Category Archives: Politics: US

Ed Felton has the links to Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Pickle's report of his preliminary (and subpoena-free) investigation into the Senate file scandal: Part One and Part Two. I wish I had time to read these today.

Zogby's electoral vote predicitons, found at The Big Picture: Projected Electoral College Vote, 2004, paint a surprisingly cheerful picture for Sen. Kerry.

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The blogs have been abuzz with the idea that Senator Kerry should appoint a shadow cabinet—a means of having spokespersons dog the administration on the major issues. Politically it makes sense (although it also multiplies the risk that one of them will gaffe in a way that swings the election). The idea has even crossed over to the op-ed page of the New York Times. But, as my friend John Berryhill points out in a private communication, it won't happen:

[S]hadow cabinets have not been used in the United States because Mr. Kerry would face up to two years in jail under 18 USC § 599:

“Whoever, being a candidate, directly or indirectly promises or pledges the appointment, or the use of his influence or support for the appointment of any person to any public or private position or employment, for the purpose of procuring support in his candidacy shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

I suppose if the 'shadows' were appointed by the DNC, without input from Kerry, that would avoid the legal problem…but it would blunt the political impact. And, to the extent that the appointments were really free from Sen. Kerry's influence, it creates the near-certainty of internecine disputes.

Talk about arrogance and bigotry. The Mississippi Sun-Herald reports that Tempers flare over drilling legislation. Seems the oil and gas folks were angry that (1) Newspapers reported on their attempt to sneak through legislation easing drilling; (2) People — poor black people — got uppity about it.

A House vote on a bill that could result in natural gas drilling in the Mississippi Sound was postponed, and a hasty meeting to try to allay the fears and anger of some Coast lawmakers was held Thursday evening.

…

Prior to the meeting, oil and gas industry lobbyists chided the media for “stirring things up down there” by reporting about the legislation. Lawmakers over the last two days have fielded calls and messages from constituents and environmentalists concerned about drilling, an issue that has waxed and waned for years on the Coast.

“We quite frankly have not had opposition from anybody but tree huggers and Democrats,” said Marvin L. Oxley, an oil and gas geologist who's helping lobby for the law changes. “Don't use that, say, 'environmentalists.' By Democrats, I mean the blacks. Don't write blacks. Were you in the Judiciary hearing? That's most of who had questions about this.”

Tempers flared early in the Thursday night meeting, which was called by House Oil and Gas Committee Chairman John Reeves, R-Jackson, who sponsored the House legislation and pushed it through his committee earlier in the week.

Some lawmakers from Harrison, Hancock and Jackson counties had told the media they felt like they were left out of the loop on legislation “in their back yards,” which moved very quickly through committees in both the House and Senate.

Some complained that the bill's short title, which read, “Mineral Lease Commission; transfer authority to Mississippi Major Economic Impact Authority” was couched in deception.

“I read in The Sun Herald that a couple of you said this was on a fast track and you didn't know anything about it,” Reeves said at the meeting's opening. “I'm a stand-up chairman, and anything I do is in the wide open and I don't have to hide anything.”

He began to chide Coast lawmakers a little, but Rep. Michael Janus, R-Biloxi, interrupted Reeves: “That's bull-t,” Janus said. “If you want to use this meeting to waste our time, then we might as well leave. I'm free to make comments to the newspaper whenever I want to. Even the title of this bill is deceptive.”

Democracy, what a concept.

Joho the Blog: Paperless democracy's test reads Ed Cone, and gets right to the meat of the one of the key issues:

Ed Cone writes about what conclusions to draw from the fact that Maryland's use of electronic voting machines on Tuesday seemed to go well: “'Election officials will think that this validates the system, that now we can all see that it works just fine – but that's not the case,' says Michael Wertheimer, a systems-security consultant…”

My favorite bit:

A sampling of voters at Lutherville, Md., on Super Tuesday showed that the systems worked well on the surface. “The machine was easy to use,” says Charlie Mitchell, 49. “The only thing I wondered about was what I had read about these machines – were the votes getting counted or not? I don't know.”

Oh, I see. Let me paraphrase: “The system worked perfectly and I was very happy with it, except for the gnawing fear that it disenfranchised me of my most basic right as a citizen.”

Of course the other key issue is that there really are serious reasons to doubt the machines are sufficiently hard to hack…

Family Ties. I don't even want to try to summarize this one.

Suffice it to say that as the Pentagon Inspector General's office is in the news for its investigation of possible criminal fraud by Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root (a name that resonates in US history — longtime crony capitalists, they bankrolled LBJ, and many other major Texas politicians), David Neiwert offers a glimpse into the, um, unconventional family background of the head of the IG's office.