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According to The Seattle Weekly, Microsoft will be sending religious conservative operative Ralph Reed a pink slip with this month’s $20,000 consulting fee. It could be a result of the bad publicity Microsoft received after dropping support for gay rights legislation in the wake of threatened retaliation from Christian conservatives. Or, it could be because of Reed’s own ethical and legal problem. In any case, The Weekly reports that Reed isn’t the only Republican hired-gun accused of influence peddling, with whom Microsoft has had a long standing business relationship.

One source notes that Reed was on a Microsoft retainer while helping run the George W. Bush presidential campaigns of 2000 and 2004, raising ethical questions. But Reed now has gone a step further and filed to run for public office himself

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Hey… real news. The first of what will be many civil decisions and convictions to come down against Tom Delay and his associates:

In the first major legal decision involving associates of Representative Tom DeLay, a Texas judge ruled today that a political action committee formed by Mr. Delay had broken campaign finance laws as it propelled the Republican Party into power in the Texas House in 2002.

Eventually, the Bugman is going to be squashed.

[NWPT48]I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to wake up this morning and find the TVW feed still working. Ah well, I suppose I better listen, and update this post as warranted. As always, The Seattle Times’ David Postman will also be providing regular trial updates.

The big news today should come out of the Frye hearing, in which the Court will hear the scientific basis for allowing the GOP’s proportional deduction methodology.

Here comes the exciting part…
That is, if you call testimony from statisticians exciting. The Dems have finished crossing Clark Benson, and the R’s main expert witness, Jonathan Katz has been called to the stand, so finally, the Frye hearing begins. Katz nervously commented to the judge that he’s never done this before, and didn’t know how this was going to work. To which Judge Bridges amusingly responded, “Well, I think Mr. Burman is going to work you over.”

Sure hope so. Stay tuned….

Burman works over Katz (9:54 am)
Polite, but firm. (Okay, now he just made a comment that wasn’t so polite, demanding that Katz look at him and answer the questions, rather than looking furtively to Rossi’s legal team for help.) Katz refuses to vouch for the reliability of the data set, and cannot say whether it was a scientifically designed or random sample.

Witness needs more water (10:15 am)
Katz has asked the court for more water. Burman’s thirst producing questioning focused both on the reliability of the data, and accepted scientific standards. Burman read from several sources that Katz vouched for, which laid out the principle that even the best available methods of ecological inference can be “wildly inaccurate,” and that in political science it is unreliable to infer from aggregate data. Katz admits that his statistical model relies on several assumptions, including “neighborhood homogeneity” and the reliability of the data.

Burman has finished with Katz (for the moment.) The Democrat’s statistical expert, Christopher Adolf, will testify after the morning recess.

Mmm… herring (10:33 am)
I took advantage of the break to surf around and see what others are writing, and I thought I’d point out this gem from our good friend Stefan over at (u)SP:

Burman brings up the red herring of the “ecological fallacy”.

That’s right, when you don’t have a rebuttal, just ridicule and dismiss the opposing side’s argument. Sheesh… sometimes I think Stefan practices his rhetorical technique by reading instructions from a how-to book. I Googled “ecological fallacy” and got 15,800 hits. Research it for yourself.

Good social science starts with good data (11:01 am)
That is the testimony of Prof. Adolph. Under Burman’s questioning, he is really tearing apart the GOP’s statistical analysis. I’m too busy listening to the testimony to comment in detail, but much of what Adolph testified to was covered in DJ’s excellent analysis of the his declaration here.

Adolph is now being cross-examined, and still sounds pretty confident.

Why not ask them? (11:21 am)
The Republican’s main refutation of Prof. Adolph’s testimony is that he is a non-tenured, former graduate assistant of the Prof. Katz, who he is now criticizing. Under cross-examination, Adolph suggested that an accurate way for determining the votes of felons might be to conduct a survey. When asked how one would possibly conduct such a survey, he bluntly proposed “since we have a list of illegal voters, I suggest asking them.”

They’re done with Adolf, and moving on to Prof. Mark Handcock.

