I started to post the WaPos hand-wringing about this subject, but found this
Last week, Judge Robert Simpson of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania refused to halt a discriminatory new state law requiring voters to show photo identification.
It was the judicial equivalent of giving democracy the bird. The American Eagle bird?
Since you're significantly more likely to be struck by lightning than encounter an actual case of voter fraud, The difference being, lightning leaves a mark.
the law is really just a solution in search of a problem. Or, rather, a political party in search of a vote to suppress.
The ruling was rendered only more offensive by its flippant dismissal of the burden that obtaining a photo ID places on people who are young, poor, minority, elderly or some combination of these (read: illegal, undocumented, Democrats). According to Simpson, requiring ID isn't an unreasonable burden "when viewed in the broader context of the widespread use of photo ID in daily life." Because, after all, doesn't everybody get carded at the bar? Or have an ID at high school?
The Pennsylvania debacle is just the latest evidence of what Robert Reich has called our shrinking democracy. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997.
GOP legislators in 34 states have proposed voting rights restrictions that would slash the number of eligible voters this election. No, sweetheart, the plan is to reduce the number of ILLELIGIBLE voters.
And it's not just that if Republicans have their way, fewer people will be allowed to vote. If you follow the money in this campaign -- and there's plenty to follow -- it becomes clear that fewer of the votes cast will matter because of the effects of an antiquated Electoral College and the increasing dominance of high-dollar donors. Didn't I just read that some of the biggest dononrs are media companies, giving 90% to the Donks?
How did we get here?
It starts at the ballot box. When he signed the Voting Rights Act 47 years ago, President Johnson called the right to vote "the basic right without which all others are meaningless."
Apparently Johnson never met Judge Simpson.
The Pennsylvania law's opponents estimate that it could disenfranchise 9 percent of the state's voters, and a recent study showed the measure would disproportionately affect African Americans and Latinos. A report by the Brennan Center for Justice estimates that as many as 5 million Americans will be kept from voting because of similar laws around the country. Meanwhile, attacks on the Voting Rights Act are due to have their day in front of a sympathetic (not to the voters) Supreme Court in the next term.
But decimating voter rolls is only the most visible instance of our shrinking democracy. She's terrified Bambi will lose. But it didn't petrify her pen.
In the 2008 election, nearly twenty states were in play. Today, thanks to the Electoral College, the map of states that "matter" in the presidential campaign has shrunk to six or seven. According to statistician Nate Silver, this means there's now a 34 percent chance that Ohio alone will decide the election. And once the campaigns have zeroed in on the handful of states that interest them, they focus in even more -- on the six percent of Americans who are still undecided.
Unless you live in one of these swing states or share a media market with one, you could be forgiven for thinking there was no presidential campaign going on at all. Mrs. Bobby just returned from Texas, where there is no campaigning, to Virgina, where both candidate bombard the airwaves with relentless, negative ads. She preferred Texas.
And while the number of meaningful votes shrinks, so does the number of meaningful voices. Funny, I think they all count, even mine in 2008.
The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision means that our political system now takes its cues not from the governed, but from the anonymous generosity of the most partisan of the 1 percent. And even when the donations aren't anonymous, the picture is ugly: In July, both President Obama and Mitt Romney spent more time with high-rolling donors than they did in public events with voters.
Few people spending more money to influence fewer voters in fewer states: That's what shrinking democracy looks like. The only thing growing is the price tag. This is more than an election-year issue -- it's an existential crisis.
Fortunately, it is also a problem we know how to solve. Even better, the solutions are non-partisan.
The outlines of a stimulus package for our democracy might start with universal voter registration, guaranteeing that every eligible American can get access to a ballot, along with a constitutional amendment protecting the right to vote. EXCUSE ME? All this whiny tripe to get to a recommendation we all agree on? Eligible voters should get to vote. That's what the evil Trunks are trying to do. So we don't need a constitutional amendment, we just need you to wise up.
Showing her progressive colors now, she wants to get away from that tired, old, out-of-date plan designed a zillion years ago.
We could finally replace the Electoral College with a national popular vote, in the spirit of the populist, moronic, giving-more-power-to-the-cities-than-the-founding-fathers-intended Seventeenth Amendment that provided for the direct election of senators.
To expand democracy, we need to shrink the amount of anonymous, corporate money that goes to campaigns and candidates. Corporations are citizens. They also employ workers, who are citizens. They have rights, too.
New York City's innovative public funding system, which generously matches citizen contributions, is a model for how to inject public, low-dollar donations into the political system. We must fight to transform the public air waves into a "democracy commons," where all candidates and parties receive free air time. And we need to intensify the national grass-roots push for a constitutional amendment to remedy the Orwellian conceit that "money equals speech" and "corporations are people."
