FEC Issues Advisory Opinion On Fired Up! LLC: Victory For Free Speech

By a unanimous vote, the FEC today issued Advisory Opinion 2005-16 which concludes that the Fired Up! Network of blogs qualifies for the "press exception" to federal campaign finance law.   The Commission adopted the draft opinion without revision.

The AO states in relevant part:

Fired Up qualifies as a press entity.  Its websites are both available to the general public and are the online equivalent of a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication as described in the Act and Commission regulations.

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Check this:

Voter ID memo stirs tension

Sponsor of disputed Georgia legislation told feds that blacks in her district only vote if they are paid to do so.
By BOB KEMPER in Washington, SONJI JACOBS in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/18/05

The chief sponsor of Georgia's voter identification law told the Justice Department that if black people in her district "are not paid to vote, they don't go to the polls," and that if fewer blacks vote as a result of the new law, it is only because it would end such voting fraud.

The newly released Justice Department memo quoting state Rep. Sue Burmeister (R-Augusta) was prepared by department lawyers as the federal government considered whether to approve the new law. It also says that despite Republican assurances the law would not disenfranchise elderly, poor and black voters, Susan Laccetti Meyers, the staff adviser for the Georgia House of Representatives, told the Justice Department "the Legislature did not conduct any statistical analysis of the effect of the photo ID requirement on minority voters."

But you can legislate behavior. This is in Atlanta, by the way.

High school teacher suspended for alleged racist remarks
Associated Press
Published on: 11/17/05

CARROLLTON — A history teacher at Carrollton High School has been suspended for allegedly making racially insensitive comments during a civil rights lesson.

Mark McCormick, 46, who is white, has been placed on administrative leave with pay pending a disciplinary tribunal hearing the week after Thanksgiving, Superintendent Tom Wilson said Thursday.

One of McCormick's students said he made "racially harassing comments" during a lecture.

"We've investigated the situation extensively, and we believe these statements were made," said Wilson, who would not comment on what the remarks were.

Why is everyone saying Bush and Cheney are "going on the offensive" over their being busted lying the country into war, when all either is doing is repeating what they've always said, only soewhat more shrilly?

"They looked at the same intelligence we did." Nonsense.

And the worst part is, globaization marches on...and not only has Bush turned much of the world against us, they've turned many Americans against the idea of engaging the world. 

Quote of note:

Robert W. Ray, a former independent counsel, said the Woodward disclosure won't help Libby if his defense is that he wasn't the only official leaking Plame's identity. "The point was: Did you make false statements and perjure yourself?" Ray said.

Woodward Claim on CIA Leak Disputes Charge
By TONI LOCY and PETE YOST
Associated Press Writers
3:29 AM PST, November 17, 2005

WASHINGTON — Bob Woodward's version of when and where he learned the identity of a CIA operative contradicts a special prosecutor's contention that Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was the first to make the disclosure to reporters.

On Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees, via Scout Prime:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I'm thinking that, OK, I was going to come and salvage a few pictures or something. And I walk in here. I found my grandma on the floor dead.

DORNIN: Since November 1, 10 bodies have been found in the ruins of the Ninth Ward. The last area, known as the Lower Ninth, will open to residents December 1. Coroner Frank Minyard worries about what people will find.

(on camera): You're fully expecting that more bodies will come in once they open the Ninth Ward?

FRANK MINYARD, ORLEANS PARISH CORONER: Yes. And I think it's -- it's going to come in for a good while. There's so much rubbish around that they might find people in the rubbish. DORNIN (voice-over): They already have. And there are still many bodies left unidentified and unclaimed.

What a priceless piece of bullshit. No wonder Stevens said

I think that under the circumstance it was the best we could expect because of the publicity that came with the Sunday supplements and whatever

No doubt...because he hasn't given up a penny. The money is now a huge slush fund...pretty much what it always was anyway. 

Funding for Alaskan Bridges Eliminated
Republicans Make Largely Symbolic Move in Reaction to Criticism of Transportation Spending
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 17, 2005; A18

An Essay on President Bush and Death

I fault this president (George W. Bush) for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our twenty-one year olds who wanted to be what they could be.

On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn`t the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs he can`t seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn`t understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be. 

GOP race for governor is shaping up to be close
Brent Kallestad
the Associated Press
November 16, 2005

TALLAHASSEE -- Attorney General Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher remain deadlocked in their bid for the Republican nomination for governor, while U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris is far behind incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson in a U.S. Senate race, a new poll shows.