GOP whimsy (12:51 pm)
Under questioning from Burman, Prof. Handcock stated that the “Principle of Insufficient Reason” was regarded in the statistical community as a “whimsical” notion. What wasn’t whimsical was the way the GOP attorneys tried to discredit Handcock, by showing that he doesn’t write about election data. Not surprising, considering he’s a statistician, not a political scientist. I know they’re just doing what lawyers do, but still, that doesn’t mean they don’t come across as assholes.

The main battle was over whether the GOP’s statistical methods could be applied to available evidence. The Democratic experts argued that the data was neither a scientific sample or represented the “universe” of illegal ballots. The Republicans’ response was that if the court accepted these ballots as the universe, then the methodology would be good. Handcock made a distinction between law and science.

The main point, is that while one could perform such an analysis on the available data, it still wouldn’t be scientific, no matter what the court ruled. And the R’s fight back that, well… the Dems don’t offer an alternative. But bad science is bad science.

This whole exchange is kind of like my eight-year-old getting pissy because she wants a bagel for breakfast and I don’t have one. I can’t give her what I don’t have. Likewise statistics simply doesn’t offer the court good science to accurately estimate for whom felons voted.

Court is adjourned until 1:30, and I’m taking my puppy for a walk.

John Carlson Show again at 3:15 (1:34 pm)
I just got a call, and John has invited Stefan and me back on the show today and tomorrow at 3:15 pm. I assume we’ll be talking about herring.

Court’s back in session. More later….

How the Judge WILL rule on Frye (2:03 pm)
I predict the Judge will adopt the Sec. of State’s position, that the evidence is admissible, but that it may not meet the “clear and convincing” standard of proof. This would be consistent with his rulings all along, that he allows nearly all the evidence in, and will eventually make his ruling on the evidentiary findings, not a point of law. This will make it very difficult to appeal.

How the Judge DID rule on Frye (2:16 pm)
Well, um… he didn’t.

Judge Bridges enunciated his “desire to make sure that as much evidence is available as possible” to the Supreme Court, which as I previously stated, has been his wont all along. And so he deserved to reserve ruling on Frye until later, and though it may not meet the letter of Frye, permit the parties to go ahead and present their cases. He did, however, address GOP attorney Mark Braden directly on the subject: “I have concerns.”

So… I suppose my prediction was somewhat accurate. The evidence will be presented, but he hasn’t necessarily accepted the science (indeed, he telegraphed that he might not.) That will be decided later, as well as the issue as to whether it meets the standard of proof.

And that bit of non-news was the biggest piece of news all week.

What David said (4:45 pm)
The court adjourned early today, and I have no idea why. After 45 minutes on the Carlson show and fielding a couple phone calls, I came back to find it all over. Not that I probably missed anything, as they were just taking testimony from expert witnesses who had previously been deposed. But if you’re really curious, I’d suggest you just read the latest updates from David Postman.

[NWPT46]After all the shit thrown at Newsweek for reporting allegations that interrogators at Guantanamo had flushed the Koran in a toilet, it turns out an FBI memo corroborates the charges:

The declassified document’s release came the week after the Bush administration denounced as wrong a May 9 Newsweek article that stated U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo had flushed a Koran down a toilet to try to make detainees talk.

The official memo was one of several the ACLU obtained via FOIA requests, and released yesterday. The documents describe a number of reported abuses at Guantanamo.

Former detainees and a lawyer for current prisoners previously have stated that U.S. personnel at Guantanamo had placed the Koran in a toilet, but the Pentagon has said it also does not view those allegations as credible.

In document written in April 2003, an FBI agent related a detainee’s account of an incident involving a female U.S. interrogator.

“While the guards held him, she removed her blouse, embraced the detainee from behind and put her hand on his genitals. The interrogator was on her menstrual period and she wiped blood from her body on his face and head,” the memo stated.

A similar incident was described in a recent book written by a former Guantanamo interrogator.

Newsweek should never have allowed themselves to be pressured into retracting the story. They had allegations, and they reported them. That’s what journalists do. By caving in to political pressure they have left the impression that a) the story was definitely wrong, and b) that it in fact triggered the protests in Afghanistan in which 16 people died. Neither perception is more credible than the original Newsweek story itself.

