifications against him, putting him at risk of 15 1/2 years in prison: Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr., the reputed ringleader of a band of rogue guards at the Abu Ghraib prison, was convicted Friday of abusing Iraqi detainees in a case that sparked international outrage when photographs were released that showed reservists gleefully abusing prisoners. ... The jury of four Army officers and six senior enlisted men rejected the defense argument that Graner and other guards were merely following orders from intelligence agents at Abu Ghraib when they roughed up the detainees. The so-called "following orders" defense extended its long and failed history from Nuremberg forward to today. It appears that the jury rejected the idea that Graner operateed under any orders when he sexually abused and physically beat Iraqi prisoners, along with other members of his unit...
January 15, 2005
Earlier this week, Zephyr Teachout wrote a post for her blog Zonkette, which eventually made it to the Wall Street Journal, disclosing the Howard Dean campaign's payments to the Daily Kos and MyDD bloggers Markos Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong. The accusations of conflicted interest have risen to fever levels in the blogosphere, along with yet another argument about what what ethical standards bloggers owe their readers. I have received e-mails asking why I've remained silent on this issue. Well, I haven't remained silent. Five weeks ago, when the shoe was on the right foot, I wrote that bloggers accepting payments from political campaigns outside the transparency of fully-displayed advertisements -- which don't even have to be exclusive! -- risk their credibility and reputation. I wrote that after the revelation that the John Thune campaign paid two bloggers several thousand dollars to join the campaign, and neither disclosed their relationship despite...
The AP reports this morning that the nomination of Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State has caused a faultline between California's two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. While Feinstein accepted an invitation to introduce Rice to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for her nomination hearing, Barbara Boxer intends on using character assassination to push her anti-war views: Rice, Bush's national security adviser, lists California as her residence after having served for six years as provost of Stanford University, Feinstein's alma mater. It's customary for nominees to ask home-state senators to introduce them at confirmation hearings. Feinstein accepted Rice's invitation to introduce her to the committee, and praised her in a statement Friday as "the natural choice to be our country's next secretary of state." Boxer gave a hint Friday on how she is expected to greet Rice at the Tuesday hearing. "I personally believe that your loyalty to...
In a further confirmation of the corruption and machinations behind the Palestinian elections last weekend, dozens of election workers walked off their jobs protesting Mahmoud Abbas' victory: Forty-six members of the Palestinian election commission, including top managers, resigned Saturday, saying they were pressured by Mahmoud Abbas' campaign and intelligence officials to abruptly change voting procedures during the Jan. 9 presidential poll. Two senior members of the commission, Ammar Dwaik and Baha al-Bakri, resigned early Saturday, and officials later said 44 more members resigned. Six top election officials were among those who resigned. The resignations raised questions about Sunday's vote giving Abbas an overwhelming victory with 62.3 percent, though the officials who quit said the alleged irregularities did not fundamentally affect the final vote tally. The resignations didn't raise the questions, or at least the questions shouldn't have waited for them to be raised. Last week, newspapers and broadcasters around the...
Don't forget to tune in for the Northern Alliance Radio Network this afternoon from noon to 3 pm CT. We'll be discussing lots of different topics, but I think you can be assured that we will focus on the CBS panel and its report on Memogate. Later on, try giving a listen to another group of bloggers doing their own radio show. Homespun Bloggers may be the next step in the democratization of free speech....
The firefighters in the IAFF Local 21 of St. Paul might want to check the coffee in the firehouse where Pat Flanagan serves. In what was meant as a stinging rebuke to Mayor Randy Kelly, Flanagan specifically e-mailed a warning to Kelly not to attend their annual installation bash, warning Kelly that "alcohol will be served" and implying that would make the party dangerous for the mayor: Reasons for the snub, Flanagan wrote, are the mayor's budget cuts, his decision to decommission an engine company, and growing tensions at the bargaining table. Flanagan ended his three-paragraph missive, dated Jan. 10, with this salvo: "Alcohol will be served at this event, so we write this letter in the best interest of all parties involved." On Thursday, Kelly fired back with an e-mail of his own. He defended his record and said he was "perplexed" by the reference to alcohol. Was that...
Maybe it's because the Pittsburgh Steelers did everything they could to give away the divisional playoff game to the New York Jets -- but in the end, the New York Jets could not take advantage when it counted. The Steelers beat the Jets, 20-17, in overtime: Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger overcame two huge mistakes — an interception for a touchdown and another that appeared to doom the Steelers late in the fourth quarter — to lead a decisive drive that began at the Jets 13 and sent Pittsburgh to next Sunday's AFC championship game against New England or Indianapolis. The loss will go down as one of the most excruciating in the Jets' star-crossed history, with kicker Doug Brien missing not one but two makable field-goal tries in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter. The misses were doubly stunning disappointments for a gutty team on the verge of...
