From InTheseTimes.com:
If you’re one of AT&T’s 96 million customers, no doubt you’ve experienced the frustrations of dropped calls or weak signals, even in the middle of a metropolis. The sleekest apps and Luke Wilson’s charm can’t hide the fact that AT&T’s network is sometimes akin to paying for a four-star meal, but getting a frozen dinner.
I’d go even further: iPhone users stuck on AT&T’s network have been victimized by one of the greatest cons in recent years. The company has convinced millions of people to shell out big bucks for a service that it doesn’t have the wireless capacity to properly offer.
If you’ve managed to avoid AT&T’s shoddy cellular service—most likely by signing a contract with T-Mobile, Verizon or Sprint—I’d like to extend my congratulations, and then my condolences. In March, AT&T announced plans to acquire T-Mobile’s 34 million customers in a $39 billion merger deal, further securing both AT&T’s empire and its suckiness — and making it harder to avoid them. With a combined 130 million customers, AT&T/T-Mobile would control the mobile communications of two-fifths of all Americans. Not all cell phone users in America — all Americans. (There are 302.9 million wireless subscriber accounts in the United States — -just 8 million less than the country’s population.)
But before AT&T sets out to conquer the country, it should commit to serving the customers it already has. The company has significantly underinvested in its own infrastructure, but still wants to grow its customer base – all while telling us things will actually improve. On April 29, one week after AT&T began the official merger review process conducted by the Federal Communications Commission, the company filed a 400-page document with the agency outlining the public benefits for this merger and arguing it will stimulate the economy and promote innovation.
Those claims are rotten. In reality, this deal is simply about eliminating a competitor and entrenching AT&T’s market dominance. AT&T is using the slogan “Mobilize Everything” to sell the deal, but it’s real goal is to “Monopolize Everything,” as Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner has said. Welcome back, Ma Bell. The proposed merger would further consolidate the national wireless market, leaving just three national carriers and giving Verizon and AT&T control of nearly 80 percent of the market — and further disadvantaging smaller regional carriers and Sprint, calls that scenario “an entrenched duopoly.”
In a speech on the Senate floor last week, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said the merger would raise prices for consumers and decrease consumer choice in the marketplace. I agree: The public shouldn’t have to endure more bad behavior from AT&T as a result of an unnecessary and harmful merger...
AT&T Wants to Monopolize Everything
Megan Tady
May 10, 2011
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/7286/atampt_wants_to_monopolize_everything
Showing posts with label Al Franken. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Franken. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Al Franken: ‘They're coming after the Internet’
MIKE ZAPLER | 3/14/11
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51266.html
AUSTIN, Texas — Sen. Al Franken claimed Monday that big corporations are "hoping to destroy" the Internet and issued a call to arms to several hundred tech-savvy South by Southwest attendees to preserve net neutrality.
"I came here to warn you, the party may be over," Franken said. "They're coming after the Internet hoping to destroy the very thing that makes it such an important [medium] for independent artists and entrepreneurs: its openness and freedom.”
Net neutrality, he added, is "the First Amendment issue of our time."
Receiving a hero's welcome from the liberal crowd, Franken took repeated shots at big telecoms, singling out Comcast.
He said Comcast is looking to change the basic architecture of the Web by implementing a pricing scheme that allows moneyed interests to pay for faster speeds, leaving everyone else behind. That would be a particularly bad development for the independent musicians and artists gathered here, he said.
"The real end for Comcast is to put Netflix out of business entirely," Franken said, because of the threat that Netflix's streaming video business could pose to Comcast's cable franchise. "In the end, the American people will end up paying a lot more for worse service."
Comcast is now embroiled in a dispute with Level 3, a networking company that carries online video feeds for Netflix, over fees Comcast wants to charge to carry the high-bandwidth content.
In response to Franken’s comments, a Comcast spokeswoman said Monday that the dispute with Level 3 isn’t about net neutrality but is “a peering issue.” “Under the FCC order for the Comcast NBCU transaction, Comcast is required to comply with the FCC’s recent open Internet rules even if they are overturned in court. Our customers can access all Netflix content,” said Sena Fitzmaurice, Comcast’s vice president of government communications.
Franken, who was an aggressive opponent of the Comcast acquisition of NBC Universal, implored SXSW attendees to fight the political influence of the big telecom firms.
"Unfortunately one thing these big corporations have that we don't is the ability to purchase favorable political outcomes," he said. "Big telecoms have lots of [lobbyists], and good ones, too. ... The end of net neutrality would benefit no one but these corporate giants."
Franken said talk of a "government takeover" of the Internet by net neutrality critics has as much credibility as claims of "death panels" in the health care legislation and claims that "Obama's a Muslim," calling them a "pantheon of lies."
Franken finished up his half-hour speech by imploring the crowd to preserve net neutrality to avoid a future in which they're "stuck listening to the Black Eyed Peas and reminiscing about the days before you had to sell out to make it.”
“Let's not let the government sell us out,” he said. “Let's fight for net neutrality. Let's keep Austin weird. Let's keep the Internet weird. Let's keep the Internet free."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51266.html
AUSTIN, Texas — Sen. Al Franken claimed Monday that big corporations are "hoping to destroy" the Internet and issued a call to arms to several hundred tech-savvy South by Southwest attendees to preserve net neutrality.
"I came here to warn you, the party may be over," Franken said. "They're coming after the Internet hoping to destroy the very thing that makes it such an important [medium] for independent artists and entrepreneurs: its openness and freedom.”
Net neutrality, he added, is "the First Amendment issue of our time."
Receiving a hero's welcome from the liberal crowd, Franken took repeated shots at big telecoms, singling out Comcast.
He said Comcast is looking to change the basic architecture of the Web by implementing a pricing scheme that allows moneyed interests to pay for faster speeds, leaving everyone else behind. That would be a particularly bad development for the independent musicians and artists gathered here, he said.
"The real end for Comcast is to put Netflix out of business entirely," Franken said, because of the threat that Netflix's streaming video business could pose to Comcast's cable franchise. "In the end, the American people will end up paying a lot more for worse service."
Comcast is now embroiled in a dispute with Level 3, a networking company that carries online video feeds for Netflix, over fees Comcast wants to charge to carry the high-bandwidth content.
In response to Franken’s comments, a Comcast spokeswoman said Monday that the dispute with Level 3 isn’t about net neutrality but is “a peering issue.” “Under the FCC order for the Comcast NBCU transaction, Comcast is required to comply with the FCC’s recent open Internet rules even if they are overturned in court. Our customers can access all Netflix content,” said Sena Fitzmaurice, Comcast’s vice president of government communications.
Franken, who was an aggressive opponent of the Comcast acquisition of NBC Universal, implored SXSW attendees to fight the political influence of the big telecom firms.
"Unfortunately one thing these big corporations have that we don't is the ability to purchase favorable political outcomes," he said. "Big telecoms have lots of [lobbyists], and good ones, too. ... The end of net neutrality would benefit no one but these corporate giants."
Franken said talk of a "government takeover" of the Internet by net neutrality critics has as much credibility as claims of "death panels" in the health care legislation and claims that "Obama's a Muslim," calling them a "pantheon of lies."
Franken finished up his half-hour speech by imploring the crowd to preserve net neutrality to avoid a future in which they're "stuck listening to the Black Eyed Peas and reminiscing about the days before you had to sell out to make it.”
“Let's not let the government sell us out,” he said. “Let's fight for net neutrality. Let's keep Austin weird. Let's keep the Internet weird. Let's keep the Internet free."
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Fake Net Neutrality: Like Letting Enron Write the Electricity Rules
http://my.firedoglake.com/scarecrow/2010/12/21/fake-net-neutrality-what-does-corporate-capture-look-like/
Fake Net Neutrality: Like Letting Enron Write the Electricity Rules
By: Scarecrow
Tuesday December 21, 2010
David Dayen’s post this a.m. summarizes concerns about the apparent regulatory capture of the Federal Communications Commission, which is about to issue new rules to undermine internet open access, aka, “net neutrality.” NYT coverage is here.
I’ll leave to Tim Karr and others to describe the technical features and sell outs that have allowed the Western World’s Worst internet/broadband structure to become slower, more expensive and more discriminatory than services in other countries. Senator Al Franken gave an excellent speech, worth watching on the full range of policy issues.
It may help to have an analogous framework on how to think about what corporate capture of the internet and broadband service means, not just in terms of speed and coverage but in terms of content and pricing. It’s not just that our service is slower and we face monopoly pricing, it’s that a tiny handful of corporations are seizing control of what we’ll be allowed to watch and read.
Suppose that President Eisenhower had proposed we build an interstate highway system, but we’d allow only three or four large corporations to carve up and own all the main interconnections, determine the tolls and decide who got to drive on them during which hours. The corporations could also decide where the on/off ramps were, which communities they did or didn’t serve, where the routes went, depending on which provided better tax breaks.
And suppose these same companies owned a couple of auto companies, and they could decide whether cars and trucks made by their affiliate companies got better access, more lanes, higher speeds and lower tolls than cars/trucks sold by competitors.
Then suppose the Justice Department and the FTC did not think it their job to enforce the anti-trust laws of the United States, while the federal highway regulators did not believe they should have rules requiring open access, fair pricing, and non-discrimination.
Welcome to the forthcoming US policy on broadband/internet access.
We’re now told that the Democratic appointees on the FCC plan to develop a master plan for how this will all work. But until the Obama Administration and Congress forcefully and clearly direct the FCC to adopt and enforce rules for open, non-discriminatory access to the internet, the FCC has no framework consistent with the public interest for talking about some master plan. I doubt they’re even having a relevant conversation.
We saw an analogous battle over access to another network, the electricity transmission infrastructure. That industry spent over two decades struggling with the concepts of open access, non-discrimination, and efficient pricing. And after some failures and very bad false starts — recall California — we’ve made some progress there.
The electricity transmission system now connects the whole country, but its operation, once wholly balkanized, is now split between two types of system operators.
In over half the country, the transmission system is operated regionally by an independent, non-profit organization overseen by a federal regulator. Each independent system operator (ISO) functions under open access, non-discrimination rules. Every supplier, every generator, regardless of ownership, and every buyer/community/utility gets open access to the entire grid on non-discriminatory terms. Every technology/fuel source — wind, solar, coal, gas, nuclear, etc, can get on the grid just by connecting to the interconnected grid and agreeing to the open access rules. This system keeps the lights on in well over half the country, and the same model functions in about a dozen countries world wide.
However, in the rest of the US — mostly the deep South (think Southern Company) and the West (outside California) — the transmission system is owned and operated in a balkanized fashion by a [usually] private regional utility monopoly that has a vested interest in making sure competitors and/or non-preferred technologies are not given the same access as their own generators. If the owner’s lines are “full” or “congested,” the owners can allow their generators to serve their loads but curtail anyone else. Competitors are not allowed to connect to the grid under the same rules; buyers (e.g., municipal utilities) can’t buy from others and use the owner’s lines without negotiating special access deals and paying fees to the owner. The federal regulators tolerate this discrimination, because they can’t overcome the campaign contributions and political influence the monopolists have in Congress. Sound familiar?
Today’s FCC announcement reminds me of where the California electricity restructuring debate was in 1995, about the time Enron and its trader friends (remember “screw granny”?) were at the height of their influence and they were helping the large utilities write the rules that guaranteed discrimination and included rules that we knew would enable Enron’s gaming the system. Those of us who objected and demanded the system operators function as quasi-public entities and guarantee open access and non-discrimination were accused of being socialists plotting a government takeover, even a Soviet 5-year Plan! We’ve been here before, and what’s coming next will be ugly.
