The Democratic Party has announced that they won't challenge the eligibility of candidate Joy Padgett. Padgett's eligibility had been in question due to Ohio's "sore loser" law.
Article here.
This should have been a Friday or Saturday post but I can't be sure that I'll have time tomorrow. I leave for vacation in Myrtle Beach Saturday morning so I'll be busy packing. There will also be little or no posting next week due to lack of a computer. If I do have time tommorow I'll repost this and update it.
This has been a very busy week for me and this site. On Wednesday I upgraded to Blogger Beta and had to rebuild my template. On Thursday I learned that all 4 of my wisdom teeth will be pulled out in a single operation in September.This week also saw a major spike in traffic to this site, though it's fallen off somewhat today it still a lot higher than before.
News wise it's been a busy week as well. Dept. of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff, on the heels of the London terror arrests, has called for more powers in the fight on terror. Photo's of Fidel Castro raised claims that they were fake. Also among major topics on the rumor mill are claims that the Israel - Lebanon war was pre-planned and Washington approved.
This week Bob Ney formally withdrew sparking a special election between eight candidates. Favorite to win Joy Padgett's eligibility is in question due to Ohio's "sore loser" law.
Bush was in the news this week claiming the war on terror would go on for years. It was also disclosed that many of the laws Bush signs don't apply to him due to his use of signing statements.
More of this weeks posts can be found here.
Lieberman is ahead of Lamont in a recent poll due to tremendous support from the Republican party. It's official, Turncoat Joe has joined the enemy.
"Senator Lieberman's support among Republicans is nothing short of amazing," Douglas Schwartz, the university's polling director said in a statement. "As long as Lieberman maintains this kind of support among Republicans while holding onto a significant number of Democratic votes, the veteran senator will be hard to beat."
Likely voters said by a 53 percent to 40 percent margin that Lieberman, the Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate in 2000 and once a presidential candidate himself, deserves to be re-elected. -- Reuters
The best part of this story is his opponent refuting that he supports high gas prices by saying he has supported opening the Alaska Wildlife Preserve to drilling. Why can't Republicans realize that if the people don't support it even while paying $3 a gallon then they will never support it. It's not like there's enough oil there to end our dependence on foreign oil anyways. As for claims that he's buying votes I don't think that's the case. He offered the gas to anyone regardless of who they planned to vote for. Sure it's edgy, but it's not as bad as some of the things that people have done to get elected.
More than 100 people waited more than an hour Wednesday at a gas station to fuel up at $1.20 a gallon, thanks to Democrat Mike Weaver, who is running for the congressional seat held by Republican Rep. Ron Lewis.
Weaver picked $1.20 because that was the price of regular unleaded when Lewis went to Congress in 1994. Weaver, who supports developing alternative energy, called Lewis a supporter of big oil.
Lewis called the giveaway "pure grade-school politics," and noted his support of alternative fuels and of opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
On Thursday, he also accused accused Weaver of "playing fast and loose with the law" and asked the U.S. Attorney's office to investigate whether the campaign event amounted to vote buying. -- AP
These eight people filed to be on the ballot for the September 14th special election to replace Bob Ney as the Republican candidate for the Ohio 18th Congressional District.
I found this over at TPMMuckracker.com.
Department of Justice Release
The Terrorist Surveillance Program is a critical tool that ensures we have in place an early warning system to detect and prevent a terrorist attack. In the ongoing conflict with al-Qaeda and its allies, the President has the primary duty under the Constitution to protect the American people. The Constitution gives the President the full authority necessary to carry out that solemn duty, and we believe the program is lawful and protects civil liberties. Because the Terrorist Surveillance Program is an essential tool for the intelligence community in the War on Terror, the Department of Justice has appealed the District Court's order. The parties have also agreed to a stay of the injunction until the District Court can hear the Department's motion for a stay pending appeal.
It seems that two bottles a woman tried to take past security tested positive for explosives. The situation is still in progress.
News story at Reuters.
Chron.com (Houston Chronicle?) has a great story about the behavior of the woman that caused the United Flight 923 from London to Washington DC to be diverted to Boston. You can find the article here.