Grade inflation has caused concern in the United States, where the issue of giving marginal performances passing grades has had tremendous impact on higher education. However, the British appear to lead the world in grade inflation, with the London Telegraph reporting that scoring as low as 17% on math exams could net British students a B: Pupils have been awarded a B grade in a maths GCSE exam despite scoring only 17 per cent, The Telegraph can reveal. The pass marks for the new exam, which was taken last summer by 7,500 children from 65 schools and is due to be introduced nationwide next year, were an all-time low. Pupils sitting GCSE maths last year had to achieve about 40 per cent to get a B grade. But with the new exam, designed by the Cambridge-based exam board OCR, those who got as little as 17 per cent were given...
January 16, 2005
Street gangs have become much more brazen and organized in their campaigns to intimidate and eliminate witnesses, reports the New York Times today. Not only have they adopted the "Godfather"-style of Sicilian omerta in demanding utter silence from their members and neighbors as well, they've actually started producing their own terror shows on DVD to emphasize their point: In Boston, a witness to a shooting by a member of a street gang recently found copies of his grand jury testimony taped to all the doors in the housing project where he lives. In Baltimore, Rickey Prince, a 17-year-old who witnessed a gang murder and agreed to testify against the killer, was shot in the back of the head a few days after a prosecutor read Mr. Prince's name aloud in a packed courtroom. And in each city, CD's and DVD's titled "Stop Snitching" have surfaced, naming some people street gangs...
Time Magazine publishes a new opinion poll today that shows President Bush picking up more support in overall job approval ahead of the inaugural: President Bush’s approval rating has risen to 53%, according to the latest TIME poll conducted January 12 and 13. His approval rating is up 4 points from his Dec. 13-14 approval rating of 49%. The President’s approval numbers have improved across a variety of issues, including his handling of the economy (51% approve, up from 40% approve in September), his handling of the situation in Iraq (45% approve, up from 41% approval in September), and his handling of the war on terrorism (56% approve, up from 49% in September). I think some of these gains may result from the toned-down partisan environment that naturally occurs between the election and the opening of the new session of Congress. The major issue on Bush's plate continues to be...
Senator Harry Reid told ABC's This Week that any attempt to push through a rule change would cause the GOP heartache down the road: The Senate's Democratic leader said Sunday that Republicans "would rue the day" if they try to make it harder for Democrats to stall judicial nominees who could not get a vote last year. ... Reid compared Bush's talk of crisis in judicial nominations to the president's rhetoric on Social Security. "He's trying to create crisis with judges and with Social Security. They don't exist," Reid told ABC's "This Week." "We have approved for the president of the United States 204 judges the last four years," he said. "We've turned down 10. Even in modern math, that's a pretty good deal." He said the 10 who did not get a vote in 2004 "were rightfully turned down." The White House announced last month that Bush would renominate...
January 17, 2005
The London Telegraph reports that a key element in George Bush's inaugural speech this week will be a call for an end to the "compensation culture" that has hijacked medicine and other business in America. The message comprises a part of an entire domestic reform package that includes income taxes and the entitlement bureaucracy: Mr Bush wants to clamp down on the "tort" system of civil damages - intended to compensate victims of negligence and accidents - which costs the US economy $230 billion (£123 billion), or two per cent of gross domestic product. Mr Bush plans to cap non-economic damages at $250,000 (£133,500) per case, far less than the multi-million dollar awards that have become commonplace. Medical cases are the most visible examples, but soaring damages in class actions across the commercial sector would also be restricted. Reform would be popular with the public, who believe that lawyers are...
Mahmoud Abbas has called for an end to attacks on Israeli citizens in a move that will either prove his control over the regions or present the world with yet another Palestinian three-step: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has ordered his security forces to try to prevent militant attacks on Israelis, a Palestinian cabinet minister has said. Qadoura Fares said Mr Abbas gave orders for all violence to be stopped, "including attacks against Israel". ... Reports say Mr Abbas is due to travel to Gaza on Monday to try to persuade militant groups to agree to a ceasefire. If Abbas can end the violence against Israeli citizens, then I find this a promising development. However, I remain deeply skeptical of both his desire and his power to do so. The Palestinians have played this game for decades now between the three power centers of Palestinian politics: the PA (Fatah), Hamas, and...
