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Saturday, August 12, 2006
Maryland election dates -- minus early voting, for now Primary election: September 12
(Prompted by 100Actions.com: Learn Your Election Deadlines.) ===== * Early voting in Maryland is illegal because the state's constitution allows only one day of voting, an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge ruled Friday. [...](Link added.) Wouldn't absentee ballots would be ruled out by the same logic? The State Board of Elections is proceeding with plans until the result of an appeal is known. But meanwhile Senate Majority leader Mike Miller shot down voter-verified electronic balloting, went for early voting, and as of now we've got neither. Brilliant! I guess this makes me one of those angry bloggers Lieberman Seizes on Terror Arrests to Attack Rival (New York Times): If we just pick up like Ned Lamont wants us to do, get out by a date certain, it will be taken as a tremendous victory by the same people who wanted to blow up these planes in this plot hatched in England.Cheney on Lieberman's primary defeat: The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.Where to begin? Well, there's this, from an article on page A1 of the Post: U.S. intelligence officials now identify the war in Iraq as the single most effective recruiting tool for Islamic militants.And this, in the New York Times: So therefore there's also this: the hell with you, Joe Cheney, and the hell with you, Dick Lieberman, for a shameless couple of stupid liars trying to scare people into voting for you again so you can make things even worse. The both of you always have been and always will be a couple of congenital screwups not worth trusting with a used tricycle, let alone this country's fate. If you actually believe any of your own spew, you're both even dumber and more delusional than I thought, and that's saying something. And if you don't, you're exactly the snakes I think you are. Either way, every day either of you actually have any power is another day this country is in danger because of you, not despite you. And in conclusion, the hell with you some more. Friday, August 11, 2006
Point-counterpoint on world affairs Richard Holbrooke, Washington Post, 8/10/06, "The Guns of August": Two full-blown crises, in Lebanon and Iraq, are merging into a single emergency. A chain reaction could spread quickly almost anywhere between Cairo and Bombay. Turkey is talking openly of invading northern Iraq to deal with Kurdish terrorists based there. Syria could easily get pulled into the war in southern Lebanon. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are under pressure from jihadists to support Hezbollah, even though the governments in Cairo and Riyadh hate that organization. Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of giving shelter to al-Qaeda and the Taliban; there is constant fighting on both sides of that border. NATO's own war in Afghanistan is not going well. India talks of taking punitive action against Pakistan for allegedly being behind the Bombay bombings. Uzbekistan is a repressive dictatorship with a growing Islamic resistance.President Bush, 8/7/06, Crawford, Texas: It's one of the interesting debates of the 21st century, I think, that some would be willing to say it's okay for people not to live in a free society [...]  Security theater Schwarzenegger orders deployment of National Guard troops, Mark Martin, San Francisco Chronicle: Three hundred National Guard troops were deployed Thursday to airports in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles as state and local officials ramped up security measures around California in response to the arrests of suspected terrorists accused of plotting to blow up airplanes headed from Britain to the United States. [...]Security theater: Security theater has been defined as ostensible security measures which have little real influence on security [while] being publicly visible and designed to show that action is taking place. Security theater has been related to and has some similarities with superstition.Via Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who points out: As if the British had caught these guys by confiscating their toothpaste at Heathrow. In fact, from what we’re told, it appears this plot was rolled up by the traditional method, which is to say, weeks and months of hard slogging police work. Thursday, August 10, 2006