He is the first American civilian to face trial over abusing detainees of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
A former CIA contractor accused of severely beating an Afghan detainee with a flashlight during questioning was found guilty Thursday of assault.
The beaten detainee later died, but David Passaro, 40, wasn't charged in his death. The federal jury found him guilty after about 8 hours of deliberations of three counts of simple assault and one count of assault resulting in serious bodily injury.
Passaro faces up to 11 1/2 years in prison. No sentencing date was immediately set. -- SFGate.com
A judge has ruled the the warrantless wiretapping program violates the Constitution and must be shut down immediately.
Now before you start thinking that this makes our country less safe I want you to know that we have long had a system in place to deal with terrorist wiretaps. It allowed for calls to be tapped without a warrant though the Government would then be required to appear before a secret court within 24 hours to validate the tap and allow it to be used for an arrest or as evidence. With this program they have just been tapping calls without answering to anyone or having to justify their reason.
News Sources:
The man recently arrested in Thailand has confessed to "accidentally" killing 6 year old JonBenet Ramsey a decade ago after drugging and raping her.
American suspect in the killing of JonBenet Ramsey told investigators that he drugged and had sex with the 6-year-old beauty queen before accidentally killing her, a senior Thai police officer said Thursday.
An autopsy on Ramsey said a blood screening showed no drugs or alcohol in her body but said she had vaginal abrasions.
Lt. Gen. Suwat Tumrongsiskul, head of Thailand's immigration police, said by telephone that he was not present for the questioning, which was conducted by U.S. law enforcement officials.
But, according to what the general said he was told of the questioning, the suspect, John Mark Karr, "said he drugged the child." Suwat did not say who briefed him on the questioning.
Karr claimed he had sex with Ramsey, who was still alive, Suwat said. Karr said he then realized he had "accidentally" killed her, according to the general.
... But I guess they want to go for the national title.
I can't find my sheet with the numbers for each county at the moment but it was several months out of date anyway. Back then we (Monroe County) were ahead by a few percentage points. The next month after those figures were released our two biggest employers (two Ormet aluminum plants) went out on a 19 month strike. During those 19 months one of the plants shut down for good while the other one eventually offered a deal the union accepted. The employees have yet to return to work though as the plant is having trouble getting an electric deal that meets their requirements. Now to make matters worse the remaining plant has laid off 30 more non-union workers. I figure that when the new statistics are released we'll have widened our lead significantly.
A fire official described near chaos inside the World Trade Center, with communication becoming increasingly difficult as firefighters tried to reach people trapped by a devastating blaze raging high overhead, recordings released Wednesday of emergency phone calls from the Sept. 11 attacks show.
"We're in a state of confusion," said Chief Dennis Devlin of Battalion 9. "We have no cell phone service anywhere because of the disaster ... Bring all the additional handy talkies."
Devlin tried to get a rundown of all the companies dispatched to the burning 110-story buildings. He was still inside the south Trade Center tower when it collapsed.
The same mix of concern and confusion was evident in recordings of more of the 1,613 previously undisclosed emergency calls made amid the horror in the towers after the hijacked planes hit the trade center.
"One of the towers just collapsed," said a fire lieutenant on another call. "Everybody's got to be inside of it. ... There's got to be thousands of the people inside it. One of the towers just came down on everybody." -- Forbes
Windows Live Writer, to me, has been like meeting a great new friend that shares all your interests only to hear that he's been hit by a bus the next day. I had it, I loved it. I upgraded, I lost it. I learned today for sure the Writer doesn't work with Blogger Beta, though they are working on supporting it in future versions. To pour salt on my wounds I also learned today that 5 new plug-ins were released. If anyone out there knows of any clients that support the new Blogger API I'd much appreciate it if you left a comment about it.
Northwest Airlines recently passed out a guide to workers that were likely to be fired or recieve a pay deduction about how to save money. Things mentioned in the guide included not being shy about taking things they wanted out of the trash, shopping at thrift stores, and taking dates on walks along the beach or through the woods. Now can you honestly tell me the economy is fine after hearing something like that?
Don't forget that the Hope Line is still in need of donations to remain open. If you haven't already please donate now, and spread the word. There's less than 10 days left.
