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9/16/03

THE NINTH CIRCUIT STRIKES AGAIN!

The infamous 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California is trying to put a stop to the recall election.  This is the same court that ruled the law mandating the pledge of allegiance in California government schools unconstitutional because of the words "under God" in that pledge. 

In this case the court has ruled that the voters in six urban California counties would be disenfranchised by the use of punch-card voting machines. 

OK .. let's set aside the partisan emotionalism for a second a look at this court's ruling.  I know, it's hard.  On the one hand you want to side with the voters who signed that recall petition and get on with the process of kicking that incredibly incompetent Gray Davis out of office.  On the other hand you might believe that this whole recall is nothing but a bunch of Republicans trying to undo an election.  Fine ... you feel what you feel.  Set it aside and look at this ruling with a modicum of reason.

Again .. the court found that the old punch-card ballot machines would disenfranchise poor and minority voters.  It is unfortunate that the court had to make a specific reference to "poor and minority" voters.  The Voting Rights Act notwithstanding, poor and minority voters are not entitled to one single protection at the polls that rich and white voters aren't entitled to.  It's not about poor minority voters, and it's not about rich majority voters.  It's all about everybody's vote being counted according to the same standards.  By focusing on poor and minority voters the 9th Circuit seems to be saying that poor people and minorities just aren't bright enough to use a punch-card voting system.  Now that may or may not be so, but it's rather odd that a court would recognize that, isn't it?

Simply put, the 9th Circuit Court (or at least the particular three-judge panel that issued this ruling) believes that it is more likely that a ballot cast on a punch-card machine will have a greater chance of being thrown out than would a ballot cast on, say, a touch-screen.  You know what?  They're probably exactly right on that.  Think about it.  Which would you rather have at the end of your voting process; a punch-card with little holes punched next to numbers, or a computer screen telling you how you voted on the recall and which candidate you chose to replace Gray Davis?  Me?  I'd take the touch-screen.

Let's go back to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that stopped the endless recounting process in Florida in 2000.  Just what were the Supremes saying?  The court merely said that if you are going to recount votes, you are going to recount ALL the votes, not just the votes in those areas dominated by Democrats.  In other words, you are going to treat every single voter and every single vote the same.

This brings us back to California.  If there is, as I believe there is, a greater chance that punch-card ballots are going to be thrown out, then that would mean that there is a greater chance that people who vote in these six urban California counties are not going to have their vote thrown out.  It boils down to equal protection ... equal treatment under the law.  A voter using a punch-card ballot has every right to expect their vote to count as much as someone using a touch-screen.  The blunt truth is that this does not seem to be the way things will work out.

So ... though my sympathies lie with the people who signed the recall petition, my initial reaction is that the 9th Circuit was right.  Just as the same standards should apply to recounting votes, so the same standards should apply to casting votes.  California has been dragging its feet in reforming the voting process.  Time to pay the piper.

By the way .. there are tough times ahead for the Governor of California, whoever he is.  A balanced budget has to be submitted shortly after the new year.  Gray Davis has contributed to this mess, let's see how this marvelous Democrat will solve it.

I don't know, maybe you're just bored, but if you really want to read the full text of the 9th Circuit's ruling on this recall election go right ahead.  Just click here. (PDF file, Adobe Acrobat Reader needed. If you don't have it, you can download for free here.)

ANOTHER CLINTONISTA HEARD FROM

Have you heard the latest from Robert Reich?   You remember him, don't you?  Reich was a member of Clinton's Lollipop Guild and was his Secretary of Labor.  Reich has come up with a way to pay for the war against terrorism in Iraq.  Reich wants a war tax.  Not a war tax on all Americans, just a war tax on the evil, hated, ugly, filthy, nasty, despicable, gutter-dwelling rich.  In support of his idea for a war tax on the rich Reich goes straight to the rhetoric of communism.  Reich says "It seems only fair that the rich should pay proportionately more, especially now that the cost of the war against terrorism is rising. They're the only ones with money to spare."  Now you tell me how this differs in any substantive form from the communist slogan "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."