It’s blindingly obvious that “citizens” like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, should never be allowed to write the rules for the internet and broadband access. Nor should their captured regulators ever sanction discrimination and anti-competitive mergers that allow Comcast to gobble up NBC.
John Chandley
Fake Net Neutrality: Like Letting Enron Write the Electricity Rules
By: Scarecrow
Tuesday December 21, 2010
David Dayen’s post this a.m. summarizes concerns about the apparent regulatory capture of the Federal Communications Commission, which is about to issue new rules to undermine internet open access, aka, “net neutrality.” NYT coverage is here.
I’ll leave to Tim Karr and others to describe the technical features and sell outs that have allowed the Western World’s Worst internet/broadband structure to become slower, more expensive and more discriminatory than services in other countries. Senator Al Franken gave an excellent speech, worth watching on the full range of policy issues.
It may help to have an analogous framework on how to think about what corporate capture of the internet and broadband service means, not just in terms of speed and coverage but in terms of content and pricing. It’s not just that our service is slower and we face monopoly pricing, it’s that a tiny handful of corporations are seizing control of what we’ll be allowed to watch and read.
Suppose that President Eisenhower had proposed we build an interstate highway system, but we’d allow only three or four large corporations to carve up and own all the main interconnections, determine the tolls and decide who got to drive on them during which hours. The corporations could also decide where the on/off ramps were, which communities they did or didn’t serve, where the routes went, depending on which provided better tax breaks.
And suppose these same companies owned a couple of auto companies, and they could decide whether cars and trucks made by their affiliate companies got better access, more lanes, higher speeds and lower tolls than cars/trucks sold by competitors.
Then suppose the Justice Department and the FTC did not think it their job to enforce the anti-trust laws of the United States, while the federal highway regulators did not believe they should have rules requiring open access, fair pricing, and non-discrimination.
Welcome to the forthcoming US policy on broadband/internet access.
We’re now told that the Democratic appointees on the FCC plan to develop a master plan for how this will all work. But until the Obama Administration and Congress forcefully and clearly direct the FCC to adopt and enforce rules for open, non-discriminatory access to the internet, the FCC has no framework consistent with the public interest for talking about some master plan. I doubt they’re even having a relevant conversation.
We saw an analogous battle over access to another network, the electricity transmission infrastructure. That industry spent over two decades struggling with the concepts of open access, non-discrimination, and efficient pricing. And after some failures and very bad false starts — recall California — we’ve made some progress there.
The electricity transmission system now connects the whole country, but its operation, once wholly balkanized, is now split between two types of system operators.
In over half the country, the transmission system is operated regionally by an independent, non-profit organization overseen by a federal regulator. Each independent system operator (ISO) functions under open access, non-discrimination rules. Every supplier, every generator, regardless of ownership, and every buyer/community/utility gets open access to the entire grid on non-discriminatory terms. Every technology/fuel source — wind, solar, coal, gas, nuclear, etc, can get on the grid just by connecting to the interconnected grid and agreeing to the open access rules. This system keeps the lights on in well over half the country, and the same model functions in about a dozen countries world wide.
However, in the rest of the US — mostly the deep South (think Southern Company) and the West (outside California) — the transmission system is owned and operated in a balkanized fashion by a [usually] private regional utility monopoly that has a vested interest in making sure competitors and/or non-preferred technologies are not given the same access as their own generators. If the owner’s lines are “full” or “congested,” the owners can allow their generators to serve their loads but curtail anyone else. Competitors are not allowed to connect to the grid under the same rules; buyers (e.g., municipal utilities) can’t buy from others and use the owner’s lines without negotiating special access deals and paying fees to the owner. The federal regulators tolerate this discrimination, because they can’t overcome the campaign contributions and political influence the monopolists have in Congress. Sound familiar?
Today’s FCC announcement reminds me of where the California electricity restructuring debate was in 1995, about the time Enron and its trader friends (remember “screw granny”?) were at the height of their influence and they were helping the large utilities write the rules that guaranteed discrimination and included rules that we knew would enable Enron’s gaming the system. Those of us who objected and demanded the system operators function as quasi-public entities and guarantee open access and non-discrimination were accused of being socialists plotting a government takeover, even a Soviet 5-year Plan! We’ve been here before, and what’s coming next will be ugly.
It’s blindingly obvious that “citizens” like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, should never be allowed to write the rules for the internet and broadband access. Nor should their captured regulators ever sanction discrimination and anti-competitive mergers that allow Comcast to gobble up NBC.
John Chandley
The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-franken/the-most-important-free-s_b_798984.html
Al Franken
U.S. Senator, Minnesota
December 20, 2010
The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time
This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet.
As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.
This principle is called "net neutrality" -- and it's under attack. Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it.
The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don't do that at all. They're worse than nothing.
That's why Tuesday is such an important day. The FCC will be meeting to discuss those regulations, and we must make sure that its members understand that allowing corporations to control the Internet is simply unacceptable.
Although Chairman Genachowski's draft Order has not been made public, early reports make clear that it falls far short of protecting net neutrality.
For many Americans -- particularly those who live in rural areas -- the future of the Internet lies in mobile services. But the draft Order would effectively permit Internet providers to block lawful content, applications, and devices on mobile Internet connections.
Mobile networks like AT&T and Verizon Wireless would be able to shut off your access to content or applications for any reason. For instance, Verizon could prevent you from accessing Google Maps on your phone, forcing you to use their own mapping program, Verizon Navigator, even if it costs money to use and isn't nearly as good. Or a mobile provider with a political agenda could prevent you from downloading an app that connects you with the Obama campaign (or, for that matter, a Tea Party group in your area).
It gets worse. The FCC has never before explicitly allowed discrimination on the Internet -- but the draft Order takes a step backwards, merely stating that so-called "paid prioritization" (the creation of a "fast lane" for big corporations who can afford to pay for it) is cause for concern.
It sure is -- but that's exactly why the FCC should ban it. Instead, the draft Order would have the effect of actually relaxing restrictions on this kind of discrimination.
What's more, even the protections that are established in the draft Order would be weak because it defines "broadband Internet access service" too narrowly, making it easy for powerful corporations to get around the rules.
Here's what's most troubling of all. Chairman Genachowski and President Obama -- who nominated him -- have argued convincingly that they support net neutrality.
But grassroots supporters of net neutrality are beginning to wonder if we've been had. Instead of proposing regulations that would truly protect net neutrality, reports indicate that Chairman Genachowski has been calling the CEOs of major Internet corporations seeking their public endorsement of this draft proposal, which would destroy it.
No chairman should be soliciting sign-off from the corporations that his agency is supposed to regulate -- and no true advocate of a free and open Internet should be seeking the permission of large media conglomerates before issuing new rules.
After all, just look at Comcast -- this Internet monolith has reportedly imposed a new, recurring fee on Level 3 Communications, the company slated to be the primary online delivery provider for Netflix. That's the same Netflix that represents Comcast's biggest competition in video services.
Imagine if Comcast customers couldn't watch Netflix, but were limited only to Comcast's Video On Demand service. Imagine if a cable news network could get its website to load faster on your computer than your favorite local political blog. Imagine if big corporations with their own agenda could decide who wins or loses online. The Internet as we know it would cease to exist.
That's why net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. And that's why, this Tuesday, when the FCC meets to discuss this badly flawed proposal, I'll be watching. If they approve it as is, I'll be outraged. And you should be, too.
Al Franken
U.S. Senator, Minnesota
December 20, 2010
The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time
This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet.
As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.
This principle is called "net neutrality" -- and it's under attack. Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it.
The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don't do that at all. They're worse than nothing.
That's why Tuesday is such an important day. The FCC will be meeting to discuss those regulations, and we must make sure that its members understand that allowing corporations to control the Internet is simply unacceptable.
Although Chairman Genachowski's draft Order has not been made public, early reports make clear that it falls far short of protecting net neutrality.
For many Americans -- particularly those who live in rural areas -- the future of the Internet lies in mobile services. But the draft Order would effectively permit Internet providers to block lawful content, applications, and devices on mobile Internet connections.
Mobile networks like AT&T and Verizon Wireless would be able to shut off your access to content or applications for any reason. For instance, Verizon could prevent you from accessing Google Maps on your phone, forcing you to use their own mapping program, Verizon Navigator, even if it costs money to use and isn't nearly as good. Or a mobile provider with a political agenda could prevent you from downloading an app that connects you with the Obama campaign (or, for that matter, a Tea Party group in your area).
It gets worse. The FCC has never before explicitly allowed discrimination on the Internet -- but the draft Order takes a step backwards, merely stating that so-called "paid prioritization" (the creation of a "fast lane" for big corporations who can afford to pay for it) is cause for concern.
It sure is -- but that's exactly why the FCC should ban it. Instead, the draft Order would have the effect of actually relaxing restrictions on this kind of discrimination.
What's more, even the protections that are established in the draft Order would be weak because it defines "broadband Internet access service" too narrowly, making it easy for powerful corporations to get around the rules.
Here's what's most troubling of all. Chairman Genachowski and President Obama -- who nominated him -- have argued convincingly that they support net neutrality.
But grassroots supporters of net neutrality are beginning to wonder if we've been had. Instead of proposing regulations that would truly protect net neutrality, reports indicate that Chairman Genachowski has been calling the CEOs of major Internet corporations seeking their public endorsement of this draft proposal, which would destroy it.
No chairman should be soliciting sign-off from the corporations that his agency is supposed to regulate -- and no true advocate of a free and open Internet should be seeking the permission of large media conglomerates before issuing new rules.
After all, just look at Comcast -- this Internet monolith has reportedly imposed a new, recurring fee on Level 3 Communications, the company slated to be the primary online delivery provider for Netflix. That's the same Netflix that represents Comcast's biggest competition in video services.
Imagine if Comcast customers couldn't watch Netflix, but were limited only to Comcast's Video On Demand service. Imagine if a cable news network could get its website to load faster on your computer than your favorite local political blog. Imagine if big corporations with their own agenda could decide who wins or loses online. The Internet as we know it would cease to exist.
That's why net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. And that's why, this Tuesday, when the FCC meets to discuss this badly flawed proposal, I'll be watching. If they approve it as is, I'll be outraged. And you should be, too.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Never Forget: Bad Wars Aren't Possible Unless Good People Back Them
Today's OpenMike blog by Michael Moore September 15, 2010
I know we've been "free" of the Iraq War for two weeks now and our minds have turned to the new football season and Fashion Week in New York. And how exciting that the new fall TV season is just days away!
But before we get too far away from something we would all just like to forget, will you please allow me to just say something plain and blunt and necessary:
We invaded Iraq because most Americans -- including good liberals like Al Franken, Nicholas Kristof & Bill Keller of the New York Times, David Remnick of the New Yorker, the editors of the Atlantic and the New Republic, Harvey Weinstein, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and John Kerry -- wanted to.
Of course the actual blame for the war goes to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz because they ordered the "precision" bombing, the invasion, the occupation, and the theft of our national treasury. I have no doubt that history will record that they committed the undisputed Crime of the (young) Century.
But how did they get away with it, considering they'd lost the presidential election by 543,895 votes? They also knew that the majority of the country probably wouldn't back them in such a war (a Newsweek poll in October 2002 showed 61% thought it was "very important" for Bush to get formal approval from the United Nations for war -- but that never happened). So how did they pull it off?
