HorsesAss.Org

Is Tom DeLay insane?

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Yes:

“I blame Congress over the last 50 to 100 years for not standing up and taking its responsibility given to it by the Constitution. The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that’s nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn’t stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn’t stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn’t stop them.”

That’s not some lefty twisting his words… that’s a direct quote from an interview he gave to the ultra-right-wing Looney-Moony Washington Times. (Via Daily Kos.)

I hate to say it, but honesty impels me… whether he embraces the label himself or not, Tom DeLay is, quite technically, a fascist.

Rossi PR campaign hits weekly news cycle

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The Seattle Times reports today that the Rossi camp is complaining about a number of rejected provisional ballots that were found to have had their envelopes opened. Interesting. But I actually chuckled at the article’s lead:

Republicans yesterday found what they say is a new reason to question King County’s handling of ballots cast in the November election.

Come on… we all know the Republicans have only one reason to question King County Elections… it’s good politics.

This is a particularly stupid issue, and shows how desperately they are grasping at rhetorical straws. Generally, provisional ballots are left sealed in their security envelopes unless they are verified. But KC Elections spokeswoman Bobbie Egan explained that the envelopes in question were opened under standard procedure, to determine whether voters had used ballots appropriate to their home precincts. Most provisional ballots don’t have to be opened, because the outside envelope includes enough notation to indicate the type of ballot.

“Procedures were followed,” Egan said. “We’re not hiding anything. This is no smoking gun. This is something that both parties had full knowledge of during the 15-day window after Election Day.”

She said the process “was highly scrutinized by party observers during this time, and it is absolutely ridiculous that they waited to politicize this process five months after the election. There were no requests by the dozens of party observers to change procedures during the time these ballots were handled.”

Sheryl Moss, certification-and-training-program manager for the secretary of state, said neither state nor federal law prohibits opening provisional-ballot envelopes before voters’ eligibility is determined.

Provisional ballots have less secrecy than other ballots, Moss said, because election workers are required to verify that the voter’s votes are counted only for candidates or issues he or she is eligible to vote on.

Of course, GOPolitburo Chair Chris Vance isn’t mollified:

“There’s no good possible explanation for it,” Vance said.

Um… there is a good explanation for it, and both Egan and Moss gave it. The envelopes were opened according to procedure and law, under the scrutiny of observers from both parties. For Vance to imply that there is something shady about this, is to imply fraud… and that is exactly what that shameless, lying bastard is implying.

Well… prove it.

But then, while Republicans have quite skillfully hurled allegations, actually proving things isn’t exactly their strong suit. No wonder Dino Rossi’s attorneys filed a brief yesterday in Chelan County, in which they make the absurd contention that when it comes to their suspect list of alleged felons, the burden should fall on the Democrats to prove that they are not illegal voters… an argument so outrageous, you’d think Stefan was leading their legal team. (And why not… he’s a self-proclaimed expert at everything else.)

In any case, such a contention is wholly unsupported by RCW 29.A.08.810, which clearly states:

Registration of a person as a voter is presumptive evidence of his or her right to vote at any primary or election, general or special.

And Judge Bridges further enunciated this basic principle — that the burden of proof falls on the challengers — when he stated:

Our Supreme Court has observed that election officers are presumed to have complied with the duties required of them in an honest and careful manner. That was the Quigley case. And also in Quigley the Court noted that the returns of any election official are entitled to the presumption of regularity….

Perhaps his attorneys and party officials misled Rossi into believing he actually stood a chance of prevailing in court, but whatever his personal motivation, his surrogates have clearly been more focused on the public relations battle than the legal one.

Anybody who has ever worked on the giving or receiving end of a well-planned PR campaign can see that the steady stream of GOP allegations and photo ops are part of an ambitious strategy to consistently hit a weekly news cycle. Sometimes they are fortunate to have real news fill the gap — like the 94 uncounted absentee ballots — but most of the media flaps have been entirely manufactured. Slade Gorton making an ass out of himself demanding a criminal investigation… accusations that Cheryl Scott can’t be trusted because she’s (gasp) contributed to Democrats in a heavily Democratic state… mock outrage over provisional ballot envelopes Republican observers quietly watched being opened five months ago… these have all been neatly penciled in on a media calendar pinned to the cubicle wall of some Rossi PR consultant.