Americans have fought and died for the right to govern themselves in an inclusive democracy. Indeed, it is the expansion of the vote -- to African Americans, women, the young -- that is the hallmark of our democratic experiment.
It's time to choose whether we're going to move closer to the promise of our founding ideals, except for the Electoral College, and a few other non-progressive do-dads or allow them to shrink and wither. There's no third option: To paraphrase George W. Bush, the "winner" of the narrowest presidential election in American history (a one-vote margin, 5-4), when it comes to democracy, if you're not for it, you're against it. And I'm for it. I don't think you are, however. And like immigrants, you chose to ignore the essentail adjective - illegal - all the better to tar and feather your conservative enemies. That makes you an enemy of democracry in my book.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/24/2012 06:13 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
According to the Donks, a legitimate voter has to be dead or phony to vote.
#2
If you own shares of Southern Company of Duke Energy, you get a proxy statement in the mail and have a right to vote on directors and officers. No skin in the game, you don't vote but do receive the benefits of the power generated by successsful companies.
1- flooding the voter rolls with unqualified voters which undermines the value of local qualified voters is not considered suppressing the vote.
2- delaying the distribution of absentee voting materials to military personnel or directly challenging the absentee ballot of military personnel is not considered suppressing the vote.
we need to shrink the amount of anonymous, corporate money that goes to campaigns and candidates
How do you shrink a value that's already zero?
The only campaign or candidate accepting anonymous donations is Obama's -- unless you think there really is a US citizen named "Doodad Pro" living in Gaza.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/24/2012 9:20 Comments ||
Top||
#5
That makes you an enemy of democracry in my book.
Meh. I'm an enemy of democracy, too. I prefer the republic we're supposed to have.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/24/2012 9:21 Comments ||
Top||
#6
> refused to halt a discriminatory new state law requiring voters to show photo identification.
All cross border travel requirements are now discriminatory.
#8
"I think that the country could survive four more years of Obama. But I don't believe the country can survive in a country full of people that would reelect him."
-Rush Limbaugh talking about the "moron vote" the other day on his show. Spot on.
#14
3. And in Donk speak, lying about flooding the polls with unqualified voters and withholding the military vote in certain places is considered a legitimate campaign strategy. Moreover, you try to accuse your opponent of what you do.
First off, she is begging the question by asserting that there is no reason for anti-fraud measures because there is no fraud.
As for you're significantly more likely to be struck by lightning than encounter an actual case of voter fraud,, it may be true that *individually* you are unlikely to be struck by lighting or personally encounter voter fraud, that does not mean they never happen. Never mind that it is a meaningless comparison.
According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know!), Lightning strikes 4050 times a second worldwide, for a total of nearly 1.4 billion flashes per year. OK, that is the whole world. Let's just focus on the US with this interactive map. The actual count is going to vary over time, but when I looked at it, there were 2~3 dozen strikes showing.
We don't have a map of illegal voting, but we do know that attempts to clean up the voter registration lists have met very strong resistance, and that just smells. If fraud is not a problem, why the fuss?
A politically charged documentary called 2016: Obama's America turned heads last weekend when it grossed a whopping $1.24 million out of just 169 theaters. KiloBravo and I saw this movie last Monday, audience gave it a standing "O".
The $2.5 million independent film, which is being distributed by Utah-based Rocky Mountain Pictures, premiered in Houston six weeks ago and has recently enjoyed some extremely uncharacteristic box office behavior. Rocky Mountain Pictures, the same people who distributed "Atlas Shrugged".
You see, normally, when a film's theater count increases, the amount of money it's earning in each theater decreases. This is the standard performance pattern for a limited release and follows common supply/demand logic.
Here's how things have gone for 2016: Obama's America, though: Three weekends ago, 2016 earned $34,133 out of 10 theaters, which gave it a per theater average of $3,413 -- not all that remarkable for a limited release. When it expanded into 61 theaters the next weekend, its per theater average did a funny thing: it jumped up to $5,202. Last weekend, the film experienced an even bigger expansion, into 169 theaters, and again, its per theater average substantially leapt up to $7,365.
#2
As I understand it, it is based on the author's book "The Roots of Obama's Rage" and explores his behavior from an anti-colonial activist perspective. I enjoyed the bood and look forward to seeing the moving. This is not a paen to the Won.
[Ma'an] This month's border attack in the Sinai Peninsula, which killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, has bolstered calls to shut down a network of underground tunnels between Egypt and the isolated Gazoo Strip.
The tunnels have been used for years to smuggle goods into Gazoo and, Egypt alleges, fighters into the Sinai. But Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, which rules the Gazoo Strip, sees this as an opportunity.
Publicly and in discussions with Egyptian officials, Hamas has been pushing to use the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gazoo for commercial trade. Ghazi Hamad, deputy minister of foreign affairs, has said a free trade zone might soon "liberate Gazoo".