Fresh on the heels of a six-point gain in the latest Time Magazine poll, AP-Ipsos shows George Bush making similar inroads among adults in general. The new polling shows George Bush gaining two-thirds support for his personal attributes, including intelligence: A majority of Americans say they feel hopeful about President Bush's second term and have a generally positive view of him personally, but they also express continued doubts about Iraq. ... Ahead of Bush's inauguration on Thursday, six in 10 people said they felt hopeful about his second term and in response to a separate question 47 percent said they were worried. Most said they were neither angry nor excited about his final four years in office. Considering the partisan atmosphere that has prevailed since the Democrats went crazy in the aftermath of the 2000 election -- and continued after this past election in Ohio -- a 60% "hopeful" rating...
Despite the doom-and-gloom predictions of the Western media and the American left about the upcoming Iraqi elections, Baghdad voters intend on turning out in numbers that would embarrass Americans: Two-thirds of registered voters in the Iraqi capital say they will cast their ballots in the Jan. 30 election despite the threat of violence, an independent Iraqi newspaper survey found Monday. A high turnout in Baghdad, a city of 5-6 million people, could raise the credibility of polls which are expected to be marred by suicide bombings by insurgents bent on sabotaging the vote in the country of 27 million. ... The survey in the al-Mada newspaper, one of Iraq's most respected dailies, was conducted last week in eight main districts of Baghdad, one of the cities where insurgents are expected to launch attacks. Based on a sample of 300 people, it found 67 percent of Baghdadis planned to vote. Twenty-five...
I'm turning over this post to Hubris, who writes: This is from Oliver Willis' latest post: I'm sure the right will come up with another b.s. explanation. Can anyone tell me whatever happened to the "smoking gun" memos "unearthed" by Brent Bozell's CNSNews and conspiracy pariah Laurie Mylorie (Captain Ed: "a blockbuster find", Little Green Nazis: "the story is true", Powerline: "a great deal of detail")? Yeah, I thought so. Cash those checks, guys, but at least make sure you're getting more than Armstrong. http://www.oliverwillis.com/node/view/1675 I clicked through to each archived story, and found the following: ----------------------------------------------------- Captain Ed: "In a blockbuster article if their sources pan out... "If the translations and the authentications hold up, this is a blockbuster find." [emphasis mine] LGF: "It needs to be independently confirmed before we can fully trust the story..." [Willis actually quotes a commenter who said "the story is true] Powerline: "The...
The First Mate and I took my sister to see the new Martin Scorsese film, The Aviator, which wangled a couple of Golden Globes last night. (Actually, in the interest of full disclosure, my sister took us.) The long-anticipated film looks at the life of Howard Hughes, the aviation pioneer and noted eccentric whose life cast a long shadow in the movie, aviation, defense, and financial industries. While I have a lot of admiration for the attempt, I think The Aviator is fundamentally flawed, if still entertaining. First, the film only looks at a 20-year period of Hughes' life, from 1927 when he began work on Hell's Angels to 1947, when he flew the Spruce Goose across the water in Los Angeles. He never even mentions RKO, the studio owned by Hughes from 1948 to 1955. That narrow focus disappointed me, as it shortchanged the impact that Hughes had on...
The AP reports that they have video of unprecedented demonstrations against the Kim regime in North Korea, one of the most repressive dictatorships in the world. The demonstration calls for the removal of Kim Jong-Il and follows several signs over the past few months that Kim's grip may be slipping: A human rights group claimed Tuesday that it has obtained video footage showing dissident activities in North Korea, with demands for freedom and democracy written over a poster of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il. If authentic, it would be the first time images of dissent in the highly secretive North have come to light. But there was no way to independently confirm the validity of the footage. The 35-minute videotape, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, shows written statements posted on a wall, urging North Koreans to fight to retrieve freedom and democracy. A man...
January 18, 2005
Can you still hear the cheese screaming, Clar-iiiiiice? Michelle Malkin points out a story that I had missed in neighboring Wisconsin, one that calls into question the veracity of its presidential-election results. Wisconsin wound up going for John Kerry by 11,300 votes in what came as a mild surprise to most observers in the Upper Midwest (via Stranded On Blue Islands). Al Gore had carried the state by a shade over 5,000 votes in 2000, and most pollsters had the race a dead heat or George Bush pulling slightly ahead in 2004. Instead, Kerry took Wisconsin by doubling Gore's margin. How did that happen? Well, in one county -- Milwaukee, a traditional Democratic stronghold -- turnout increased by just under 49,000 votes, or about 10%, outstripping the nationwide increase of 6.4%. The new votes broke about 60/40 Kerry, about the trend of the county in both elections, adding a 9,000-vote...