I expect some of my righty readers to angrily disagree with me, as you have already taken much solace in demonizing Newsweek. So I would like to point out a parallel to some local current events. While you seem offended that Newsweek would print such allegations without absolute proof, you seem to have no compunction that Dino Rossi’s attorneys would charge fraud and ballot stuffing in a court of law, without presenting direct evidence to such. Just strikes me as a tad hypocritical.

[NWPT48]I’m scanning the headlines coming out of Wednesday’s testimony in the election contest trial, and curiously, I don’t see any mention of stuffed ballots or fraud. And yet… this was the day the Republicans put the two witnesses on the stand who were supposed to prove the hyperbolic allegations that Dale Foreman made in his opening arguments.

Nicole Way insisted that she did not know the mail ballot report was inaccurate at the time she produced it, undermining charges that it was “fraudulent” or even “falsified.” And the non-expert testimony of GOP operative Clark Bensen was less than convincing. He examined 11 King County precincts (out of 2600) where there were a handful more — or less — ballots counted than voters credited, and somehow concluded that this was evidence that 875 ballots were stuffed. Whatever.

Apart from Thursday’s Frye hearing on proportional deduction, Rossi’s attorneys have pretty much finished presenting evidence. And that’s basically the sum total of the fraud theory.

As they have since the very first hearing, the R’s continue to cite the Foulkes case as precedent that the election can be set aside without proving that Rossi actually received the most votes. In Foulkes, ballots had been left unsecured, and there was clear evidence that a number of ballots were fraudulently altered as a result. One could argue that King County’s inability to reconcile absentee ballots was equivalent to the unsecured ballots in Foulkes, in that it might have created an opportunity for fraud… specifically, ballot stuffing. But unlike Foulkes, the Republicans have failed to present a single scrap of evidence that fraud — in the form of ballot stuffing — actually did occur.

The only fraud to have been proven thus far at trial, was the fraudulent claim of such in the Republican’s opening argument.

[NWPT48]It’s beautiful outside, and like an idiot, I’m sitting inside, watching the pointless proceedings from Wenatchee again. Oh well… I guess I might as well write about it. And as always, I urge you to check out David Postman’s “straight, cogent” trial dispatches.

Counting ballots the Nicole way
King County Elections mail ballot supervisor Nicole Way has strapped on her Depends and mounted the witness stand, where Republican attorney Harry Korrell will spend the next few hours trying to trick her into semantically contradicting the testimony in her deposition. Every time he succeeds, bells will go off in the courtroom, while balloons and confetti rain down from a trap-door in the ceiling. My understanding is that Davis Wright Tremaine’s contract with the GOP stipulates that the first attorney to secure a perjury conviction, wins a new Cadillac Escalade. Sweet.

Of course, the main purpose of her testimony is simply to recycle headlines of Way’s faulty mail ballot report, the centerpiece of GOP allegations of fraud. So this should be dramatic testimony, right? Right?

Meanwhile, on Zoboomafoo, the gang learns about different breeds of horses and how to care for them.

Losing focus (11:40 am)
It looks like the Seattle Times’ “straight, cogent” David Postman is having as much trouble keeping focus as I am. Postman’s last three trial updates have reported on “political celebrities” and judicial quips. With no actual news to report, his occasional updates are reminiscent of the tiny inhabitants of that speck of dust in Horton Hears a Who, yelling “We’re here! We’re here!” I know you are David, and I feel for you. But at least you are getting paid.

Anyway, after a brief recess, Democrat attorney Jenny Durkan has started her friendly, cross-examination of Nicole Way.

In other news, Mister Rogers shows how exercising, such as jumping rope, is good for you.

Breaking News: court breaks for lunch! (12:04 pm)
The court has adjourned until 1:30 for lunch… and I’m guessing a few drinks as well. When they return, Democrat attorney Jenny Durkan will finish her cross-examination of Nicole Way, which has managed to make the circumstances surrounding the erroneous mail ballot report sound much less “sinister.” Later this afternoon, the Judge will conduct the “Frye hearing” on the admissibility of the GOP’s proportional deduction methodology.

Meanwhile, the Boohbahs do a bending exercise, while in Storyworld, Aunty finds three droopy flowers. Can Mr. Man help her water the flowers in time?

Snarky Radio (1:57 pm)
A big thanks to Stefan over at (un)Sound Politics for reminding me that I’ll be back on the John Carlson Show with him, KVI-570, at 3:15 pm. Though according to the Snark, I’m only there for comic relief. Hmm. Well, I am “damned entertaining.”

