Target Centermass

Category: Politics

  • Looking Around at the News

    Feds: Science paper a terrorist’s road map

    The federal government has asked the National Academy of Sciences not to publish a research paper that feds describe as a “road map for terrorists” on how to contaminate the nation’s milk supply.

    The research paper on biological terrorism, by Stanford University professor Lawrence M. Wein and graduate student Yifan Liu, provides details on how terrorists might attack the milk supply and offers suggestions on how to safeguard it.

    The paper appeared briefly May 30 on a password-protected area of the National Academy of Science’s Web site.

    […]

    The paper “is a road map for terrorists and publication is not in the interests of the United States,” HHS Assistant Secretary Stewart Simonson wrote in a letter to the science academy chief Dr. Bruce Alberts.

    The paper gives “very detailed information on vulnerability nodes” in the milk supply chain and “includes … very precise information on the dosage of botulinum toxin needed to contaminate the milk supply to kill or injure large numbers of people,” Simonson wrote.

    Obviously, more thought is needed by a great many on how not be our own worst enemy. The Information Superhighway needs a few more common sense speedtraps.

    Grandmother of 80 accused of running call girls

    An 80-year-old woman who shuffles around her home with a zimmer frame and an oxygen tank has been charged with running a prostitution business.

    Vera Tursi ran an “escort” business from her two-bedroom flat in Lindenwold, New Jersey – taking telephone calls from clients and sending out girls to meet them.

    Police said they suspected Mrs Tursi’s age when they spoke to her on the phone during an undercover operation. She could be heard catching her breath and used old-fashioned language.

    In her defense, at least … well … I’ve got nothing. This is just creepy. Maybe it could be used as an argument for Social Security reform.

    Election 2004: Election is finally over

    Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire now has a full four-year term to finish serving as governor. For Republicans, the 2004 election is over.

    For Washington voters, yesterday’s court ruling means a chance to see whether Gregoire can sustain the remarkably strong leadership she displayed during the first legislative session. There’s no reason for overconfidence: Early in his governorship, Gary Locke looked like he might be on his way toward large accomplishments and even national office.

    Voters also have an opportunity to demand changes in slipshod election procedures brought to light by the examination of Gregoire’s narrow victory over Republican Dino Rossi. Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges said the “voters of this state are in a position to demand” improvements.

    Rossi could have pursued an appeal to the Washington Supreme Court. That was his right, and until now, we have fully supported his exercise of legal avenues to contest the election.

    After the clear ruling from a respected jurist, however, it finally came time for Rossi to order an end to the legal expense and arguments. His decision to walk away from a last-ditch fight was right. But he spoiled his moment of grace with a cheap shot, claiming the “political makeup of the Washington state Supreme Court” would not allow him to prevail on appeal.

    Old-time Chicago-style pizza — good. Old-time Chicago-style politics in the state of Washington — bad. The state’s election system needs desperate work.

    Man Arrested in Ariz. for Ricin Possession

    A man was being held Monday on a charge of possessing the deadly poison ricin, but authorities said they do not think he had any connection to terrorism.

    Casey Cutler, 25, told authorities he carried the poison in vials around his neck to use as a possible weapon, according to a criminal complaint. He said he had been attacked last year by three men while walking to his apartment, and that he intended to use the ricin in self-defense if attacked again, the complaint said.

    Cutler, of Mesa, faces a maximum of life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted on the single count of producing and possessing a deadly toxin for use as a weapon.

    Might I also suggest a psych eval?

    We do not need urgent reforms, says Syrian leader

    Ignoring international pressure and rising domestic frustration, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian President, failed yesterday to announce broad and imminent reforms as he opened an eagerly awaited conference of the ruling Baath party.

    In an address lasting barely ten minutes, Mr Assad told the 1,250 delegates: “We are convinced the ideas and precepts of the Baath party are still of relevance and respond to the interests of the people and the nation in its desire for unity, freedom, justice and development.”

    For the six Syrian opposition activists — middle-aged businessmen, engineers and former army officers — who had gathered in a smoke-filled office to watch the speech on television, Mr Assad’s address was predictable and disappointing.

    “The President has no vision, no programme and said nothing about the suffering of the Syrian people,” one man, who, like his colleagues, declined to be identified, said. “That’s why I’m not optimistic that this congress will produce anything.”