I have no doubt that early on, blinded by an irrational fear and hatred of “the other,” some GOP operatives actually believed that if they looked hard enough, they would surely find conclusive evidence of a stolen election. But that hope has long since faded for all but the most faithful rank and file. What started as specific charges of Democratic corruption and disenfranchised military voters has gradually morphed into the vague and inchoate message that the election was a “total mess.”

The Republican propaganda machine attempts to paint this Jackson Pollock like image of an election gone awry, by splattering allegations here, or revealing them in dribs and drabs there. But to have a complete and accurate picture of this election, it must be remembered that no matter how many errors are discovered, on however many different occasions — and no matter how torturously long and twisted is the public narrative revealing these errors — they all occurred during the same 15-day period, under the intense scrutiny of the media, and observers from both parties.

It may fuel the Republican PR campaign to focus on when the errors were discovered or revealed to the public. But the only questions that really matter are: How many errors occurred? Did they change the outcome of the election? How did they happen? And how can we prevent them in the future?

Everything else is bullshit.

The “privilege” of paying taxes

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It’s refreshing to see at least one business group that doesn’t take the responsibility of being an upstanding corporate citizen, lying down. The Nevada Brothel Association has asked lawmakers for the “privilege of participating” in the state tax system.

George Flint, a lobbyist for the state’s 28 legal bordellos is pushing hard for a bill that would impose a 10 percent tax on food and drink served in the brothels, plus a $2-per-customer fee. The bill would add about $1.6 million a year to state coffers.

”I know there are some of you that have philosophical problems, and maybe moral problems (with prostitution). I hope you can look beyond that and see the overall good that can be accomplished.”

I apologize if I have in the past unfairly maligned corporate whores.

Miami-Dade may junk touch-screen voting machines that lost votes

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As the Washington Legislature continues to debate election reform in the wake of the our gubernatorial hoo-hah, they should keep in mind this cautionary tale from yesterday’s Miami Herald:

Three years after spending $24.5 million to install a controversial touch-screen voting system, Miami-Dade County elections officials have been asked to study scrapping the system in favor of paper-based balloting.

The request from County Manager George Burgess follows the recent resignation of Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan and the revelation that hundreds of votes in recent elections hadn’t been counted.

What was it Slippery Slade said about King County clearly having “the worst election administration” in the nation?

Miami-Dade is considering whether optical scan technology — like that used in King County — might produce more accurate results at a lower cost. (Caltech/MIT concludes optical scan is more accurate.) County officials say the electronic machines have tripled election day costs.

”It’s a confluence of bad facts,” said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, head of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition and a longtime critic of the elections department. “You have lousy technology that doesn’t inspire voter confidence combined with outrageous costs for that lousy technology.”

Burgess’ April 4 directive came just days after Kaplan resigned amid revelations that a coding glitch in the county’s iVotronic touch-screen machines tossed out hundreds of votes in six recent elections.

A “coding glitch,” huh. While the word “glitch” implies that these errors were unintentional, the St. Petersburg Times reported last week that a computer programmer who claims he developed software to alter the results on electronic voting machines, has passed a lie detector test, administered by the retired chief polygraph operator for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Clint Curtis swore in an affidavit, and testified before a congressional sub-committee, that he developed the software at the request of U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Florida).

The Times reporter is clearly skeptical, but the allegations are taken much more seriously by a local blog that has been covering the story in great detail. (Sound familiar?) I don’t have an opinion one way or the other, but the allegations of fraud and conspiracy sound at least as plausible as those coming from the aluminum hat boys over on (u)SP. And they certainly deserve being looked into in light of the allegations of illegal vote shifting on Snohomish County’s electronic voting machines.

Anyway, what we do know is that electronic voting machines have been proven to be error prone, and none in Washington state currently provide a voter verifiable paper trail.