John Kerry stood up on Martin Luther King Day and blasted the United States for the "disenfranchisement" of thousands of voters, a reference to the Ohio election which he lost by 118,000 votes. Kerry implied heavily that the GOP engineered voter fraud in his loss to George Bush: The Massachusetts Democrat, Bush's challenger in November, spoke at Boston's annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Breakfast. He reiterated that he decided not to challenge the election results, but said "thousands of people were suppressed in the effort to vote." "Voting machines were distributed in uneven ways. In Democratic districts, it took people four, five, 11 hours to vote, while Republicans [went] through in 10 minutes -- same voting machines, same process, our America," he said. The complaints center on Cuyahoga County, of course, where Cleveland voters complained of standing in line for hours due to the lack of voting machines, a...
Part of the continuing look at voter fraud in Wisconsin and the lack of media attention, which I called The Silence Of The Cheese ... For a bit more analysis on Milwaukee County's presidential election results, let's take a look at the population dynamics over the past 13 years. As these articles make clear, Milwaukee County has seen a continuing flight of residents; the county decreased by 19,000 people between the 1990 and 2000 census, and the US Census Bureau estimates that the drop has steepened since. They now estimate that 32,000 fewer people live in Milwaukee County, including 29,000 voting-age adults. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel of March 8, 2001: Meanwhile, Milwaukee County Executive F. Thomas Ament was relieved to hear that his county didn't lose more people. Milwaukee County dropped 2%, from 959,275 to 940,164. "Obviously, I'm not pleased with losing population," he said, but this drop is "not...
On December 27th, I posted about an op-ed column in the New York Times written by Brent Staples, decrying the Census Bureau practice of counting prisoners as residents of the county in which the prison is located. This column followed an editorial by the Gray Lady with the same assertions in a foreshadowing of what I expect to be blitz coverage of the 2010 census -- think Masters Gold Tournament. Mr. Staples used some odd statistics in his opinion piece about the nature of disenfranchisement (emphasis mine): The mandatory sentencing fad that swept the United States beginning in the 1970's has had dramatic consequences - most of them bad. The prison population was driven up tenfold, creating a large and growing felon class - now 13 million strong - that remains locked out of the mainstream and prone to recidivism. Trailing behind the legions of felons are children who grow...
CBS chief Les Moonves told reporters today that he's leaning towards using a rotating series of talking heads, reading news reports from various cities, as a replacement plan for Dan Rather's position as anchorman. He inadvertently nails the problem that CBS News created while essentially surrendering to its effects: CBS will probably replace Dan Rather on the evening news with a multi-anchor, perhaps multi-city format that changes the "antiquated" way of reporting the day's top stories, CBS chief Leslie Moonves said Tuesday. Moonves, who will ultimately select Rather's replacement, said he believes many young viewers are turned off by a single "voice of God" anchor in the Internet age. ... "Those days are over when you have that guy sitting behind the desk who everyone believes to the `nth' degree," Moonves told reporters. "It's sort of an antiquated way of news telling and maybe there's a new way of doing...
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel continues to cover the questions swirling around the Wisconsin presidential election results, even if the national media yawns at the prospect. Greg Borokowski reports that the 84,000 election-day registrants in the city of Milwaukee just about matches the same number as 2000 (hat tip: CQ reader JB): Lisa Artison, executive director of the city Election Commission, said the number of cards that could not be sent out this time was comparable to the number after the 2000 presidential election. ... At issue is a gap between the city's estimate of 84,000 election-day registrants and 73,079 verification cards that were sent, as required by law. ... If the 84,000 estimate of election-day registrants is accurate, 13% of the cards could not be processed. The 84,000 number, about 30% of the 277,535 people who voted in the November election, includes regular voters who may have moved, as well as...
Mark Lasswell at Broadcasting & Cable got no satisfaction from the Thornburgh-Boccardi report regarding Memogate at CBS News. He asks five questions of CBS that their panel report creates rather than answers: Last week, the tortured saga of the bogus documents came to a close. Or at least the major issues were settled of how CBS News came to rely on—and then adamantly defend—dubious records of President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s. As the investigative panel chosen by CBS, former Associated Press CEO Louis Boccardi and former U.S. attorney general Dick Thornburgh, reported in exhaustive detail, 60 Minutes Wednesday aired a segment on Sept. 8 that was tainted in almost every regard. But the report doesn't resolve all the questions that spring from the story of how producer Mary Mapes, with a barely engaged Dan Rather as her correspondent, rushed the story onto...