"Once the Rafah crossing operates as a hub for goods, the tunnels will become history," said Azzam Shawwa, a former minister of energy in the Paleostinian Authority.
The tunnels are the main commercial trade routes in and out of the Gazoo Strip, part of the occupied Paleostinian territories.
Israel has kept its borders with Gazoo closed except for the Kerem Shalom crossing, where the passage of goods is heavily restricted. The Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing, signed by the Paleostinian Authority and Israel in 2005, included plans for formal trade, but the deal was frozen when Hamas came to power in the Gazoo Strip in 2006.
Gazoo-Egypt relations have also been strained over the blockade of Gazoo, though they have improved since former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... was ousted from power last year. The recent attacks -- and their humanitarian impact -- have made the calls for change all the more urgent.
"In the end, what happened in Sinai might turn out to have a positive impact on the future relations between Egypt and Gazoo," said Mustafa Sawaf, former chief-editor of the Hamas-affiliated Filistin newspaper.
Since Aug. 5, when Egypt closed the crossing and started shutting down some of the tunnels, the import of fuel and construction material has reportedly declined by 30 and 70 percent, respectively, and power cuts have reached up to 16 hours a day, according to the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
A free trade zone would provide Gazoo with more facilities, energy and access to goods, says Hamad, who is also the chairman of the border crossings authority in the Gazoo Strip, "but it wouldn't turn Gazoo into some kind of Taiwan. We have to remain realistic. It should bring people back to a normal life".
Prospects for free-trade zone
With a free-trade zone, Gazoo could potentially import and export goods and raw materials through the Egyptian seaport of el-Arish without paying custom duties to Egyptian authorities.
Another option would be an industrial free zone allowing Paleostinians from Gazoo to pass freely into industrial areas in Egypt for work, said Shawwa.
Asked whether a free-trade zone would be in Israel's interest, Ilana Stein, deputy spokesperson of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told IRIN that "We have to wait until there are serious suggestions by the parties, Paleostinians and Egyptians. Once something clear is there, we are ready to discuss it."
But analysts said that the Rafah crossing is not designed for any of these possibilities and would have to be upgraded. In addition, Egypt, struggling to provide its 90 million people with the fruits of its recent revolution, is unlikely to want Paleostinian workers vying for scarce jobs amid rising poverty.
Tunnel profiteers
There is likely to be internal opposition too. While Fatah, the political party ruling the West Bank, has supported Egypt's move to shut down the tunnels, saying they "serve a small category of stakeholder and private interests", analysts say there could be significant resistance to attempts to permanently shut them down.
Some $500-700 million in goods are estimated to pass through the tunnels every year, charged by the Hamas government with duties of at least 14.5 percent since early 2012, according to a new report by the International Crisis Group.
Several influential families in control of the tunnels profit from every item that passes through them. It costs $25 to smuggle a person through and around $500 for a car; in 2011, 13,000 cars are believed to have come into Gazoo through the tunnels.
"Eight hundred millionaires and 1,600 near-millionaires control the tunnels at the expense of both Egyptian and Paleostinian national interests," President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... was quoted as saying in The Economist.
The tunnels have recently contributed to a construction boom, with apartments, parks and mosques being built with help from investors like the Saudi-led Islamic Development Bank. The transition to a tunnel-free future will have to address these interests.
"It is true that there is a class of people benefiting from the tunnels," Nathan Thrall, senior analyst at ICG, told IRIN. "But Hamas can solve that by involving them in legitimate trade."
Hamas would also earn more money in customs than it does in the current situation, where middlemen profit too. "I don't think that this is as large an obstacle as others," Thrall said.
Complex politics
One of the other main obstacles is how Israel will react.
Calls for improved trade relations with Egypt have sparked fears that Israel would use the opportunity to rid itself of all responsibility for Gazoo: Once Rafah is opened to commercial goods, Israel could argue it no longer has to keep open the Kerem Shalom crossing -- the only official entry point for imported goods. "That would be the end of Israeli responsibility for Gazoo," said Thrall.
Such a move could undermine efforts to reach Paleostinian unity by further disconnecting Gazoo from the West Bank. For this reason, even Hamas is careful not to push too hard for imports into Gazoo.
"We don't want to see Israel closing Kerem Shalom," Hamad said. "Israel just wants to push us towards Egypt. But we do consider Gazoo as part of the Paleostinian homeland."
"It's a serious discussion," added Shawwa, the former PA minister. "Do we want an independent economy of Gazoo? That might take us into a new era of Paleostinian separation."
Kerem Shalom is the only crossing point where commercial and humanitarian goods are allowed to enter Gazoo from Israel, and even when open, aid agencies have struggled to consistently import enough supplies to meet operational needs.
