December 31
It's New Year's Eve and I'm writing a blog. Then again, you're reading it. Besides, I did stuff earlier this evening. So there, and now that I've made you feel bad enough (what a way to hold readers!) on to one of my favorite topics, election fraud. Yes, it's been back in the news recently.

A couple days ago I mentioned James Tobin being convicted for pulling a high-tech dirty trick, specifically a denial of service attack against Democratic and union GOTV phones in New Hampshire in 2002. He's no small fish, and someone of his stature going to jail should have been bigger news. At least someone finally went to jail for the crap the Republicans pull every election, this instance just being more high-tech than usual. More commonly they post flyers saying the election has been moved to Wednesday, or call likely Democratic voters and tell them the wrong polling place. So while the good news is one of the people who makes the GOP a corrupt organization is paying for it, the bad news is the dirty tricks aren't the main problem. That status goes to hackable voting computers.

But even there, there is some good news, namely that a local election official gets it and is addressing the problem when so many election officials are quite thick about the problems with computerized voting. The bad news is that the hacking vulnerability was found this time in optical scan machines, of which I've been a fan. Ion Sancho, election supervisor in Leon County, Florida, which includes the state capital Tallahassee, showed how simple it was to hack into Diebold machines. Security experts couldn't get in from outside (a reason why I still prefer scanners over touchscreens) but given the access given to poll workers and voting machine company employees, it was easily hacked. For example, a user name and password were requested, but not required. Essentially, the memory card could be rigged to start the counts not at zero for each candidate, but plus 50 for one and minus 50 for another, so one candidate gets a 100 vote head start, yet the number of votes is correct. A manual recount would catch it, but unless the machine in question was one of the few selected for random recounts, the recount would happen only in close elections, usually less than one percent differences, and it's easy to program to avoid that. Even the report before voting starts on election day can be faked.

Neither news story I linked to above went into this, but I will. Florida had its own irregularities and suspicious results last year, mostly overlooked in the focus on Ohio. Supposedly the acting president won Florida by a surprisingly large 500,000 votes, but that was with these machines in place, plus many touchscreens. How many votes would have to faked to gain that 500,000 margin? Per precinct, not that many. As usual, in Florida as well as Ohio and nationally, the people who benefitted from the alleged fraud are the same people who have the power to investigate. And they refuse. Corruption isn't just about taking bribes folks. They did a lot of stealing before they started making money.

December 29
I'll share with you a political hypothesis. "Hypothesis" might sound like a highfalutin word, as does maybe "highfalutin", but I need more examples before I'm really sure about this. Consider it an idea for further research. Besides, one needs to be careful when throwing away long held conventional belief.

You see, I'm thinking one of the rules of electoral politics has reversed. I refer to the long held and justifiably held assumption the special elections are better for Republicans because their voters are more likely to turn out, so they benefit from low turnout elections. I suggest this the reverse is now true, and low turnout special elections are actually better for Democrats now.

This might not be true outside Minnesota, but here at least I think this has become the case based on a string of special elections won by the DFL. I'm not referring just to last Tuesday's elections in outstate districts that lean Republican. There were the special elections last month after the general elections where one state Senate seat switched to DFL and another nearly did, despite both being in supposedly safe Republican suburbs. The general election went well despite the low turnout normal for local elections. I seem to recollect (and here's why I made the caveat that this needs more looking into) that the DFL has done pretty well in special elections the last few years. I hesitate to extend that trend to other states having no idea about their legislatures, but it seems Paul Hackett was just the latest example of special election success for the Democrats.

Now, a skeptic, as I hope you all are, might rightly point out there were unusual circumstances to Tuesday's elections, and indeed it was a fun one. It was coincidence the House seat was in the Senate district also having an election. Those legislators' departures were entirely unrelated. The Republican candidate for the Senate seat, Dan Ochsner, a St. Cloud talk show host who styles himself "Central Minnesota's voice of integrity," got caught doctoring a photo of a Bush rally last year to look like a rally for him. Apparently that was "integrity" as is common for conservative talk radio hosts. The DFL also questioned some gubernatorial integrity, claiming Gov. Pawlenty deliberately scheduled the election when the students of St. Cloud State University would be gone, and countered with a campaign to get students to vote absentee. The assumption is both that students vote DFL and lower turnout would help the Republicans (our core subject here). The real fun started when someone in the DFL discovered that the Republican House candidate didn't actually live in the district, and a court determined Sue Ek lived in St. Paul. Personally I think voters should get to decide if a candidate is connected enough to the district, but that's the law. She was removed from the ballot, and state law had no provision for replacing her on such short notice. Her mother, Kay Ek, ran a write-in campaign.

