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By Joshua, January 27, 2010 3:43 am

YOU be the judge!

The four men accused of trying to tamper with Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office phones share a common experience as young ideologues writing for conservative publications. Federal authorities said two of the men posed as telephone workers wearing hard hats, tool belts and flourescent vests when they walked into the senator’s office inside a federal building in New Orleans on Monday. The other two were accused of helping to organize the plan.The most well-known of the suspects is James O’Keefe, a 25-year-old whose hidden-camera expose posing as a pimp with his prostitute infuriated the liberal group ACORN and made him a darling of conservatives… the fourth suspect, Robert Flanagan, 24, wrote for the conservative Pelican Institute and had recently criticized Landrieu for her vote on health care legislation. O’Keefe was a featured speaker at a Pelican Institute luncheon days before his arrest. Flanagan is the son of the acting U.S. Attorney for northern Louisiana.

It’s not yet clear whether the plan was a prank intended to be captured on camera or a more serious attempt at political espionage, as claimed by state Democrats who dubbed it “Louisiana Watergate.”

All four suspects were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purpose of committing a felony, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

“It was poor judgment,” Flanagan’s lawyer, Garrison Jordan, said. “I don’t think there was any intent or motive to commit a crime.” 

As he got into a cab outside, O’Keefe said, “The truth shall set me free.”

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By Joshua, January 25, 2010 9:35 am

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “The exit polls that I looked at said 48% of the people in Massachusetts said they voted for the new senator over health care. Only 5% mentioned any other issue.

Is is possible that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was outright lying about looking at exit polls?  Or did he collect exit polls on his own without telling anyone about it?  And if so, how did he do it, if no survey organization says that they collected exit polls from the 2010 MA senate race?

Those seeking exit polls for the 2010 Massachusetts Senate Race will be disappointed to know there aren’t any.Mike Allen of Politico reports about the lack of exit polls:  The consortium scrambled to put something together — for the “why,” more than for the call — but wasn’t confident a reliable system could be built so fast.”  Curious Americans aren’t the only losers. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal writes in his blog that the missing exit polls are “disappointing journalists and political scientists alike.”  Also on the matter, MSNBC anchor David Shuster tweeted: “No news organization is doing exit polls in Mass senate race today. Only numbers will be the election results themselves. Voting ends 8pm.”

That’s John Fund from the Wall Street Journal, the same news organization that ran the quote from Minority Leader McConnell.

So, Senator McConnell.  Tell us a little more about those exit polls you saw.

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By Joshua, January 25, 2010 7:50 am

Happy birth-day to David, the The Waterglass Editor Emeritus who is busily celebrating his birth-day on his new blog.

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By Joshua, January 20, 2010 4:47 am

That’s today’s headline, folks.  Thirty million Americans won’t get health insurance because Coakley couldn’t run a campaign to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts. 

Scott Brown, a little-known Republican state senator, rode an old pickup truck and a growing sense of unease among independent voters to an extraordinary upset Tuesday night when he was elected to fill the Senate seat that was long held by Edward M. Kennedy in the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts. By a decisive margin, Mr. Brown defeated Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, who had been considered a prohibitive favorite to win just over a month ago after she easily won the Democratic primary.

With all precincts counted, Mr. Brown had 52 percent of the vote to Ms. Coakley’s 47 percent.

Just as Gore is blamed for losing the presidential election, Coakley will be blamed for losing the Senate seat.   All that work for health care reform by the Democrats shot down because Coakley ran a crappy campaign.  The chance of a lifetime for the Dems, the holy grail of Democratic Party legislation, on the fingertips, slipped away.

Steve Bartman was blamed for losing the Cubs a chance for the World Series.

Martha Coakley is blamed for losing health insurance reform.

That’s right, folks.  30 million Americans are going to be without health insurance because Democrat Coakley couldn’t win a Senate seat in Massachusetts.

