Monday’s Mini-Report

July 21, 2008

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Barack Obama’s day in Iraq seems to have gone pretty well: “Senator Barack Obama arrived in Baghdad on Monday, meeting with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and other senior Iraqi politicians, as an Iraqi spokesman said that the government was hopeful that foreign combat troops would withdraw in 2010…. Mr. Obama met with Mr. Maliki; the United States ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker; the Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, and other Iraqi officials at the prime minister’s residence in the Green Zone.” Obama also spent time with Gen. David Petraeus, who gave Obama a helicopter tour.

* Tomatoes are looking better, but keep an eye on those jalapenos: “U.S. government inspectors have found the same salmonella strain responsible for a food-poisoning outbreak in the U.S. in a Mexican-grown jalapeno pepper in a Texas plant, prompting a new warning for consumers to avoid eating fresh jalapenos. The Food and Drug Administration called Monday’s announcement a ‘very important break in the case.'”

* This isn’t encouraging at all: “Poorly designed ballots continue to plague U.S. elections, even after Congress set aside $3 billion to overhaul voting systems to prevent a recurrence of the flawed Florida ballots that deadlocked the 2000 presidential race, a study out today concludes. Problems with confusing paper ballots in 2002, absentee ballots in 2004 and touch-screen ballots in 2006 led thousands of voters to skip over key races or make mistakes that invalidated their votes, according to the study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.”

* The right now has a new idea on how to deal with the debate over Iraq policy: go after Maliki as an Iranian stooge. Didn’t conservatives love this guy as recently as last week?

* Bush doesn’t know anything about computers, but he’s apparently aware of YouTube.

* For some reason, an investigation from the British Parliament found that that England “should no longer rely on assurances by the United States that it does not torture terrorism suspects.” Imagine that.

* Last week, Michael Savage attacked autistic children. This week, he refuses to back down. Classy bunch, those right-wingers.

* Inspiring confidence in electronic voting machines is much tougher when we hear stories like this one. (thanks to N.W. for the tip)

* The WaPo should pay more attention to the LAT’s coverage of Iraqis’ support for a withdrawal timetable.

* Sean Hannity may seem worthless, but he’s still going to get paid $100 million.

* I neglected to make fun of Bill Kristol’s column today. Steve M. picks up the slack.

* Duke Cunningham is looking for a presidential pardon.

* Paul Krugman predicted an Obama victory in November — “but added that ‘within three months of taking office, no, less than three months’ the media would be out to get him, as much as they had at the high point of anti-Bill Clinton bashing.”

* I vaguely recall a time when CNN was respectable. Oh well.

* Now seems like a very bad time for McCain to cut funds for the national highway trustfund.

* And finally, Fox News recently had some trouble with geography. Over the weekend, the Republican network misspelled “education” during a news segment about education. Wow.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

* A federal court overturned the FCC’s overreaction on Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”

* Also among those seeking pardons, the fastest female drug user, Marion Jones.

  • * Last week, Michael Savage attacked autistic children. This week, he refuses to back down. Classy bunch, those right-wingers.

    That bastard needs a nice three-drug cocktail.

  • Sorry to Swan, but I forgot this one –

    for all those who questioned CB on whether, if he had a Bracket for Nuttiest Congressperson, Steve King (R, IA-5) should be a number one seed, I come to support Mr. Benen’s judgment.

  • Could anybody send me in the right direction towards seeing what your typical American ballot looks like? I understand that there are variations, but what does the most typical one look like?

    I ask because I suspect that they’re overly complex for the sake of being overly complex (and hence easier to fudge with)

    What could possibly be wrong with the old piece-of-paper-and-a-pencil-and-x-marks-the-spot style of voting? We do it in Canada and it seems to work out just fine. (I realize that there’s more people in the US, but couldn’t you just hire a few more people to count?)

    What is the official reasoning for having confusing butterfly ballots and traceless electronic machines??

  • Obama also spent time with Gen. David Petraeus, who gave Obama a helicopter tour. — CB

    Cheaper and easier for the military than giving him a tour of a market, with a company of bodyguards and 8 helicopters providing umbrella cover, so I approve. But, doubtless, McCain will point out that such an elitist look from above is nowhere near comparable to the experience of talking to real, live, everyday Iraqi or being helpful in assessing conditions *on the ground*.

    * This isn’t encouraging at all: “Poorly designed ballots continue to plague U.S. elections[…]

    Not encouraging??? Who have you been talking to? Not Republicans, I bet. Poorly designed ballots (an euphemism, if I’ve ever seen one, for “most excellent work by our best friends in the industry”) are their last line of defense.