January 19, 2005
The AP reports on the ascendancy of Howard Dean for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee with a headline that smacks of deja vu -- "Dean Gaining Early Momentum in DNC Race": On Tuesday, the former Vermont governor announced he had the unanimous backing of the Florida delegation to the DNC and also the support of Democratic chairs in Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma, Washington state and Vermont. He plans house parties around the nation later this week, like the ones he used while trying to gain the Democratic presidential nomination. Dean dominated the Democrats' presidential race through 2003, raising more than $40 million and recruiting thousands of supporters through the Internet. But when the voting started in Iowa, Dean stumbled as Democrats rallied around a candidate they thought was more electable — Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. I find the DNC raise mildly amusing but strategically negligible. The Democrats seem ready...
I read the RSS summary for the New York Times editorial this morning and took some hope that they may have decided to take a more measured look at the news, rather than stoke partisan idiocy: With a few exceptions, Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearing was an exercise in political theater. Unfortunately, the Gray Lady meant that not as an endorsement of the more professional and less histrionic Foreign Relations Committee members, but as a scolding for them to be more like Barbara Boxer: President Bush is entitled to choose his cabinet, and there was never much chance of opposition to Ms. Rice, a trusted member of his inner circle. But confirmation hearings should critically examine the nominee. Another unfortunate choice for a top job, Alberto Gonzales, at least had to endure a few hours' grilling on the torture of prisoners on his way to becoming attorney general. Yesterday, Democratic senators,...
I've wanted to write on this for some time, but Jon Henke at the must-read QandO beat me to it. The Democrats have accused the Bush Administration of crisis-mongering on Social Security, which they claim remains strong and solvent. However, that's a far cry -- almost literally -- from the rhetoric used by the last Democratic administration in Washington: * Gene Sperling - Clinton Economic Advisor: "this is a chance for both parties to actually show ... that we are saving more to meet the Social Security crisis in the future. If we don't do this, then we are just putting those burdens on a future generation." ... * Senator Kohl - Democrat: Wisconsin [March 22, 2000]: "Comprehensive Social Security Reform is still necessary. Today's changes will do nothing to hold off the coming crisis that will begin when we start drawing down the Social Security Trust fund in 2014....
On the suggestion from CQ reader Zuke, I decided to e-mail my objections about today's editorial from the New York Times on the Condi Rice confirmation hearings. Below is the complete text from my message, with a few formatting changes for better effect on the blog. Dear Mr. Okrent, In keeping with your effort to ensure that the editorial pages of the New York Times goes through proper fact-checking, I wish to direct your attention to today's unsigned editorial on the confirmation hearings for Dr. Condoleezza Rice. Your editorial board appears to compound a serious misstatement of fact by Senator Joseph Biden in yesterday's hearing regarding the level of trained Iraqi security forces: Senator Joseph Biden, Democrat of Delaware, asked Ms. Rice how big an Iraqi security force had actually been trained. When Ms. Rice, the national security adviser, offered an absurdly inflated 120,000, Mr. Biden said the people doing...
In a development that should embarrass Jesse Jackson and shame Barbara Boxer -- but won't -- the AP reports that both firms conducting media exit polling for the presidential election found flaws that overreported support for John Kerry: Two firms that conducted Election Day exit polls for major news organizations reported Wednesday that they found a number of problems with the way the polls were carried out last year, resulting in estimates that overstated John Kerry's share of the vote. Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International found that the Democratic challenger's supporters were more likely than President Bush's supporters to participate in exit polls interviews. They also found that more errors occurred in exit polls conducted by younger interviewers, and about half of the interviewers were 34 or under. ... They noted that in a number of precincts, interviewers were kept 50 feet or more away from polling places, potentially...
Condoleezza Rice received her confirmation endorsement from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this afternoon on a vote of 16-2. The two voting against? Pending approval by the full Senate, Rice would be the first black woman to hold the job. She was confirmed by a 16-2 vote with Democrats John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California voting no. Other Democrats, including ranking member Joseph Biden of Delaware, had said they were reluctantly voting to elevate Rice to the nation's top diplomatic job. A vote by the full Senate was expected by Thursday. My first reaction is shock -- that John Kerry actually attended Senate business. After missing most of the last two-year session of Congress, he's now up to one in a row. No one should be terribly surprised at either vote, or by either Senator. After an incredibly condescending introduction where Kerry expressed gooey admiration for Rice's...