    Sometimes one is to close too to the water, too tied to the moment or the past to notice a shift in tides. Events in the Middle East are threatening to flood a Syria hoping to return to its domination of Lebanon and bloodily hold back history in Iraq. A two-front war against the future may well be too much for Assad. At least the terrorists of Hezbollah still like him. Speaking of which …

    Hezbollah Ticket Sweeps Elections in Southern Lebanon

    In the second stage of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, a pro-Syrian coalition, led by the militant group, Hezbollah, won all 23 seats at stake in the southern region where voting was held Sunday. The results in the south were in stark contrast to the result of the previous Sunday’s voting in Beirut, where a ticket headed by the anti-Syrian opposition parties swept all the seats at stake in and around the capital.

    Unsurprisingly, round two stood directly against the path of the Cedar Revolution.

  • The Koran, the Gulag and the Military

    My apologies in advance for this long posting comprised mostly of quotes, but I wanted to handle these three stories together. For some reason, I think they just flow into each other to form a greater narrative.

    US details Guantanamo ‘mishandling’ of Koran

    The U.S. military for the first time on Friday detailed how jailers at Guantanamo mishandled the Koran, including a case in which a guard’s urine splashed onto the Islamic holy book and others in which it was kicked, stepped on and soaked by water.

    U.S. Southern Command, responsible for the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, described five cases of “mishandling” of a Koran by U.S. personnel confirmed by a newly completed military inquiry, officials said in a statement.

    In the incident involving urine, which took place this past March, Southern Command said a guard left his post and urinated near an air vent and “the wind blew his urine through the vent” and into a cell block.

    It said a detainee told guards the urine “splashed on him and his Koran.” The statement said the detainee was given a new prison uniform and Koran, and that the guard was reprimanded and given duty in which he had no contact with prisoners.

    Southern Command said a civilian contractor interrogator, who was later fired, apologized in July 2003 to a detainee for stepping on his Koran. In August 2003, prisoners’ Korans became wet when night-shift guards threw water balloons in a cell block, the statement said. In February 2002, guards kicked a prisoner’s Koran, it added.

    Note the dates there. We’re discussing isolated incidents, few and far between. I’ll be honest, though — I would like more details on the water balloon story.

    In the fifth “confirmed incident” of mishandling a Koran, Southern Command said a prisoner in August 2003 complained that “a two-word obscenity” had been written in English in his Koran. Southern Command said it was “possible” a guard had written the words but “equally possible” the prisoner himself had done but they did not offer any explanation of his possible motive.

    […]

    [Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of the Guantanamo prison,] Hood said there were four additional incidents of “alleged mishandling” of the Koran that “we cannot determine conclusively if they actually happened.”

    “Mishandling a Koran at Guantanamo Bay is a rare occurrence. Mishandling of a Koran here is never condoned,” Hood said.

    No flushing. None. Minimal abuse of the Islamic holy text. Allegations investigated at each occurrence and action taken.

    In retrospect, these detainees are being treated in a perhaps unprecedented manner for their deserved non-POW status. Their faith is being respectfully honored and Newsweek’s allegations should never have gone to print as fact and cost lives.

    Amnesty Chief: ‘Gulag’ Not the Best Analogy

    The American head of Amnesty International admits his group did not pick the best analogy when it compared detainee conditions at Guantanamo Bay to the Soviet-era “gulag” forced-labor system.

    “There are only about 70,000 in U.S. detention facilities, and to the best of our knowledge, they are not in forced labor, they are not being denied food. But there are some analogies between the gulags and our detention facilities,” William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in an interview with FOX News.

    Sure, and there are some analogies to be made between gulags and an unwilling child’s being forced to go off to summer camp. That doesn’t mean they make for valid points in public discourse.

    “The U.S. is running an archipelago of detention facilities — many of them secret facilities — around the world and people in those are being disappeared into them … they are being held incommunicado.”

    Amnesty International recently slammed the United States’ treatment of terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba. In its latest worldwide report, Amnesty International angered many U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, with its gulag analogy. President Bush called claims of improper detainee treatment “absurd.”

    “It’s an absurd allegation,” Bush said in the White House Rose Garden this week. “The United States is a country that … promotes freedom around the world. When there’s accusations made about certain actions by our people, they’re fully investigated in a transparent way. It’s just an absurd allegation.”