Some analysts speculate the newly elected president in Egypt, Islamist Mohamed Mursi, will make a trade zone conditional on the success of Paleostinian reconciliation, while others say that he could also move forward in the absence of Paleostinian unity.
"The relationship between Egypt, Israel and Hamas is complex," said Abdel Monem Said, director of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. "Mursi knows he can't really allow Paleostinians in Gazoo to starve. And there is pressure from inside the (Mohammedan) Brotherhood to support Hamas." On the other hand, Egypt is constrained by close security cooperation with Israel in Sinai, he told IRIN.
"By allowing people to pass, Mursi would do enough to meet his humanitarian obligations," said a European diplomat in Jerusalem who requested anonymity. "The security issue with Israel is more pressing at the moment."
Mkheimar Abu Saada, a political scientist at Gazoo's al-Azhar University, says Egypt is in a very delicate situation: "On one hand, they don't want to be seen as cooperating with Israel by imposing a siege on the Gazoo Strip like Mubarak did. In the meantime, they don't want to be blamed for terminating the relationship with Israel."
As such, Hamas acknowledges its hopes for a free trade zone are unlikely to be realized in the near future.
For now, it is focused on "more realistic options", like allowing more people to cross Rafah and exporting from Gazoo -- with some success. After Egypt gradually eased restrictions at Rafah in May, Mursi agreed with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... last month on increasing the number of crossing travelers to 1,500 per day and increasing the amount Qatari fuel allowed to pass.
"I do think there are some chances that Rafah will be used for commercial purposes and not only exports," Hamad said, "but maybe it is still too early for Egyptians to give an answer right now."
#1
Gaza needs a Hurricane, enough water to swim in, for the next hundred years.
That'l do it, there won't be a Un-Flooded tunnel around.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/24/2012 10:28 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Closing the Gaza tunnels would have serious economic impact. I don't mean the trade in goods and weapons. I'm talking about the bribes, fees, taxes, beak-wetting, and general fell-off-the-truck-ness that goes along with smuggling.
Climate Fraud: In an attempt to defend his role in the greatest scam of modern times, Climate-gate's poster child threatens to defend his tarnished reputation in court. First, hide the decline, then hide the deceit.
'Get lost" was National Review editor Rich Lowry's appropriate response to a threatened lawsuit by Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann.
NR printed a post by the great Mark Steyn, who graces these pages as well, calling Mann's famous hockey-stick graph "fraudulent." That it is indeed a fraud has been documented by many, including us.
Mann was at the heart of the Climate-gate scandal in 2009, when emails were unearthed from Britain's Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. In one email sent to Mann and others, CRU director Philip Jones speaks of the "trick" of filling in gaps of data in order to hide evidence of temperature decline:
#1
Oh please, please sue!!! Discovery will be a bitch. Can you see the responses from his co-conspirators to that process?
As to "hide the decline" IIRC that was related to the decline in the correlation between the proxy tree ring data and the real thermometer data as of ~1950 on. Basically the proxy was proving to be much less of an indicator than they were showing.
So, rather than rework the flawed methodology they fudged the data.
#2
Better yet, the NR could crowd-source the discovery process. Get people to write in suggesting questions, offering ideas on discovery, looking at links, etc. Sure, a lot of noise but think of the fun we'd all have!
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/24/2012 12:39 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Please sue and try to prove it isn't a fraud. We would love to see your work.
#5
I agree wid #1 - in this age of "Globalism" + OWG-NWO = Space Govt-Order, LITIGATION may become the only non-violent thing/process that forces sectarian US-World Govts-Perts to come into common consensus about GWCC = Solar activities, Resources, etc.... + effective UNIVERSAL responses thereto.
Lest we fergit, e.g. COMET APOPHIS + GUAM, EARTH-VISIBLE MOON EXPLOSIONS > as things stand, our mighty future Space Defense agz same is second-fiddle or tertiary to seeing iff desired OWG-NWO + EURO-UNION will break up or not due to Debt + Econ crisis, I.E. NO ONE - SOCIETY OR GOVT - WANTING TO PAY FOR SOMEONE(S) ELSE'S DEBTS OR LIABILITIES.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPSSSSSS ...THE MIGHTY HOMER SIMPSONIAN "DOH"! HEARD AROUND THE WORLD.
Remember, as of 2012 the seriously troubled EU is the only one of the desired or proposed OWG "Global Unions/Global Federal Unions" thats actually formally up-n-running.
NAU in 2015 or shortly thereafter, versus the NOT-AZTLAN Obama-induced? "Second US Civil War" in 2013???
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A politically charged documentary called 2016: Obama's America turned heads last weekend when it grossed a whopping $1.24 million out of just 169 theaters. 