They did it by getting liberal voices to support their war. They did it by creating the look of bipartisanship. And they convinced other countries' leaders like Tony Blair to get on board and make it look like it wasn't just our intelligence agencies cooking the evidence.
But most importantly, they made this war (and its public support) happen because Bush & Co. had brilliantly conned the New York Times into running a bunch of phony front-page stories about how Saddam Hussein had all these "weapons of mass destruction." The administration gleefully fed this false information not to Fox News or the Washington Times. They gave it to America's leading liberal newspaper. They must have had a laugh riot each morning when they'd pick up the New York Times and read the nearly word-for-word scenarios and talking points that they had concocted in the Vice President's office.
I blame the New York Times more for this war than Bush. I expected Bush and Cheney to try and get away with what they did. But the Times -- and the rest of the press -- was supposed to STOP them by doing their job: Be a relentless watchdog of government and business -- and then inform the public so we can take action.
Instead, the New York Times gave the Bush administration the cover they needed. They could -- and did -- say, 'Hey, look, even the Times says Saddam has WMD!'
With this groundwork laid, the Bush crowd ended up convincing a whopping 70% of the public to support the war -- a public that had given him less than 48% of its vote in 2000.
Early liberal support for this war was the key ingredient in selling it to a majority of the public. I realize this is something that no one in the media -- nor most of us -- really wants to discuss. Who among us wants to feel the pain of having to remember that liberals, by joining with Bush, made this war happen?
Please, before our collective memory fades, I just want us to be honest with ourselves and present an unsanitized version of how they pulled off this war. I can guarantee you the revisionists will make sure the real truth will not enter the history books.
Children born when the war began started second grade this month.
Kids who were eleven in 2003 are now old enough to join up and get killed in Iraq in a "non-combat capacity."
They'll never understand how we got here if we don't.
So let me state this clearly: This war was aided and abetted by a) liberals who were afraid to stick their necks out and thus remained silent; and b) liberals who actually said they believed Colin Powell's cartoon presentation at the U.N. and then went against their better judgment by publicly offering their support for the invasion of Iraq.
First, there were those 29 (turncoat) Democratic senators who voted for the war. Then there was the embarrassing display of reporters who couldn't wait to be "embedded" and go for a joy ride on a Bradley tank.
But my real despair lies with the people I counted on for strong opposition to this madness -- but who left the rest of us alone, out on a limb, as we tried to stop the war.
In March of 2003, to be a public figure speaking out against the war was considered instant career suicide. Take the Dixie Chicks as Exhibit A. Their lead singer, Natalie Maines, uttered just one sentence of criticism -- and their career was effectively dead and buried at that moment. Bruce Springsteen spoke out in their defense, and a Colorado DJ was fired for refusing to not play their songs. That was about it. Crickets everywhere else.
Then MSNBC fired the only nightly critic of the war -- the television legend, Phil Donahue. No one at the network -- or any network -- spoke up on his behalf. There would never again be a Phil Donahue show. (Little did GE know that, when they soon filled that 8pm hour with a sports guy by the name of Keith Olbermann, they would end up with the war's most brilliant and fiercest critic, night after night after night.) There were a few others -- Bill Maher, Janeane Garofalo, Tim Robbins and Seymour Hersh -- who weren't afraid to speak the truth. But where was everyone else? Where were all those supposed liberal voices in the media?
Instead, this is what we were treated to back in 2003 and 2004:
** Al Franken, who said he "reluctantly" was "a supporter of the war against Saddam." And six months into the war Al was still saying, "There were reasons to go to war against Iraq ... I was very ambivalent about it but I still don't know if it was necessarily wrong (to go to war)."
** Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times, who attacked me and wrote a column comparing me to the nutty right-wingers who claimed Hillary had Vince Foster killed. He said people like me were "polarizing the political cesspool," and he chastised anyone who dared call Bush's reasons for going to war in Iraq "lies."
** Howell Raines, editor-in-chief of the "liberal" New York Times, who was, according to former Times editor Doug Frantz, "eager to have articles that supported the war-mongering out of Washington ... He discouraged pieces that were at odds with the administration's position on Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and alleged links of al-Qaeda." The book "Hard News" reported that "according to half a dozen sources within the Times, Raines wanted to prove once and for all that he wasn't editing the paper in a way that betrayed his liberal beliefs..."
** Bill Keller, at the time a New York Times columnist, who wrote: "We reluctant hawks may disagree among ourselves about the most compelling logic for war -- protecting America, relieving oppressed Iraqis or reforming the Middle East -- but we generally agree that the logic for standing pat does not hold. ... we are hard pressed to see an alternative that is not built on wishful thinking."
(The New York Times is so left-wing that when Raines retired, they replaced him with... Keller.)
** The New Yorker, the magazine for really smart liberals, found its editor-in-chief, David Remnick, supporting the war on its pages: "History will not easily excuse us if, by deciding not to decide, we defer a reckoning with an aggressive totalitarian leader who intends not only to develop weapons of mass destruction but also to use them. ... a return to a hollow pursuit of containment will be the most dangerous option of all." (To cover its ass, the New Yorker had another editor, Rick Hertzberg, write an anti-war editorial as a rebuttal.)
Some of the above have recanted their early support of the war. The Times fired its WMD correspondent and apologized to its readers. Al Franken has been a great Senator. Kristof now writes nice columns (check out last Sunday's).
But the support of the war by these leading liberals and the majority of the Democrats in the Senate made it safe for the Right to let loose a vicious and unchecked tirade of hate and threats on anyone (including myself) who dared to step out of line. It was not uncommon to hear the media describe me as "un-American," "anti-American," "aiding the terrorists," and being a "traitor."
Here are just a couple of examples of what was said about me over the airwaves by two of the nation's leading conservative commentators:
"Let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong? I stopped wearing my 'What Would Jesus Do' band, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, 'Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore,' and then I'd see the little band: 'What Would Jesus Do?' And then I'd realize, 'Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death.' And you know, well, I'm not sure." (Glenn Beck)
And:
"Well, I want to kill Michael Moore. Is that all right? All right. And I don't believe in capital punishment. That's just a joke on Moore." (Bill O'Reilly)
(Ironically, O'Reilly made his threat/joke the night after Janet Jackson's breast was bared at the Super Bowl -- which got CBS fined over half a million dollars because, you know, nipples are far more frightening than death threats.)
So that's how I'll personally remember the early war years: living with a real and present danger caused by the hate whipped up by right-wing radio and TV. (I've been advised not to recount certain specific incidents that happened to me, as it would only encourage other crazy people.)
So I dealt with it. And I'm still here. And I know many of you went through your own crap, standing up against the war at school, or work, or at Thanksgiving dinner, taking your own blows for simply saying what was the truth.
But how much easier it would have been for all of us if the liberal establishment had stood with us? We didn't own a daily newspaper, or a magazine with a circulation in the millions. We didn't have our own TV show or network. We weren't invited on shows like "Meet the Press," because they simply could not allow our voice to be heard.
The media watchdog group FAIR reported that in the three weeks after the war started, the CBS Evening News allowed only one anti-war voice on their show -- and that was on one night in one soundbite (and that was four seconds of me in a line from my Oscar speech) -- even though in March of 2003 our anti-war numbers were in the millions (remember the huge demonstrations in hundreds of cities?). We were around 30% of the country according to most polls (that's nearly 100 million Americans!) and yet we had no way to communicate with each other aside from through the Nation and a few websites like CommonDreams.org and Truth-Out.org.
But that was no way to build a huge mass movement of Middle Americans to oppose the war. Unless you had just lucked out and been handed an Oscar on live television in front of a gazillion people where you had 45 seconds to say something before they cut you off and booed you off the stage (hahahaha), you had no public platform. (Jeez, I sure did get booed a lot that year: simply walking through an airport, or eating dinner in a restaurant, or sitting at a Laker game where they suddenly put me up on the Jumbotron and the place went so angry-crazy that Larry David, who was sitting next to me, felt that maybe for his own safety he should perhaps slide a few seats down or go get us a couple of wieners. Instead, he stuck by my side -- and his skillful ninja moves got us out of there alive after the game.)
I know it's hard to remember, but when this war started, there was no YouTube, no Facebook, no Twitter, no way for you to bypass the media lords so you could have your own friggin' say.
Too bad for the bastards, those days are over.
The next time around, it won't be so easy to shut up a country girl band or try to silence someone while he accepts his little gold statue -- or completely ignore the millions of citizens in the streets.
So now we can hope that one of our wars is over. Too bad we lost. I hate to lose, don't you? But the fact is, we lost the very day we invaded a sovereign nation that posed absolutely no threat to us and had nothing to do with 9/11. We lost lives (over 4,400 of ours, hundreds of thousands of theirs), we lost limbs (a total of 35,000 troops came back with various wounds and disabilities and God knows how many more with mental problems). We lost the money our grandchildren were supposed to live on.
And we lost our soul, who we were, what we stood for as a once-great country -- lost it all. Can we now ask for redemption -- for forgiveness? Can we be... "America" again?
I guess we'll see. The vast majority of the country eventually came around to the Dixie Chicks' position. And we elected an anti-Iraq-war guy by the name of Barack Hussein Obama.
But, please, promise yourselves never to forget how our country went crazy 7 1/2 years ago -- even though, to many people at the time, it seemed completely normal. And I'm here to tell you, no matter how much better it's gotten, no matter how normal you may think things are now, we're still halfway nuts. Just listen to the new batch of "sensible pundits" as they start to beat the drums about what we should do to Iran. One war down, one (or two or three) to go.
C'mon, Mr. President, not one more kid needs to die overseas wearing a uniform with our flag on it. We can't win like this. Let's dig a few thousand wells in Afghanistan, build a few free mosques, leave behind some food and clothing, fix their electrical grid, issue an apology and set up a Facebook page so they can stay in touch with us -- and then let's get the hell out. Your own National Security Advisor and your CIA Director have told you there are less than 100 al-Qaeda fighters in the entire country. 100???
100,000 U.S. troops going after 100 al-Qaeda? Is this a Looney Tunes presentation? "A-ba-dee-a-ba-dee-a-ba-dee -- That's All Folks!" Let's get real. I'm glad one war is "over." But I know how we got there -- and I'm willing now to fight just as hard to stop these other wars if you won't, Mr. Obama.
Your call.
Yours,
Michael Moore
Mike@MichaelMoore.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. Just a thought, Mr. President. Can I ask that you go back and watch this movie I made -- "Fahrenheit 9/11." There might be some answers there. I give you my permission to download it for free by going to this site: TorrentHound.com. Don't tell the studio I said it was ok! They've only made a half a billion $$ on it so far.
P.P.S. To everyone on my list: Thanks to your thousands of generous donations, we've raised over $60,000 for the Muslim community center near Ground Zero. This has made news around the world, that there are Americans who believe in our stated American principles.
I know we've been "free" of the Iraq War for two weeks now and our minds have turned to the new football season and Fashion Week in New York. And how exciting that the new fall TV season is just days away!
But before we get too far away from something we would all just like to forget, will you please allow me to just say something plain and blunt and necessary:
We invaded Iraq because most Americans -- including good liberals like Al Franken, Nicholas Kristof & Bill Keller of the New York Times, David Remnick of the New Yorker, the editors of the Atlantic and the New Republic, Harvey Weinstein, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and John Kerry -- wanted to.
Of course the actual blame for the war goes to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz because they ordered the "precision" bombing, the invasion, the occupation, and the theft of our national treasury. I have no doubt that history will record that they committed the undisputed Crime of the (young) Century.