Sometimes I wonder if Barbara Boxer ever listens to herself and cringes. If so, yesterday certainly provided opportunities for winces galore as the senator from California kept providing evidence of her status as one of the least intelligent members of the upper chamber. In just her opening statement for her portion of Condoleezza Rice's confirmation hearing, she managed to embarrass herself and her constituents multiple times: Dr. Rice, before I get to my formal remarks, you no doubt will be confirmed -- that's at least what we think. We think there's no doubt? And her favorite color is plaid, too. And if you're going to become the voice of diplomacy -- this is just a helpful point -- when Senator Voinovich mentioned the issue of tsunami relief, you said -- your first words were, "The tsunami was a wonderful opportunity for us." Now, the tsunami was one of the worst...
Hindrocket at Power Line found a new ABC initiative to bring balance to its news broadcasts, or at least those they intend to provide on Inauguration Day tomorrow. Obviously, the Halperin Memo is still in effect even past Election Day: For a possible Inauguration Day story on ABC News, we are trying to find out if there any military funerals for Iraq war casualties scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 20. If you know of a funeral and whether the family might be willing to talk to ABC News, please fill out the form below[.] So here we have a public broadcaster who explicitly intends on using the death of at least one American serviceperson -- specifically in Iraq, so dead American soldiers or Marines in Kosovo or Afghanistan need not apply -- as a means to make a political statement about Bush's inauguration. If your son or daughter, sister or brother,...
Hugh Hewitt has a great show tonight, discussing Les Moonves' oddball ideas about revolutionizing CBS News with measures that appear to do nothing but throw a bit more window dressing on the disgrace. He's asking his listeners to call in with their ideas, just as if Les Moonves was sitting in Hugh's booth and taking notes. After a calling in and losing my cell signal, and getting locked out of the full bank of calls Hugh draws, I sent Hugh an e-mail instead: My suggestion for CBS was going to be to quit rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I don't care if you have one anchor or fifteen. CBS News needs to clean house and hire people who didn't grow up kissing Dan Rather's rear end. Fire Heyward and everyone who thinks like him, and retire the fossils across the board. Get a managing editor who actually knows...
When my mother, who comments here as Vayapaso, went to Hugh Hewitt's book signing for Blog, she got so excited by their enthusiastic welcome that she referred to me as "Eddie." Hugh and Duane didn't miss this and have mulled this tidbit over for a week now. Tonight, they decided that I must have been named after Eddie Haskell, the smarmy and phony-polite troublemaker from Leave It To Beaver. Eddie Haskell? When I called in to talk to Hugh, Duane even played the Leave It To Beaver theme in the background. I foresee a long run of classic-TV jokes in my future with these guys. But why Eddie Haskell? Why not this guy: The American Ace of Aces, Eddie Rickenbacker, was a successful race car driver, fighter pilot, airline executive, wartime advisor, and elder statesman. Few aces achieved so much in so many different lifetime roles. His twenty-six aerial victories...
January 20, 2005
David Kirkpatrick reports in today's New York Times that conservative activist Dr. James Dobson has attacked a cartoon character for alleged homosexual subtext as well as its alleged involvement in a gay-rights promotional video. It appears that Dr. Dobson has not only overreacted, but has gotten some key facts wrong: Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob's creators had enlisted him in a "pro-homosexual video," in which he appeared alongside children's television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others. The makers of the video, he said, planned to mail it to thousands of elementary schools to promote a "tolerance pledge" that includes tolerance for differences of "sexual identity." The video's creator, Nile Rodgers, who wrote the disco hit "We Are Family," said Mr. Dobson's objection stemmed from a misunderstanding. Mr. Rodgers said he founded the We Are Family Foundation after the Sept. 11 attacks to create a music video to...
Guess who's suddenly into guns, despite his documentary slamming the supposed gun culture of America? And unlicensed guns at that? Why, it's no one but our own cuddly teddy-bear friend, Michael Moore, and his bodyguard (via Drudge): Filmmaker Michael Moore's bodyguard was arrested for carrying an unlicensed weapon in New York's JFK airport Wednesday night. Police took Patrick Burke, who says Moore employs him, into custody after he declared he was carrying a firearm at a ticket counter. Burke is licensed to carry a firearm in Florida and California, but not in New York. Burke was taken to Queens central booking and could potentially be charged with a felony for the incident. Moore's 2003 Oscar-winning film "Bowling for Columbine" criticizes what Moore calls America's "culture of fear" and its obsession with guns. So while Moore wants to deny the right of ordinary Americans to defend themselves with firearms, he has...