Republicans want to ram election reforms through now, while the politics are hot, but I hope we take the time to learn not only from our own mistakes during the last election, but also from the mistakes of election officials in other states. In the words of Miami-Dade County Commissioner Katy Sorenson: “Sometimes, lessons are expensive.”

Progressive Majority gets local

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One of the more encouraging recent developments in Washington politics was the opening of a state chapter of Progressive Majority, an organization dedicated to developing a local “farm team” of liberal candidates. It’s great to see a progressive group with such a pragmatic mission… and the money to back it up.

In the current issue of the Seattle Weekly, George Howland Jr. profiles Progressive Majority, and it’s Washington state director, Dean Nielsen. Nielsen argues that Democrats have to get busy, even in this off-election year.

“If we have any hope of taking back congressional seats,” says Nielsen, “we have to start at the local level.” Seventy-five percent of the members of Congress were once locally elected officials

I love America

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I get a lot of nasty comments and emails accusing me of a lot of nasty things. So a big thanks to John for passing along this link to a diary on Daily Kos that pretty much sums up my response: “Message to any winger trolls.”

Liberals do not, DO NOT, NOT hate America. Fuck you if you think that. Fuck you if you think we should all be deported to Russia, or France, or even Canada. Nothing against Canada, or, hey, even France or Russia, but this is my home, just like it’s the home of millions and millions of other progressives who are not traitors, who aren’t America-haters.

Progressives and liberals DO NOT want the terrorists to win.

We DO NOT hate the troops.

We DO NOT hate the rich.

We DO NOT hate life.

We DO NOT want to turn you gay, or wipe out your religion, or make you have an abortion.

So stop saying it. And fuck you if you do, fuckers.

(Okay, maybe I wouldn’t mind turning JCH or Cynical gay… that’d be kind of funny.)

Read the whole thing.

Police state

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According to policy testimony, Dennis Kyne put up such a fight when he was arrested protesting the Republican National Convention last summer, that it took four police officers to drag him down the steps of the NY Public Library.

“We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed,” the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. “I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own.” […] But one day after Officer Wohl testified, and before the defense called a single witness, the prosecutor abruptly dropped all charges.

During a recess, the defense had brought new information to the prosecutor. A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints.

(10 to 1 prosecutors don’t file perjury charges against Officer Wohl.)

The New York Times reports that video evidence from the proliferation of lightweight cameras in the hands of eyewitnesses have directly led to the dismissal of charges against 400 of the 1,806 people arrested that week. In fact, of the 1,670 cases that have run their full course, 91 percent have ended with charges dismissed or a not guilty verdict.

Among them was Alexander Dunlop, who said he was arrested while going to pick up sushi.

Last week, he discovered that there were two versions of the same police tape: the one that was to be used as evidence in his trial had been edited at two spots, removing images that showed Mr. Dunlop behaving peacefully. When a volunteer film archivist found a more complete version of the tape and gave it to Mr. Dunlop’s lawyer, prosecutors immediately dropped the charges and said that a technician had cut the material by mistake.

Technical error. Yeah, right.

What we saw in the streets of NYC during the GOP Convention were the birth pangs of a nascent police state. Hundreds of peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders were herded like sheep, arrested, jailed, falsely accused, and prosecuted… all for having the temerity of trying to disrupt a presidential photo-op with a display of their First Amendment rights.

Mayor Bloomberg and his police officials proudly point to the relative lack of physical violence in which they indiscriminately swept crowds off the streets… but when we allow the Constitution to be so casually bloodied, how long before real blood flows through the gutters?

Timmy the “tab creep” strikes again

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You’ve got to give him credit… initiative monger Tim Eyman has finally come up with a bold new idea, guaranteed to shake up the political establishment: $30 car tabs.

Sure, Tim ran a $30 car tabs initiative in 1999 (I-695) and again in 2002 (I-776)… but this one is totally different because, um… well… it’ll have a completely different number. As the French say, “plus ca change, plus c’est le meme chose” (Translation: “Tim Eyman is a horse’s ass.”)