For those of you who can’t bear to listen to right-wing talk radio, over on Dragonfly TV, youngsters check out alligators in Florida, snakes in Minnesota and worms in California. Also: entomologist Betty Faber, who specializes in cockroaches.

GOP calls cloture on Way filibuster (2:42 pm)
Nicole Way has finally been excused from the stand, but not before Jenny Durkan managed to extract the following statement about the mail ballot report:

“Before the 95 were found, I did not know the number was inaccurate.”

The point is, even though she couldn’t get the necessary reports out of the ballot tracking software to verify the numbers, she did not know that they were wrong at the time. She just couldn’t verify them. Now criticize her for being sloppy, or making a bad decision if you want… but this is not “fraud.” Hope somebody was paying attention.

Anyway, while I’ve been providing my own snide coverage and Postman has been scratching his head to provide some straight, cogent analysis (yet another update featuring a judicial quip), TJ at Also Also once again dazzles us with his intelligence by actually writing a coherent summary of the morning session. Hey TJ… you think Way looks weary? You should see the bags under my eyes.

The court is now taking a brief recess, but over on Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton visits a New Jersey amusement park. Also: Arnold Stang narrates the story of “Archibald Frisby.”

Blinded by science… (3:44 pm)
And apparently deafened as well. The Frye hearing has started in Wenatchee, in which Judge Bridges will eventually rule on the admissibility of the GOP’s proportional deduction methodology… not that I’d know, considering the TVW internet stream is down. I don’t have cable, but apparently they’re missing audio on cable too. Andrew over at NW Progressive tells me that TVW has a power outage at their retransmission facility in Olympia.

Fortunately, PBS Kids is experiencing no such problems. Postcards from Buster visits Hinesburg, VT, where Buster seeks a gift for Mother’s Day and is helped by Emma and Lily; he also attends a Christmas-tree bonfire.

Everything I need to know in life I learned from television (5:28 pm)
TVW finally got back on the air, not long before the court dismissed for the day. If you ask me, a sinister error like this is clear evidence of fraud, and I intend to prove it. I rest my case.

While I was out of the loop, David Postman filed several of his typically straight and cogent updates. Apparently, we did not have a Frye hearing, as Clark Bensen, the Republican statistical consultant (and no, I’m not missing an ” ‘s “) is testifying as a “fact witness,” not an “expert witness,” and thus he is not allowed to express any opinion. Good thing that’s not me — a judge barring me from expressing opinion would be a sure fire recipe for a contempt of court citation. Anyway, read what David wrote.

By the way, Bensen’s testimony… that was apparently the evidence of ballot stuffing that the Republicans promised us on Monday. Yeah… right.

Tomorrow morning the Democrats will cross-examine Bensen, and then most of the rest of the day will be spent on the Frye hearing, in which both sides will present their expert statistical witnesses. And if there’s time at the end of the day, the Democrats will make their motion to dismiss. The judge will deny the motion, and then on Friday, the Democrats start presenting their case.

As usual, this afternoon’s episode of Cyberchase serves as an apt metaphor for the day’s entire court proceedings: the Hacker kidnaps the king of a fractured- fairytale world and demands a ransom of golden eggs. Then the Wicked Witch casts a spell that takes away everyone’s ability to count, making it impossible for the fairy-tale folk to gather the required number of eggs until the kids help them learn the role of place value in the number system.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Comic relief (11:54 pm)
Andrew at NW Progressive has provided a clip of my latest appearance on the John Carlson Show. Listen to me not being taken seriously.

[NWPT48]How could I have been so stupid? For weeks now I’ve been confidently predicting a Democratic victory in court, but all this time I’ve been focusing on the wrong trial, and the wrong court. See, there’s a reason why Republican partisans like John Carlson and Stefan Sharkansky sound so smug… they’ve already won!

Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate John for giving me the opportunity to express my views on his show. But there’s something about the final exchange between me, John and Stefan that stuck in my craw. We all agree that there are two different trials going on: the one in the Wenatchee courtroom, and the one in the court of public opinion. But while I’ve always considered the latter to be the consolation prize, apparently both John and Stefan believe it’s the other way around.