  • Inspiring confidence in electronic voting machines is much tougher when we hear stories like this one.

    For those who haven’t read it, the article linked to asserts that Diebold may have fucked with Georgia voting machines in two large, urban, heavily-leaning Democratic districts causing a popular Democratic governor and Democratic U.S. Senator, several points ahead in the polls, to lose their 2002 reelection bids. I wouldn’t put it past ’em.

    Incidentally, those of us in Georgia are still voting with paperless, unverifiable Diebold machines. In fact, we had primary local elections last week with statewide turnout hovering at or around a pathetic 12 percent. But even with just over 1 out of 10 voters showing up, local results frequently weren’t available until late the next morning. This software developer can’t understand why it would take a computer 16 hours to tabulate results that should literally take less than five seconds to tabulate.

    Bottom line: Diebold can’t be trusted.

  • I’m a lifelong conservative activist and I’m backing Barack Obama
    BY LARRY HUNTER

    Wednesday, July 16th 2008, 7:39 PM

    I’m a lifelong Republican – a supply-side conservative. I worked in the Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I served on Bob Dole’s presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp’s Empower America.

    This November, I’m voting for Barack Obama.

    When I first made this decision, many colleagues were shocked. How could I support a candidate with a domestic policy platform that’s antithetical to almost everything I believe in?

    The answer is simple: Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies – this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.

    Taxes, economic policy and health care reform matter, of course. But how we extract ourselves from the bloody boondoggle in Iraq, how we avoid getting into a war with Iran and how we preserve our individual rights while dealing with real foreign threats – these are of greater importance.

    John McCain would continue the Bush administration’s commitment to interventionism and constitutional overreach. Obama promises a humbler engagement with our allies, while promising retaliation against any enemy who dares attack us. That’s what conservatism used to mean – and it’s what George W. Bush promised as a candidate.

    Plus, when it comes to domestic issues, I don’t take Obama at his word. That may sound cynical. But the fact that he says just about all the wrong things on domestic issues doesn’t bother me as much as it once would have. After all, the Republicans said all the right things – fiscal responsibility, spending restraint – and it didn’t mean a thing. It is a sad commentary on American politics today, but it’s taken as a given that politicians, all of them, must pander, obfuscate and prevaricate.

    Besides, I suspect Obama is more free-market friendly than he lets on. He taught at the University of Chicago, a hotbed of right-of-center thought. His economic advisers, notably Austan Goolsbee, recognize that ordinary citizens stand to gain more from open markets than from government meddling. That’s got to rub off.

    When it comes to health care, I am hoping Obama quietly recognizes that a crusade against pharmaceutical companies would result in the opposite of any intended effect. And in any event, McCain’s plans in this area are deeply problematic, too. Take drug reimportation. McCain (like Obama) says he’s perfectly comfortable with this ill-conceived scheme, which would drive research and development dollars away from the next generation of miracle cures.

    But overall, based on his embrace of centrist advisers and policies, it seems likely that Obama will turn out to be in the mold of John Kennedy – who was fond of noting that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Over the last few decades, economic growth has made Americans at every income level better off. For all his borderline pessimistic rhetoric, Obama knows this. And I believe he is savvy enough to realize that the real threat to middle-class families and the poor – an economic undertow that drags everyone down – cannot be counteracted by an activist government.

    Or maybe not. But here’s the thing: Even if my hopes on domestic policy are dashed and Obama reveals himself as an unreconstructed, dyed-in-the-wool, big-government liberal, I’m still voting for him.

    These past eight years, we have spent over a trillion dollars on foreign soil – and lost countless lives – and done what I consider irreparable damage to our Constitution.

    If economic damage from well-intentioned but misbegotten Obama economic schemes is the ransom we must pay him to clean up this foreign policy mess, then so be it. It’s not nearly as costly as enduring four more years of what we suffered the last eight years.

    Hunter is the former staff director of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and president of the Social Security Institute.

  • I vaguely recall a time when CNN was respectable. Oh well.

    Watched Wolf Blitzer on Obama’s trip to Iraq today. After the report he spent nearly a full minute saying pointing out that this is only Obama’s second trip to Iraq since becoming a Senator. McCain has visisted eight times, for a total of 16 days in Iraq and visited “six times since Obama’s first trip”.

    It was pathetic.

    I swear if you looked at his clip board you would have seen a McCain campaign memo. I hope CNN is at least billing the McCain campaign for Blitzer’s time.