As the case for terrorism falls apart against several recently arrested Muslims, including 2 here in Ohio, there are many speculating that the arrests were based on racial profiling. While that may be the case I have to admit that if I saw two people with a large wad of cash buying a lot of prepaid cellphones I would have been suspicious as well, no matter what religion or ethnicity they were.
More can be found on this story here.
Hotels throughout Northeastern Ohio have agreed to reserve 20,000 hotel rooms for Cleveland's bid to host the 2008 Republican National Convention. I can't help but wonder how this bid came about as Cleveland has been mainly democratic.
Cleveland's position as a center of manufacturing established it as a hotbed of union activity early in its history. This contributed to a political progressivism that has influenced Cleveland politics to the present. While other parts of Ohio, particularly Cincinnati and the southern portion of the state, have historically supported the Republican Party, Cleveland commonly breeds the strongest support in the state for the Democrats. -- Wikipedia
There are still several other cities in the running including New York and St. Petersburg. You can read more over at Blogging Ohio.
Cindy Sheehan is packing up the tents and taking her camp on the road to Washington D.C. and turn it into a multi-week protest. Dubbed "Camp Democracy", this event would best be described as a protest festival featuring discussion panels (Howard Zinn is one of the many scheduled speakers), concerts, workshops of all sorts, and almost anything you can imagine such an event would have.
The event is being sponsored by many progressive and liberal minded groups such as:
I just looked over at my Statcounter page and saw some initial bad news, my unique viewers today are a little over a fourth of what they were yesterday (of course it's only 10:00). What's really surprising however is that I have nearly as many page views as yesterday, so viewers are reading an incredible amount of posts. I'm assuming this is due to the tags and the next / previous post links at the bottom of each page. I'd definitely rather have one person read ten posts rather than ten people read one post, so I'm pretty happy with this.
In other beta news the feed discovery feature of Firefox doesn't appear to work in the beta yet. Feeds can be found at the bottom of pages (post pages feeds are for comments) and an RSS feed can be found in the sidebar.
I've also decided to try a few days with the comment verification (those annoying type in the letters boxes) option for a few days to see how it goes. It's been a day and there's been no spam so far so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
De Facto GOP candidate Joe Lieberman has started to seek support from outside his own state. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're having trouble getting support in your state wouldn't you think that maybe they don't want you to run? Lieberman is no longer representing the people who voted him into his office, he's only representing himself.
Sen. Joe Lieberman made an unusual pitch to people outside Connecticut when he conceded the state's Democratic primary to Ned Lamont and announced plans to run as an independent.
"If you're disappointed with the ugly tone of our politics, if you're fed up with the nasty partisanship in Washington, then I ask your help, too," said Lieberman, who was criticized as being too close to the Republican administration.Lieberman called on people across America to visit his Web site and send ideas "on how we can build this new politics of unity and purpose." He also hit them up for campaign contributions. -- North County Times
Of course this is assuming he can keep his website up and running.
Wal-Mart has posted their first loss in over a decade blaming high gas prices. I know that I have been buying less than I have in previous summers due to having less money after buying gas. More directly I've made a lot less non-essential trips due to high gas prices eliminating the chance of impulse buys.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. posted its first profit decline in a decade Tuesday as the world's largest retailer paid a hefty price for closing its loss-making German stores while high energy prices hit its sales and costs at home.
Chief Executive Lee Scott said sales were disappointing at Wal-Mart's U.S. stores, its largest division. Customers were making fewer shopping trips to save gas, while Wal-Mart's own bills for fuel and utilities were up, he said. -- Forbes
I just saw a feature on CNN about how Muslims tipped British authorities off to the suspicious behavior of the suspects of the recent terror plot. I'll try to find more on this if I have time.
The United Nations plans to send 3,500 soldiers to southern Lebanon within 15 days as Israel withdraws its forces after a cease-fire halted more than a month of fighting with Hezbollah.Lebanon can begin moving the first of its contingent of 15,000 troops to the south from tomorrow, Lebanese Interior Minister Ahmad Fatfat said in an interview. ``It all depends on the cooperation of the Israeli army.'' Bloomberg.com
First off this isn't the reopening of violence as the title suggests. Hezbollah has declined disarm and recall it's soldiers from the border. Lebanese officials are trying to come up with some sort of compromise.
