For those of you who don't know, a group called USA Next, with a lot of help from those who backed the Swift Boat guys, is going after the AARP. They are saying that the AARP supports homosexuality and not our troops. The image at right will take you to a DFA campaign to stop the ad. I'd like to look into this further, but for now let's at least look who's behind each of these groups.
In contrast with the AARP, which is dependent upon individual contributions and membership fees, USA Next is virtually a money laundering program for corporations. A mailing or television advertisement opposing buying prescription drugs from Canada, after all, has less impact when it is labeled as sponsored by a company that makes money selling prescription drugs in the United States. USA Next steps in as the middle man; taking millions of dollars from corporations and spending those millions on political efforts: about $10 million every year since 2002. In 2002, as the New York Times points out, USA Next was the top spender among interest groups on elections for the House of Representative in the entire country. That same year, the Public Citizen’s Congress Watch condemned USA Next as led by “hired guns” for industry and the right wing.
USA Next is out to prove that the AARP is in the pocket of the left wing. I'll offer up just one example that should at least cast some serious doubt on their claim. When the republicans pushed through their version of the drug benefit plan for seniors, and don't get me started on why this is a quirky at best and horrific at worst bill, to the delight of president Bush. They didn't just support it, they funneled money into a large ad campaign in order to support the legislation.
Now onto the funding. The AARP is mostly funded by the grassroots and USA Next by big business. If the AARP was on our side, and again - they're not, then I'm glad that it's funded largely by the people of this nation. Following whoever pays the piper picks the tune, you'll see who it is entirely likely USA Next is in the corner of, and it might not be the seniors that they say that they support.
Source:
Homosexuality and the ideology of evil The Raw Story - February 25
MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann is quite frankly the most entertaining news program on TV, behind the Daily Show, of course. I'm not saying that it's the best program, some of the most important stories never hit this show, but it IS pretty good - for TV. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about how entertaining the show is and after much concidderation I've come to three conclusions.
First, Countdown covers thing that are a little out of the mainstream. I remember how they were the only ones covering the slection fraud allegations after the election, and now they were one of the first ones to pick up the Gannon story and run with it.
Next, they actually write a lot of jokes for the program and use them. They're not afraid to use the bad ones and it doesn't really matter if you're laughing with them or at them because you're still laughing.
Finally, he hates Bill O'Reilly. Some might think that this is trivial, but let me assure you that this is worth mentioning. IF you don't believe me then take a look at the "teleport" video linked below.
Links:
Who is Jeff Gannon - Video One Good Move - February 9 (contains video of Countdown)
Teleport Good Move - February 11
1. Show up! Democrats should never concede a single state, a single district, or a single voter to the Republicans. We must be active and compete in all 50 states and work with the state parties to build a true national party.
ADVERTISING
2. The success of the national party depends directly on the success of the state parties — we must better integrate our operations by:
* Having the DNC pay the salary of each state party executive director to help ensure that the state parties have adequate funds.
* Collectively building and sharing supporter lists between the national and state parties.
* Recruiting, training, and encouraging candidates to run for office at every level — building tomorrow's farm team from the ground up.
* Actively grow local Democratic committees and communities by working with neighborhood activists who can reach out in their communities and enable the grassroots to support state and local candidates.
* Maintaining a permanent campaign in every state. We need to establish an ongoing, active presence, which does not have to be recreated every four years for four months.
3. Set core principles that define the Democratic Party and what we stand for and take a bottom-up approach to the development of the Party's message;
4. Use cutting-edge Internet and other technologies to fundraise, organize, and communicate with our supporters;
5. Strengthen our political institutions and leadership institutes to promote our leaders and our ideas — these organizations must work together in a coordinated and integrated fashion to elect Democrats at every level, so that we can take this country back.
Democrats.org
In other dean news,
Howard Dean, the newly minted leader of the Democratic Party, and former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle made clear their opposing views on the war in Iraq during a debate marred by a protester who tossed a shoe at Perle.
I mean, who throws a shoe anyway?
"Defense is a lot broader than swaggering around saying you're going to kick Saddam's butt," Dean said Thursday, drawing cheers from the crowd in this city that overwhelmingly voted Democratic last November.
Source:
Protester Throws Shoe at Richard Perle Newsday - February 18
Things I'd like to mention breifly in no particular order:
Rick Dollinger is the New Chair for the Monroe County Democratic Chair.