    Bush said “every single complaint” regarding those detained is investigated.

    “It seemed like to me they [Amnesty International] based some of their decisions on the word of — and the allegations — by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble — that means not tell the truth,” the president added. “And so it was an absurd report. It just is.”

    While U.S. officials admit there have been sporadic cases of questionable treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, they say it’s not at all widespread or of the magnitude Amnesty International claims. To refute that, Amnesty International on Thursday said officials should just open the doors of the detention center to humanitarian workers so they can see for themselves.

    Did you catch that? Well, let me translate it for you:

    We know you’re doing wrong. We have no way of proving it, but we’ll say it until you give us a chance to disprove it.

    That’s a pretty shabby approach for an international organization with such lofty endeavors.

    Maybe they should be slapped around a little more for the gulag reference.

    During a press briefing this week, Rumsfeld noted that most would define a “gulag” as where the Soviet Union kept millions of forced labor concentration camps “or where Saddam Hussein mutilated and murdered untold numbers because they held views unacceptable to his regime.”

    “To compare the United States and Guantanamo Bay to such atrocities cannot be excused,” he said. “Free societies depend on oversight and they welcome informed criticism, particularly on human rights issues. But those who make such outlandish charges lose any claim to objectivity or seriousness.”

    He added that “no force in the world has done more to liberate people … than the men and women of the United States military” and called Amnesty International’s allegations “reprehensible.”

    Not bad, but let’s back it up with someone who actually knows the stupidity of the analogy. How about Natan Sharansky, who actually suffered for his beliefs at the hands of the Soviets?

    Sharansky argued that Amnesty International compromises its work by refusing to differentiate “between democracies where there are sometimes serious violations of human rights and dictatorships where no human rights exist at all.”

    “This comparison between gulag and Soviet Union and United States of America, erases all these differences,” he said. “It makes moral equivalence between these two very different worlds and that’s unfortunately very a typical, systematical, mistake of Amnesty International.”

    I do not fault Amnesty International for pointing out what they feel are human rights violations; rather, I fault their manner of doing so, absent any frame of reference or sense of scope. By doing so, they impair their efforts against the great violators, undermine the efforts of minor offenders and damage their own reputation.

    Military Tops Public Confidence List in New Gallup Poll

    The American public has more confidence in the military than in any other institution, according to a Gallup poll released this week.

    Seventy-four percent of those surveyed in Gallup’s 2005 confidence poll said they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the military – more than in a full range of other government, religious, economic, medical, business and news organizations.

    The poll, conducted between May 23 and 26, involved telephone interviews with a randomly selected sample of 1,004 people 18 and older, Gallup officials said. Those surveyed expressed strong confidence in the military, with 42 percent expressing “a great deal” of confidence in the military and 32 percent, “quite a lot” of confidence. Eighteen percent said they have “some” confidence, 7 percent, “very little,” and 1 percent, “none.”

    Public confidence in the military jumped following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has remained consistently high, Gallup officials noted. The 2002 survey reflected a 13 percent increase in confidence in the military over the previous year’s poll. The public expressed a 79 percent high-confidence rate in the military in 2002, an 82 percent rate in 2003, and a 75 percent rate in 2004.

    Well, the dip in 2004 is easily accounted for with the Abu Ghraib abuses being repeatedly plastered all across the mainstream media. Underplayed or entirely omitted by the media’s coverage was that the military had announced an investigation months in advance of the “breaking” story. Just as was the case in the first story above about Koran abuse at Gitmo, the military was already correcting its issues long before the media came along to stir the pot. Maybe, just maybe, that’s the reason for the close of the story.

    The Gallup organization noted that public trust in television news and newspapers reached an all-time low this year, with 28 percent of responders expressing high confidence in them.

    The American military takes care of itself by policing its own. Generally, the public recognizes this despite attacks by the media and organizations like Amnesty International. Why is this so? Well, a large portion of the citizenry has had close relations with those who serve their country honorably. Few have personally had any positive contact with the media and have to rely on visible examples, such as Dan Rather’s crumbled and pathetic defense of the AWOL forgeries and the blood on the retracted hands of Newsweek.