  • In solidarity with Nouri al-Maliki, I hereby declare myself an Official Iranian Otooge, which is by far better than being associated with John McLie. And, for my first official act as an official Iranian Stooge, I propose that Michael Savage be wiped from the face of the earth.

  • I’m sorry, but we Official Iranian Stooges make an occasional typo. At least we don’t blame them on misunderstandings and misinterpretations….

  • * Tomatoes are looking better, but keep an eye on those jalapenos: “U.S. government inspectors have found the same salmonella strain responsible for a food-poisoning outbreak in the U.S. in a Mexican-grown jalapeno pepper in a Texas plant, prompting a new warning for consumers to avoid eating fresh jalapenos. The Food and Drug Administration called Monday’s announcement a ‘very important break in the case.’”

    This is an incredible screw-up. Millions of dollars of tomatoes were destroyed because of a warning by the FDA..without identifying the salmonella strain in one single tomato. Now that they’ve apparently found evidence of that strain in a particular jalapeno pepper, they still can’t say where along the process it was contaminated. IN addition, they can’t track where those pepper may have been used in subsequent products, such as salsa. The irony is that it is the PRODUCERS/DISTRIBUTORS of these products that have been fighting the regulations that would have tracked products. So the result is millions of dollars lost, as well as millions of tons of produce lost/destroyed as a result. That’s our food chain, folks. And one more thing to thank the Republicans for. And THEY are better at keeping us SAFE? What a complete and pathetic joke.

  • abc news just announce that the mcsame campaign had “a special event” scheduled for louisiana on thurs.

    vice-president bobby jindal, anyone?

  • vice-president bobby jindal, anyone?

    Do y’all remember that old Far Side cartoon in which a dog has placed a crudely lettered sign reading “CAT FUD” with an arrow pointing toward the dryer, and he’s watching the cat curiously check it out? As the dog said:

    “Oh, please, please, pleeeeeeease…”

  • What could possibly be wrong with the old piece-of-paper-and-a-pencil-and-x-marks-the-spot style of voting? — neilt, @4

    Can only answer for my own neck of the woods (small town in south-western Virginia), where I’ve now worked the polls 4 times (primaries, mostly, and one state elections)…

    You don’t *get* to use a paper-and-pencil ballot, unless you vote “in absentia” (can’t remember the correct term, all of a sudden. But it’s the vote you send in, ahead of the time, instead of casting it in the booth, on Election Day). Your booth vote is a series of touch-screens, where you press the names of the people you want to vote for — a bit like an ATM “cash cow”, but without the receipt option.

    Possibilities for garden variety (ie no ill-intent) screw-ups are *legion*.
    1) Some people think one screen is all there is and never get to the second, third, etc (the number depends on the number of candidates/positions and additional issues being voted on). So you get so-called “undervotes”.
    2) In order to have your vote register on the counting computer, you have to press “submit” once you’ve finished. People who aren’t familiar with ‘puters are likely to miss that. We always have at least one person posted watching the 3 booths and making sure that nobody walks out (because you’re not allowed back in) without having the screen “turn green” (which means the vote has been recorded and the booth is now available to the next voter). We post *big signs* to that effect, right in the booths, directly above the voting screens… and we *still* catch people leaving with their job unfinished and the vote visible to all and sundry.
    3) If you press a wrong name by mistake, there *is* a recourse; you can press “cancel” and start over. But “cancel” is not easily visible and people less familiar with ‘puters in general (including ATMs, self-checkouts etc) don’t know to look for it. But the elderly (and less computerised) are *exactly* who is likely to show up; not only are they more likely to vote as a group, but our town is a retiree heaven.

    All that, before we even consider that you have to take the whole thing on trust, because, even if you press everything correctly and even if the “review” screen shows that before you press “submit”… you don’t know what is being recorded on the counting computer. And those things are “hackable” in many ways. We check in the morning, before we open up. We give up our privacy, announce who we”re voting for, do the voting, and check that the counting computer registered the votes correctly. But… How difficult would it be, to set up a program which starts skewing votes only after the first 50 or 100?

    Now, the paper and pencil ballots, mentioned above… They’re also more complex than you might think 🙂

    For one thing, they have to be packed in two envelopes: one sealed, one unsealed, one bearing your name, address and signature, the other one not (or maybe with just a signature; can’t remember at the moment and don’t have the booklet; will get a new one — with updated rules — a week before my training session, which is a week before the Election Day). Any screw-up in *any* of these elements (explained, in very small print and legalese) and your vote doesn’t count.