It's interesting to note that in his USA Today column calling for this war tax, Reich was careful to point out just what portion of our total income is earned by the wretched rich.  While he accurately notes that the top 5% of income earners took home more than 22% of total family income in 2001, he somehow fails to note that this very same top 5% of income earners pays nearly 50% of all income taxes.  He also talks about the bottom 60% of income earners taking home more than 31% of the income, but again somehow fails to mention that this bottom 60% pays less than 10% of the income taxes. 

Come on, folks.  Doesn't this seem to smack of a bit of intellectual dishonesty?

Reich wasn't through with the dishonesty.  He also mentioned past top tax rates.  The rich paid 77% during World War I.  In World War II it went to 90%.  He points out that the rate was 70% when Reagan cut it back to 28%.  All that is true, but was it honest?  No.  What Reich didn't point out in his article is that with Reagan's tax cuts the wealthy lost most of the deductions that used to keep their burden a much, much lower percentage of their total income than the effective tax rates.  Just for starters -- taxpayers were allowed to deduct ALL interest paid on ALL loans, not just real estate loans. 

To cite percentages of total income without including percentages of total income taxes paid, and to cite reductions in marginal tax rates without citing the elimination of deductions is to display a moral cowardice that is all-too-common with liberal politicians.

Make no mistake, Reich's war tax on the wealthy  idea is just another volley fired in the leftist campaign of class warfare.  The goal here is to reinforce the false leftist dogma that the evil rich just don't "pay their fair share" and that they need to step forward and shoulder a fair burden of the cost of the action in Iraq.

Par for the course.

WASHINGTON POST CAUGHT TWISTING THE TRUTH.

Here's a link to a front page story from yesterday's Washington Post.  The story details Vice President Richard Cheney's Sunday interview on NBC's Meet the Press.  Here is a paragraph taken directly from the Washington Post story:

"Cheney was less forthcoming when asked about Saudi Arabia's ties to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 hijackers. 'I don't want to speculate," he said, adding that Sept. 11 is "over with now, it's done, it's history and we can put it behind us.'"

Now ... any reasonably intelligent person with any command of the English language would take that to mean that Richard Cheney said that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 are past history and something we can just put behind us.  But ... is that what Vice President meant?  In fact, was that even what he said?

Apparently not.

If you read the Meet the Press transcript you will see that the Cheney quote as printed in the Post actually contains fragmented statements addressing two different issues.  Here ... read it for yourself.  Here's the relevant portion of the transcript:

MR. RUSSERT: There are reports that the investigation Congress did does show a link between the Saudi government and the hijackers but that it will not be released to the public.

 VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't know want to speculate on that, Tim, partly because I was involved in reviewing those pages. It was the judgment of our senior intelligence officials, both CIA and FBI that that material needed to remain classified. At some point, we may be able to declassify it, but there are ongoing investigations that might be affected by that release, and for that reason, we kept it classified. The committee knows what's in there. They helped to prepare it. So it hasn't been kept secret from the Congress, but from the standpoint of our ongoing investigations, we needed to do that.
       One of the things this points out that's important for us to understand-so there's this great temptation to look at these events as discreet events. We got hit on 9/11. So we can go and investigate it. It's over with now.  It's done. It's history and put it behind us.
       From our perspective, trying to deal with this continuing campaign of terror, if you will, the war on terror that we're engaged in, this is a continuing enterprise. The people that were involved in some of those activities before 9/11 are still out there. We learn more and more as we capture people, detain people, get access to records and so forth that this is a continuing enterprise and, therefore, we do need to be careful when we look at things like 9/11, the commission report from 9/11, not to jeopardize our capacity to deal with this threat going forward in the interest of putting that information that's interesting that relates to the period of time before that. These are continuing requirements on our part, and we have to be sensitive to that.