  • Deep Throat Family Ready to Cash in on new Fame

    Pappy brought down a president, now the kinfolk are wanting the green.

    The family of W. Mark Felt, the former FBI official whose alter-ego “Deep Throat” remained in hiding for 30 years after bringing down a sitting president, appears ready to cash in on his new found fame.

    And if money is what they want, Felt’s family stands to reap a financial windfall, according to literary agents, who estimated Wednesday that a book deal could be worth up to $1 million.

    “That is assuming he has a compelling story to tell,” said Glen Hartley, president of Writer’s Representatives LLC, based out of New York. “A book could easily be valued in the six figures.”

    As news broke that Felt was indeed the secret source who guided two young Washington Post reporters as they uncovered the Watergate scandal, Felt’s family offered to sell family photographs – the first in an apparent flood of moneymaking opportunities.

    Felt’s role in the scandal, which forced the resignation of president Richard Nixon, surfaced in an article written for Vanity Fair by a family friend, San Francisco attorney John O’Connor.

    He wrote that Felt’s daughter Joan, who persuaded her 91-year-old father to go public as “Deep Throat,” lamented that the Post’s Bob Woodward would get all the credit – and profit – if Felt went to the grave with his secret.

    “We could make at least enough money to pay some bills like the debt I’ve run up for the kids’ education,” she told Felt, according to the article. “Let’s do it for the family.”

    Grab all the money while you can — you know what they say about fifteen minutes.

  • Deep Throat Steps Forth

    [NOTE: I really planned to ignore the Deep Throat crap until I stumbled across a little story from Iowa. Iowa — famous for a baseball field in the corn, dating Dean but marrying Kerry and … well … more corn.]

    And so ends the mystery.

    The legendary source “Deep Throat” in the Watergate scandal that brought down a president was identified Tuesday by Vanity Fair magazine and The Washington Post as W. Mark Felt.

    Felt, now 91, was the No. 2 official at the FBI in the early 1970s. The information he provided Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein helped them break many of the stories that led to the resignation of President Nixon in August 1974.

    The revelation ended more than three decades of speculation about Woodward and Bernstein’s famous confidential source in reporting on the cover-up by the Nixon White House following the bungled break-in of National Democratic Committee headquarters at the Watergate office-hotel complex in June 1972.

    Not with a bang, but with a yawn.

    The identity of Deep Throat, the source who leaked information about President Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal, often is cited as one of the 20th century’s greatest mysteries.

    However, Quad-City residents interviewed Tuesday are indifferent to the revelation that it is former FBI official W. Mark Felt.

    “Not too many years ago, I had a student come up to me and say, ‘Did that really happen?’,” said Ann Preston, journalism department chair at St. Ambrose University. “That student who said that would be close to 30 now. Younger adults, they see it more as urban legend than as history.”

    For some, the mystery behind Deep Throat is for another generation.

    I would suspect that more of the disinterest lies in the generational stance rather than the disbelieving stance. The days when this would have been a story with national legs are long past, especially without a big name being revealed.

    Josh Anderson, 23, of Rock Island, learned about Deep Throat in high school and college. He said the identity of Deep Throat and the scandal as a whole do not really matter today.

    University of Iowa sophomores Phil Young, of Davenport, and Allison Hildebrand, of Princeton, Iowa, said they also learned about Watergate in high school. However, they were unfamiliar with Deep Throat and the circumstances surrounding how the Watergate scandal broke.

    Eileen Benson, 68, of Bettendorf, remembers learning about Deep Throat but does not particularly think much of the revelation.

    “There are so many other problems in our world today that it’s not my top priority,” she said.

    For Preston, the disclosure that Deep Throat was Felt makes the mystery less interesting.

    “The mystique is gone; it also cuts out the hope that within that corrupt administration, there was somebody honest who was trying to the right thing in a backward way,” she said.

    Preston is right about the loss of mystique. The story is a yawner because that mystique was not replaced by substantial identity. However, the rest of Preston’s statement, her willingness to condemn an entire administration, will tie into my issue with Deep Throat, Watergate and the state of journalism shortly.

    Preston uses the book “All the President’s Men” in her classes to demonstrate journalism’s importance.

    The book, written by Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, recounts in detail the reporting surrounding the Watergate investigation.