Both John and Stefan’s insistence that the public will rely on “basic common sense” to judge Dino Rossi the winner, whatever the legal verdict, implies that the courts lack the same. As I stated on-air, I believe this attitude represents a total disregard for both the law and the courts that is typical of Republican rhetoric these days.

Yes, Rossi has the right to pursue an election contest. But the purpose of the contest statute is not to create a venue for scoring political points, or even to air out the general inadequacies of our electoral systems… the purpose of the contest statute is purely and simply to overturn an election where it is absolutely clear that the wrong candidate was certified the winner.

The Republicans have only four days to present their evidence, and after the first day and a half, they haven’t introduced a single new piece of information that hasn’t already been hashed out in the depositions, pre-trial briefs, and news media. After making splashy headlines with allegations of “fraud” and “ballot stuffing” they are not going to introduce direct evidence of a single stuffed ballot. Instead, they are going to use the entire trial as an opportunity for repeating and repeating and repeating allegations of errors in King County Elections.

The GOP strategy isn’t about meeting the statutory requirements for setting aside the gubernatorial election. Hell, this isn’t even about the gubernatorial election.

This is about unseating Ron Sims.

And eventually, Christine Gregoire… and other Democrats across the state.

Of course I’ve always understood the political implications of this case, but I didn’t realize until the trial started that this was so nakedly the primary focus of the Republican efforts. And the fact that John and Stefan and other GOP operatives are so publicly blunt in embracing the “two trial” thesis is telling.

The real “fraud” being proven by Republican attorneys is not in King County Elections… it’s the Republican case itself.

This entire contest is a sham.

From Chuck Taylor in The Seattle Weekly:

BlogWash

They’re watching this trial like hawks so you don’t have to

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After wasting most of my day watching the election contest trial, I don’t feel like wasting much time analyzing the day’s events. So I’ll keep my day-two wrap-up brief.

The Republicans can’t prevail in court. They know it. And they don’t care.

More in the morning….

The Olympian will be conducting a live chat with state Elections Director Nick Handy, Wednesday at noon. You can submit your questions here.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Alas, I cannot attend, as I have been invited to join a panel at the International Association of Business Communicators Seattle chapter’s annual Media Evening.

In other inconsequential news… it’s no secret that fellow Republican State Sen. Pam Roach doesn’t much like Spokane’s future former mayor, Jim West… and now we know a little bit more about the reasons why. According to The Spokesman-boy love-Review, West made an inappropriate sexual comment to Roach about her then 18-year-old son Dan. (Question: are there appropriate sexual comments a man can make to a boy’s mother?)

Roach told The Spokesman-Review that West was kneeling by her desk in the Senate chamber in about 1990, conferring on a piece of legislation, when he saw her 18-year-old son, who was working as a tour guide in the state Capitol.

“West told me, ‘I want to do to your son what no mother would want to know,’ ” Roach said. “He then got up and left.”

Hmm. I’ve seen Rep. Dan Roach (R-Bonny Lake) in action in the Legislature, and I’d like to do to Dan something Pam wouldn’t want to know… though my fantasies mostly involve removing him from office.

Disgusted with West, Roach said she told fellow Republican Sen. Ann Anderson about the encounter. Roach said she also later told her son. Dan Roach, who is now a Republican state representative from Bonney Lake, confirmed West’s comment through his mother.

Anderson, now a lobbyist for Central Washington University, recalled the incident, but said her friend West told Roach, “Pam, you have a nice-looking young son.”

Oh.

I suppose Roach might have gotten the wrong impression after West proceeded to pull down her son’s pants. No wait… the article says it was as a scout leader that West allegedly would “‘pants’ the boys”, not as Senate Majority Leader.

Anderson claims that she and Roach recently discussed the incident before the current controversy over West broke. Which raises a question… when exactly did Roach relate this story to the Spokesman-Review? Two different sources have previously suggested to me that Roach may have actually tipped off the paper to some of the allegations against West. I don’t like printing rumors, and since my sources at the S-R denied it, I chose to not to run with it myself. But in light of this new information, one can hardly blame me for speculating on the possibility.

So Pam, if you played no role in exposing West, I apologize. But if you did, well then, I suggest you take credit where credit is due. But either way, please don’t shoot me.