Hezbollah refused to disarm and withdraw its fighters from the battle-scarred hills along the border with Israel on Tuesday, threatening to delay deployment of the Lebanese army and endangering a fragile cease-fire.
The makings of a compromise emerged from all-day meetings in Beirut, according to senior officials involved in the negotiations, and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora scheduled a cabinet session Wednesday for what he hoped would be formal approval of the deal. Hezbollah indicated it would be willing to pull back its fighters and weapons in exchange for a promise from the army not to probe too carefully for underground bunkers and weapons caches, the officials said.
Lieberman's former supporters have left him in favor of Lamont but he still just doesn't get it. He's actually getting more support from Republicans with the White House refusing to endorse the Republican candidate in the race.
The former president slapped Lieberman over the latter's suggestion that he lost because party liberals wanted to purge a politician who shared Clinton's overall philosophy of being progressive on domestic issues while supporting a robust national security policy.
"If I were Joe, and I was running as an independent, that's what I'd say, too," Clinton told ABC's "Good Morning America." "But that's not quite right. That is, there were almost no Democrats who agreed with his position, which was, 'I want to attack Iraq whether or not they have weapons of mass destruction.' " -- Washington Post
This has nothing to do with politics but it was just too good to pass up. AOL is searching for buried gold and platinum at a spammers parents house. AOL took this spammer to court and won a substantial award but the spammer can't be located.
Full story at MSNBC.
I almost cried when I read this. Some soldiers even made it home to Alaska only to learn when they got off the plane that they had to turn around and go back. There's also a good story over at the Washington Post. This kind of story makes me wish we could send the Bush White House and all the Congressmen that voted for this war to Iraq to search for the "WMD's" we heard so much about. All these soldiers should get a nice, long vacation when they get home courtesy of the Pentagon.
With much of the brigade's deployment extended, families have canceled or postponed birthday celebrations and long-awaited vacations to tropical shores such as Hawaii or the Bahamas.
"It was a shock," said Tammy Wilson, who had to cancel a fishing trip that her husband, Army chaplain Frank Wilson, had planned with their 10- and 12-year-old sons. "These guys were all ready to be home. They were in that mind-set."Her three children had already drawn signs that said "We love our Daddy. Welcome home." The family had planned to greet him wearing T-shirts printed with his photograph and the slogan, "Some heroes wear capes, my hero wears combat boots."
"We'll still wear them someday," Tammy Wilson said. "It'll just be a slightly delayed reunion." -- Seattle Post
Currently my blogs are being moved over to the beta version of the new Blogger and so far it's been easy and painless. They did caution that it would take a little while to move them and that they would email me when it was done. Thunderbird just popped up that it received that email as I started that last sentence making it a total wait of about 30 seconds. The migration went smooth so now it's on to the template.
Upgrading the template has been a major pain in stark contrast to the migration. I was fully prepared to have my template wiped out to be able to use the new template editing features. I had also counted on being able to put some of those things back. That part isn't happening at this point. I've tried to add an image but it didn't recognize the URL. I tried to add my creative commons copyright and it claimed there was an error in the code. Well in fact after refreshing the page I had both picture and Creative Commons copyrights. My Adsense ad's don't work however. This is a pain. I wonder if it's a bug or intentional? I also can't download my style to windows live writer which is another inconvenience.
Major annoyance I just tried to post this from Windows Live Writer and it isn't showing up. This is really not cool. I forgot that Blogger also upgraded thier API. I hope the Writer teams gets on this ASAP.
I'll probably be working on this through the night and tomorrow before I can really get back to normal. This is always the cost of being at the bleeding edge and I knew it before I opted to make the switch, it's a pain but at least I got tags.
Is this the new tactic? It seems a little blatantly obvious to me. Seriously how did they not think those petitions would be gone over with a fine tooth comb.