    “I use it to show the insignificance, yet significance of the world of journalism,” she said. “In one of the scenes in the movie, it shows (Woodward and Bernstein) in the Library of Congress,” she added. “Two tiny guys with a stack of material; the camera pulls away from them to make them even more insignificant and tiny, yet they are the people who bring down the presidency.”

    You want to know why the yawn? It’s people like Preston, people who have tainted journalism ever since the Watergate days. Felt brings no glamour to the story. All the President’s Men had glamour; being a rebellious journalist racing after the truth had glamour.

    Before the Watergate story, journalism wasn’t about glamour. It was generally a trade of love for most involved, a craft devoted to getting the story right and doing it the best. The slant, the color, the opinion — that was the domain of the paper’s two editorial pages and not to enter the realm of any and every news story.

    Woodward and Bernstein did some solid journalism. They had a story and chased after it like my dog does a tennis ball. They were tenacious in their quest and in their research. They brought down a presidency.

    And therein lies the problem. The face of journalism was changed, as even Preston shows. The lesson to be learned should have been how they worked their story; instead, it became “they are the people who bring down the presidency.” Journalists could now be the story, if they could break the biggest tale, bring down the highest figure.

    This is the mentality that has hung over much of the mainstream media since the days of Deep Throat (the source, not the movie). Get there first, with the most damage, and hang onto the story with utmost determination. See, for example, CBS’s foul-up with the Bush-AWOL forgeries for an eagerness to be first and not relent, despite extremely inadequate research. See Newsweek’s Koran-flushing tale for the same eagerness. See the fact that the New York Times ran the Abu Ghraib story on the front page for 32 consecutive days for the misplaced doggedness. See the ever-growing distrust by the American public of a media, colored in the years since Deep Throat by a leftist nature still celebrating its ability to bring down a Republican administration and trying, always, to recapture that glory and the accolades that Woodward and Bernstein earned. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein may have been politically motivated to a degree, but their research was solid. Today, from journalism, we tend just to get the politically-motivated glory-hound aspect.

    Such are the final results of Watergate: a yawn at the end of a mystery, a media ever chasing the next Watergate, and the eternal damnation drilled into the public of a version of Richard M. Nixon, deserved in part as long as his accomplishments are not swept under the rug.

    And don’t get me started on all this “-gate” scandal-naming. Were Watergate to happen today, the trend is so ingrained in the collective media that the story would be labeled Watergategate. I’m freakin’ sick of it.

  • Security Council Expansion Proposed

    The nations of Brazil, Germany, India and Japan have unveiled their proposal for a large expansion of the United Nations Security Council, including more than doubling the number of permanent members.

    Japan, Brazil, Germany and India – known as the Group of Four nations – who are seeking permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council, presented a draft resolution Monday calling for the council’s expansion.

    The draft, unveiled at a meeting of representatives from about 70 countries, calls for the creation of an additional six permanent and four nonpermanent seats.

    The draft also states the new permanent members should be elected at the U.N. General Assembly, which should then adopt a revised U.N. Charter bearing the names of the newly elected members no later than two weeks after the vote.

    The four countries aim to have the resolution adopted by the end of June in the General Assembly and new permanent members to be elected in mid-July.

    Two-thirds of the 191 U.N. member countries – or at least 128 votes – must vote for the resolution at the General Assembly for it to be passed.

    Monday’s meeting, at Germany’s permanent representatives office in New York, aimed to explain the resolution and solidify support among the 70 or so countries believed to be in favor of the proposed expansion.

    With approximately 70 countries viewed at favoring UNSC expansion, I feel that enough momentum can be attained to garner the others needed if the proposal is put forth in a flexible, go-along-to-get-along manner. A strong argument in its favor is the current make-up of the permanent members of the council, with its strong European representation and lack of membership for South America, Africa and the Arab nations. The Group of Four are all deserving nations when judged on their populations, economic strengths, and prominence globally and in their respective regions. These four obviously aim to be among the six new permanent members, but one wonders which six would eventually attain the prize. Germany would only add to the Eurocentricism already present, Africa and the Arab nations still must be considered but have no obvious candidates, and at least two unnamed nations must be selected. Expect Italy, also desiring a seat, to push for a voice in this matter.

    Will the four nations go forward with enough flexibility to successfully manage passage? They will if they follow Japan’s lead.