Raskin, Ruben, and "real Democrats" Yesterday I got yet more campaign mail from State Senator Ida Ruben's campaign. This one got my attention: it charged "Jamie Raskin: He's not even a real Democrat." Ruben's mailing said "Check the facts." So I did. I don't doubt that Raskin's site already has or will have a rebuttal of its own, but here's my independent one. As ever, full disclosure: I'm a Raskin supporter. --- The "evidence" for the Ruben campaign's allegation takes the form of three court cases Raskin has helped prepare or issue amicus curiae briefs for -- Perot et al v. FEC et al (1996), National Committee of the Reform Party of the United States of America et al v. Democratic National Committee et al (1999), and Scheidler et al v. National Organization for Women et al (2003).* In his capacity as an attorney, Raskin worked on behalf of Ross Perot, Perot's "Reform" Party, and Scheidler, respectively. The first two cases center on a third party's entitlement to equal treatment by the FEC -- could Ross Perot expect to be included in presidential debates, and was his party entitled to damages for alleged major party misconduct -- while the third deals with whether an anti-abortion group can be charged with racketeering for its protests near abortion clinics. While Raskin's side lost the first two cases, his side won the Scheidler case with a decisive 8-1 Supreme Court majority. While the specifics of each case are interesting, I think the main point here is that Raskin was doing an important job for democracy in each case: asserting the legal and Constitutional rights of a client in federal court. If that's beyond the pale for a "Democrat", the party ought to change its name to something else -- perhaps "Equal Rights For Us But Not For Them Party." Of course nobody forced Raskin to involve himself in any of these cases. I think he did so because in each case, there were fundamental issues at stake that transcend partisan politics or legal tactics. There is nothing sacrosanct about the current two-party system -- if there were, there'd be some mention of it in the Constitution. There is nothing sacrosanct about a business's ability to conduct its affairs without interference of any kind -- if there were, the Greensboro sit-ins couldn't happen any more. Details on each case follow. Perot et al v. FEC et al Raskin was associated with Perot's team here. Perot was arguing that the FEC "unlawfully delegated legislative authority to a private, non-profit corporation, in violation of Article I of the Constitution," that corporation being the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). The occasion of the complaint was the CPD's decision that "since no candidate other than President Clinton or Senator Dole had a realistic chance of being elected, and that, therefore, only those candidates and their vice-presidential running mates, would be invited to participate in the debates." An FEC synopsis of the case suggests to me that Raskin's crusade against corporate contributions was already underway in this case, although the donations involved here were to the CPD. At any rate, that aspect of the case was no longer at issue in the decision Ruben cites. Now of course there's no getting around that Raskin was working on behalf of a third party here. My question is: so what? Some day, after all, it might be the Democratic Party on the outside looking in. (Hmm.) I should hope the Democratic Party is never reduced to having to block third party access to presidential debates. While I personally thought excluding Perot from the '96 debates was OK, I'm also quite sure I haven't given it as much thought as Raskin has. At any rate, even as a fairly partisan Democrat I certainly don't hold it against anyone that they would feel differently and argue the case. Reform Party et al v. Democratic National Committee et al "Et al" can conceal a lot of stuff. In this case, what the second one conceals is REPUBLICAN OPINION NATIONAL COMMITTEE; DOLE FOR PRESIDENT, INC.; STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY; STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY; FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION; DOLE/KEMP '96I.e., this wasn't a case against Democrats, it was one against Democrats and Republicans. As the court's decision (against Raskin's side) described it, This action raises a number of challenges to the two principal federal campaign finance laws: the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 ("FECA"), 2 U.S.C. SS 431-55, which limits contributions to and spending on federal election campaigns, and the Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act (the "Fund Act"), 26 U.S.C. SS 9001-13, which funds presidential campaigns according to the percentage of the vote their parties received in the prior election.Was Raskin's side right or wrong on the merits? I don't know; I guess they weren't, since they lost, but finding that out is what the courts are for. Was he wrong to help bring the case? Of course not. Was he acting against the Democratic Party? I suppose you could say so -- but then you ought to acknowledge that Republicans were defendants as well; this was work on behalf of a third party, pure and simple. If the two party system is part of the Democratic Party platform, this is the first I've heard of it. There's a related point of