    The ballot card itself doesn’t have names on it. Just numbers — 001,002, 003, etc — with a little circle next to each number. The list of names (with party designation), the issues and their assigned numbers are on a separate piece of paper. So, maybe, Obama is 003, McCain is 002, Warner is 012, Gilmore 013 and “marriage amendment” is 027 for “yes” and 0028 for “no” (that one isn’t gonna be on, this time; VA blew it in ’06). So you find the number assigned to your candidate (or the answer on your issue) and fill in the the little circle next to that number on the ballot card.

    You’re told to press the pencil hard (the blacker the circle, the easier it’ll be to read, whether by the scanner or the poor humans) and to fill the circle fully. You made an oopsie and filled out the wrong circle, not assigned to any answer? That disqualifies the whole ballot. You filled out the wrong circle, caught the mistake, erased it and filled out the correct circle? That’s 50-50. The hard-filled circle leaves a grey shadow. If a human reads the ballot, he/she can tell what the intention had been and counts the darker circle. If it’s a scanner… What it “sees” is two filled circles and disqualifies the entire ballot…

    Nothing’s simple this side of the grave… 🙂

  • libra:

    So yeah, it really IS more complex than it needs to be 🙂

    The way it works in Canada really does seem to make sense. You sign in, you’re given a folded piece of paper with all the candidates names on it and a circle beside each name – you mark an X and you put the folded piece of paper in the box.

    I realize that US elections have more than one election going on: The President, Senate, House of Representatives, Municipal Posts, various propostions etc etc.

    but why couldn’t you just be given one sheet for each vote?

    | guess I’m just wondering what the official, non-squirrelly reasoning is for the complexity.

    thanks for your reply!

  • Wolf Blitzer and his band of pundits covered the McCain ad on gas prices today, and not one of the four, including regulars Cafferty and Borger, and a Washington Times representative whose name escapes me, mentioned the fact that oil companies already have 68/28 million acres that they’re not exploiting. I just don’t get it. Nobody points this out, yet it seems to me it’s the strongest argument against drilling in currently protected areas. They’ve already got all the land they could possibly use. One hundred million acres is 156,000 square miles, or more than the areas of Idaho and Washington state combined. That’s a hell of lot of potential oil they’re ignoring that apparently nobody thinks is relevant to the debate.

    One would also expect that existing leases could be developed sooner than ANWR or the offshore areas. So why is there even a debate? Why aren’t they going after the oil companies?

    There must be a very simple explanation that I just don’t see.

  • Krugman’s warning about the media turning on Obama, Clinton-style, within months of the inauguration is right on (as if it isn’t happening now). But putting it out in the open as Krugman has begs the question, what are we going to do about it?

  • One would also expect that existing leases could be developed sooner than ANWR or the offshore areas. So why is there even a debate? Why aren’t they going after the oil companies? — hark, @17

    Substitute “future profits” for “common sense now” and you’ll have your answer. The oil companies (and their mouthpieces, like McCain) don’t want to *drill* more now; they want to *lock the rights* to being able to drill more, sometime in the — unspecified — future. Whenever it seems their profits are going to be even larger than now.

  • Too much to comment on today! But just a couple of things:

    neilt: here in Oregon all registered voters get ballots mailed to us two weeks before the election date. We have those two weeks to fill in the bubbles next to the candidate’s name or “yes” or “no” for issues, put the ballot inside one envelope, then sign the outer envelope swearing that you are indeed the person whose name and address is on the envelope, then mail or drop off at specified official locations. It’s very convenient and very easy to do. I wish the whole country would vote this way. No long lines, no voter intimidation or illegal challenges, no broken machines, AND a paper trail. Results are announced quickly.

    Re Michael Savage: that idiot needs to spend some time with families of autistic kids and get educated. I find the same miseducation about ADHD, which runs in my family. True, it is over-diagnosed, too many kids are put on meds. But it is a real condition, an imbalance in the brain chemistry. I swear my younger son wouldn’t have graduated from high school without his meds… and all of the many classes we took with him to learn how to deal with it. And everyone has an opinion about how to treat it, no sugar or a diet of this or that, more discipline, etc. Part of the problem is that there’s no clearcut ADHD “test” and the symptoms range from mild to severe. Probably the same as in autism and ADHD-similar diseases such as Tourettes. Most helpful were my son’s kindergarten teacher, who let him sit in her office and listen to calming music when he got too wound up or upset (which helped him learn a way to calm down), and his incredibly patient 3rd/4th grade teacher who always seemed to know how to deal with him. We also have to thank the wonderful early childhood program at the Univ. of Washington for all of the classes we took.