Tim called up David Ammons of the AP today to give him the scoop (a savvy PR move, considering nobody shows up for Tim’s press conferences anymore.) Tim plans to run an initiative to the legislature mandating $30 car tabs. It would block the Legislature from imposing a proposed $5 to $25 weight fee, and would eliminate the local MVET option currently levied for the Seattle Monorail and Sound Transit.

Tim railed against what he calls “tab creep” since the passage of I-695.

“This is the most arrogant and disrespectful attitude toward the voters. It’s like having children who are constantly trying to test you,” Eyman said.

Uh… local voters approved both the Monorail and Sound Transit’s Light Rail, and it is Tim who is being arrogant and disrespectful by calling us children. Personally, I think Tim is the “tab creep;” as one Eyman critic said, he seems to have some sort of $30 car tab fetish:

Eyman critic David Goldstein, a Seattle blogger and software designer, called the new initiative a tantrum by a sponsor who has gotten too caught up in his own myth.

“He’s making a fetish out of $30 tabs,” Goldstein said in an interview. “It’s his personal ego. And it’s bad public policy. It shows his disregard for local control. It’s another statewide initiative to prevent us in Seattle and King County from building the kind of infrastructure we want and need.

“Here’s the guy who’s against centralized government and for voter control who is now essentially railing against local control.”

Oh wait… that was me. How meta.

I could have been pithier, but the point stands… this initiative isn’t about taxes or public policy or respecting the will of the people… it’s about Tim. He built his career on $30 car tabs, and any tinkering with them he takes as a personal affront. But if he thinks he can simply slap tail fins on this old buggy and ride it to victory at the polls, he’s got another thing coming.

Tim traditionally relies on Eastern Washington for much of his support, but nobody has felt the pain of I-695 more than the residents of rural towns, many of which are on the verge of bankruptcy as a result. And voters have made it clear they want the kinds of non-asphalt transportation projects that only “flexible funding” can finance (the state Constitution limits gas tax spending to roads and car ferries.)

If Timmy really wants another winner, he’s going to have to get a little more creative. Could a $20 car tab initiative be far on the horizon?

EFF: Do as I say, not as I do

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EFF fundraising letter sent to dead person

The excerpt above comes from a fundraising letter the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) recently sent out to Washington residents, decrying our state “as the place you can vote from the grave” or “if you are a resident of another state.” The EFF’s solution? Purge the voter rolls and make everybody re-register:

Each of us who wants to vote must be able to prove that we are a non-felon, American citizen, with a legal residence. And we must still have a pulse when we vote!

(Emphasis theirs.)

Hmmm. Um… before the EFF pontificates to state and local elections officials about how to clean up their lists, perhaps the EFF should try cleaning up their own. The fundraising letter was forwarded to me by a faithful reader, along with an angry cover letter addressed back to EFF President Bob Williams:

I find it incredibly ironic that your organization so concerned with cleaning up the election process in the state of Washington is sending mail to dead people.

I received a letter addressed to a Mr. Harald R. Lellelid, [address excised] on March 3, 2005. This person has been dead for nearly five years. Furthermore he has never lived at this address. He resided in Oregon, but as the executor of this estate I transferred all of his mail to my address in Seattle.

That’s right… the EFF’s targeted profile of outraged Washington voters includes deceased Oregonians.

In case you’re wondering, Harald did not receive a ballot this past November… which I suppose can be attributed to the fact that the EFF was not running the election.

Clearly, this error proves that the EFF’s research is “totally messed up.”

Eyman should pay campaign treasurer’s fines

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Ooops… I almost forgot to stick it to Tim Eyman:

Tim Eyman and his treasurer created a sham corporation in 2000 to hide salary payments to the Mukilteo initiative king, a Snohomish County judge ruled Friday.

The Everett Herald reports that Timmy’s former treasurer, Suzanne Karr, was ruled to have participated in a deliberate attempt to circumvent state disclosure laws (hmmm… that’s a “conspiracy” isn’t it?) Guilty of six specific public disclosure violations, Karr could face up to $22,000 in fines, plus court costs and legal fees.