Senator Rick Santorum's reelection campaign is now accused of forging signatures on a Green Party petition. These accusations come after Sen. Santorum admitted his donors paid for Green Party petition drives in an apparent bid to take votes away from democratic challenger Bob Casey, Jr.
A handwriting analyst, hired by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, revealed that four out of the five signatures on a petition signed by Senator Santorum's staffer were inconsistent with the signatures found on voter registration cards.
Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair T.J. Rooney told reporters, "The writing expert's findings raise serious questions, not only about the illegal financing of the petition drive paid for by Santorum backers but how he authorizes the use of campaign staff for apparent fraud." -- Huffington Post
CNN anchor Chuck Roberts apologized to Lamont today for referring to him as the "Al-Qaeda candidate". Apology text below.
You know, I owe you an apology. Last week, I led into an interview with a guest analyst and really botched the set-up. The guest had wanted to discuss the Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman statements suggesting that terror groups -- Al Qaeda type, to use Cheney's words -- would be buoyed by your win, but I posed it badly, stupidly ad-libbing about "some saying Lamont is the Al-Qaeda candidate." No one, in fact, used that construction.
I've also recently heard many Republicans blame Democrats for partisanship. So how exactly will the GOP portray the Democrats as weak on terror without being partisan?
The Bush administration plans to make counter-terrorism a centrepiece of the forthcoming midterm congressional elections following last week's alleged foiled airline terror plot in the UK. "America is safer than it has been, yet it is not yet safe," President George W. Bush said on Tuesday during a tour of the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia.
-- MSNBC
The Blogger Buzz has a post about how they plan to roll it out and about the new features. You can find it here. I'm telling you, you can't imagine how badly I want tags.
I've signed up for an account and really love all the new features but until I can take my current blogs with me it looks like I'll be tagless. The template editor is a major improvement and they've added comment RSS feeds. I really hope I can migrate my account soon.
In other blog news I've completely been converted over to Windows Live Writer. It's an all around great tool and with it's web layout and web preview views it takes WYSIWYG to a whole new level.
Recently Senator George Allen made some jokes at the expense of a lone African American at a recent political rally (see excerpt below). Twice he referred to the man as "Macaca" which left many journalists scratching their heads. I did a little research and found that Macaca is the genus for a type of monkey called Macaque. At this point I've been unable to find any other animals that fall in that genus. It would seem that basically he called him a monkey.
"MY FRIENDS, we're going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas," Sen. George F. Allen told a rally of Republican supporters in Southwest Virginia last week. "And it's important that we motivate and inspire people for something." Whereupon Mr. Allen turned his attention to a young campaign aide working for his Democratic opponent -- a University of Virginia student from Fairfax County who was apparently the only person of color present -- and proceeded to ridicule him.
Let's consider which positive, constructive or inspirational ideas Mr. Allen had in mind when he chose to mock S.R. Sidarth of Dunn Loring, who was recording the event with a video camera on behalf of James Webb, the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat Mr. Allen holds. The idea that holding up minorities to public scorn in front of an all-white crowd will elicit chortles and guffaws? (It did.) The idea that a candidate for public office can say "Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia!" to an American of Indian descent and really mean nothing offensive by it? (So insisted Mr. Allen's aides.) Or perhaps the idea that bullying your opponents and calling them strange names -- Mr. Allen twice referred to Mr. Sidarth as "Macaca" -- is within the bounds of decency on the campaign trail?
We have no inkling as to what Mr. Allen meant by "Macaca," though we rather doubt his campaign's imaginative explanation that it was somehow an allusion to Mr. Sidarth's hairstyle, a mullet. Mr. Allen said last night that no slur was intended, though he failed to explain what, exactly, he did have in mind. Macaca is the genus for macaques, a type of monkey found mainly in Asia. Mr. Allen, who as a young man had a fondness for Confederate flags and later staunchly opposed a state holiday in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has surely learned too much about racial sensitivities in public life to misspeak so offensively. -- Washington Post
President Bush has warned that we will be fighting terrorism well into the future and for once I agree with him. What's more I'm claiming that he is the reason for it. The war on terror will never be won using only guns and bombs. Those are just tools that ultimately allow terrorists to increase recruitment.