Source:
New Chair for Monroe County Democratic Party WHEC TV - 10 - February 17
Dean was elected Chair of the DNC. As everyone knows, I'm extremely happy about this. I won't even source this one. Dean will have his own post in the comming days.
Scott Ritter said plans for a June attack on Iran have been submitted to President George W. Bush, and that the president has approved them.
Source:
U.S. Plans June Attack On Iran GNN - February 22
Nearly half of the Federal Aviation Administration's daily intelligence reports in the months leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks mentioned Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, according to newly released documents.
Sources:
Why did it take 4 years for this to surface? Jackola - February 11
9/11 panel: FAA warned about al-Qaida Newsday - February 11
US air officials had warnings of al-Qaida threat Guardian - February 11
The very first memo on Al Qaida has been released proving that Clarke was telling the truth and Rice was errr not so truthful when she was talking to the 9/11 commission.
PDF
Jeff Gannon/James Guckert had face to face access to Bush using a fake name. The news is that something might actually get done about it.
The Senate Democratic leadership is privately circulating a letter calling for other senators to join a call for an investigation into discredited White House reporter Jeff Gannon, RAW STORY has learned.
Sources:
Democratic leadership joins call for Gannon inquiry; Whip calls on members to join push the raw story - February 22
YES! Democratic leadership calls on Bush to launch Gannon/Guckert investigation
AMERICAblog - February 22
Bloggers And The Media One Good Move - February 17
OK, that's a good start.
Oh man, I'm going headlong into finals until next tuesday so this is probably the last post in a while (although everyone needs breaks).
Because today is Valentine's Day, here's what all of us RIT guys are up against.
According to the RIT fast facts page, there's 10,290 males and 5,044 females on campus. Therefore:
half of the 5044 girls are deaf, thus undateable, divide by 2 = 2522 (remember, stereotypical!)
half of those remaining already have boyfriends, div by 2 = 1261
half of what's left are art students (aka batshit insane), divide by 2 = 630
3/4 of what's left now are ugly, so you're down to 157
only half of these girls will even talk to you, div by 2 = 78
half of the ones that will talk to you just want to be friends, div by 2 = 39
2/3 of these girls you've already drunkly hit on at a party and now have no chance whatsoever, which leaves 13 girls.
13 girls, for 10,290 guys. That's approximately 1 girl for every 791 guys. (Wait, Tiffany was one of those that made the cut, you're down to 12 now. Sorry.) link
In actual news, the Iraqi elections are in, Dean is now at the helm of the Democratic Party, and there's a whole bunch of evidence that the Bush Administration had TONS of warnings about Al Quida. yeeeeeup I'll maybe post more on that some other time. For now, I direct you to my favorite blog, Jackola.
(1)As the counting of ballots began on Tuesday morning, the outcome was far from certain, even though the numbers seemed to favor the Democrats. The result depended on how many people had split their votes: supporting Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for president, while voting for Mr. Spano for state senator. Enough, as it turned out.
Even though she was not proven to be electoraly victorious, Andrea Stewart Cousins fought on behalf of the people. Many people who know that I've been following this race closely have asked if I believe that the court battles were worth it given that Spano still won.
My answer is simple, fighting for a citizen's right to vote will never be a worthless cause. The battle in the courts put Spano and his lawyers on the side of challenging ballots and writing off many hand-written or provisional ballots. Stewart-Cousins and the Democratic lawyers fought for the right of people to vote and a good number of the ballots that they fought for were indeed counted today.
It was an amazing race with Spano winning by 1,700 votes on election night and yet at one point only ahead by 8. One thing that certainly became clear during the last 3 months is that New York election law in need of a good looking at.
(2)The 35th Senatorial District has become Dade County," Spitzer said.
Spitzer also criticized the State Legislature for not passing legislation to improve the system, a failure that could cost the state $219 million.
The federal government set aside that money after Congress approved the Help America Vote Act in 2002, but New York is now in jeopardy of losing it because it has not met the law's requirements. "It's an embarrassment," Spitzer said.
....
Within hours of the release of Spitzer's report, Democrats who control the Assembly called on the Republican-led Senate to confer with them so that both houses could pass uniform legislation. Both sides support reform but have been unable to reach a solution.
Last week, the Assembly passed a five-bill package that would bring the state in compliance with the federal law.
Stewart-Cousins was on Air America's Unfiltered(3) this morning. One of the hosts expressed that she didn't believe that we fight hard enough after elections in order to win them and that Rove's strategy often includes just getting close enough to win after election day. The way to fix this is to make the election laws extremely clear.