But how did they get away with it, considering they'd lost the presidential election by 543,895 votes? They also knew that the majority of the country probably wouldn't back them in such a war (a Newsweek poll in October 2002 showed 61% thought it was "very important" for Bush to get formal approval from the United Nations for war -- but that never happened). So how did they pull it off?
They did it by getting liberal voices to support their war. They did it by creating the look of bipartisanship. And they convinced other countries' leaders like Tony Blair to get on board and make it look like it wasn't just our intelligence agencies cooking the evidence.
But most importantly, they made this war (and its public support) happen because Bush & Co. had brilliantly conned the New York Times into running a bunch of phony front-page stories about how Saddam Hussein had all these "weapons of mass destruction." The administration gleefully fed this false information not to Fox News or the Washington Times. They gave it to America's leading liberal newspaper. They must have had a laugh riot each morning when they'd pick up the New York Times and read the nearly word-for-word scenarios and talking points that they had concocted in the Vice President's office.
I blame the New York Times more for this war than Bush. I expected Bush and Cheney to try and get away with what they did. But the Times -- and the rest of the press -- was supposed to STOP them by doing their job: Be a relentless watchdog of government and business -- and then inform the public so we can take action.
Instead, the New York Times gave the Bush administration the cover they needed. They could -- and did -- say, 'Hey, look, even the Times says Saddam has WMD!'
With this groundwork laid, the Bush crowd ended up convincing a whopping 70% of the public to support the war -- a public that had given him less than 48% of its vote in 2000.
Early liberal support for this war was the key ingredient in selling it to a majority of the public. I realize this is something that no one in the media -- nor most of us -- really wants to discuss. Who among us wants to feel the pain of having to remember that liberals, by joining with Bush, made this war happen?
Please, before our collective memory fades, I just want us to be honest with ourselves and present an unsanitized version of how they pulled off this war. I can guarantee you the revisionists will make sure the real truth will not enter the history books.
Children born when the war began started second grade this month.
Kids who were eleven in 2003 are now old enough to join up and get killed in Iraq in a "non-combat capacity."
They'll never understand how we got here if we don't.
So let me state this clearly: This war was aided and abetted by a) liberals who were afraid to stick their necks out and thus remained silent; and b) liberals who actually said they believed Colin Powell's cartoon presentation at the U.N. and then went against their better judgment by publicly offering their support for the invasion of Iraq.
First, there were those 29 (turncoat) Democratic senators who voted for the war. Then there was the embarrassing display of reporters who couldn't wait to be "embedded" and go for a joy ride on a Bradley tank.
But my real despair lies with the people I counted on for strong opposition to this madness -- but who left the rest of us alone, out on a limb, as we tried to stop the war.
In March of 2003, to be a public figure speaking out against the war was considered instant career suicide. Take the Dixie Chicks as Exhibit A. Their lead singer, Natalie Maines, uttered just one sentence of criticism -- and their career was effectively dead and buried at that moment. Bruce Springsteen spoke out in their defense, and a Colorado DJ was fired for refusing to not play their songs. That was about it. Crickets everywhere else.
Then MSNBC fired the only nightly critic of the war -- the television legend, Phil Donahue. No one at the network -- or any network -- spoke up on his behalf. There would never again be a Phil Donahue show. (Little did GE know that, when they soon filled that 8pm hour with a sports guy by the name of Keith Olbermann, they would end up with the war's most brilliant and fiercest critic, night after night after night.) There were a few others -- Bill Maher, Janeane Garofalo, Tim Robbins and Seymour Hersh -- who weren't afraid to speak the truth. But where was everyone else? Where were all those supposed liberal voices in the media?
Instead, this is what we were treated to back in 2003 and 2004:
** Al Franken, who said he "reluctantly" was "a supporter of the war against Saddam." And six months into the war Al was still saying, "There were reasons to go to war against Iraq ... I was very ambivalent about it but I still don't know if it was necessarily wrong (to go to war)."
** Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times, who attacked me and wrote a column comparing me to the nutty right-wingers who claimed Hillary had Vince Foster killed. He said people like me were "polarizing the political cesspool," and he chastised anyone who dared call Bush's reasons for going to war in Iraq "lies."
** Howell Raines, editor-in-chief of the "liberal" New York Times, who was, according to former Times editor Doug Frantz, "eager to have articles that supported the war-mongering out of Washington ... He discouraged pieces that were at odds with the administration's position on Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and alleged links of al-Qaeda." The book "Hard News" reported that "according to half a dozen sources within the Times, Raines wanted to prove once and for all that he wasn't editing the paper in a way that betrayed his liberal beliefs..."
** Bill Keller, at the time a New York Times columnist, who wrote: "We reluctant hawks may disagree among ourselves about the most compelling logic for war -- protecting America, relieving oppressed Iraqis or reforming the Middle East -- but we generally agree that the logic for standing pat does not hold. ... we are hard pressed to see an alternative that is not built on wishful thinking."
(The New York Times is so left-wing that when Raines retired, they replaced him with... Keller.)
** The New Yorker, the magazine for really smart liberals, found its editor-in-chief, David Remnick, supporting the war on its pages: "History will not easily excuse us if, by deciding not to decide, we defer a reckoning with an aggressive totalitarian leader who intends not only to develop weapons of mass destruction but also to use them. ... a return to a hollow pursuit of containment will be the most dangerous option of all." (To cover its ass, the New Yorker had another editor, Rick Hertzberg, write an anti-war editorial as a rebuttal.)
Some of the above have recanted their early support of the war. The Times fired its WMD correspondent and apologized to its readers. Al Franken has been a great Senator. Kristof now writes nice columns (check out last Sunday's).
But the support of the war by these leading liberals and the majority of the Democrats in the Senate made it safe for the Right to let loose a vicious and unchecked tirade of hate and threats on anyone (including myself) who dared to step out of line. It was not uncommon to hear the media describe me as "un-American," "anti-American," "aiding the terrorists," and being a "traitor."
Here are just a couple of examples of what was said about me over the airwaves by two of the nation's leading conservative commentators:
"Let me just tell you what I'm thinking. I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong? I stopped wearing my 'What Would Jesus Do' band, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, 'Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore,' and then I'd see the little band: 'What Would Jesus Do?' And then I'd realize, 'Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death.' And you know, well, I'm not sure." (Glenn Beck)
And:
"Well, I want to kill Michael Moore. Is that all right? All right. And I don't believe in capital punishment. That's just a joke on Moore." (Bill O'Reilly)
(Ironically, O'Reilly made his threat/joke the night after Janet Jackson's breast was bared at the Super Bowl -- which got CBS fined over half a million dollars because, you know, nipples are far more frightening than death threats.)
So that's how I'll personally remember the early war years: living with a real and present danger caused by the hate whipped up by right-wing radio and TV. (I've been advised not to recount certain specific incidents that happened to me, as it would only encourage other crazy people.)
So I dealt with it. And I'm still here. And I know many of you went through your own crap, standing up against the war at school, or work, or at Thanksgiving dinner, taking your own blows for simply saying what was the truth.
But how much easier it would have been for all of us if the liberal establishment had stood with us? We didn't own a daily newspaper, or a magazine with a circulation in the millions. We didn't have our own TV show or network. We weren't invited on shows like "Meet the Press," because they simply could not allow our voice to be heard.
The media watchdog group FAIR reported that in the three weeks after the war started, the CBS Evening News allowed only one anti-war voice on their show -- and that was on one night in one soundbite (and that was four seconds of me in a line from my Oscar speech) -- even though in March of 2003 our anti-war numbers were in the millions (remember the huge demonstrations in hundreds of cities?). We were around 30% of the country according to most polls (that's nearly 100 million Americans!) and yet we had no way to communicate with each other aside from through the Nation and a few websites like CommonDreams.org and Truth-Out.org.
But that was no way to build a huge mass movement of Middle Americans to oppose the war. Unless you had just lucked out and been handed an Oscar on live television in front of a gazillion people where you had 45 seconds to say something before they cut you off and booed you off the stage (hahahaha), you had no public platform. (Jeez, I sure did get booed a lot that year: simply walking through an airport, or eating dinner in a restaurant, or sitting at a Laker game where they suddenly put me up on the Jumbotron and the place went so angry-crazy that Larry David, who was sitting next to me, felt that maybe for his own safety he should perhaps slide a few seats down or go get us a couple of wieners. Instead, he stuck by my side -- and his skillful ninja moves got us out of there alive after the game.)
I know it's hard to remember, but when this war started, there was no YouTube, no Facebook, no Twitter, no way for you to bypass the media lords so you could have your own friggin' say.
Too bad for the bastards, those days are over.
The next time around, it won't be so easy to shut up a country girl band or try to silence someone while he accepts his little gold statue -- or completely ignore the millions of citizens in the streets.
So now we can hope that one of our wars is over. Too bad we lost. I hate to lose, don't you? But the fact is, we lost the very day we invaded a sovereign nation that posed absolutely no threat to us and had nothing to do with 9/11. We lost lives (over 4,400 of ours, hundreds of thousands of theirs), we lost limbs (a total of 35,000 troops came back with various wounds and disabilities and God knows how many more with mental problems). We lost the money our grandchildren were supposed to live on.
And we lost our soul, who we were, what we stood for as a once-great country -- lost it all. Can we now ask for redemption -- for forgiveness? Can we be... "America" again?
I guess we'll see. The vast majority of the country eventually came around to the Dixie Chicks' position. And we elected an anti-Iraq-war guy by the name of Barack Hussein Obama.
But, please, promise yourselves never to forget how our country went crazy 7 1/2 years ago -- even though, to many people at the time, it seemed completely normal. And I'm here to tell you, no matter how much better it's gotten, no matter how normal you may think things are now, we're still halfway nuts. Just listen to the new batch of "sensible pundits" as they start to beat the drums about what we should do to Iran. One war down, one (or two or three) to go.
C'mon, Mr. President, not one more kid needs to die overseas wearing a uniform with our flag on it. We can't win like this. Let's dig a few thousand wells in Afghanistan, build a few free mosques, leave behind some food and clothing, fix their electrical grid, issue an apology and set up a Facebook page so they can stay in touch with us -- and then let's get the hell out. Your own National Security Advisor and your CIA Director have told you there are less than 100 al-Qaeda fighters in the entire country. 100???
100,000 U.S. troops going after 100 al-Qaeda? Is this a Looney Tunes presentation? "A-ba-dee-a-ba-dee-a-ba-dee -- That's All Folks!" Let's get real. I'm glad one war is "over." But I know how we got there -- and I'm willing now to fight just as hard to stop these other wars if you won't, Mr. Obama.
Your call.
Yours,
Michael Moore
Mike@MichaelMoore.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. Just a thought, Mr. President. Can I ask that you go back and watch this movie I made -- "Fahrenheit 9/11." There might be some answers there. I give you my permission to download it for free by going to this site: TorrentHound.com. Don't tell the studio I said it was ok! They've only made a half a billion $$ on it so far.
P.P.S. To everyone on my list: Thanks to your thousands of generous donations, we've raised over $60,000 for the Muslim community center near Ground Zero. This has made news around the world, that there are Americans who believe in our stated American principles.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Al Franken Demolishes GOP’s Anti-Thurgood Marshall Campaign
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/38100
Al Franken Demolishes GOP’s Anti-Thurgood Marshall Campaign
Heather
Friday Jul 02, 2010
As Blue Texan at FDL noted, Al Franken laid waste to the GOP's anti-Thurgood Marshall Campaign and as they called it, their minority outreach program. Franken gives his "good friend" Lindsey Graham and the Republicans a little history lesson on what an "activist judge" is and why Justice Thurgood Marshall wasn't one of them.