Which is kind of a bummer for her, considering that while Tim was secretly growing fat on diverted contributions, Karr didn’t take a dime for herself. Indeed, she was the one who tipped off the media after Tim continued to publicly deny he was making money off his initiative campaigns.

Karr, who was in tears after the ruling, said the state once offered to settle with her for a $2,500 fine, but she “couldn’t do it because I didn’t do anything wrong.” Hmmm. While she didn’t personally profit from her actions, she obviously did do something wrong (you know… violate the disclosure laws,) and some sort of penalty is called for.

For is part, Timmy settled out of court a couple years ago, agreeing to $53,000 in penalties and a permanent ban on handling political action committee money. Considering he paid himself about $250,000 through his sham corporation (with Karr’s help,) and raised over $100,000 in unregulated contributions to his “legal defense fund,” I’d say he got a pretty sweet deal.

If Tim were to take full responsibility for his actions… if he were a gentleman… if he were a mensch… Tim would pay Karr’s penalty and court costs out of his own pocket.

It’s the least he can do for the individual who was perhaps most personally victimized by his selfish, fraudulent, shameless scheme to secretly enrich himself on campaign funds.

The truth can be told in many ways

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“All of us at ‘The Daily Show’ very much appreciate the Peabody Committee’s recognition of our work,” Mr. Stewart said in a statement released by the show. “Because this is the first time we’ve ever released a statement, we’d also like to, just for the hell of it, categorically deny all charges and say that we find them both scurrilous and without merit.”

Yes, for the second straight presidential election, “The Daily Show”, Comedy Central’s satirical fake news show, has won a prestigious Peabody Award for its election coverage. Tom Goldstein, the director of the mass communications program at the University of California, Berkeley, said the award should come as no surprise:

“Jon Stewart is extraordinarily important phenomenon,” he said, adding, “The truth can be told in many ways – journalistically, through satire – and he does a brilliant job of expressing the truth his way.”

So for those of you who say I need to be more serious if I want to be taken seriously… screw you.

Horse’s BLEEP

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I just watched this week’s edition of Up Front With Robert Mak, featuring Stefan and myself. Not quite as exciting as the sudden death playoff in the Masters Tournament going on simultaneously over on channel 7 (Tiger won,) but I suppose it serves as a reasonable introduction to local political blogging for people who have been living in a hole. In case you missed it, the show will be rebroadcast tonight on KONG-16 at 10:30 pm, or you can stream it online from the KING-5 website.

Please remember that my few minutes of airtime were distilled from a two-hour interview in which I didn’t just talk about Stefan and the election. And while I have few complaints about being taken out of context, I want to assure everybody that I’m not quite so arrogant about my role in the election contest PR war as I probably came across. Many, many other blogs have contributed to the effort, including some great research and analysis from Also Also and Preemptive Karma. And I didn’t mean to entirely dis the media efforts of the state Democratic Party, the Gregoire campaign, and their surrogates, but lets face it… as far as PR goes, the Dems got their asses kicked.

Oh… and there was one thing that really pissed me off: they refused to say my domain name, going so far as to intentionally obscure it on screen. I was particularly surprised to hear them bleep the word “ass” in an old clip from the initiative campaign, which originally aired unbleeped, “ass” intact.

I’m proud of my brand, and don’t intend to drop it. But I clearly need to come up with an alternative domain name that won’t scare off the media cowards/puritans. Any suggestions?

UPDATE:
A couple people have asked about Robert Mak’s statement that I count my visitors in the hundreds. I generally do not reveal my web stats, but I believe what I said was that I have several hundred comments a day. My traffic is admittedly less than (u)SP’s, but it is certainly more than a couple hundred.

Social Security: America’s largest children’s program

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In his commentary this morning on Weekend Edition, NPR news analyst Daniel Schorr highlighted a fact that has been glossed over by the Bush Administration in its push for private accounts: one-third of Social Security beneficiaries are not retirees… and many of them are children.

Social Security is more than just an old-age pension fund, it is a family insurance program… the primary, if not only source of support preventing low income families from falling into poverty. Citing statistics from the National Center for Children in Poverty, Schorr points out that Social Security is in fact the largest children’s program America has:

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