    Sean Hannity will be paid $100 million? I think I’m going to be sick to my stomach. Think of how much good could be done with that money, when given to the right groups. Truly disgusting.

  • In the same vein, more babble.

    “For some reason, an investigation from the British Parliament found that that England “should no longer rely on assurances by the United States that it does not torture terrorism suspects.” Imagine that.”

    Next, perhaps England might consider producing their own news instead of parroting, (my abject apologies to parrots), the talking points from the White House.
    Last night the BBC News, (or Fox East?) faithfully scrambled Mr. Maliki’s declaration of support for Obamas policy with Iraq so as to make it virtually incomprehensible. The final polish was applied during the live interview with the BBC’s Iraqi transmogrifier, (there! I’ve always wanted to use that word!) who further twisted any bits of clarity overlooked in the original lead-in. He finally summed it all up by declaring that there would be little difference between McCains and Obamas positions.
    If I had not read the details first on the Carpetbagger report all I would have been able to glean from the BBC News report was that Poor Mr. Maliki was terribly confused.
    I remember when PBS began carrying BBC as a source of reliable and reality based information, during the first Gulf war when all the North American news outlets ceased to be reliable sources.
    Ah! How far the once magesterial voice of the BBC has fallen!
    David Chisholm

  • maybe not the best ad buy: the mccain campaign buys space above the google search for “things younger than mccain.”

  • AYM, I did a google search on “things younger than mccain” and didn’t see any ads. Can you provide a link, please?

    Thanks.

  • Hannah

    thanks for your reply!

    One thing I learned in this interminable primary season was that Oregon pretty much rules!
    The mail in ballots sound awesome (i wasn’t aware that they use the same process for presidential elections – I thought it was only a primary thing)

    One question – how was the issue of family intimidation in voting handled? I could see how families with….strong patriarchs could force all members of a family to vote in the same manner. Was this even an issue discussed in the media? Maybe it wouldn’t even be much of an issue in Oregon, but where I’m from (Toronto) we have very sizeable populations of cultures who are prone to have strong patriarchal figures – I’d imagine it would be a primary concern here…

    again, I think the mail-in process is effing brilliant!

    cheers!

  • I really want to obey rules of your website and hope you’d better not consider this
    is an spamming message.

    Keys for liver diseases

    1) To find the treatment that suitable for your disease condition.
    2) To believe there really a treatment in the world accorded with your need.

    you can contact me on this website by clicking the on-line customer service button:
    http://www.liver-health.info

    thank u

  • Uh-oh… re. #25, it appears that the Orange trick word possibly failed as a gate-keeper. Yikes?!?!?! Grin….

  • Paul Krugman predicted an Obama victory in November — “but added that ‘within three months of taking office, no, less than three months’ the media would be out to get him, as much as they had at the high point of anti-Bill Clinton bashing.”

    Don’t think so.
    They’ll worry so much that they’ll be accused of being HARDER on him than Clinton that they’ll be slightly less relentless.

    I’m also confident that Obama won’t give them nearly as good stuff to work with.
    As much credit as liberals give Clinton, I think Obama is smarter (for all his intelligence, Clinton did/does DUMB things.) He’ll also show more guts when backing progressive policies and fight for them where Clinton triangulated, talking big but delivering very little and outright betrayal at times. When you stab your friends, they aren’t there to help you against a malevolent press and GOP congress.

    I suspect Obama knows better how to thread needles. He campaigns like it.

  • #24: Family intimidation is always a possibility, even when one goes into a voting booth. Part of the process of our mail-in balloting is that when you sign your name, you state something like ‘no one has influenced me’ or ‘no one filled out my ballot for me’, something to that effect. Impossible to know what is true of course. But better that IMO than thousands not getting to vote due to long lines, lack of equipment, vote flipping, no paper trail, being turned away because the Sec’y of State decided you were a felon and took you off the rolls with no evidence, etc.

  • Hannah,

    I see your point – and I suppose it’s probably a very minor problem. You get the same thing with translators at the polling station – who are invariably a relative, and even though they take a quick little oath saying they won’t tell the other person to vote for, they often do. (I worked one election…the sneaky buggers didn’t count on me knowing French! 🙂

    I was just thinking of possible issues that would sink such a program from going nationwide. Because I really think Oregon’s system is the way to fix the current mess.

    Although who am I kidding, all the other issues you listed are not really considered issues at all by the Repubs, that’s how they win elections dagnabbit!

    cheers!

    • Comments are closed.