Franken: You said there are three things that judges hold to when they’re not activists. You said that they respect precedent. They make narrow decisions and they defer to the political branches, in other words the legislature. And there are a lot of recent cases that we’ve been talking about that instinctively strike me and a lot of other people as falling outside of these three guidelines. And I think that in these cases the Supreme Court was legislating from the bench, which is being activist.
Franken goes on to discuss why the decisions in Circuit City v. Adams, Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Rent-a-Center v. Jackson, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS Inc., the Supreme Court would have fit into Kagan’s guidelines of what would define an “activist court” and noted that Republicans all “seem to like” those decisions. He went on to explain why there is no way that Brown v. Board of Education should be lumped in with those other cases and how it was “an exemplar of overturning a precedent that needed to be overturned.”
Franken: There are certain situations where the Supreme Court really should subject the law to a heightened scrutiny and this is what I think Justice Marshall was talking about when he said that the court should show “special solicitude for the despised and disadvantaged, the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government and who had no other champion.”
Now in the opening statements you were criticized for admiring Justice Marshall for believing this, but I actually think that this belief, Justice Marshall’s belief is just good, Constitutional law.
Are you familiar with Carolene Products… Carolene Products case of 1938?
Kagan: Yes sir.
Franken: Are you familiar with Footnote Four of that decision?
Kagan: Yes sir.
Franken: And you’re familiar with that because the footnote’s really important, isn’t it? It’s often taught in Constitutional law classes, whether they be in the first year or the second year or the third year, right?
Kagan: It is.
Franken: Can you tell me what that footnote says and why it’s important?
Kagan: Senator it seems as though you have it in front of you and you’re going to do a better job of it than I am at this moment.
Franken: You’re a mind reader. Footnote Four basically says that when courts interpret the Constitution and try to figure out whether a law complies with the Constitution, courts should give special scrutiny to laws that violate a specific part of the Constitution, that restrict the political process and that affect “religious, national, racial and discrete and insular minorities” who have a really hard time getting help through the normal political process.
Now to me discrete and insular minorities sounds a lot like the despised and disadvantaged that go unprotected and have no other champion. Is it safe to say that Justice Marshall’s belief is consistent with Carolene Products?
Kagan: Well there’s no doubt Sen. Franken that racial classifications are subject to very high scrutiny under the Equal Protection clause and have been so for a long time and the Equal Protection clause exists to ensure against discrimination on disfavored basis very much including in the archetypal example is race and that it is not only appropriate but obligatory on the courts to enforce that prohibition on discrimination on the basis of race.
Franken: So Justice Marshall’s belief that was criticized in the opening statements is really very consistent with established Constitutional law, isn’t it?
Kagan: Well Sen. Franken, I will say that when I wrote those words I was not speaking of Footnote Four in Carolene Products. I was speaking instead of what I’ve talked about several times at this hearing which is Justice Marshall’s deep belief in insuring a level playing field for all Americans and insuring that each and every American regardless of wealth or power or privilege, that each and every American gets fairly heard before the court and when I wrote that tribute to Justice Marshall and wrote those words that was very much what I had in mind.
Franken: So I’d like to leave you with this thought, okay. Justice Thurgood Marshall was one of the greatest lawyers, jurists in American history. This is a man who won Brown v. Board of Education, who helped end segregation in our nations’ schools and opened the doors to black Americans. This is a man who proved that separate but equal was inherently unequal.
Not only that but he served with distinction as Solicitor General, as a judge on the Second Circuit and as the first African American Supreme Court Justice. This is a giant of the American legal system. And I think what I really want to say is that Justice Marshall wasn’t some activist radical. Rather his views were very much in the mainstream and in line with Constitutional jurisprudence since 1938, since Carolene and before that. And I just think that we need to be aware of that and germane about it.
Kagan: Sen. Franken I’ll just say what I said on many occasions in the past which is that Justice Marshall is a hero of American law and a hero of mine.
Franken: And of mine. Thank you.
Al proves once again why any Republicans that dismiss him as just being a comedian, do so at their peril.
Al Franken Demolishes GOP’s Anti-Thurgood Marshall Campaign
Heather
Friday Jul 02, 2010
As Blue Texan at FDL noted, Al Franken laid waste to the GOP's anti-Thurgood Marshall Campaign and as they called it, their minority outreach program. Franken gives his "good friend" Lindsey Graham and the Republicans a little history lesson on what an "activist judge" is and why Justice Thurgood Marshall wasn't one of them.
Franken: You said there are three things that judges hold to when they’re not activists. You said that they respect precedent. They make narrow decisions and they defer to the political branches, in other words the legislature. And there are a lot of recent cases that we’ve been talking about that instinctively strike me and a lot of other people as falling outside of these three guidelines. And I think that in these cases the Supreme Court was legislating from the bench, which is being activist.
Franken goes on to discuss why the decisions in Circuit City v. Adams, Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Rent-a-Center v. Jackson, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS Inc., the Supreme Court would have fit into Kagan’s guidelines of what would define an “activist court” and noted that Republicans all “seem to like” those decisions. He went on to explain why there is no way that Brown v. Board of Education should be lumped in with those other cases and how it was “an exemplar of overturning a precedent that needed to be overturned.”
Franken: There are certain situations where the Supreme Court really should subject the law to a heightened scrutiny and this is what I think Justice Marshall was talking about when he said that the court should show “special solicitude for the despised and disadvantaged, the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government and who had no other champion.”
Now in the opening statements you were criticized for admiring Justice Marshall for believing this, but I actually think that this belief, Justice Marshall’s belief is just good, Constitutional law.
Are you familiar with Carolene Products… Carolene Products case of 1938?
Kagan: Yes sir.
Franken: Are you familiar with Footnote Four of that decision?
Kagan: Yes sir.
Franken: And you’re familiar with that because the footnote’s really important, isn’t it? It’s often taught in Constitutional law classes, whether they be in the first year or the second year or the third year, right?
Kagan: It is.
Franken: Can you tell me what that footnote says and why it’s important?
Kagan: Senator it seems as though you have it in front of you and you’re going to do a better job of it than I am at this moment.
Franken: You’re a mind reader. Footnote Four basically says that when courts interpret the Constitution and try to figure out whether a law complies with the Constitution, courts should give special scrutiny to laws that violate a specific part of the Constitution, that restrict the political process and that affect “religious, national, racial and discrete and insular minorities” who have a really hard time getting help through the normal political process.
Now to me discrete and insular minorities sounds a lot like the despised and disadvantaged that go unprotected and have no other champion. Is it safe to say that Justice Marshall’s belief is consistent with Carolene Products?
Kagan: Well there’s no doubt Sen. Franken that racial classifications are subject to very high scrutiny under the Equal Protection clause and have been so for a long time and the Equal Protection clause exists to ensure against discrimination on disfavored basis very much including in the archetypal example is race and that it is not only appropriate but obligatory on the courts to enforce that prohibition on discrimination on the basis of race.
Franken: So Justice Marshall’s belief that was criticized in the opening statements is really very consistent with established Constitutional law, isn’t it?
Kagan: Well Sen. Franken, I will say that when I wrote those words I was not speaking of Footnote Four in Carolene Products. I was speaking instead of what I’ve talked about several times at this hearing which is Justice Marshall’s deep belief in insuring a level playing field for all Americans and insuring that each and every American regardless of wealth or power or privilege, that each and every American gets fairly heard before the court and when I wrote that tribute to Justice Marshall and wrote those words that was very much what I had in mind.
Franken: So I’d like to leave you with this thought, okay. Justice Thurgood Marshall was one of the greatest lawyers, jurists in American history. This is a man who won Brown v. Board of Education, who helped end segregation in our nations’ schools and opened the doors to black Americans. This is a man who proved that separate but equal was inherently unequal.
Not only that but he served with distinction as Solicitor General, as a judge on the Second Circuit and as the first African American Supreme Court Justice. This is a giant of the American legal system. And I think what I really want to say is that Justice Marshall wasn’t some activist radical. Rather his views were very much in the mainstream and in line with Constitutional jurisprudence since 1938, since Carolene and before that. And I just think that we need to be aware of that and germane about it.
Kagan: Sen. Franken I’ll just say what I said on many occasions in the past which is that Justice Marshall is a hero of American law and a hero of mine.
Franken: And of mine. Thank you.
Al proves once again why any Republicans that dismiss him as just being a comedian, do so at their peril.
Monday, October 12, 2009
GOP votes against measure to help victims of rape
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/gop-votes-against-prevent-rape/GOP votes against measure to help victims of rape at govt. contractors
By Daniel Tencer
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Political commentators are accusing Senate Republicans of hypocrisy -- and even outright support of rape -- after thirty of them voted against a measure to de-fund military contractors who prevent rape victims from seeking justice.
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) introduced an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would prevent the federal government from funding contractors whose employee contracts prevent workers from pursuing allegations of rape against co-workers.
The measure passed the Senate by a vote of 68 to 30, with all 30 'no' votes being cast by Republicans. Notably, 10 Senate Republicans voted for the measure, including all four female Republican senators.
Franken was inspired to push the amendment by the story of Jamie Leigh Jones, who was an employee of KBR -- at the time a subsidiary of Halliburton -- working in Baghdad's Green Zone when she was allegedly gang-raped by other KBR workers.
In a harrowing expose, ABC News recounted how Jones was locked in a shipping container, denied access to communication with the outside world, and told she would lose her job if she left Iraq or sought medical attention.
As RAW STORY reported last month, Jones recently won the right to sue KBR over her ordeal.
Until 2007, KBR was a subsidiary of Halliburton, the company run by Dick Cheney until he resigned as CEO to become vice-president of the United States. It was that connection to partisan politics that evidently led a majority of Senate Republicans to vote against the measure.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, called Franken's measure "a political attack directed at Halliburton."
Indeed, Franken's amendment names Halliburton and KBR directly, but also states the regulation applies to "any other contracting party."
But that has not stopped political commentators from attacking Senate Republicans for what they see as a vote for rape, and against justice for women.
At his DailyKos blog, Markos Moulitsas writes:
This is interesting. According to Republicans, a fake pimp and ho, reported to the police, was apparently so beyond the pale that they've worked to strip ACORN of all federal funding. But denying employees actual redress from gang rapes is no big deal?
Will the GOP soon introduce a new Constitution Amendment that reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting the ability of corporations to gang rape their employees"? Is support for corporate gang rape already in the GOP platform, or does it need to be added at their next meeting? Is there a huge corporate gang rape lobby that is funneling millions into GOP pockets, or did they vote this way out of personal conviction?
Laura Clawson, also writing at DailyKos, states:
To summarize the Republican position: As women, we are not "average Americans," and gang rape is not a "serious" issue. As women, no matter how powerful we become on our own merits, the Republican establishment will still be hoping for a man to come along and put us in our place.
You don't have to go very far beneath the Republican surface claims of equality-but-not-really to get to the rock-bottom sense that women just don't count, that our rights and our wellbeing are always subordinate to whatever interest of men they might conflict with. When it comes to it, even the (themselves sexist) notions of chivalry and protecting women come behind protecting the right of corporations to imprison their female employees to shield their male employees from rape charges and still get government contracts.
For her part, Jamie Leigh Jones seems pleased that Franken's amendment passed, regardless of who voted against it.
"It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it," she said on Tuesday outside the Senate chamber, after hugging Sen. Franken and telling him: "Way to go."