Nelson was favored by 55 percent of the registered voters polled to 31 percent for Harris, the only announced Republican candidate for the Senate, according to a survey released Tuesday by Quinnipiac University.

from the Huffington Post:

Mainstream Media to American Democracy: Drop Dead!

It's been a full two weeks now since the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO came out with their 107-page report [PDF] confirming what so many of us have been trying to ring the bell about for so long: The Electronic Voting Machines which are proliferating counties and states across America even as I type, are not secure, not accountable, not recountable, not transparent, not accurate and not adequately monitored or certified by anybody.

...The release of the report was accompanied by a bi-partisan News Release which lauded its findings.

That's right. Six high-ranking U.S. Congressmen (3 Dems and 3 Reps) issued the incredibly rare joint News Release together. Two of those Congressmen were Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), chairman and ranking minority member, respectively, of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee respectively. You do understand how rare it is that those two can agree on anything much less issue a joint press release, right?!

And yet, none of the above has been carried by even one wire service or one major American Newspaper. Not one.

In Fuzzy Math Fallout, Allan Sloan asks

Washington's cut-taxes-and-borrow crew are stalled in their quest for more tax reductions. Have years of using phony budget numbers finally caught up with them?

Only if people realize people who lie to you to get their way are not their friend. By way of pointing that out: 

Let's flash back to the heyday of tax cutting: 2001. You remember, we were supposedly going to have enormous federal budget surpluses as far as the eye can see. But instead of settling for large, straightforward, permanent tax cuts, Bush and his congressional allies used two kinds of "fuzzy math."

First, even though they intended the cuts to be permanent, they pretended that some of them would disappear, so the total would look good in whatever five- or 10-year budget window they were using.

I've decided to have some discussions about interpreting the Constitution. I wouldn't be so presumptuous normally, but we've recently established you don't need judicial, or even legal, experience to do so.

Okay, I make a living being presumptuous. Whatever.

Anyway, I'll be deep in "People of the Word" territory. Knowing this, I thought I'd anchor the discussion with definitions from an impartial (because they got no clue I exist) source.

Originalist? Constructionist? A Confirmation-Hearing Glossary
Darlene Superville
The Associated Press
08-26-2005

When Supreme Court nominee John Roberts takes a seat for his Senate confirmation hearings, viewers in the hearing room and watching on television may find themselves confounded by some unfamiliar legal terms and phrases.

Not an originalist, a strict constructionist or a practitioner of stare decisis? Here are some explanations that may ease the confusion.

Let me know if the definitions aren't acceptable.

Scooter Libby's lawyers are going to get SOMEbody screwed.

Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago
By Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A01

Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.

In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.

I'm serious.

The House package, which cuts taxes by $70 billion over five years, would extend the dividends and capital gains tax cuts through 2010. It would not extend a measure to mitigate the impact of the alternative minimum tax, which is increasingly snaring the middle class.

Senate Panel Does Not Extend Tax-Rate Cut
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; A07

Facing a stalemate over one of President Bush's top economic policy goals, the Senate Finance Committee yesterday gave up efforts to extend deep cuts to the tax rate on dividends and capital gains and approved a $60 billion tax measure largely devoted to hurricane relief and tax cuts with bipartisan appeal.

Quote of note:

All three diets produced large enough drops in blood pressure and LDL cholesterol to cut the 10-year risk of coronary heart disease by at least 16 percent. But the diets rich in protein and healthful fats outperformed the standard high-carbohydrate diet on both measures, cutting risk by 20 percent.

"We have a two-part take-home message here," Appel said. "All three diets were healthy and had favorable effects. But the current recommended DASH diet that is rich in carbohydrates can be further improved by partially replacing some of those carbohydrates with lean protein from plants and low-fat dairy products, or with monounsaturated fats" such as olive oil or nuts.

You know this supports the Atkins diet, right? And you know why Dr. Atkins' diet was pummelled in the media immediately after his death, right?

Oh, you don't know how much of the economy is driven by corn and agricultural subsidies, never considered how our diet is impacted by the economy.

Anyway... 

Scientists Fine-Tune Diet by Adding Beans
By Sally Squires
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; A04

Trading about 10 percent of carbohydrates in the diet for beans and healthful fats such as olive oil can help control high blood pressure and raise the level of "good cholesterol," according to a new study.