    The latest draft, which the four countries initially had expected to finish in early May, was delayed by almost two weeks, mainly due to prolonged debate between India and Japan, according to sources.

    The sources said Japan and India had argued fiercely over the wording of the document as India insisted the new permanent members “shall have” the same veto rights as the so-called big five, while Japan supported a compromise under which new members “should have” veto rights.

    Japan feared a direct demand for veto rights would inevitably invite opposition from such countries as the United States.

    The current version states that the new permanent members “should” have the same “responsibilities and duties” as current permanent members.

    But Japan’s proposal to insert “in principle” to further weaken the demand for veto rights was omitted.

    Any new permanent nations should be happy with their constant presence on the council; expansion of the veto power would only serve to render the UNSC more hamstrung than it has already become. For that matter, though I expect it to pass in some form or other, I personally oppose this expansion. The greater the numbers involved in making a decision, the less likely a decision will be actually be made.

    If expansion must be, I would argue for the inclusion of Australia, Brazil, India and Japan. Heck, throw in Israel and Syria, give them both veto power, pick up a six-pack and tune in to watch the UN dismantle itself.

  • France Protests End of National Holiday

    The fundamental problem of socialism and communism in a nutshell: lack of personal incentive impairs the public ability to provide. Just ask the French.

    Teachers, transport workers and much of France ignored the government’s call to sacrifice a paid holiday to raise money for the elderly Monday — causing widespread disruption on a day meant to symbolize national unity.

    Public transport in up to 90 cities and towns across France was disrupted. Many city halls and classrooms were closed, post offices scaled back services because of striking employees and many private companies gave their staff the day off. Polls showed more than half of the leisure-loving French planned to stay home.

    The national “Day of Solidarity” — an extra work day in place of the annual Pentecost holiday — was part of the government’s response to a 2003 heat wave that killed 15,000 people, mostly elderly.

    Under a new law, workers give up a holiday, while their employers pay into a government fund to improve health care for the aged and handicapped. The extra day of work was expected to reap about $2.5 billion a year in additional revenue for health care.

    Many liked the idea of sacrificing for the greater good in the aftermath of the tragic heat wave. But in recent months, opposition to the plan became intermingled with discontent on issues ranging from high unemployment to budget cuts enacted by the unpopular Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

    “On Monday, the government is going to feel the backlash from a totally unilateral measure made against the advice of unions and seen by workers as unjust, ineffective and hypocritical,” said Maryse Dumas, the No. 2 official at the communist-backed CGT union.

    […]

    As for the day of solidarity — front pages declared it a failure.

    “Pentecost: The Black Monday of Operation Solidarity,” read Le Figaro’s banner headline. The paper called the chaos a “social and political test for the government” as Chirac seeks to win a “yes” vote in France’s May 29 referendum on the EU constitution.

    Want a little more proof of the power of personal incentive?

    In Paris, bus and subway drivers were wooed to work with a special $125 bonus. It was one of few cities where the subway was running normally.

    There’s a little bit more evidence to add to the wealth history has already accumulated.

  • Voter Fraud Found in Milwaukee

    When there are more votes than registered voters, I feel quite free to remove the hedging “Possible” from the WaPo’s headline.

    About 4,500 more ballots than registered voters were cast in the election last November in Milwaukee, investigators said Tuesday.

    Also, more than 200 felons voted improperly in Milwaukee, and more than 100 instances of suspected double-voting were found.

    No charges have been filed. Investigators found no widespread conspiracy, just isolated incidents, U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic said.

    “I don’t think there’s an election in this municipality or this state that would have been decided differently even with those numbers,” said Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat.

    Democrat John Kerry received more than 71 percent of the 277,000 ballots cast in Milwaukee in the presidential race, and he took the state of Wisconsin by about 11,000 votes.

    The investigation was launched by local and federal authorities after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found, among other things, that more than 1,200 people voted from invalid addresses. The head of the city’s election commission has since resigned.

    Wisconsin allows same-day registration, and those who are already registered can simply show up at the polls without ID.

    Those lax election laws must certainly seem rather inviting to any wishing to steal an election or pad a few extra votes for insurance of a close victory.

    Boots and Sabers‘ Owen, a Wisconsin resident living near Milwaukee, has followed the story diligently for some time now and has today’s news covered here, here and here.