Friday, July 10, 2009
Al Franken's Mick Jagger could liven up Senate
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/07/franken-did-you-hear-the-one-about-the-comedian-who-becomes-a-us-senator.html
Al Franken's Mick Jagger impersonation could liven up Senate
It's official. After an election tally recount that lasted eight months, cost millions of dollars and tied up several courts, Al Franken, one of the early stars of NBC's "Saturday Night Live," is finally joining that exclusive club known as the U.S. Senate.
Democrats on Capitol Hill and at the White House were delighted at the news, seeing in Franken's arrival a 60th vote that would help them deter Republican filibusters.
For his part, the new senator -- restrained since the November election by a court fight against Sen. Norm Coleman -- was exuberant. Flanked by his wife Frannie, he thanked voters and added, "I can't wait to get started."
Mindful of the pitfalls of being a national figure before he was a name in state politics, Franken said he considered himself not the 100th senator but Minnesota's second senator.
"I know there's been a lot of talk about the fact that when I'm sworn in I'll be the 60th member of the Democratic caucus, but that's not how I see it," said Franken, who's expected to be seated Monday. "I'm going to Washington to be the second senator from the state of Minnesota, and that's how I'm going to do this job."
The reticence is well-placed. Even with Franken's vote, Democrats don't have a slam-dunk majority. Some, like Massachusetts' Sen. Ted Kennedy and West Virginia's 91-year-old Robert Byrd, are ailing. Others, like Nebraska's Ben Nelson, are moderates who sometimes vote with Republicans.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, asked recently what difference Franken's election would have, quipped, "It's one more vote." Noting that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have been forced to sweat a lot of votes, Durbin added, "We have this tough situation with Senator Byrd and Senator Kennedy, so on a good day, we have 57. Al Franken makes it 58. It lightens my load a little bit, and Harry's as well, to find the additional votes to reach 60. And that's what it's all about."
In terms of policy, there's no question Franken is a liberal. He has already signaled his support for a pro-labor bill making it easier for unions to recruit workers. President Obama said he looked forward to Franken's help on two other administration priorities -- "lowering healthcare costs and investing in the kind of clean energy, jobs, and industries that will help America lead in the 21st century." And Franken is a likely vote for the upcoming vote for Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
Franken is not the first person from the world of entertainment to sign up for politics. President Reagan was a onetime president of the Screen Actors Guild. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is, let's face it, more famous worldwide as The Terminator.
And, frankly, he may not be the funniest person in the Senate. Only they know for sure.
Still, Franken's antics as a comedian are likely to follow him to the U.S. Senate, sometimes referred to, in all seriousness, as "the world's greatest deliberative body."
Of course at the rate scandals are coming out of Washington, maybe a comedian is just what the U.S. Senate needs.
-- Johanna Neuman
Al Franken's Mick Jagger impersonation could liven up Senate
It's official. After an election tally recount that lasted eight months, cost millions of dollars and tied up several courts, Al Franken, one of the early stars of NBC's "Saturday Night Live," is finally joining that exclusive club known as the U.S. Senate.
Democrats on Capitol Hill and at the White House were delighted at the news, seeing in Franken's arrival a 60th vote that would help them deter Republican filibusters.
For his part, the new senator -- restrained since the November election by a court fight against Sen. Norm Coleman -- was exuberant. Flanked by his wife Frannie, he thanked voters and added, "I can't wait to get started."
Mindful of the pitfalls of being a national figure before he was a name in state politics, Franken said he considered himself not the 100th senator but Minnesota's second senator.
"I know there's been a lot of talk about the fact that when I'm sworn in I'll be the 60th member of the Democratic caucus, but that's not how I see it," said Franken, who's expected to be seated Monday. "I'm going to Washington to be the second senator from the state of Minnesota, and that's how I'm going to do this job."
The reticence is well-placed. Even with Franken's vote, Democrats don't have a slam-dunk majority. Some, like Massachusetts' Sen. Ted Kennedy and West Virginia's 91-year-old Robert Byrd, are ailing. Others, like Nebraska's Ben Nelson, are moderates who sometimes vote with Republicans.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, asked recently what difference Franken's election would have, quipped, "It's one more vote." Noting that he and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have been forced to sweat a lot of votes, Durbin added, "We have this tough situation with Senator Byrd and Senator Kennedy, so on a good day, we have 57. Al Franken makes it 58. It lightens my load a little bit, and Harry's as well, to find the additional votes to reach 60. And that's what it's all about."
In terms of policy, there's no question Franken is a liberal. He has already signaled his support for a pro-labor bill making it easier for unions to recruit workers. President Obama said he looked forward to Franken's help on two other administration priorities -- "lowering healthcare costs and investing in the kind of clean energy, jobs, and industries that will help America lead in the 21st century." And Franken is a likely vote for the upcoming vote for Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
Franken is not the first person from the world of entertainment to sign up for politics. President Reagan was a onetime president of the Screen Actors Guild. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is, let's face it, more famous worldwide as The Terminator.
And, frankly, he may not be the funniest person in the Senate. Only they know for sure.
Still, Franken's antics as a comedian are likely to follow him to the U.S. Senate, sometimes referred to, in all seriousness, as "the world's greatest deliberative body."
Of course at the rate scandals are coming out of Washington, maybe a comedian is just what the U.S. Senate needs.
-- Johanna Neuman
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Democrat Is Winner in Recount of Minnesota
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/us/politics/06minnesota.html
Democrat Is Winner in Recount of Minnesota Senate Race
By KIRK JOHNSON
January 5, 2009
ST. PAUL — Al Franken, the comedian who became a Democratic pundit and then a politician, won November’s election for the United States Senate by 225 votes out of 2.9 million cast, according to the finally completed recount results certified on Monday by the state’s independent canvassing board.
But even as the board members were leaving the state office building across the street from the Capitol, Mr. Franken’s opponent, the Republican incumbent, Norm Coleman, said through his lawyers that the board’s work had been flawed and that he would challenge the recount in court.
“This process isn’t at an end — it is now just at the beginning,” said Tony Trimble, a lawyer for Mr. Coleman. “We will contest the results.”
Minnesota residents have probably become somewhat inured to revolving-door news days like this — an advance by one side countered by a bayonet charge from the other, each battling for inches.
But Monday’s certified recount number is a new chapter in the story. Before the board’s certification, the questions were broad: Had the election been conducted properly? Did the system as a whole work? And the geography extended to every county and city.
The Minnesota secretary of state, Mark Ritchie, who is also head of the canvassing board, said he believed good things were revealed about the democratic process in the state. The voting process had worked, Mr. Ritchie said, and while mistakes had been found by some local elections officials in throwing out perfectly good ballots, no evidence turned up of widespread fraud or malfeasance. The recount team had then done a good job retracing the steps of what voters had wanted on Election Day, he said.
“It was as accurate as humanly possible within Minnesota law,” said Mr. Ritchie, a Democrat, referring to the recount. “I believe all lawful votes were counted.”
Mr. Coleman’s lawyers said the lawsuit would focus much more narrowly on batches of absentee votes that the campaign believed were either not recounted or recounted incorrectly. Under Minnesota law, Mr. Coleman has seven calendar days to file a contested election lawsuit, and there are some political experts who think he might change his mind and concede.
Mr. Trimble sounded anything but hesitant, though, and said the papers would be ready within 24 hours, mandating the creation of a three-judge panel to be chosen by the chief justice of the State Supreme Court.
For Mr. Coleman, the former mayor of St. Paul, who was elected to the Senate in 2002, the political calculus of whether to contest the election legally involves both national and state considerations. A contested election could take months to resolve, which might earn him some points with national Republican leaders, even if he failed to overturn the canvassing board’s decision, because it would keep one more Democrat out of the Senate through at least the early days of the Obama administration as immense issues like an economic stimulus and taxes are debated.
Countering that is how much a continued battle could affect his political future within the state — he is 59 years old — if residents simply become fed up and blame him for having only one senator at a crucial moment in history.
And while 225 votes might seem like the narrowest of margins, some political experts say that finding a net shift of that margin in Mr. Coleman’s favor could be a big hill to climb.
“The big issue is where do you net 225?” said Lawrence R. Jacobs, a professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “He needs to factor in that Franken is also likely to pick up votes — the absentees are not going to be only for Coleman.”
A version of this article appeared in print on January 6, 2009, on page A15 of the New York edition.
Democrat Is Winner in Recount of Minnesota Senate Race
By KIRK JOHNSON
January 5, 2009
ST. PAUL — Al Franken, the comedian who became a Democratic pundit and then a politician, won November’s election for the United States Senate by 225 votes out of 2.9 million cast, according to the finally completed recount results certified on Monday by the state’s independent canvassing board.
But even as the board members were leaving the state office building across the street from the Capitol, Mr. Franken’s opponent, the Republican incumbent, Norm Coleman, said through his lawyers that the board’s work had been flawed and that he would challenge the recount in court.
“This process isn’t at an end — it is now just at the beginning,” said Tony Trimble, a lawyer for Mr. Coleman. “We will contest the results.”
Minnesota residents have probably become somewhat inured to revolving-door news days like this — an advance by one side countered by a bayonet charge from the other, each battling for inches.
But Monday’s certified recount number is a new chapter in the story. Before the board’s certification, the questions were broad: Had the election been conducted properly? Did the system as a whole work? And the geography extended to every county and city.
The Minnesota secretary of state, Mark Ritchie, who is also head of the canvassing board, said he believed good things were revealed about the democratic process in the state. The voting process had worked, Mr. Ritchie said, and while mistakes had been found by some local elections officials in throwing out perfectly good ballots, no evidence turned up of widespread fraud or malfeasance. The recount team had then done a good job retracing the steps of what voters had wanted on Election Day, he said.
“It was as accurate as humanly possible within Minnesota law,” said Mr. Ritchie, a Democrat, referring to the recount. “I believe all lawful votes were counted.”
Mr. Coleman’s lawyers said the lawsuit would focus much more narrowly on batches of absentee votes that the campaign believed were either not recounted or recounted incorrectly. Under Minnesota law, Mr. Coleman has seven calendar days to file a contested election lawsuit, and there are some political experts who think he might change his mind and concede.
Mr. Trimble sounded anything but hesitant, though, and said the papers would be ready within 24 hours, mandating the creation of a three-judge panel to be chosen by the chief justice of the State Supreme Court.
For Mr. Coleman, the former mayor of St. Paul, who was elected to the Senate in 2002, the political calculus of whether to contest the election legally involves both national and state considerations. A contested election could take months to resolve, which might earn him some points with national Republican leaders, even if he failed to overturn the canvassing board’s decision, because it would keep one more Democrat out of the Senate through at least the early days of the Obama administration as immense issues like an economic stimulus and taxes are debated.
Countering that is how much a continued battle could affect his political future within the state — he is 59 years old — if residents simply become fed up and blame him for having only one senator at a crucial moment in history.
And while 225 votes might seem like the narrowest of margins, some political experts say that finding a net shift of that margin in Mr. Coleman’s favor could be a big hill to climb.
“The big issue is where do you net 225?” said Lawrence R. Jacobs, a professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “He needs to factor in that Franken is also likely to pick up votes — the absentees are not going to be only for Coleman.”
A version of this article appeared in print on January 6, 2009, on page A15 of the New York edition.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Al Franken's Race Counted on Flawed Systems
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6641Al Franken's Razor-Thin MN Senate Race Counted on Flawed Optical-Scan Systems
PLUS: Details on 'What in the Hell Happened in Alaska' and Georgia and Oregon...