Large Bill alerted me to a Washington Times editorial from yesterday which shows that the Silence Of The Cheese may start to break out in the national media. The Times reacted to John Kerry's whining about supposed disenfranchisement in Ohio, where he lost by almost 120,000 votes, and his silence on the shenanigans in Milwaukee: At the same time, it's curious that Mr. Kerry should use Ohio as an example to trumpet his forthcoming legislation. Apparently, Mr. Kerry sees no evil in Wisconsin, where his margin of victory was 11,000 votes, and where the watchful bloggers at Captainsquartersblog.com have noticed some disturbing irregularities. Milwaukee County, which broke for Mr. Kerry 62 percent to 37 percent, saw voter turnout increase by just under 49,000 votes, or 10 percent, from 2000. For comparison, the national voter increase was 6.4 percent. A portion of that increase can be attributed to the 83,000 people...
Greg Borokowski continues his dogged pursuit of the Wisconsin voting irregularities in 2004 for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, even though no one in the national media appears to notice, outside of the Washington Times. In today's paper, Borokowski reveals that despite having one of the most liberal and fraud-susceptible voter-registration systems in the country, the elections boards rarely refer invalid registrations to the district attorney's office: In the wake of Milwaukee's inability to send confirmation cards to some 10,000 newly registered voters, a Journal Sentinel review suggests that a little-discussed - but key - safeguard in election law is not routinely followed. The provision requires that any confirmation cards that the U.S. Postal Service cannot deliver be sent to the local district attorney's office for investigation for possible fraud. District attorneys from around the state said Wednesday, however, that they receive few such referrals - and some did not know it...
Unfortunately, I am buried in meetings today and could not listen to President Bush's inaugural speech, so I have to be satisfied with reading it from the White House site. I have not yet read any other reviews or commentary, so I have not yet been influenced by friends or opponents; nor have I heard the delivery, so I cannot know how well the words came across. But from reading the speech, I can only say that Bush's words will ring out as a clarion call for America to rise up and accept its mission of freedom for the world once again, for ourselves and the sake of humanity. One element of this speech that sets it apart from other such events is the lack of any mention of programs, bills, or specific ideological issues. The upcoming State of the Union speech will contain all that and more, I'm certain....
As any parent can tell you, getting their child to do their homework amounts to a low-level war with a new battle every day. We have to hear about how "stupid" they find homework, while we try to both help them complete it and instill a work ethic children need to achieve success later on. While we may sometimes lose a battle or two, most parents know that they still have to win the overall war in order to ensure that their children get educated and have an opportunity to move on to college. Unfortunately, one British school has run the white flag up on maintaining standards in schooling: All 12-year-olds at a comprehensive will be told today that homework is being scrapped because teachers have better things to do than mark it. Dr Patrick Hazlewood, the head teacher of St John's in Marlborough, Wilts, who has already scrapped subject...
In a move that normally would have the ACLU filing lawsuits on behalf of whistleblowers in any other organization, the whistleblowers find themselves at war with the ACLU's Board of Directors, according to the New York Times: The American Civil Liberties Union, which since its inception has fought to protect free speech rights, is scheduled to begin a debate today over whether to discipline - or potentially move to oust - two board members for speaking to reporters. The executive committee of the A.C.L.U. board will discuss whether Wendy Kaminer and Michael Meyers have acted inappropriately as board members. The two have criticized some actions by the executive director, Anthony D. Romero, and the executive committee for what they said was a failure to provide proper oversight. Nadine Strossen, president of the A.C.L.U., wrote in an e-mail message responding to a reporter's questions that the subject was added to the...
January 21, 2005
While most of the focus of election fraud in Wisconsin has been on Milwaukee and its 30% same-day registration in two succeeding presidential elections, the smaller city of Racine also had its own problems. State representative Robin Vos accused Racine officials of ignoring electoral law by failing to even attempt the verification of same-day registrants as required by Wisconsin law: State Rep. Robin Vos accused the city of Racine on Wednesday of violating state law by failing to send out voter verification cards to people who registered to vote on the same day as the Nov. 2 election. "Racine County residents deserve fair and proper elections," Vos, R-Caledonia, said. "I'm disappointed to see that the city of Racine isn't doing everything possible to ensure this happens, especially when Wisconsin law requires it." Racine City Clerk Carolyn Moskonas, who was recently appointed to the position, confirmed Wednesday that the city doesn't...
Milwaukee city officials, under pressure for their handling of the flood of same-day voter registrations in the last two presidential elections, have now formed a panel to investigate the issue. However, Greg Borokowski reports that the independence of the city panel leaves a lot to be desired: Amid new questions about the Nov. 2 election in Milwaukee, a task force appointed by Mayor Tom Barrett to review problems and procedures will launch its efforts today. Members will dig into an election that featured heavy turnout, huge demand for early voting, a GOP challenge to thousands of addresses and, based on a Journal Sentinel review of election-day "incident logs," a general frenzy of activity across the city. But the committee - consisting entirely of city officials - faces critics who question whether it will be able to conduct an impartial review. As well they should; until the last moment, the panel...