  • Repubs win Washington Gov. Election Challenge

    Did you think the 2004 election was over? Think again.

    A judge gave Washington state Republicans a victory on Monday that kept alive their legal challenge to last November’s razor-thin election win by Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire.

    Gregoire took office in January following a 129-vote margin of victory — the closest in a governor’s race in state history.

    Republican candidate Dino Rossi has refused to concede the race, which he won narrowly in the first count only to lose in a later, final recount.

    Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges has ruled Republicans can use what is known as “proportional analysis” in their legal argument to potentially take votes away from Gregoire.

    “That was a very good day in court for us,” said Mary Lane, Rossi’s spokeswoman. “If we had lost this, it would have been impossible to continue.”

    The trial in the Republicans’ lawsuit is scheduled for May 23.

    With the slim margin out of a total of 2.9 million votes, proportional analysis could tip the vote in either direction, since illegal votes, mostly from felons, would be subtracted from each candidate in the same proportion that votes were cast for them in each precinct.

    In the count after the election, illegal votes were disallowed in a way that took an equal number from each candidate.

    But in an example of proportional analysis used in court, if 10 improper votes in a precinct were found that went 60 percent for Gregoire and 40 percent for Rossi, she would lose six votes and he would lose four, instead of the votes being subtracted equally.

    Paul Berendt, the Democratic Party’s state chairman, said the ruling also helped Democrats, who will be allowed to present evidence in the trial of illegal voting that helped Rossi.

    Although I am extremely suspicious of Gregoire’s victory, I think it’s very safe to say that this matter is a long way from over.

  • Violence Mars Germany’s May Day

    Ah, I miss the pageantry of the martial May Day parades in Moscow. Instead, now it’s replaced by idiocy on parade in Germany.

    German riot police battled masked left-wing anarchists in Berlin and Leipzig on Sunday as sporadic violence once again marred May Day celebrations.

    About 100 people in the two cities were arrested, but police in Berlin said the extent of the damage was less extensive than in previous years.

    Throwing stones, bottles and signal rockets at police, a group of anarchists overturned a car in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district near the government quarter but were chased away by police before they could set it on fire.

    Kreuzberg — a Bohemian district populated with a mixture of immigrants, students and squatters — has been the scene of May Day violence for the past 18 years despite extensive prevention efforts by police.

    “We had predicted it would be quieter this year, but not completely without incident and that’s what’s happened,” a police spokesman said.

    The most tense moment came shortly before sunset on Sunday when a group of about 1,500 anarchists, many of them masked and wearing dark hoods, tried to march toward the Berlin headquarters of the Axel Springer publishing company.

    “Everything for everyone and everything for free,” they chanted.

    They were stopped by squads of riot police from getting closer than 150 yards to the building, where several conservative newspapers are published. About a dozen anarchists then tipped over a car and smashed its windows in front of photographers and journalists.

    “Everything has been peaceful up until now,” another police official said. “We had a few youths who got a bit over-excited and had too much to drink, but it’s calmed down again now.”

    After sunset, anarchists made another shortlived attack on police, hurling bottles and stones at police near a street festival.

    Ten were arrested in Berlin on Sunday evening after 65 were arrested late on Saturday and early Sunday.

    Earlier on Sunday, police in Leipzig turned water cannon on left-wing demonstrators who battled riot police. Thirty leftists were arrested for acts of violence to disrupt a court-approved march of 1,000 right-wing demonstrators.

    Everything for everyone and everything for free?!! These are not true principles of anarchy. Rather, this is the rallying cry of a bunch of spoiled babies coddled too long by a nanny state — kids fearing to face the competition of a successful and free capitalistic system. The world should be handed to them, doled out free of sacrifice or effort. Without a government, how would everything be freely distributed to everybody short of sheer and absolute theft which would, in turn, remove any incentive for an individual to be productive? With no government, no means to ensure goods are produced and distributed freely. With a government, no anarchy. These are not anarchists, but lazy socialists who dig the circle-A logo and the X Game approach to political displays.

    These fools are no better than the other deniers of human nature — the socialists that are dragging down the economies of Europe and the lingering communists still idealistically yearning for a workers’ paradise that could never truly be.

    Modern Europe needs some work before it’s again ready for an economically competitive real world.