All people deserve the right to vote and we should never have to go to court to protect that right. Hopefully, the passage of new legislation to help New York's election process without doing more harm than good will be the legacy of this battle.
Sources:
(1) In State Senate Marathon, Incumbent Wins New York Times - February 8
(2) Spitzer calls for electoral overhaul New York Newsday - February 8
(3) Unfiltered
(1)HANNITY: He [Reid] said in 1999 on FOX News Sunday, quote: "Most of us have no problem with taking a small amount of the Social Security proceeds and putting it into the private sector."
Now, let's go to 2004. George [W.] Bush, hating Bush, [Sen.] Ted Kennedy [D-MA] leading the way and this is what he [Reid] says today. "If someone wants to privatize Social Security, they are going to have to find someone else to get in bed with other than me."
Doesn't that show that this is now politics for these guys?
So Hannity thinks that Harry Reid is just playing politics? I really wanted to debunk this because I feel that the FDR piece turned out well, but I didn't find many fun quotes. Instead, let's do something that he would never think of; let's look at the record.
Example 1: An amendment is proposed on S. Con. Res. 86 that would suggest that the finance committee should look at establishing personal retirement accounts as a supplement to Social Security with the budget surplus. The vote was Apr 1, 1998 and Sen. Reid voted "NO."(2)
Example 2: An amendment is proposed to H.R. 2676 that would let people above 70 1/2 years old who are making incomes of $100,000 or more to invest in a Roth IRA. The vote for this one was held on Apr 22, 1998 and Reid again voted "NO."(3)
I would say that Reid, even back then was pretty consistent if not perfect. He's got a 97% lifetime rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans (4) and for more of his record I'm going to point you towards On the Issues. (5)
Sources:
(1) Limbaugh, Hannity distorted Dems' 1999 remarks to falsely claim they supported private accounts Media Matters - February 8
(2) Vote on amendment to S. Con. Res. 86 Senate.gov
(3) Vote on amendment to H.R. 2676Senate.gov
(4) Alliance for Retired Americans (Click on nevada to view the rating)
(5) Harry Reid on Social Security On the Issues
At long last the votes have been counted and Nicholas Spano has retained his seat. Even though Andrea Stewart Cousins didn't win this was an extremely important fight because Democrats were fighting for people's right to vote. I don't have time to comment on this but I promise that I will later.
"It is never easy to defeat a longtime incumbent, but the fact that we came as close as we have demonstrates the power of the issues we championed throughout this race," Stewart-Cousins said in a concession statement.
....
On Election Day, the Board of Elections had put Spano's lead at about 1,700 votes of the 127,000 cast. But a recount of the machines narrowed the gap to single digits and touched off an exhaustive tallying of handwritten votes -- absentee ballots, which were filled out before Election Day, and provisional ballots, used at polling places by voters whose names were not found in registration books.
Source:
State Sen. Spano wins — more than 3 months after Election Day New York Newsday - February 8
(1)The decision in Albany may have cleared the way _ again _ for the tallying of the last ballots and the revelation of a winner in the race between Republican state Sen. Nicholas Spano and Democratic challenger Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
....
"This is it," said Jeffrey Pearlman, a lawyer for Stewart-Cousins. "There is no more opportunity for appeal. The ruling is the ruling, the law is the law and we're going to count 249 ballots as soon as possible."
This is great news. It looks like these ballots are finally going to be counted. In addition, those 21 ballots that turned up and fell into a category that had already been ruled upon will count so, as the quote said, there are 249 more ballots to count in total.
Earlier today, before the court weighed in, there was a protest involving New York leader all the way up to Hillary.
(2)More than 150 people, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined state Senate candidate Andrea Stewart-Cousins on the steps of Yonkers City Hall yesterday morning to demand that the votes in the undecided 35th District Senate contest be counted.
Sources:
(1) Appeals court denies GOP request to reargue in Westchester recount case Newsday - February 7
(2) Democrats rally for vote count in state Senate raceThe Journal News - February 7
This feels odd, but I suppose that it had to happen at some point. This entry is just to talk about what's happened to this blog in the past month or so.
First, the quote styles. Many people complained that the font was too small to read so I have changed the style, using that "quote" image running up the side. Next, the side column. I've added a section for non-blog political links, a section which will no doubt be expanding. I've included a section for all the webcomics that I would suggest (yes, I used to be rather involved in that community before this site went the way of the blog). Finally, I've added a Google Search where you can either search just my archives or for anything else that you might want to search for.