Take Iraq for example, Adam Hussein was a very evil and sadistic man but he maintained order. Now that America has invaded old tensions are boiling and terrorists have managed to move in and set up shop. The Iraqi war was originally not about terrorism but now if we pull our troops out Al-Qaeda will have a new base of operations. I hate to say it (and hope people don't misunderstand me) but if we had left Iraq alone I believe that Saddam would have prevented Al-Qaeda from operating in his country.
In Britain Muslim converts are becoming the new terrorist due to British authorities treatment of Muslim's. Since the subway and bus bombings they have been rounding up groups of Muslims and holding them until they determine they aren't a terrorist. It's speculated that a few Muslim extremists have been capitalizing on this oppression and funneling recent converts outrage to meet their goals while older members of the Muslim community have begun to accept this oppression.
Those were just two examples of mistakes we are making in the war on terror. This war can only be won through the hearts and minds of the people off this world. We need to look at why people support Bin Laden and his network and then make an effort to address those issues. A war like this will never end while either side has a reason and a will to fight, removing that reason will do what one million bombs can't.
Bush and Blair are by far not the only ones to make a mistake like this. The most prevalent example would be World War I. We defeated Germany militarily but then we placed many restrictions and financial burdens on them. In failing failing to address the hearts and minds of the German people and by providing a new reason to fight we basically guaranteed that World War II would happen.
The special primary election to determine Bob Ney's successor as Republican candidate for the 18th Congressional District will be held Thursday, September 14th. Anyone wishing to run would need to file a "declaration of intent" to the board of elections by 4 P.M. August 17th. The only possible candidate I've heard mention of so far is Joy Padgett and her eligibility is still in question due to Ohio's "sore loser" law.
I live in the 6th District but all the major newspapers and television stations around here are based in the 18th District or in West Virginia and cover both Ohio districts as well as West Virginia politics. For all the talk there has been about the Democrats being able to take back this seat I have to say they've mad little effort capitalizing on this as yet. I know the general elections a long ways off yet but I expected to hear at least something from them. I actually only learned the Democratic nominees name from national news.
De Facto GOP Nominee Joe Lieberman may be in trouble with the Fed's over his election day claims that his website was hacked by Lamont supporters. Evidence has been stacking up that the culprit was actually the cheap hosting package that the Lieberman campaign used. Daily Kos has an Alexa chart showing how Lieberman's traffic spiked on election day. That kind of traffic mixed with cheap hosting makes it pretty easy to figure out what happened.
Totally honest question: will Joe Liebermans Senate campaign be prosecuted by federal authorities? As you may recall, the Lieberman campaign accused Ned Lamont's campaign of hacking its website on election day. Lieberman's campaign has since admitted it had no evidence to support the claim. The major verifiable evidence that has been uncovered (here and here) shows that Lieberman's campaign skimped on its web service, and that its claims of losing email service on election day may have been lies. -- David Sirota
This was just to strange to pass up. The guy opposing the cross, a Vietnam Vet, does raise a good issue: It excludes non-Christian soldiers. Maybe we should steal U2's Coexist that features the Muslim crescent, the Star of David, and the cross.
Supporters hope the legislation transferring the 29-foot cross and war memorial it's a part of to the federal government will protect it for good. A series of court decisions have deemed the cross unconstitutional because it stands on public property.
"Just because something may have a religious connotation doesn't mean you destroy it and tear it down," said Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., after an Oval Office signing ceremony attended by other cross supporters and Republican House members from San Diego who sponsored the bill.
-- Washington Post
Techcrunch.com is reporting that Blogger is about to get some much needed major improvements. Oh how I have longed for tags and now they're so close I can almost smell them.
This isn't news, just a personal rant. I find it really annoying that news agency's keep switching back and forth from "Hizbollah" and "Hezbollah". Has anyone else noticed this? Does it annoy you too?
Here are two very similar news stories. One uses Hizbollah, the other Hezbollah. Only Hizbollah sets off spell check while Hezbollah is recognized.