It's clear that Cheney did not say that it is time to put the attacks behind us.  He merely said that there is a great temptation to do so.   If you read on in Cheney's response you will see that he clearly thinks that this is a temptation to be avoided.  He says the response to the terrorist attacks is a "continuing enterprise" and that there are still people involved in the 9/11 attacks who are "still out there."

Oh well.  If you're a leftist newspaper and you can Dowdify a quote in order to make it look like a conservative Republican Vice President is shrugging off the terrorist attacks ... hell, why not?
 

YOU WON'T READ THIS IN THE WASHINGTON POST, BUT ...

.... ninety percent of the country of Iraq is stable and progressing rapidly toward a free society.  Funny how the media seems to keep this little factoid from you.

THE COURTS?  WHO NEEDS THEM?

Here's the latest little twist in Bush's war on terror.  Now his administration wants to simply bypass the courts when it comes to snooping on the lives of Americans.  It's something called an "administrative subpoena" and its part of a bill that is being called "Patriot II."

The administrative subpoenas Bush seeks would allow government agents to question witnesses and to collect documents and electronic data from private citizens without any oversight by the courts.  No judicial approval would be required before the feds start their snooping. 

The bill is the work of Florida Republican Congressman Tom Feeney.  He says that we can't wait to go through all the judicial processes when dealing with a terrorist who wants to poison our water or fly airplanes into buildings.  The trouble here is that these administrative subpoenas will not just be used to fight terrorism.  In the past year the additional powers given the government under Patriot I have been used in ordinary criminal investigations not involving terrorism.  This will also be the case with Patriot II. 

To the extent that the Islamic terrorists have caused the U.S. government to set aside or to ignore the basic constitutional rights of the American people, the terrorists have won.  Our Constitution is strong enough to protect all Americans, even in the face of Islamic terrorism.  Efforts by the Republicans and the Bush Administration to weaken the Constitution should be turned back. 

And you wonder why I vote Libertarian?

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Do you remember that study that came out a while back telling you how ecstasy, even in regular doses, could lead to permanent brain damage?  Well ... oops!  Seems they were wrong.  Seems you have to take a massive overdose ... not just a regular dose.  Oh well.  Never mind.  After all ... you have to be somewhat dane bramaged to take that stuff in the first place, don't you?

A year ago Gray Davis vetoes a bill that would allow illegal aliens to get driver's licenses in California.  Last week he was facing a recall and, knowing that illegal aliens vote in California, he went ahead and signed that bill.  Uh oh, it looks like Davis may have ticked off some more Californians.  Note how this story from the San Francisco Chronicle refers to these folks as "undocumented immigrants."  Gawd, this PC BS drives me just nuts.  They're freaking illegal aliens, dammit.

You aren't going to believe this, so read the story and verify that I'm telling you the truth.  Thirteen-year-old girl participates in an oral sex romp giving another 13-year-old boy  a Lewinsky on the school bus.  Kids get caught.  Kids get expelled.  Mother of 13-year-old girl reads the schools written policies on student conduct.  Mother notes that there is nothing in these written policies which prohibits girls giving boys oral sex on the school bus.  Mother files appeal in court.  Judge dismisses appeal and upholds disciplinary action.  To top everything off, this all takes place in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.

The hysteria felt by the left over the popularity of Fox News Channel is amazing.  College professors (who work as college professors, by the way, because they generally have no marketable job skills in the private sector) rail on Brit Hume in their classrooms.  Christiana Amanpour says that the "tone" of news coverage was set by the Bush Administration and their "foot soldiers at Fox News."  It's amazing.  The left virtually owns the media ... ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post ... etc .... for decades, and along comes one cable television network pulling less than 2% of television viewers, a network that doesn't put a leftist/Democratic spin on every story and the left goes nuts.

Hats off to Matt Drudge for reminding us of a little story about CNN that surfaced in April.  It seems that CNN had first-hand knowledge of the brutality of Saddam Hussein, but didn't want to tell the world what they knew.  And why not?  Because CNN was afraid that if they spilled the beans on Saddam they would lose access.  So ... who's foot soldiers were calling cadence for CNN?