That brings me to Google. Every so often I take a look at my ranking (or I have been since I fell from the number one spot for "Reality High") and I'm back on top. This is very exciting for me personally. Keeping with Google, I use google for all sorts of things including research on things that many blogs don't pay attention to, like the Andrea Stewart-Cousins case and I accidentaly searched for her in plain Google instead of Google news and discovered that Reality High is the #4 result. Now that's thrilling.
Finally, behind the scenes stuff. I have moved the directory for the archives, I won't delete the ones that already exist for a while so I don't think that this will be an issue. I have started to post in Firefox instead of Safari. Why is this important? Many features of Blogger's post editor can't be used in Safari. What does this mean for you? Well mostly, it means better spelling because I have a working spell checker. BTW, just because I thought it needed mentioning, "Google" "Blog" and "Blogger" are all treated as misspelled words by Blogger's spell check.
In other site news, there's still no link to my old comics, but they will be up along with a gallery containing all of the new political cartoons at some point.
Today is starting to seem like Social Security Day on the blog. Anyway, I've been meaning to post on this for a few days now and it goes nicely with the FDR piece that I did just a short while ago.
There's a section of this column that goes over the hard financial figures and proves that privatizing is really not a spectacular option in the best of conditions. Essentially, you could invest in government bonds, but that's what Social Security is invested in now, so why bother. Once you get into riskier things like stocks you have the potential for more growth but you also have the potential for more losses. This is where the gamble comes in. If you want my full opinion, you can feel free to read the previous post, but essentially It's called Social Security not Social Insecurity.
Here's the senior official again: "In a long-term sense, the personal accounts would have a net neutral effect on the fiscal situation of Social Security." The government would have to borrow huge sums up front to create the personal accounts - $4.5 trillion in the first two decades - but it would supposedly make up for all that borrowing with offsetting cuts in account holders' benefits many decades later.
Color me skeptical: will retirees with private accounts that performed badly really be forced to repay their loans in full? Even if they are, private accounts will at best have a "net neutral effect" - that is, they will do nothing to improve Social Security's finances. Mr. Bush says the system faces a crisis; what does he propose to do about it?
The answer, presumably, is that his plan will also involve major benefit cuts over and above those associated with private accounts. And it's true that you can improve Social Security's finances with privatization, as long as you also slash benefits - just as you can kill a flock of sheep with witchcraft, provided you also feed them arsenic. (Thanks, M. Voltaire.)
So what's really going on in the Bush plan? In exchange for letting him cut your benefits, you are free to invest a portion of what was cut where you would like, and quite possibly lose some of it. Bush never intended for privatization to save Social Security, it's just what he's doing with his right hand so that you won't pay attention to the left. A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.
Source:
Gambling With Your Retirement New York Times - February 4
(1)A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
That's my favorite. You simply can't beat it. Unfortunately, FDR has recently been cooped by the Republicans. Have a read from Media Matters for America.
(2)On the February 3 edition of FOX News' Hannity & Colmes, Bennett declared: "Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the guy who established Social Security, said that it would be good to have it replaced by private investment over time. Private investment would be the way to really carry this thing through."On the February 3 edition of FOX News' Hannity & Colmes, Bennett declared: "Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the guy who established Social Security, said that it would be good to have it replaced by private investment over time. Private investment would be the way to really carry this thing through."
....
But Roosevelt was not advocating that the present system of guaranteed Social Security benefits "ought to ultimately be supplanted by self-supporting annuity plans." Rather, he was proposing that both guaranteed Social Security retirement benefits and voluntary annuities would eventually eliminate the need for a different fund which was established to provide pension benefits to Americans who were already too old in 1935 to contribute payroll taxes to the Social Security system.
While the guys over at Media Matters for America have done a decent job of debunking this, I've got some stuff that I've been meaning to say. I'll start with the following quote from the four freedoms speech:
(3)In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants - everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor - anywhere in the wold.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.[my emphasis]
If you read the speeches and fireside chats that FDR had then I think that you will realize exactly what you should. He was a man of the people. He cared for those in Society that needed help the most. He envisioned a society where nobody would go hungry and nobody would be impoverished and his vision for those of us who are older in this plan was Social Security. The bush plan cuts guaranteed benefits in favor of a chance at a better return. This is not, I repeat not, what FDR would have envisioned. This new system would leave certain people who opted in high and dry when their private investments flopped and that is not only irresponsible but it goes against Roosevelt's third freedom.