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By Joshua, January 18, 2010 3:02 pm

There is great uncertainty about Coakley’s chances of winning Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate.  Looking at the polls and reading up on the situation, here’s why I think the polls showing Brown ahead by substantail margin are wrong:

1.  There are many more registered democrats in MA than registered Republicans.

2.  The phone surveys rely on fixed phones.  Most of the people who will vote Democratic are young, and they tend only to have cell phones.  They probably haven’t been contacted, and chances are they will vote Democrat.

3.  Almost all registered Democrats will vote Democrat.

The main problem for Coakley are the independents, who are leaning toward Brown.  I think the Democrats will wash them out.

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By Joshua, January 14, 2010 4:00 am

Pat Robertson, the venerated spiritual leader of some Evangelicals comments on the Haiti’s earthquake:

Officials fear more than 100,000 people have died as a result of Tuesday’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti.

Robertson, the host of the “700 Club,” blamed the tragedy on something that “happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it.”  The Haitians “were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever,” Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. “And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’   You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.”

Robertson has previously linked natural disasters and terrorist attacks to legalized abortion in the United States. Soon after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 and wreaking unprecedented devastation on New Orleans, Louisiana, Robertson weighed in with his own theory.  “We have killed over 40 million unborn babies in America,” Robertson said on his September 12, 2005, broadcast of “700 Club.” “I was reading, yesterday, a book that was very interesting about what God has to say in the Old Testament about those who shed innocent blood. And he [the author] used the term that those who do this, ‘the land will vomit you out.’ … But have we found we are unable somehow to defend ourselves against some of the attacks that are coming against us, either by terrorists or now by natural disaster? Could they be connected in some way?”

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By Joshua, January 12, 2010 7:05 am

The Triangle of Wickedness, not to be confused with the Axis of Evil, is blamed for the murder of an Iranian nuclear physicist:

A bomb attached to a motorcycle killed an Iranian professor of nuclear physics outside his home in northern Tehran on Tuesday, state media reported, blaming the United States and Israel. 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. One state broadcaster, IRIB, quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that “in the initial investigation, signs of the triangle of wickedness by the Zionist regime, America and their hired agents are visible in the terrorist act,” Reuters reported.

The authorities called the killing of the scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, an assassination carried out by terrorists, but did not say who was believed to be responsible. The professor taught neutron physics at Tehran University, the English-language Press TV said, but it was not clear whether he was part of Iran’s contentious nuclear enrichment program.

The broadcaster called the professor a “staunch supporter of the Islamic Revolution” of 1979 that overthrew the Shah and initiated three decades of theocratic rule.

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By Joshua, January 10, 2010 9:08 am

An apology for something said in private that was made oh-so-very public:

Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, apologized on Saturday for once predicting that Barack Obama could become the country’s first black president because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Mr. Reid telephoned the president to convey his regret personally, aides to both men said, for a comment from a new published account of the 2008 presidential race. The book reported that Mr. Reid privately urged Mr. Obama, then a freshman senator, to seek the presidency in the fall of 2006 despite his limited experience and the historical obstacles to making such a run.

“I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” Mr. Reid said in a statement. “I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans, for my improper comments.”

President Obama quickly expressed support for Mr. Reid.

“I accepted Harry’s apology without question because I’ve known him for years. I’ve seen the passionate leadership he’s shown on issues of social justice, and I know what’s in his heart,” Mr. Obama said in a statement, adding that the remark was “unfortunate.” “As far as I am concerned, the book is closed.”

Mr. Reid moved aggressively to respond to the comment he made to the two authors of the book, “Game Change.” In addition to calling Mr. Obama on Saturday, Mr. Reid reached out to several black political leaders as his aides sought to quell the political fallout that other politicians have endured after making impolitic comments about race.

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By Joshua, January 8, 2010 3:48 am

It’s ON:

The Federal Communications Commission staked out new ground nearly three months ago when it began drafting rules that would require Internet providers to give equal treatment to all data flowing over their networks.Now the FCC hopes to use a dispute with the nation’s largest cable TV and Internet provider to establish its legal authority to adopt such “network neutrality” regulations. The rules would aim to prevent phone and cable companies from abusing their control over the market for high-speed Internet access.