  • A Look at the Day’s Stories

    Army Funding Running Low, Rumsfeld Warns

    Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has sent letters to congressional leaders urging them to pass the final 2005 budget supplemental bill before the Army runs out of operating funds.

    The Army has slowed its spending, so it can continue operations in Afghanistan and Iraq through early May when the funds are due to run out, Rumsfeld said.

    He sent the letters Wednesday, along with handwritten notes that read, “Our folks out there need these funds.”

    Rummy goes on to denounce draft ideas and to discuss armored leggings being evaluated.


    British Suspect Convicted in Attempted Missile Sale in U.S.

    A British businessman has been convicted in the United States of trying to sell anti-aircraft missiles to terrorists.

    The verdict against Hemant Lakhani was announced Wednesday in a New Jersey federal court. Lakhani now faces up to 25 years in prison at his sentencing hearing, scheduled for August 8.

    Hard to believe the moronic clown defense didn’t work. Lock up, lose key.

    Analysis: Victory is up to Iraqis

    Is the United States winning in Iraq? Yes, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says.

    “I think we’re definitely winning. I think we’ve been winning for some time,” said Gen. Richard Myers.

    His civilian boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, took a more circumspect view of the situation. The outcome of the war is up to the Iraqis.

    “Winning or losing is not the issue for ‘we,’ in my view, in the traditional conventional context of using the word winning and losing and of war,” Rumsfeld said Tuesday at a news conference. “The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis.”

    The story seems to give up hope of Iraq becoming the bright, shining city on the Arab hill that could serve to shake up the Arab world by offering an alternative to the environment that has allowed the radical Islamist view to fester. I still hold out that hope, as it is already starting to bear fruit in the region.

    Reagan Presidency Diaries to be Published

    “Each day during his eight years in the White House, Ronald Reagan recorded his innermost thoughts and observations in his personal diary,” adds Frederick J. Ryan, Jr., Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. “Although they were not initially intended for publication, we feel that these volumes offer an unprecedented insight into the Reagan Presidency.”

    This will be a must-freakin’-own. And I mean hardback. ‘Tis a shame an copy autographed by the author is out of the question. The world would be a better place were that still possible.

    Moussaoui Seeks Muslim Land Grave

    Moussaoui said that he wanted assistance in ensuring his burial in a Muslim land, otherwise “I will be buried in Arkansas or they don’t give a damn where”.

    Arkansas sounds just fine, pig.

    New Lebanese Government Calls Elections from May 29

    Lebanon’s new government won a confidence vote in parliament Wednesday and immediately called elections, the first without a Syrian military presence for 33 years, to start on May 29.

    The announcement, a day after Syria pulled its last soldiers and spies out of Lebanon after 29 years, means parliamentary polls will be held on time as demanded by the international community and Lebanon’s anti-Syrian opposition.

    The new cabinet, led by wealthy businessman Najib Mikati, won a ringing 109-1 endorsement from MPs in the 128-member chamber, with three abstentions.

    Interior Minister Hassan al-Sabaa then signed a decree for elections to begin on May 29, officials said. Parliament also extended by three weeks its own term, which expires on May 31.

    Some sources said there would be three rounds of voting — on May 29, June 5 and June 12. Others said there would be a fourth on June 19. Lebanon usually holds parliamentary polls staggered over several weekends as regions vote in turn.

    The Cedar Revolution came to a head. Now it’s come to a vote. Also, feel free to check out the Lebanese Freedom Babes, courtesy of Publius Pundit.

    Jaafari Includes Shia, Sunni Arabs and Kurds on Iraqi Cabinet List

    After weeks of damaging delays and political wrangling, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Iraqi’s prime minister-designate, yesterday confirmed that he had completed his cabinet list, which includes Shia, Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians.

    He declined to give details about who would head the 32 ministries, other than to confirm that a Sunni Arab would get the key post of defence. He said delays were due to efforts to include all parties in the government.

    “This government could have been concluded within a week by the two major coalitions [Shia and Kurd] but it is our commitment and desire to see that we have a conclusive government that will reach out to the one main [Sunni Arab] community that was not fairly represented in the elections,” Mr Jaafari said.

    Better late than never, especially if there’s any payoff for reaching out to the Sunnis, but better never late. Not when lives may depend on it and delay feeds the hopes of the terrorists.