[NWPT48]After yesterday’s tedious exercise in tediously following the election contest trial, I think I’ll just occasionally update this post with tidbits and observations as they come. Tonight I’ll post a summary and analysis of the days events.

“The Trial of the Half-Decade”
I believe it was originally the AP who called this “the trial of the century”, which I suppose isn’t saying much considering we’re only five years into it (the century that is, not the trial.) So it is no surprise that the trial is getting wide media coverage, especially in WA state. Many of you have probably read the coverage in the Seattle Times and P-I, but I also recommend the fine political reporting of Brad Shannon in The Olympian. (I’d probably also recommend the reporting of Rich Roesler, if The Spokesman-Review didn’t require a paid subscription for me to read it.) All of the MSM pretty much had the same take on the day’s events, though the award for best lead sentence goes to Ken Vogel of the TNT:

In a significant rhetorical and strategic shift, Republicans dropped the “F-word”

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[NWPT48]It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Well… actually, it was pretty boring most of the time… but then that’s what one should expect from a typical trial of the non-TV variety.

But I do have one major observation from today’s proceedings, and that is that there are actually two different trials going on in Wenatchee: one is in a court of law, and the other is in the court of public opinion. And while the Republicans may have scored some points in the latter with their dramatic accusations of “sinister”, “fraudulent” efforts by Democratic officials to “steal the election”, I don’t think these charges will carry much weight in the former.

As Judge Bridges stated, fraud has never been a “causation element” in this case; the Republicans may be permitted to present evidence, and call it “fraud” if they want, but they will not likely be allowed to argue fraud as a basis for setting aside this election. I’m pretty sure the Republican attorneys understood this when they wrote their opening statement and proposed this dramatic new theory. But they pursued this strategy anyway, because, well… it plays well in the media, and quite frankly, what other choice did they have?

Unable to win their case on the strength of illegal felon votes, the Republicans chose to open the trial with spectacle, flinging unfounded allegations of fraud and corruption, in the hopes of grabbing the day’s headlines. This may have worked with the media, but it won’t get them very far with the Judge.

Republicans can use all the dramatic adjectives they want to describe the absentee ballot report, but it simply is not evidence of stuffed ballots on its own. What Rossi lacks is direct evidence of actual illegal ballots, and a plausible theory for how they might have been stuffed. These reconciliation discrepancies occurred across hundreds of different precincts, mostly one or two at a time, and each of these precincts had its own distinct ballot. To stuff ballots in this fashion would have required one or more individuals to covertly acquire hundreds of ballots, from hundreds of different precincts, hand mark them, and then deposit them back in their appropriate batches. The physical nature of this chore is enormous, and for this to occur undetected amidst the unprecedented scrutiny of this election, would have required a conspiracy at the highest level of King County Elections.

To accuse KC of stuffing ballots under these circumstances is akin to accusing somebody of murder, based on possible motive and lack of alibi… when there is no body, no murder weapon, and no evidence connecting the person to a crime. Given the very real problems KC had in reconciling their absentee ballots, could ballots have been stuffed? Absolutely. But “could’ve” is not going to win this lawsuit. To prevail in court, a petitioner can’t merely raise questions… they have to answer them.

The Democrats, for their part, had no such dramatic “revelations” to make… but then legally, they didn’t need them. The burden of proof rests firmly on the Republicans, and it’s proving to be a very heavy burden indeed. Thus both sides are playing to their strengths; while the Republicans pursue the easy PR victories, the Democrats continue to tediously and methodically deconstruct the Republicans’ case in court. It might not make for scintillating courtroom drama, but it does make for a winning case… at least, in a court of law.

And so I expect that as this trial unfolds — and Rossi’s case unravels — the Republicans will increasingly play to the cameras, while the Democrats ploddingly play to Court. In this fashion, both sides might eventually come out winners. And losers.

I’ll be on The Kirby Wilbur Show, 570-KVI, Tuesday morning at 7:00 am. I can’t imagine what we’ll be talking about.

And I’ll be back on The John Carlson Show at 3:15 (really), enjoying a pleasant conversation with Randy Stefan.

UPDATE:
For those who missed it (and care), here is a clip of this morning’s interview.