First we have the Federal Air Marshals making themselves obvious to anyone flying by wearing professional clothing on board flights, a highly visible target for any terrorists who want to commandeer a commercial flight. After we complained that the air marshals should blend in, we find out that they in fact disappear entirely when it snows: Hundreds of federal air marshals were grounded and unable to access critical information to pinpoint potential terrorist activity for eight hours on the eve of President Bush's inauguration after snow paralyzed the Mission Operations Center in Washington, said several air marshals and a supervisor. The marshals said they could not reach the Mission Operations Center (MOC) by telephone to be placed on other flights after hundreds of flights were rerouted because of the snow, and marshals seeking information on reports of a dirty bomb in Boston were unsuccessful. "They were flying blind," said the...
The Democrats in the Senate have signaled their intent on turning up the obstructionism that cost them their party leader last election, and the New York Times reports that the signal did not go unrecognized by Republicans: Republicans in Congress seethed Thursday over Democrats' refusal to allow a quick vote on Condoleezza Rice's confirmation as secretary of state, a dispute that provided a quick reality check about the partisan divide on Capitol Hill just hours after President Bush was sworn in. "If this is the kind of comity we can expect for the rest of the session, we are not getting off to a good start," said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, a member of the Republican leadership. "It is churlish." Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, said, "You want continuity in this country, and this is a senior cabinet minister." He added, "This didn't win them any merit...
Despite the steady drumbeat of mainstream media analysts, the Iraqi people actually look forward to the opportunity to vote in the upcoming elections. A poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, part of Congress' National Endowment for Democracy, shows that over 80% of Iraqis plan on voting: The poll, conducted in late December and early January for the International Republican Institute, found 80 percent of respondents saying they were likely to vote, a rate that has held roughly steady for months. The 64 percent who said they were "very likely" to vote represented a dip of about 7 percentage points from a November survey, while those "somewhat likely" to vote increased 5 points. Western specialists involved with election preparations said they were struck by the determination and resilience of ordinary Iraqis as they anticipate their country's first free election in half a century. "Despite the efforts of the terrorists, Iraqis...
A quick note: I see today that CQ has entered the TTLB Ecosystem's highest ranking today, with a new ranking of #9 now qualifying this blog as a Higher Being. I'm expecting that to change as links expire and other bloggers get hot stories, but I wanted to thank everyone in the CQ community and the bloggers who continually link back to us. What a rush!...
Two days ago I posted about ABC's effort to find a military funeral taking place on Inauguration Day for a casualty from Iraq, presumably to "balance" the coverage of George Bush and his speech. Their web site invited anyone who knew of such a funeral to send the information to ABC News -- they even provided a web form for submission (and Doc Weasel has it better here) -- so that they could exploit the death in order to somehow shame Bush on his inauguration. After Power Line and I wrote about this and the blogosphere erupted into protest, the page quickly disappeared -- and we presumed that wiser heads at ABC News had prevailed. Unfortunately, it appears that we overestimated ABC's capacity for shame and embarrassment. Several CQ readers have written to me this morning (and The Corner also reports this) telling me that at the 6:12 break, World...
Arlen Specter may find himself back on the hotseat again, according to The American Spectator (hat tip: CQ reader Caleb). Specter gained the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee only after a brief but intense controversy stirred up by Specter's warning on judicial nominees to President Bush. Now his own hiring practices have come under attack after selecting a senior aide that has strong ties to the same groups that attacked Bush's nominees in the past: Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter went back on his word to Republican caucus members and conservative groups alike when he recently hired Hannibal G. Williams II Kemerer, who until recently was the NAACP's assistant general counsel. Specter hired Kemerer against the wishes of his senior Judiciary Committee staff. "We warned him this was going to cause trouble, but Specter said it was his committee, we are his staff, and he's going to do...
Minneapolis is getting five or more inches of snow as we speak, and I'm stuck at work across the city from home. If I wanted to go home, I'd have about a 3-hour drive ahead of me for an 18-mile trip. Right now the freeways out here are bumper to bumper parking lots. It's an unbelievable mess. My best friend North Star Steve, who also works in my office, is joining me for dinner instead of driving home (we both live in the same neighborhood as well). This is what the commute looks like at the moment: Normally it looks about the same, except all the cars are moving. These are basically parked. More later when I finally get home ... UPDATE: Yes, I finally made it! Of course, it was 9:15