Wait, there's more!  Now we have a New York Times correspondent claiming that CNN wasn't unique.  It seems that quite a few foreign journalists sucked up to Saddam prior to the war.  John Burns says that these reporters wouldn't tell the truth about Saddam because they didn't want to lose access.  Oh yeah ... that Fox News Channel really presents quite a threat to balanced journalism, doesn't' t it?

Some real estate investor in Florida known as the "Money Man" decided to toss about 5,000 two-dollar bills into a crowd at a shopping center.  You know what happens.  About 500 people engage in a mini-riot trying to get their hands on the free cash.  These people will risk bodily injury to get a few bucks floating through the air, but suggest a little overtime to pay off some of those credit card bills and they'll tell you that you're nuts.

The miserable French are at it again.  First they objected to the use of force to remove a brutal, menacing and murdering dictator from Iraq.  Now they want the international community to use force to help keep another murderer and terrorist in power, that being Yasser Arafat.  When you have 10-year-old Arab girls standing outside of Arafat's headquarters saying "We want to defend Arafat and kill the Jews wherever they are," you get the distinct impression that the only way this situation will be resolved is for one side to thoroughly defeat the other militarily.  Guess who's side France would be on.

A little complex, but here's a Wall Street Journal story about how Democrats will fight to keep their spending programs alive .. especially when those spending programs mean votes for Democrats.

There's not a lot of water in the Rio Grande, and there's a lot of people who really need that water.  We have farmers, ranchers, municipalities ... all dependent on water.  But, can you guess who gets the absolute priority for that water?  It's something called the silvery minnow.  That minnow is priority number one.  It's one thing to protect endangered species.  It's another to endanger humans in the process.  I know of one case in Tucson, Arizona where some minnow-type fish were introduced into the water run-off of a power plant.  The little bitty fish were put there to control mosquito larvae.  Now the government has stepped in and declared this fish an endangered species and the owners of the power plant, and their customers, are having to spend big bucks to protect it.  Pure idiocy.

A Toronto Muslim journalist named Irshad Manji is getting ready for her book to come out tomorrow.  The book is entitled "The Trouble with Islam."  The book denounces Islamic terrorism and the way the Islamic religion treats women.  So, just how is Irshad Manji preparing for the release of her book?  She's staying close to the police.  Muslims are about to demonstrate their "religion of peace" by trying to take this woman's life.

Bruce Bartley writes that when Democrats complain about the campaign tactics of evil Republicans they are really engaging in what shrinks call "projection," finding your own faults in others.

The Democrats have now gone where no party has gone before.  They are now the first political party who routinely filibuster judicial nominations that have the necessary votes for confirmation.  Political power is everything to Democrats.  When it comes to reacquiring political power, the Constitution means nothing to the left.

Is Islamic terrorism the root of all evil in the world today?  Some people might think so, but not the dysfunctional Democrats running for president.  To them the root of all that is ugly, nasty, wrong and evil in the world to day is none other than George W. Bush.

Speaking of Islamic terrorism; before 9/11 how many of you envisioned terrorists flying two commercial airliners into the World Trade Towers in New York City?  Judge Alvin Hellerstein says that just such an attack was foreseeable, and that the airlines and the owners of the World Trade Center should have done something to prevent it.  Thomas Sowell writes that this is all part of the current mindset that should be seen "as the fault of the nearest source of 'deep pockets'."

For those of you who are starting to get a bit concerned over eminent domain abuse, here's a good ruling from the South Carolina Supreme Court.  It's nice to know that some judges actually understand the importance of property rights in a free society.

NEALZ LINKS FOR NUZE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
World Net Daily
NewsMax
Wall Street Journal opinions
Washington Times
Washington Post
Real Clear Politics
Media Research Center
The Drudge Report
The Associated Press
SF Gate