Posted By Brad Friedman On 5th November 2008
Diebold/Premier, Oregon, Georgia, Alaska, Election 2008, Minnesota, Al Franken 38 Comments
I'm exhausted, so forgive me if I make this quicker than it deserves. And if I haven't yet been able to jump into a myriad of other elections of serious concern around the country still today.
But just a few quick facts on the Al Franken (D) / Norm Coleman (R) U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, which we noted last night [1] (with some updates today) stands at some 700 votes currently between them. More hopefully after I've figured out how to sneak in some rest.
Here are three quick, bullet-point facts that Franken may want to know, since his was the only show on Air America which never had me on as a guest, as he simply refused to discuss serious issues concerning Election Integrity, now - ironically enough.
(And see below these for some quick skinny on serious concerns about the outstanding Senate races in AK, OR and GA...)
While all of Minnesota [2] votes on paper ballots, thankfully. Though all of those ballots are scanned, rather than counted, on proprietary optical-scan systems made by either ES&S or Diebold. Both companies produce systems that regularly fail to count and/or record ballots correctly.
The majority of counties use the ES&S M-100, precinct-based optical scanner. As we noted on Monday [3], that same scanner was found, according to a letter sent to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) by a county in MI, to have failed pre-election "logic and accuracy testing". The M-100, according to the letter from county officials, “reported inconsistent vote totals", such that “The same ballots run through the same machines, yielded different results each time.” Public Record has more details tonight [4].
Two of Minnesota's three largest counties (Anoka and Dakota) use the Diebold AccuVote OS scanners to "count" their ballots. That system is the same one seen being hacked via its memory card in the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary Hacking Democracy [5]. You can watch the actual hack from the film below (appx 9 mins)
(By the way, the Diebold op-scanner used above, and in MN, was also used in January's New Hampshire primary when pre-election polls and exit polls determined Obama would be the winner, only to see him lose to Hillary Clinton. Obama was found to have won in the 20% of NH which counts their ballots by hand. While Clinton won, by an almost precisely flipped margin, in the 80% of NH that used the Diebold op-scan system seen being hacked in the mock-election seen being manipulated in the clip above.)
In late August of this year, Diebold admitted [6], while being sued because of it by the state of Ohio, that their GEMS central tabulator system routinely drops thousands of votes, without giving notice, while they are being uploaded from memory cards to the main server. That failed GEMS tabulator model was used yesterday, with both Diebold's touch-screen and op-scan systems, in some 34 states across the country.
An automatic recount has been triggered in the Franken/Coleman race, and will take place mid-November. I haven't checked yet as to whether it'll be a machine or hand recount --- hopefully the latter --- but it looks like I have time to find out later (Updated: News accounts say it will be by hand). Either way, hopefully the ballots --- both voted and unvoted --- will be carefully guarded and their chain of custody will be secure, transparent and well-documented between now and then.
If you'd like more details on all of these concerns, Al, feel free to contact me. All is forgiven. Sorta. Just as long as you don't concede before every vote is counted, and counted accurately.
Other U.S. Senate Races of Concern...
While I was writing this, Kim Zetter at WIRED posted a similar story [7] on the failed ES&S scanners used across much of MN. She also tosses in a quick summary of several of the other outstanding Senate races still in question in Alaska, Georgia and Oregon, and the types of voting systems used in each. Given my exhaustion, I'll hope both she and you will forgive if I simply repost those summaries here, along with a couple of my own quick additional points on each...
Alaska
Republican Senator, and convicted felon [8], Ted Stevens is leading Democratic challenger and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich by 48.2 percent to 46.7 percent. Some 49,000 absentee, early votes and provisional ballots remain to be counted. If Stevens wins, it's unclear if he'll resign or face possible expulsion by his Senate peers. If either happens, there's talk of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin running for his seat. Voting System: Alaska uses optical-scan machines made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) statewide.
Note: Alaska is one of the few places where the Democratic Party actually went to court to fight for transparency against the Electoral-Industrial Complex, successfully suing the state for the release of Diebold databases detailing how voters voted in the 2004 election. The state fought tooth and nail, including the invocation of "security threat" claims, to avoid releasing the information, even after they'd lost the suit. Alaska is very much a Diebold "company town."
Additional Note: A source of ours in Alaska, has contacted us to let us know about concerns of "shenanigans" in the counting up there. I hope to get more soon, but I'm told that Palin's Lt. Governor is in charge of overseeing the counting and that some are being denied access from observing the counting. So what's happening up there?
We're not the only ones wondering, as Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com asks today [9]: "What in the Hell Happened in Alaska?"...
Although Ted Stevens holds a small lead in Alaska and is the favorite to retain his seat, the outcome is not as inevitable as it might appear to be. Stevens currently holds a lead of 3,353 votes, or about 1.5 percent of the votes tallied so far. But, there are quite a large number of ballots yet to count. According to Roll Call [10], these include "at least 40,000 absentee ballot, 9,000 early voting ballots, and an undetermined number of questionable ballots".
Indeed, it seems possible that the number of "questionable" ballots could be quite high. So far, about 220 thousand votes have been processed in Alaska. This compares with 313 thousand votes cast in 2004. After adding back in the roughly 50,000 absentee and early ballots that Roll Call accounts for, that would get us to 270 thousand ballots, or about a 14 percent drop from 2004. It seems unlikely that turnout would drop by 14 percent in Alaska given the presence of both a high-profile senate race and Sarah Palin at the top of the ticket.
But even if Begich were to make up ground and win a narrow victory, this would seem to represent a catastrophic failure of polling, as three polls conducted following the guilty verdict in Stevens' corruption trial had Begich leading by margins of 7, 8 and 22 points, respectively.
...
[T]he polling failures in Alaska weren't unique to Stevens. They also applied to the presidential race, as well as Alaska's at-large House seat. In each case, the Republican outperformed his pre-election polling by margins ranging from 12 to 14 points.
Troubling? Um, yup. Silver offers some more numbers and details.
But back to Zetter's summaries...
Georgia
Incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss seized only 49.9 percent of votes [11] so far, narrowly missing the 50 percent majority that is required in Georgia to avoid a runoff race. Therefore he'll likely face off against Democratic challenger Jim Martin in a December 2 runoff election if some 50,000 absentee and other ballots that are still being counted fail to tip his percentage numbers. Voting System: Georgia uses AccuVote paperless touchscreen machines made by Premier Election Solutions statewide.
Note: Speaking of "company towns", GA was the first, along with MD, to adopt Diebold's wholly unverifiable touch-screen systems across the entire state. MD has since decided to replace the system with paper-based optical-systems, following scientific report after report warning about failure after failure with those Diebold touch-screen systems. MD will be replacing them for the 2010 election. The error-prone, easily-hacked, inaccurate touch-screens were first used in 2002 in GA, when Chambliss defeated incumbent Max Cleland in a surprising and controversial upset which has raised many questions about the machines, and Diebold's now-admitted secret patching of the systems, with uncertified software, just before the election.
Oregon
Incumbent Republican Senator Gordon Smith is currently leading Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley by less than 1 percent. Voting System: Oregon uses mail-in paper ballots statewide [12]. It's the only state that has gone entirely postal.
Note: The move to Vote-by-Mail is one of the unfortunate side-effects of the raised awareness about problems with touch-screen voting machines. It's a bad idea for democracy, as we detailed some months ago here [13]. (Special note for Oregon readers: You needn't send me emails disagreeing with my position. I already realize many of you love your VBM system very much and don't share my concerns with it. Nonetheless, I stand fully by the points made in that referenced article.)
As long promised, The BRAD BLOG [14] has covered your electoral system 2008, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation [15] to help us keep going. If you like, we'll send you some great election integrity documentary films in return. Details on that right here... [16]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
URLs in this post:
[1] we noted last night: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6634
[2] all of Minnesota: http://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/searched.php?ec=standard&state=MN&equipment_type%5B%5D=All+Types&vendor%5B%5D=All+Vendors&model%5B%5D=All+Models&vvpat=all&submit=Search&rowspp=50&topicText=&county=St.+Louis&stateText=
[3] we noted on Monday: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6613
[4] Public Record has more details tonight: http://pubrecord.org/politics/474-e-voting-machines-used-in-disputed-franken-coleman-race-failed-tests.html
[5] Hacking Democracy: http://HackingDemocracy.com
[6] Diebold admitted: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6309
[7] Kim Zetter at WIRED posted a similar story: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/ess-machines-th.html
[8] convicted felon: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=6088781&page=1
[9] Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com asks today: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/what-in-hell-happened-in-alaska.html
[10] Roll Call: http://www.rollcall.com/news/29893-1.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
[11] seized only 49.9 percent of votes: http://www.sos.georgia.gov/elections/election_results/2008_1104/swscroll.htm
[12] mail-in paper ballots statewide: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88074936
[13] detailed some months ago here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6003
[14] The BRAD BLOG: http://www.BradBlog.com
[15] a donation: http://www.bradblog.comhttps://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=Brad@BradBlog.com&item_name=Support+for+The+BRAD+BLOG&item_number=2008
[16] Details on that right here...: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6472
[4] Public Record has more details tonight: http://pubrecord.org/politics/474-e-voting-machines-used-in-disputed-franken-coleman-race-failed-tests.html
[5] Hacking Democracy: http://HackingDemocracy.com
[6] Diebold admitted: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6309
[7] Kim Zetter at WIRED posted a similar story: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/11/ess-machines-th.html
[8] convicted felon: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=6088781&page=1
[9] Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com asks today: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/what-in-hell-happened-in-alaska.html
[10] Roll Call: http://www.rollcall.com/news/29893-1.html?CMP=OTC-RSS
[11] seized only 49.9 percent of votes: http://www.sos.georgia.gov/elections/election_results/2008_1104/swscroll.htm
[12] mail-in paper ballots statewide: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88074936
[13] detailed some months ago here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6003
[14] The BRAD BLOG: http://www.BradBlog.com
[15] a donation: http://www.bradblog.comhttps://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=Brad@BradBlog.com&item_name=Support+for+The+BRAD+BLOG&item_number=2008
[16] Details on that right here...: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6472
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Al Franken wins Senate nod amid 7 state primaries
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080910/ap_on_el_ge/state_primaries_15
Al Franken wins Senate nod amid 7 state primaries
By BRIAN BAKST, Associated Press Writer
9-9-8
Comedian Al Franken grabbed the Democratic nomination Tuesday for U.S. Senate in Minnesota, setting up a showdown with Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.
Franken, who gained fame as a "Saturday Night Live" cast member, easily beat six other candidates chasing the Democratic nod. Coleman trounced his only opponent, an expatriate living in Italy.
Minnesota voters joined those in six other states and the District of Columbia in deciding general election matchups. Nominations for House, Senate and governor were on the line, along with the fate of another TV celebrity: Kevin Powell, a former cast member on MTV's "Real World," who lost his bid for Congress in New York.
Franken's celebrity has both helped and hurt him. His coast-to-coast recognition enabled him to amass an impressive bankroll for a first-time candidate, but archives full of racy material provided ammunition to Republicans and his most visible Democratic rival, attorney Priscilla Lord Faris.
Lord Faris, part of a well-regarded family in state Democratic politics, criticized Franken for "angry and offensive public behavior" and said he'd be too easy a target for Coleman and his allies.
With 33 percent of precincts reporting, Franken had 68 percent of the vote to Lord Faris' 28 percent.
"Norm Coleman has become Washington," Franken said. "He's the Washington guy and I'm going to be fighting for Minnesotans."
Coleman sought to make the race about experience in public office.