accuracy to be made here. While Raskin's presumably not happy about it, his side lost both these cases -- so Raskin has had nothing whatsoever to do with Democrats having "a hard time winning national elections lately," as Ruben's flier would have it. Moreover, even had Perot et al or the Reform Party et al won these cases, Ruben can't know that would have materially hurt the Democratic Party. Perot's presence at the debates probably would have made little difference to Clinton's handy victory in 1996. And both in 1996 and 2000, it's not clear to me whether a boost to Perot would have helped or hurt Democrats. At any rate, that's not a constitutional issue, and protecting the Constitution comes before calculations of partisan benefit. Scheidler et al v. National Organization for Women et al This one starts out a little touchier, but I think Raskin was right on the merits of the case. As the online court site" oyez.org" summarized it, the question was "Do abortion opponents, who protest at abortion clinics, commit extortion within the meaning of the Hobbs Act? May abortion supporters obtain injunctive relief in a civil action pursuant to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act?" [a.k.a. RICO -- ed.] From the "oyez.org" summary of the case: In an 8-1 opinion delivered by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Court held that abortion opponents did not commit extortion because they did not "obtain" property from the abortion supporters as required by the Hobbs Act. The Court further held that is first holding renders insufficient the other bases or predicate acts of racketeering supporting the jury's conclusion that the abortion opponents violated RICO.(Emphasis added.) Unlike the first two cases (as far as I can tell), it's possible to isolate particular arguments Raskin made in this one, which help show what his motivation might be for taking the case. While one may wish that abortion opponents were not as disruptive and harassing as they often are, I think that Raskin makes good points in his brief, for instance: Even the most minimal intrusions upon property interests -- those merely sufficient to give rise to a cognizable apprehension of loss of business -- would become predicate acts of "extortion" sufficient to subject protestors to federal racketeering judgments, since such conduct would deprive the business of an intangible right to operate free of disruption. The federal courts should not read a federal statute this broadly without clear authority from Congress.("Predicate acts" is a legal term of art under RICO.) For purposes of arguing with the Ruben campaign, the point here is that clearly Raskin is not standing with pro-life groups particular methods (or their stance on the right to choose abortion). Rather, he was arguing that the "racketeering" remedy was too broad, endangering even less disruptive tactics by any group protesting against a given business. No one was arguing that assault or trespass charges shouldn't be brought when appropriate. But racketeering charges are a serious and -- so the Supreme Court held -- an inappropriate escalation of legal firepower against such tactics. I'll bet J. Edgar Hoover would have loved to use RICO on the Greensboro sit-ins, or on civil rights activists "disrupting" businesses with their boycotts and marches. Conclusion Everyone can draw their own conclusions based on the facts about these cases, and on one's own convictions about what it means to be a Democrat -- and an American. For my part, I think that far from being a blemish on Raskin's record, his involvement in these cases tells me he's just the kind of Democrat I want: someone who defends all Americans' constitutional rights without fear or favor. I'd rather lose with that platform than win with its opposite. Maybe all's fair in love, war, and politics, but this mailing by the Ruben campaign was not their finest hour. ===== UPDATE, 8/10: Raskin campaign response, and separate explanation of Raskin's views on each case. From the campaign response: Ida Ruben owes an apology, not only to Jamie Raskin and his family, but to the many Democratic leaders and Democratic organizations that have endorsed Raskin's surging and positive campaign. In fact, Ruben owes an apology to all Montgomery County voters for defiling the political process, dividing the Democratic Party in this way and insulting our intelligence. Montgomery County voters are not stupid, and we expect much, much better from our public servants.Raskin on the Scheidler case: There is a difference between misdemeanors and felonies, and that difference is crucial for political protest and labor picketing to survive in America. I was not about to let us turn non-violent picketers into mobsters even if it meant intervening in a case where anti-choice zealots, whose politics I abhor, were the parties. You don’t pick and choose which cases go to the Supreme Court and you have to stand up for the principle involved. I would gladly do it again and am proud that we won.The writeups of the other cases are equally interesting, and should permanently put to rest any reasonable person's concerns. The Raskin campaign is urging people to mark the fliers "Return to Sender/No Negative Politics Accepted" and put them back in the mail. Wednesday, August 09, 2006