Oh yes, all good fun, but all special elections are, well, special. Maybe not so much as St. Cloud just enjoyed, but the point is to try to explain the trend of the DFL winning more than expected. There's a theory that the state is trending back to the DFL after a long movement towards the Republicans. There's another theory that the acting president has caused a backlash against his party, and while history shows a strong trend that way in second term midterm elections, I'm not sure that applies here. But it's possible. However, I contrast Democratic success in special elections with unexpectedly high Republican turnout in general elections for some years now. They seem to win even when Democrats manage to turn out their voters, formerly the key to success (we're discounting for a moment the theory that 2004 and some elections in 2002 were stolen, though I do believe that). I'm suggesting some change in electoral demographics has resulted in Republicans grabbing hold of a constituency which turns out only irregularly. If accurate, it means low turnout is now actually good for Democrats.

I grant there was something unusual each of the last few even numbered elections. 2000 had the Nader factor and electoral college defeat of the poplar vote winner. 2002 was the reaction to the Wellstone memorial. 2004 was a wartime election and no incumbent president has lost during war, no matter how much he screwed up. However, keep going back, and every election had something unique. We have to look not at what makes them unique, but at what makes them similar. Notice the frequency with which Republicans appeared to be the beneficiaries of higher than expected turnouts. Put that together with Democratic wins, or near wins in Republican districts, in special elections. Those are lucky strings running too long to be luck.

The interesting thing is how both parties' strategies are based on the reverse assumptions. Democrats keep trying to get infrequent voters to vote. It's one of the core things we do, try to get non-voters to get to the polls this time. Republicans have gotten good at getting out their vote, but still seek to suppress turnout. The DFL came up with moter-voter, and the GOP fights it at every turn. The DFL came up with same day registration which has been adopted in some other liberal leaning states, while Republicans keep making registration harder. They put Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell in charge of elections, while for I think five terms Minnesota had Joan Growe. At least one high up Republican got convicted for election fraud -- I'm sure James Tobin isn't the only one who should be.

I wouldn't suggest we start suppressing the vote. That's not who we are. That's why we're the good guys. We can beg Pawlenty to pick more Republican legislators for appointed offices, but we must figure out who the Republicans found, or who they got to switch. Maybe it's the working class social conservatives who used to vote their economic interests but now vote 3G. Even many non-whites find appeal in these issues, so maybe the GOP has found a way to eat into the lower rungs of the economic ladder that doesn't vote much, but used to vote Democratic when they did. So as much as I'd like to believe there's some trend going our way, I don't buy it yet.

December 24
If the Samuel Alito nomination is defeated it might be by the unhappy coincidental discovery of Bush's warrantless searches and Alito's support for such searches when he worked in the Reagan administration. And here we all thought his nomination would hinge on his ability to obfuscate his opinions on abortion, Frist's threat of the nuclear option to abolish filibusters on judicial nominations (and how it would survive for other circumstances I can't see), and maybe some uncomfortable questions about ethics. Now here comes something to upset not only the Democrats, but also the Republicans who care about civil liberties. Maybe --- just maybe --- they're numerous enough and principled enough to vote no when the nuclear option comes to a vote. Wouldn't that be unexpected. Actually I'm not expecting that, but such a scenario did jump into the realm of possibility.

That's really a side not to the main issue, and I wish conservatives would leave their semi-permanent stage of rage and just listen a moment. They think the New York Times and whoever talked to them have destroyed the ability of US intelligence to spy on terrorists, and liberals, either from delusion or more likely sympathy with the terrorists, can't see the harm in this. Please try to understand this: the issue isn't spying on terrorists, or even suspected terrorists. Nobody is against that. We're all in favor of spying on terrorists and thwarting the next attack. That's not the point. The point is the Constitution expressly forbids unreasonable search and seizure. There are no exceptions, including in war. Given that the Constitution was written according to the framers' recent experiences, we might even say especially in war there is no exception.