"Minnesotans have a clear choice on experience," Coleman said. "Minnesotans have a clear choice in terms of record of working with others."
Also factoring into the Senate race, Dean Barkley won a spot on the ballot for the Independence Party, which is a major party in Minnesota.
Al Franken wins Senate nod amid 7 state primaries
By BRIAN BAKST, Associated Press Writer
9-9-8
Comedian Al Franken grabbed the Democratic nomination Tuesday for U.S. Senate in Minnesota, setting up a showdown with Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.
Franken, who gained fame as a "Saturday Night Live" cast member, easily beat six other candidates chasing the Democratic nod. Coleman trounced his only opponent, an expatriate living in Italy.
Minnesota voters joined those in six other states and the District of Columbia in deciding general election matchups. Nominations for House, Senate and governor were on the line, along with the fate of another TV celebrity: Kevin Powell, a former cast member on MTV's "Real World," who lost his bid for Congress in New York.
Franken's celebrity has both helped and hurt him. His coast-to-coast recognition enabled him to amass an impressive bankroll for a first-time candidate, but archives full of racy material provided ammunition to Republicans and his most visible Democratic rival, attorney Priscilla Lord Faris.
Lord Faris, part of a well-regarded family in state Democratic politics, criticized Franken for "angry and offensive public behavior" and said he'd be too easy a target for Coleman and his allies.
With 33 percent of precincts reporting, Franken had 68 percent of the vote to Lord Faris' 28 percent.
"Norm Coleman has become Washington," Franken said. "He's the Washington guy and I'm going to be fighting for Minnesotans."
Coleman sought to make the race about experience in public office.
"Minnesotans have a clear choice on experience," Coleman said. "Minnesotans have a clear choice in terms of record of working with others."
Also factoring into the Senate race, Dean Barkley won a spot on the ballot for the Independence Party, which is a major party in Minnesota.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
A look at the Senate's '08 election scorecard
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/09/a-look-at-the-s.html
A look at the Senate's '08 election scorecard
With Democrat Mark Warner announcing today --- via e-mail and a YouTube video --- that he will seek the Virginia Senate seat Republican John Warner (no relation) is giving up in next year's election, there's little question where one of the happiest places in Washington is located these days.
That would be the headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, where Mark Warner's decision is being toasted as the latest bit of glad tidings to come its way.
As the former --- and very popular --- governor of Virginia, Warner provides Democrats a strong shot at gaining a Senate seat in a state where they've been on the rebound anyway. More broadly, his candidacy now puts as many as seven GOP-held seats clearly at risk. Depending on the course of a couple of controversies, two more could be in play.
Among Democratic-held seats, meanwhile, one, maybe two, appear in jeopardy.
Bottom-line: barring a major reversal of political trends, Democrats not only are poised to build on the narrow Senate majority they surprisingly captured in the 2006 election, they could substantially expand it.
As this year's debates on the war in Iraq have vividly demonstrated, it's one thing to be in control of the Senate but it's quite another to have a working majority. And that's what could be within the grasp of the Democrats.
Unlike the House, where a simple majority dominates, 60 votes are often needed in the 100-member Senate to keep legislation from being talked to death. Currently, the Democratic caucus numbers 51 (comprising 49 members of the party and two independents who meet with them).
Some Democratic initiatives attract support from the handful of moderate Republicans who remain in the Senate. But time after time this year, an inability to hit the 60-vote mark has thwarted Democratic leaders from pushing their agenda.
It's the prospect of getting much closer to those 60 votes that has Democratic political operatives excited as they eye the next election. And they'll be almost giddy if, on the heels of Warner's announcement, the dream candidate they have in mind for Nebraska decides to take the plunge.
That would be Bob Kerrey, a Democrat who won the governorship and a Senate seat in the traditionally GOP state before retiring from politics a few years back. With Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel telling Nebraskans earlier this week that he would not be seeking reelection, Kerrey is mulling a run to replace him.
Along with Virginia (for sure) and Nebraska (maybe), here are the other at-risk Republican Senate seats in the '08 vote:
* Colorado, where incumbent Wayne Allard is bowing out. Democratic Rep. Mark Udall (son of one-time Democratic presidential contender Mo Udall) is the early favorite to claim the seat.
* Maine, where strong opposition to the Iraq war endangers incumbent Susan Collins.
* New Hampshire, where incumbent John Sununu also must buck an intense antiwar tide. He'll really be under the gun if Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor, decides to oppose him.
* Minnesota, where the Democratic challenger to incumbent Norm Coleman may be Al Franken, best known nationally for his lengthy stint on Saturday Night Live, as well as for his bestseller, "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot." (Some Democrats worry that Franken might be a bit too edgy for many voters; most bloggers wistfully contemplate his potential for livening up Senate debate).
* Oregon, where incumbent Gordon Smith must struggle to survive his state's Democratic-tilt but could benefit from the lack of a heavy-hitter foe.
In the best-case scenario for Democrats, New Mexico and Alaska could feature competitive contests.
In New Mexico, Republican Pete Domenici has been tarnished by his role in the firing of the U.S. attorney who was based in his state (part of the larger flap that did in Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales). Still, he's about as entrenched as a politician can be (he first won his seat in 1972), and has a vast well of support to draw upon.
In Alaska, Republican Ted Stevens will be vulnerable if he becomes further entangled in a corruption probe(he's already endured an FBI search of his home). Still, his time in the Senate exceeds even Domenici's (Stevens won an appointment to his seat in late 1968) and his current problems probably would have to blossom into a full-blown scandal to threaten his reelection chances.
The sole obviously vulnerable Senate Democrat comes from the region where the party is weakest --- the South --- and from the state where poor government response to Hurricane Katrina tainted all politicians --- Louisiana. Incumbent Mary Landrieu will have to overcome both of these factors, but she's shown keen political skills in the past.
Both parties will be closely watching South Dakota, where Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson only recently returned to any semblance of work after suffering a brain hemorrhage in December. Johnson insists he'll run for reelection, but some doubt it. The GOP will make a major push for the seat if he doesn't (and might even if he does, given the questions about his health that almost assuredly will persist).
Perhaps this rosy national picture for Democrats helped nudge Warner back into politics. After all, it was only 11 months ago (almost to the day) that he declared he would not be launching a presidential campaign for which he had been laying the groundwork.
Personal considerations were the main reasons he cited for his decision, saying he wanted to spend more time with his three teenage daughters.
"While politically this appears to be the right time for me to take the plunge, at this point I want to have a real life," Warner said. "And while the chance may never come again, I shouldn't move forward unless I'm willing to put everything else in my life on the back burner."
Like many parents, Warner may have discovered that his teens didn't really want him around the house that much.
-- Don Frederick
September 13, 2007 in Campaigning, Congress, Democratic Politics, Iraq War, Republican Politics, Senate Races
A look at the Senate's '08 election scorecard
With Democrat Mark Warner announcing today --- via e-mail and a YouTube video --- that he will seek the Virginia Senate seat Republican John Warner (no relation) is giving up in next year's election, there's little question where one of the happiest places in Washington is located these days.
That would be the headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, where Mark Warner's decision is being toasted as the latest bit of glad tidings to come its way.
As the former --- and very popular --- governor of Virginia, Warner provides Democrats a strong shot at gaining a Senate seat in a state where they've been on the rebound anyway. More broadly, his candidacy now puts as many as seven GOP-held seats clearly at risk. Depending on the course of a couple of controversies, two more could be in play.
Among Democratic-held seats, meanwhile, one, maybe two, appear in jeopardy.
Bottom-line: barring a major reversal of political trends, Democrats not only are poised to build on the narrow Senate majority they surprisingly captured in the 2006 election, they could substantially expand it.
As this year's debates on the war in Iraq have vividly demonstrated, it's one thing to be in control of the Senate but it's quite another to have a working majority. And that's what could be within the grasp of the Democrats.
Unlike the House, where a simple majority dominates, 60 votes are often needed in the 100-member Senate to keep legislation from being talked to death. Currently, the Democratic caucus numbers 51 (comprising 49 members of the party and two independents who meet with them).
Some Democratic initiatives attract support from the handful of moderate Republicans who remain in the Senate. But time after time this year, an inability to hit the 60-vote mark has thwarted Democratic leaders from pushing their agenda.
It's the prospect of getting much closer to those 60 votes that has Democratic political operatives excited as they eye the next election. And they'll be almost giddy if, on the heels of Warner's announcement, the dream candidate they have in mind for Nebraska decides to take the plunge.
That would be Bob Kerrey, a Democrat who won the governorship and a Senate seat in the traditionally GOP state before retiring from politics a few years back. With Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel telling Nebraskans earlier this week that he would not be seeking reelection, Kerrey is mulling a run to replace him.
Along with Virginia (for sure) and Nebraska (maybe), here are the other at-risk Republican Senate seats in the '08 vote:
* Colorado, where incumbent Wayne Allard is bowing out. Democratic Rep. Mark Udall (son of one-time Democratic presidential contender Mo Udall) is the early favorite to claim the seat.
* Maine, where strong opposition to the Iraq war endangers incumbent Susan Collins.
* New Hampshire, where incumbent John Sununu also must buck an intense antiwar tide. He'll really be under the gun if Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor, decides to oppose him.
* Minnesota, where the Democratic challenger to incumbent Norm Coleman may be Al Franken, best known nationally for his lengthy stint on Saturday Night Live, as well as for his bestseller, "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot." (Some Democrats worry that Franken might be a bit too edgy for many voters; most bloggers wistfully contemplate his potential for livening up Senate debate).
* Oregon, where incumbent Gordon Smith must struggle to survive his state's Democratic-tilt but could benefit from the lack of a heavy-hitter foe.
In the best-case scenario for Democrats, New Mexico and Alaska could feature competitive contests.
In New Mexico, Republican Pete Domenici has been tarnished by his role in the firing of the U.S. attorney who was based in his state (part of the larger flap that did in Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales). Still, he's about as entrenched as a politician can be (he first won his seat in 1972), and has a vast well of support to draw upon.
In Alaska, Republican Ted Stevens will be vulnerable if he becomes further entangled in a corruption probe(he's already endured an FBI search of his home). Still, his time in the Senate exceeds even Domenici's (Stevens won an appointment to his seat in late 1968) and his current problems probably would have to blossom into a full-blown scandal to threaten his reelection chances.
The sole obviously vulnerable Senate Democrat comes from the region where the party is weakest --- the South --- and from the state where poor government response to Hurricane Katrina tainted all politicians --- Louisiana. Incumbent Mary Landrieu will have to overcome both of these factors, but she's shown keen political skills in the past.
Both parties will be closely watching South Dakota, where Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson only recently returned to any semblance of work after suffering a brain hemorrhage in December. Johnson insists he'll run for reelection, but some doubt it. The GOP will make a major push for the seat if he doesn't (and might even if he does, given the questions about his health that almost assuredly will persist).
Perhaps this rosy national picture for Democrats helped nudge Warner back into politics. After all, it was only 11 months ago (almost to the day) that he declared he would not be launching a presidential campaign for which he had been laying the groundwork.
Personal considerations were the main reasons he cited for his decision, saying he wanted to spend more time with his three teenage daughters.
"While politically this appears to be the right time for me to take the plunge, at this point I want to have a real life," Warner said. "And while the chance may never come again, I shouldn't move forward unless I'm willing to put everything else in my life on the back burner."
Like many parents, Warner may have discovered that his teens didn't really want him around the house that much.
-- Don Frederick
September 13, 2007 in Campaigning, Congress, Democratic Politics, Iraq War, Republican Politics, Senate Races
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