Update: (8/16/06 10:32 A.M.) A commenter brought "Usama" and "Osama" as another good example of the news media switching between terms. I've always used "Osama" as I can't remember ever hearing "Usama" before 9/11. I've also used "Hezbollah" over "Hizbollah".I've finally found the full text of the "sore loser" law that is a threat to Joy Padgett's Congressional run to replace Bob Ney.
From The Ohio Revised Code
§ 3513.04. Filing of declaration of candidacy; prohibited candidates at general election.
Candidates for party nominations to state, district, county, and municipal offices or positions, for which party nominations are provided by law, and for election as members of party controlling committees shall have their names printed on the official primary ballot by filing a declaration of candidacy and paying the fees specified for the office under divisions (A) and (B) of section 3513.10 of the Revised Code, except that the joint candidates for party nomination to the offices of governor and lieutenant governor shall, for the two of them, file one declaration of candidacy. The joint candidates also shall pay the fees specified for the joint candidates under divisions (A) and (B) of section 3513.10 of the Revised Code.
The secretary of state shall not accept for filing the declaration of candidacy of a candidate for party nomination to the office of governor unless the declaration of candidacy also shows a joint candidate for the same party's nomination to the office of lieutenant governor, shall not accept for filing the declaration of candidacy of a candidate for party nomination to the office of lieutenant governor unless the declaration of candidacy also shows a joint candidate for the same party's nomination to the office of governor, and shall not accept for filing a declaration of candidacy that shows a candidate for party nomination to the office of governor or lieutenant governor who, for the same election, has already filed a declaration of candidacy or a declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate, or has become a candidate by the filling of a vacancy under section 3513.30 of the Revised Code for any other state office or any federal or county office.
No person who seeks party nomination for an office or position at a primary election by declaration of candidacy or by declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate and no person who is a first choice for president of candidates seeking election as delegates and alternates to the national conventions of the different major political parties who are chosen by direct vote of the electors as provided in this chapter shall be permitted to become a candidate by nominating petition or by declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate at the following general election for any office other than the office of member of the state board of education, office of member of a city, local, or exempted village board of education, office of member of a governing board of an educational service center, or office of township trustee.
I've been unable to find the exact story and text of the law but I have found this quote that might be about it.
Majority Republicans in the Legislature this year changed election law to prevent candidates from running for federal and state offices in the same election, mostly out of concern that Strickland, the Democratic nominee for governor, would also try to keep his seat in Congress. Democrats argue that the rule prevents Padgett from running for different offices in separate primaries within the same election cycle. But experts say the law would not apply because the primary and general elections should be considered separate elections.
-- Akron Beacon Journal
If this really is the story behind the law then it appears the Republicans might get what they deserve.
I mistakenly reported on 8/11/06 that Joy Padgett had been cleared to run for Bob Ney's Congressional seat. In fact the statement I cited as evidence was only an opinion, though it was not labeled as such.
Padgett's eligibility is threatened by Ohio's "sore loser" law that doesn't allow a candidate that lost a primary to run in the general election. Padgett had run for Lt. Governor on a ticket with Jim Petro that lost to Ken Blackwell.
I bet Connecticut Democrats would love to have a "sore loser" law, don't you think?
Grueling combat conditions in Iraq, a decent commercial job market and tough monthly recruiting goals have made recruiters' jobs more difficult, the Government Accountability Office said Monday. This has probably prompted more recruiters to resort to strong-arm tactics, including harassment or criminal means such as falsifying documents, to satisfy demands, GAO states...
...According to service data provided to the GAO, substantiated cases of wrongdoing jumped by more than a third, from about 400 cases in 2004 to almost 630 in 2005. Meanwhile, criminal cases - such as sexual harassment or falsifying medical records - more than doubled in those years, jumping from 30 incidents to 70. -- SeattlePI
Quick update about the blog itself.
I just recently checked my statcounter page and today I've had at least twice as many visitors as any other day. In fact today I've had more visitors than the rest of the month combined.
Twenty-two percent of Americans wouldn't want a Muslim neighbor and 39% believe Muslims should have to carry a special ID.