A federal appeals court was holding oral arguments Friday in Comcast Corp.’s challenge of the FCC’s 2008 order banning the company from blocking its broadband subscribers from using an online file-sharing technology known as BitTorrent.

The commission, at the time headed by Republican Kevin Martin, based its order against Comcast on a set of net-neutrality principles it adopted in 2005 to prevent broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against certain types of Internet traffic. Those principles have guided the FCC’s enforcement of communications laws on a case-by-case basis.

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By Joshua, December 10, 2009 9:16 am

In Jakarta, Indonesia, a statue of a young Obama:

Indonesians have paid tribute to Barack Obama on the eve of his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize.  A statue of the U.S. President, who lived in Jakarta, has been unveiled in a park in the Indonesian capital.  The almost life-size statue depicts a 10-year-old Obama, wearing school-boy shorts with his outstretched hand holding up a butterfly.

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By Joshua, December 10, 2009 4:44 am

Fear!  Be afraid!  What you have been eating your whole life is just awful for you!  That’s the message Yahoo’s so-called “Healthy Living” column wants you to think.  They trot out one “expert” per food item and have them tell you that the food causes cancer or infertility or some other thing you don’t want in your body.

The 7 foods experts won’t eat

How healthy (or not) certain foods are—for us, for the environment—is a hotly debated topic among experts and consumers alike, and there are no easy answers. But when Prevention talked to the people at the forefront of food safety and asked them one simple question—“What foods do you avoid?”—we got some pretty interesting answers.

Canned Tomatoes

The resin linings of tin cans contain bisphenol-A, a synthetic estrogen that has been linked to ailments ranging from reproductive problems to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. 

The expert: Fredrick vom Saal, PhD, an endocrinologist at the University of Missouri who studies bisphenol-A says “I won’t go near canned tomatoes.”

Microwave Popcorn

  Chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), in the lining of the bag, are part of a class of compounds that may be linked to infertility in humans, according to a recent study from UCLA. In animal testing, the chemicals cause liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancer. Studies show that microwaving causes the chemicals to vaporize—and migrate into your popcorn. “They stay in your body for years and accumulate there,” says Olga Naidenko, PhD, a senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group.

Nonorganic Potatoes

Jeffrey Moyer, chair of the National Organic Standards Board says, “Try this experiment: Buy a conventional potato in a store, and try to get it to sprout. It won’t,” says Moyer, who is also farm director of the Rodale Institute (also owned by Rodale Inc., the publisher of Prevention). “I’ve talked with potato growers who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals.”

Conventional Apples

If fall fruits held a “most doused in pesticides contest,” apples would win. ”Farm workers have higher rates of many cancers,” Mark Kastel, former executive for agribusiness and codirector of the Cornucopia Institute, a farm-policy research group that supports organic foods says. And increasing numbers of studies are starting to link a higher body burden of pesticides (from all sources) with Parkinson’s disease. The solution: Buy organic apples. If you can’t afford organic, be sure to wash and peel them first.

 

Fear the reaper, all ye who eat these foods!  Cancer!  Parkinson’s!  Infertility!  Listen to the experts, most of whom are paid advocates for organic foods!

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By Joshua, December 9, 2009 11:10 am

The headline from NYTimes is the understatement of the year:

Accepting Peace Prize Will Be a Test for Obama

Yup.  A big test in saying, “Hello, I’m a war time president who — via remote control — sometimes inadvertantly kills civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan and just ordered 30,000 more soldiers to kill (bad) people in Afghanistan and by my own admission has not done enough to warrant a Nobel Peace Prize and will now deliver a Nobel Lecture on world peace.”

Best of luck, Mr. President.

UPDATE!  Watch the Nobel Lecture live and see Obama at his most Clintonian!

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By Joshua, December 8, 2009 7:25 am

A look into the future:

In the latest sign of the enduring financial costs of the Afghan war for the United States and other NATO countries, President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that Afghanistan would not be able to pay for its own security until at least 2024.