Before I leave the subject, I'd like to add my opinion. This plan is ridiculous. The Great Depression, the era in which Social Security was designed, was punctuated by the Stock Market crumbling. It was so bad that investors were literally jumping out of windows on wall street. "Black Thursday," as it was then called, set off a worldwide depression. Have we, as a nation, forgotten this? In this age of Enron is it really possible that our faith in the market is so strong that we don't perceive a risk associated with betting our retirement on it? The entire point of Social Security was that it was secure because it was in the government's hands and not that of wall street.
Sources:
(1) BrainyQuote
(2) Distorting FDR: Bennett and Hume claimed father of Social Security system wanted privatization Media Matters - February 4
(3) Four Freedoms Speech January 6, 1941
More on:
Social Security
FDR
...There's more!
That's right. Even before the 228 ballots ruled valid by the highest court in NY have been counted, there's another dispute. Yesterday the Board of Elections in Westchester County found an additional 21 paper ballots that were misfiled.
(1)The Democrats said the 21 misfiled ballots should be counted, saying they belonged to the category of ballots the Court of Appeals ordered counted - those of voters who went to the right polling place but ended up at the wrong election district. Republicans say they couldn't be sure of the ballots' validity.
Now of course the Republicans believe that these ballots should not count. This isn't all that suppressing, we are just getting to the best part. Many people I'm sure have been thinking, why haven't they just counted the 228 ballots that were definitely supposed to be opened? The truth is that nothing can happen until Monday. Why?
(2)Less than 30 minutes before the counting was to get under way, Judge Carmen Ciparick denied the stay - but she indirectly pointed out that, in fact, a stay issued by a midlevel court was still in effect until Monday
(1)The vote count could resume - or be further delayed - on Monday when the Court of Appeals, state's highest court, considers the Republican request to reargue the case decided on Wednesday. In that ruling, the court ordered the counting of several categories of paper ballots, a total of 228. Spano leads by 58 votes.
OK great. So both sides are guilty of delaying this case from progressing. I suppose the, "we've come this far, we'd better get it right" sentiment explains why all this is happening. And while that's pretty much the case, Spano's attorneys are saying that this ruling still doesn't hold because since the ruling was made, New York hasn't passed a law that agrees with the Judges. It was my assumption that if the Judges, interpreting the law, came to a certain conclusion, that the laws currently in place are enough for that conclusion to stand. Here's the quote.
(3)Spano's attorney, John Ciampoli, told MidHudsonNews.com that as a result of this latest development, he secured a temporary stay on the decision so that he can argue to have it re-argued. "The motion is based on several factors including the unconstitutional impact that this court's decision would have and including the fact that the legislature specifically has rejected writing into law that which the Court of Appeals wrote into law," he said.
Sources:
(1) 21 misfiled ballots set off new dispute in Spano race The Journal News - February 5
(2) Vote count in 35th Senate race delayed again The Journal News - February 4
(3) Debate over open Spano seat continues in court Hudson Valley News - February 4
The highest court of appeals in New York State has decided that the following votes will be counted:
- 163 handwritten ballots from voters who went to the right polling place but were directed to the wrong election district desk
- 20 handwritten ballots found in envelopes that did not identify the election district
- 45 handwritten ballots cast by poll workers who used absentee ballots instead of "special ballots" specified in state law
In all, 228 votes will be counted. Stewart-Cousins is currently behind by 58 votes.
"Now I have a shot," Stewart-Cousins said. "I'm really pleased that the court saw the importance of restoring the right to vote to so many eligible voters. It's an important decision and I'm very happy. The reality is these are eligible voters. I don't know how these people voted, but I know they voted and I want their votes to be counted."
Spano's lawyer, Anthony Mangone, said, "We respectfully disagree with the decision, but this is the highest court in our state and we'll see to it that the ballots are opened as soon as possible."
Lawyers said the ballots that had been sent to Albany for the court's study would have to be returned to White Plains before being counted, but the court did not specify when that should be.
The decision was split 5-2 and can only be apealed to a Federal Court by a voter from within the district arguing a violation of their Constitutional rights. Personally, I'm not sure how that case would work given that the decision was to count ballots.
Not only have these ballots not been counted, but they have also not been opened. As soon as news of what is contained within those ballots breaks, I'll put it up.
Source:
High court: Count 228 more votes in disputed Senate election Newsday - February 2
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