What if surveillance needs to start immediately? The need for speed in carrying out investigations is addressed in FISA, which not only created a secret court to issue warrants quickly and keep them secret, but the law allows surveillance to start without a warrant as long as it's requested in 72 hours. So what was gained by refusing to seek warrants at all? Not speed, and not secrecy, but something was avoided: accountability. Bush made himself accountable to no one. There's no court record, and maybe no records at all. I doubt that last part, but good luck ever seeing them. Why was Bush so anxious to avoid accountability? Don't expect a straight answer from the acting president because he'll defend the need to spy, and just not answer the question about warrants. I can come up with two reasons he might have done this, admittedly both speculative, and possibly both could be true. One, he might have been showing the arrogance that has shown itself so many times before, and he wanted to show that as usual, the rules don't apply to him. Two, perhaps the NSA spied on people it had no good reason to suspect and maybe, and this is speculation, Bush authorized spying on domestic political opponents. Given who the Pentagon thought worth spying upon, that's sinister but sadly plausible.

December 20
The media have been all over the domestic spying story as they should, and as I thought they might be about the report of the 9/21/2001 PDB. There are two questions I want answers to: 1. Is this enough to impeach? 2. This might answer the first question, who did Bush spy upon?

I can't resist pointing out one bit of commentary, because to my knowledge this is the first time anyone in the mainstream media has called for Bush's impeachment. The editorial board of The Olympian concluded their editorial with this:

"We repeat: Congress must muster the courage to hold this president accountable. A bipartisan commission investigation is warranted. And if the lies and deceit continue, Congress should consider the ultimate step and impeach President George Bush. It's all about accountability and protecting, not destroying, democracy."

Wow. It's not like no one has called for impeachment. Me for one. It's just that it's coming from a mainstream newspaper, not some blog or alternative media. I'm fully aware this isn't one of the major newspapers, but the big members of the media have been slow on the pickup all along.

Something else interesting I found while seeing what else The Olympian had on its web site was an article about MoveOn buying ads about Iraq War II in the districts of vulnerable Republicans. The interesting part was this quote by Ed Patru, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which confirms my contention that the debate over exiting Iraq is over and we're just debating how to exit: "This is not a debate over an exit strategy. Republicans and Democrats alike support an exit strategy. This is a debate over whether we should surrender or finish the job."

December 19
I will readily admit the acting president took a step forward in last night's speech. For the first time in my memory he acknowledged his opponents actually have legitimate points and valid concerns. Yes it's a step, but it's a baby step, one any adult should have managed long ago. If progress is to continue, he's going to have to stop saying the intelligence was wrong and admit the parts he chose to use were wrong, but that much of it was right --- and ignored. And certainly not shared with the Congress or public. He continues to say it was reasonable to believe Iraq had WMD because it had them and used them before the first war, and because Saddam interfered with inspectors in the 90's. However, that's not reason to believe, but reason to suspect, reason to demand the inspectors get an unfettered look around, not reason to invade. Indeed, when the inspectors said they were unhindered, couldn't find anything, and US intelligence was garbage, they were pulled out before they could completely undercut the case for war. Bush also needs to stop pretending Iraq War II is part of the war on terror. The army admitted only a small percentage of insurgents are foreign. We're fighting Iraqis, who we were not fighting before we invaded. We have made a new enemy, and if Bush is actually going to join those of us living outside his bubble, he'll have to realize that.