“For another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force of that nature and capability with its own resources,” Mr. Karzai said during a press conference here with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates. He was referring to the number of Afghan forces needed to provide security for the entire country.

Mr. Gates, who was in Kabul on an unannounced visit, acknowledged that there was a “realism on our part that it will be some time before Afghanistan is able to sustain its security forces entirely on its own.”

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By Joshua, December 8, 2009 4:50 am

As America plans its withdraw, Iraq continues to experience high levels of terrorism:

In what appeared to be a coordinated assault, a series of car bombings across Baghdad on Tuesday killed at least 101 people and wounded scores more, according to preliminary accounts by police and hospital officials.  Five bombs, including at least one suicide attack, struck near a university, a court, a mosque a market and in a neighborhood near the Interior Ministry. The blasts began shortly after 10 A.M. and reverberated through the city for the next 50 minutes.

The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has blamed the attacks on Al Qaeda in Iraq and remnants of the Baath Party in exile, though officials have yet to provide concrete evidence pointing to those involved.

The latest attacks came on the day Iraq’s Presidency Council was expected, finally, to announce a date for the country’s parliamentary elections. On Sunday, under pressure from President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Iraq’s political leaders avoided a constitutional crisis and agreed on the rules for holding the election and distributing seats to the winners.

At least one victim linked Tuesday’s attacks to the squabbling over the election. “Are we cursed?” a young woman near the mosque that was struck in Qahira, in northeast Baghdad, yelled. She had burns over her arms and legs. “When will we be finished with this election issue?”

The attacks were the worst in Iraq since twin suicide bombings destroyed three ministries on Oct. 25, killing at least 155.

In August, two suicide car bombs struck the country’s finance and foreign ministries, killing at least 122.

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By Joshua, December 8, 2009 3:14 am

The debate over whether miranda rights reasonably convey that the suspect has a right to a lawyer during interrogations:

The arguments in front of the justices were the latest over how explicit the Miranda warning rights have to be, as justices debated whether the warnings police gave Kevin Dwayne Powell made clear to him that he could have a lawyer present while being interrogated by police. Powell was convicted of illegally possessing a firearm after telling police he bought the weapon “off the street” for $150 for his protection. Before his confession, Powell signed a Miranda statement that included the statements “You have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of our questions. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed for you without cost and before any questioning. You have the right to use any of these rights at any time you want during this interview.”

The Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction on grounds the Tampa police didn’t adequately convey to Powell that he was allowed to have a lawyer with him during questioning.

Justice Breyer:

“Aren’t you supposed to tell this person, that unlike a grand jury, you have a right to have the lawyer with you during interrogation?” Breyer said. “I mean, it isn’t as if that was said in passing in Miranda. They wrote eight paragraphs about it. And I just wonder, where does it say in this warning, you have the right to have the lawyer with you during the interrogation?”

Justice Sotomayor:

“We’ve got a split of circuit courts and state courts on whether this reasonably conveys or not. Shouldn’t that be enough of an ambiguity for us to conclude it can’t reasonably convey, if there’s this many courts holding that it doesn’t?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

Justice Scalia:

“You are saying, ‘Oh, if he had only known. Oh, if I knew that I could have an attorney present during the interview, well, that would have been a different kettle of fish and I would never have confessed,’” Scalia said. “I mean, doesn’t that seem to you quite fantastic?”

Miranda rights are under constant litigation:

Miranda rights have been litigated since they first came into being in 1966. The courts require police to tell suspects they have the right to remain silent and the right to have a lawyer represent them, even if they can’t afford one. But those requirements likely will continue to be parsed by lawyers and judges.

For example, Justice Samuel Alito pointed out that most police start off Miranda rights by saying “You have the right to remain silent.” But, Alito said, what happens if someone begins talking to the police and then decides that they want to be silent?

“Once you break your silence, there is nothing in there that says you have the right to resume your silence,” Alito said.

“We could write that down. It could be the next case,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said to laughter.