"We can't make it here any more" James McMurtry: There’s a Vietnam Vet with a cardboard signPeter Anderson video, McMurtry links via riggsveda. Seemed worth pairing up with "Wal-Mart: No Careers here", below. ===== UPDATE, 8/9: Jiminy Christmas -- USA Today, 8/8/06: Center for war-related brain injuries faces budget cut. Beyond belief. You know, those body bags they use are too expensive, too -- let's just buy those new Glad® ForceFlex™ bags ("with OdorShield ®") in bulk. Via Jim MacDonald ("Making Light"). Wal-Mart: No careers here I lifted that headline from WakeUpWalMart.com, which noted on Monday: ...Wal-Mart just announced to its workers that the long-term associates will never get another raise again, not even a penny.A related story illustrates the personal impact of that message. Touring in Ohio, a WakeUpWalMart bus passenger was approached by a man who "told us his wife had come home crying today from work": Guess where she worked? You guessed it, Wal-Mart. And, she had just had her in-store meeting to learn that she is now capped out and will never get a raise working at Wal-Mart again. The woman was literally in tears and her husband had come over to the diner to get her some food so she wouldn’t have to cook dinner after such a long day.WakeUpWalMart director Paul Blank comments: Like most of Wal-Mart’s recent publicity stunts, the company takes one step forward and two cruel steps backwards. Here is what Wal-Mart is really doing: cutting wage increases, imposing salary caps for workers who already get paid poverty-level wages, and shifting hundreds of thousands of full-time workers to low pay, part-time jobs. Wal-Mart should be ashamed of itself.I had hoped that Maryland's Fair Share Health Care bill* could have had the effect of encouraging Wal-Mart to move to more full-time employment. Conversely, we may have just seen the RILA v. Fielder ruling striking down that bill (however incorrectly, in my opinion) having the opposite effect: the continued marginalization and, frankly, exploitation and oppression of the Wal-Mart workforce -- a huge group in its own right, and a bellwether for the rest of the American economy. Along with the freeloading as business model I object to so strongly, Wal-Mart's modus operandi has been to sail into relatively weak rural or urban economies, stamp out the competition, and then hire the conquered as part-time workers on sufferance. Doing that with the help of taxpayer health care subsidies is, as John Edwards puts it, a "double whammy." Fair Share Health Care was about much more than health care; it was also about what kind of corporate citizens we intend to put up with in this state and in this country. And it wasn't just about Wal-Mart: either companies like it change their ways, or their competitors will have to emulate their practices to avoid going out of business. I strongly urge Maryland legislators and candidates, such as those participating in my recent online forum about Fair Share after RILA v. Fielder, to plan specific legislation to restore "Fair Share Health Care" and otherwise constrain corporate behavior against low-income wage earners. I respect and support the goal of universal access to health care, which is what most of those candidates preferred to discuss. But the most fundamental source of good health care will always be good jobs -- whether those jobs pay for it with payroll deductions, copayments, or income taxes. While it was certainly no panacea, "Fair Share" was a step in that direction. Whether or not "Fair Share" can ultimately be restored, we need policies ensuring our state and our country will have a full time economy, not a part time one. ===== * A Maryland law requiring companies to choose between paying at least 8% of payroll into health benefits, or paying the shortfall to a state Medicaid fund. The law was recently overturned in federal court as incompatible with federal health benefits legislation known as ERISA. EDIT, 8/10: bus tour was also WakeUpWalMart, not WalMartWatch. Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Lieberman Joe Lieberman in his own words, on 12/7/2005: It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.... and on 11/29/2005 in the Wall Street Journal: There are many more cars on the streets, satellite television dishes on the roofs, and literally millions more cell phones in Iraqi hands than before. All of that says the Iraqi economy is growing.If you're a Democrat who wasn't already wondering just what flavor of Kool-Aid Lieberman was drinking -- and what he believed were the salient features of a functioning democracy -- you had to be curious by then. (Unless you're Lanny Davis, of course.) There have been lots of interesting things written about Lieberman over the last few weeks, and Joe Gandelman ("The Moderate Voice") has collected a lot of them. Mark Schmitt's series of posts stands out. Josh Marshall has several interesting short pieces as well, remembering Lieberman's equivocations on Social Security, and seeing embitterment growing out of his failed 2004 presidential run accounting for some of Lieberman's current contempt for the Democratic Party: Let me pick up the thread from another close-up Joe-watcher: "My guess. He watched Gore during the campaign and decided he could do better. He started thinking of the day he'd run on his own. This was first evidenced after the election when he sold Gore out on the soldiers vote issue. Here he's on the ticket and he is pandering to the right to make himself look good. I think he decided that he wins even if Gore loses ... Then he runs in '04 and sees that his success in 2000 as a candidate was not really his but Gore's. He was a great #2 but not a free standing great man. He was rejected. And he became bitter. Very bitter."That rings true. And another short one of Marshall's was a bulls-eye: If Joe goes down, I think the day he sealed his fate was when he decided to hedge his bets and not abide by the results of the Democratic primary.Yes. What emerges for me from the Joe Lieberman saga is that he was never fundamentally willing to work without a net, to say 'here I am, the worst that can happen is that I lose.' All you really need to know about Lieberman as a political figure and as a person is that
Lieberman's "have it both ways" cloture and final votes on the bankruptcy bill and on the Alito nomination fit this pattern, too. In the end, he's not even so much an example of "bipartisanship" as simply of the empty pursuit of power and standing. Senator Lieberman seems to think he's entitled to that Senate seat, and that he's entitled to be a voice in the nation's affairs -- no matter what he says, no matter who he supports, no matter what he does, no matter what allegiances he casts aside on his way to power. It will be very worthwhile to prove him wrong. ===== UPDATES, 10:12PM: 81.28% of precincts reporting. Lamont 51.71%, Lieberman 48.29%. 10:42PM: I estimate 37000 votes to go, Lamont holds a 9000 vote lead... so Lieberman would need over 62% of the remaining vote to win. OTOH, Lamont needs more than that to hit 55% and make it a rout. I'm guessing Lieberman will run as an independent. 12:07PM: MSNBC reports "Lieberman concedes; Lamont wins primary - Sen. Lieberman says he will petition his way onto November ballot." 12:26AM: Lamont mounts "Respect the voters" campaign urging Lieberman to withdraw from the Senate race. It's important to try, even if the chances are slim. UPDATE, 8/9: Taegan Goddard reports that a CBS/NYTimes exit poll shows only 20% of Lieberman voters are against him continuing with an independent bid. Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher relays, in a couple of posts, that Democratic leadership is rallying to Lamont; Boxer will campaign for him. The latter post includes a brutal quote in the New York Times by Rahm Emmanuel, head of the DCCC: "This shows what blind loyalty to George Bush and being his love child means." "Talking Dog" interviews Gitmo linguist Erik Saar "The Talking Dog" regularly publishes interviews* with experts and eyewitnesses on Guantanamo and related issues; while others deserve mention as well, he just may be America's Most Important Blogger. Today's installment is an interview with Guantanamo linguist and interpreter Erik Saar. While acknowledging he was a junior level officer, Saar said he had access to every Guantanamo detainee file, and believes that the danger posed by and the intelligence value of the vast majority of detainees was very small: The Talking Dog: You've suggested that Guantanamo is and was an intelligence failure, as you believe that little intelligence of any value arose from the interrogations. Besides your personal knowledge, you've suggested this was "general knowledge" at Guantanamo... do you have any further basis to make this statement? You've suggested that at most a few dozen out of the then 600 and now around 500 detainees at Guantanamo were actual terrorists; what is the basis for your concluding that?Saar pointed out the high cost of Guantanamo, based on his readings of jihadist communications: I still work in the area of counter-terrorism research. As such, I am constantly reviewing what the jihadists are saying-- and Gitmo is in their verbiage every day-- they are constantly using it to try to prove their point... We may not believe this, but most Moslems now fully BELIEVE that we