Even if he just can't admit any screwups, here's hoping he at least won't screw up future opportunities. I'm referring to this underreported story about insurgents seeking to talk. The good news is even Bush admits there is a difference between islamists and nationalists. I'm not confident he's really thinking through the nuances of the situation, but at least he has a speechwriter who gets it. Less reassuring is this quote by Gen. George Casey, "We're not going to talk to people with blood on their hands. We talk to others who talk to them." I'm not sure what he means, but it sounds like he's placing a higher value on not appearing to talk to terrorists than on finding the insurgents willing to talk. Certainly many Iraqis must feel that "We're not going to talk to people with blood on their hands" sums up their attitude towards Americans. The reality is Iraq will have no peace until enough insurgents are willing to come in from the cold. If they're kept out, they can continue the violence for a long time. Even in purely strategic terms, it would seem to make sense to take advantage of the insurgents division in multiple independent groups by talking to those willing to talk and separating them from those not willing. The scary part is the record so far in making the wrong decision every step of the way, from the decision to invade, to selling the war instead of presenting the facts, to how elections were handled, allowing looting, allowing corruption, disbanding he army, and fostering torture. Despite it all, I really think it's not blown yet. Victory is already lost in terms of we invade, they do whatever we want, and all goes according to plan, but this doesn't have to be a defeat. Some middle result is still possible if only the obvious can be grasped, like the insurgents have to be brought into politics.

December 16
You can argue about whether it's the curiosity of an open mind and a audio form of self-flagellation, but driving home yesterday I tuned into a local right wing talk station to hear a conservative take on the big news items of the day, that Bush got caught illegally spying on Americans, and the Senate upheld the filibuster of the renewal of the Patriot Act (Feingold 2008!). Specifically, I heard part of the Hugh Hewitt Show as both host and callers were raging.

The thought process, to the limited degree there was one, was interesting. In a rational world, the discussion would have been whether the Democrats were right that the Patriotic Act threatened at home the freedom we're supposedly protecting in wars abroad. Such a notion was raised and dismissed in an instant as impossible. What wasn't dismissed were other proposed explanations for opposing the Patriot Act such as, seriously, Democrats want Americans to be killed in terrorist attacks. It was also proposed that this was just an obsessive hatred of Bush, with a comparison being made to Ahab pursuing Moby Dick. I never thought of protecting our own liberties as merely obsessive hatred of Bush, but both host and callers could take that seriously, just as they take seriously that the left has forgotten 911 or doesn't care.

So starting with that last bit, let me mention some things Hewitt didn't bother to tell his audience for the obvious reason that without unreasoning paranoia, he would have no show. The absurd thing about suggesting that Democrats or liberals have forgotten 911 is conservatives have forgotten or not noticed who got hit. The hijackers hit New York City and Washington DC, two of the most liberal spots in America. We know in 2000 a plot was foiled which would have bombed the airport in Los Angeles. Consistently overseas, Al Qaida and allies have hit places like Istanbul, Jakarta, London, and Madrid. Who lives in big central cities in the US? Liberals. Overwhelmingly the central cities are liberal and vote Democratic. We do this knowing full well that we are the targets, not the rural areas and newer suburbs which show as red on the electoral map. Why the right has never noticed that the people actually in danger are less willing to tolerate Bush and the GOP's lies, corruption, and infringement of civil liberties eludes me.

Something else unmentioned was that when the story about Bush using the NSA to spy domestically influenced the Patriot Act vote yesterday, and the host was livid that the story ever came out, was that not one Republican senator defended the spying. Nor was there a mention that there have no convictions using evidence obtained using Patriot Act powers. If there were, we would be hearing the list of them repeated in right wing media every time the subject comes up. They've got nothing.

The most important thing unmentioned is the best response to all those callers, and anyone else, who believes allowing some of their liberty to be taken from them (or presumably the liberty of others since those willing to make this sacrifice think nothing will happen to themselves). Benjamin Franklin said, and even one of the Republicans who upheld the filibuster, John Sununu, quoted this during the debate: "Those that would give up essential liberty in pursuit of a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security."

Which gets the anger that the New York Times dared come out with the story. Even though they held it for a year at the White House's request so they knew it was coming, the times is being accused of threatening national security by leaking secrets. Funny how when wrongdoing is revealed, the conservative instinct is always to blame the messenger for the revelation, not the people who broke the law. Did anyone reveal who was spied on, or what was learned? No, only that illegal spying occurred. It's not like wiretaps are set up in a heartbeat, or there are only minutes to get the vital information unless you've been watching 24 too much. The time to get a warrant and make it all legal is short. Bush just plain broke the law, whatever his motive was.