are hypocrites.When responding to a point about the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, Saar also had strong words for the chain of command (emphasis added): Erik Saar: Well, on that note, this hasn't been brought out, but let me say this: it hasn't been clarified in light of what the Supreme Court just ruled in the Hamdan case. What does this mean? What does it mean for junior soldiers-- like myself-- who may have been ordered to violate international law? How can you not look at what the Supreme Court just held, and separate it from the ultimate-- THE ULTIMATE-- failure of leadership. ===== * A full list of interviews is typically provided at the end of each interview, and includes detainee lawyer Neal Katyal and former detainee Shafiq Rasul, among many others. Monday, August 07, 2006
100actions.com  100Actions.com has one goal: "to help elect Democrats in November." The motto is "a new action posted every day until election!":Each day, a new action will appear that will help make that happen. Some actions may be as simple as writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Others may be things like volunteering for a campaign, organizing people for an event, or mailing postcards with the Democratic agenda printed on them. Whatever the action, meaningful activism through Election Day helps Democrats in every race in the country -- from school board to U.S. Senate.There's already some good advice: Action 93, 8/7/06 -- Take a Vacation Day: Start planning for Election Day by taking November 7th off work. You can't help get out the vote if you have other obligations, so take a minute to clear your schedule early.The site also links to the Democratic Six in '06 platform, and provides concise beginner's how-to literature on the nuts and bolts of campaigning, from canvassing to making a phone call. Via eRobin ("fact-esque"). Gretna, LA officials really are wanted for questioning One of the Hurricane Katrina stories I thought was the "Kitty Genovese story of our times" isn't going away. On Saturday, the Washington Post published an AP story about the repercussions of a September 1, 2005 incident on the bridge from New Orleans to Gretna, Louisiana. From La. Police Who Turned Away Katrina Victims Face Inquiry: A grand jury will investigate last year's blockade of a Mississippi River bridge by armed police officers who turned back Hurricane Katrina evacuees trying to flee New Orleans.Good. No: excellent. And "turned back" isn't quite the word for it. Lorrie Beth Slonsky -- a paramedic from the Bay Area in New Orleans for a convention when the hurricane hit -- recounted what happened to "This American Life" last year*: SLONSKY: So we are going through town and people *saw* us and thought, "Hm, you know, here come some folks, they must know something," so our numbers doubled, from probably about 200 and then doubled again, so we were probably about 800 to a thousand people, marching up to the bridge. When we got to the bridge, there was the armed Gretna sherriffs, and they had formed a line at the foot of the bridge--Last year, I titled a blog post about the Gretna incident "Louisiana mayor, sheriff, police chief wanted for questioning," adding "By me, anyway." It's nice to see a district attorney agrees. In late July, the United Nations Human Rights Committee noted both the Gretna incident and another one (U.N. Panel takes U.S. to task over Katrina, AP, Bradley Klapper): The U.N. panel said it wants to be informed of the results of inquiries into the alleged failure to evacuate inmates from a prison, and into allegations that authorities did not allow New Orleans residents to cross a bridge into Gretna, La.I'm guessing the prison is the Orleans Parish Templeman III facility; Human Rights Watch reported that hundreds of prisoners there were abandoned to the rising flood waters after the levees broke. I hope that sheriff and prison warden are held accountable as well. ===== * Transcript by "bellatrys." UPDATES, 8/9: In comments, eRobin reminds me that Gretna police turning away the refugees wasn't the end of it. The group formed a small community down the freeway, scavenging supplies and improvising shelter. Then: Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.Via our joint blog, "Recording Katrina," which we've kept updated with fresh non-mainstream media news about the disaster's aftermath. Also, the New Republic has an excellent article by David Morton ("Empire Falls") on the Templeman III incident, and the background and future of the Orleans Parish jails as the engine for a New Orleans political machine. The issue's lead editorial, "Lost City," is also eloquent and on target: "If Katrina suggested a rot in American society--a decrepit federal government, a blunted sense of social solidarity, the entrenchment of poverty--the aftermath has confirmed it." 
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