A new Gallup poll finds that many Americans -- what it calls "substantial minorities" -- harbor "negative feelings or prejudices against people of the Muslim faith" in this country. Nearly one in four Americans, 22%, say they would not like to have a Muslim as a neighbor. -- Editor & Publisher
In a completely random and unrelated tangent here are some quotes from the Martin Luther King "I have a dream" speech from Wikipedia.
Okay that wasn't completely unrelated, just more outraged sarcasm.
My message to America: I Told You So.
According to a survey by Scripps Howard News Service released by Ohio University which asked 1,010 "Americans to ponder their options in every U.S. presidential election held since 1964," two term President George W. Bush would lose to both Senator John Kerry and former Vice President Al Gore. -- The Raw Story
Fort Campbell had the single biggest increase of discharged soldiers under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in 2005, according to the Department of Defense.
And Fort Campbell has the second-highest rate of soldiers discharged under the policy behind Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
<Satire>God forbid we have an openly gay war hero because then we couldn't portray them all as less than human freaks.</Satire>
The above statement is complete sarcasm, I'm very pro gay rights and believe history will eventually look back on this period the way we look back at slavery.
Read more at:
http://www.rctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/...
I'm really surprised, I had figured he'd at least have a bounce. The poll did show that Americans are willing to except more flight restrictions however.
The arrests in Britain have not helped President Bush's popularity so far, the CBS poll finds. His job approval remains exactly at 36 percent, where it was a month ago. Even the president's rating for handling terrorism – his strongest suit – remains unchanged at 51 percent. -- CBS News Poll
Bob Ney officially withdrew his bid for re-election today ending speculation about how his successor for Republican candidate would be chosen. Should he of resigned after the 19th it would have been up to party leaders but now there will be a special election.
Bob Ney, to his credit, was one of three Republicans to vote against the Patriot Act. I also feel the need to mention that long ago we all viewed Ney as a good representative for our area. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't vote for him today but there was a time when I would have.
After much consideration and thought I have decided today to no longer seek re-election in Ohio’s 18th Congressional District. I am extremely proud of my 25 years serving the people of Ohio. We’ve accomplished many things to make this state better and I will always be grateful for the trust my constituents put in me. Ultimately this decision came down to my family. I must think of them first, and I can no longer put them through this ordeal.
I am deeply grateful for all of the trust and support my family, friends and constituents have given me over the past two years. I look forward to serving out the rest of my term and serving the constituents of the 18th District.
-- Bob Ney
You can read more from a local TV stations website here.
The folks over at Blogging Ohio have a very good article that shows the distances of major borders and cities of the war torn areas using cities and towns in Ohio. You can find the article here and if you've ever been through Ohio then I definitely recommend checking it out.
President Bush is truly trying to make himself above the laws that he himself signs. In over 750 laws that he's signed he has added "signing statement" which is basically fine print to the law. Most often this statement says that he will not enforce that law if it impedes his inherent constitutional authority as head of "the unitary executive". While Presidents have this right President Bush has used it more than any other president in the history of this country. With a Republican controlled Congress we've basically eliminated a leg of the triangle of checks & balances and I guess this is is probably a direct result of it.
When George W. Bush signs a bill from Congress into law, he adds a "signing statement"—more of them than any of his predecessors—that he will not enforce that law if it impedes his inherent constitutional authority as head of "the unitary executive." (Press secretary Tony Snow brushes these off as "little statements."
In Bush's first term, he has, as the Associated Press notes, issued at least 750 of these—"reserving the right to revise, interpret, or disregard laws.
Most notoriously, after a televised White House surrender to Senator John McCain, Bush signed a law including McCain's banning of "cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment" of U.S. detainees—but then, in a signing statement, he said he could ignore that part of the law in the war on terrorism.
After carefully rereading some of yesterdays news this morning I realized something pretty scary that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday.
While declining to give specific examples of how U.S. law might be changed, Chertoff said British authorities benefited from having fewer restrictions on using electronic and other surveillance methods and holding suspects without charges. -- Bloomberg.com
Now I'd assume that since he is the Secretary of Homeland Security that he knows that at least some of the Britain plot suspects were in fact citizens in that country. Is this foreshadowing a major push for the right to detain American Citizens the same way they've detained "Prisoners of War" (but remember the Mission Accomplished speech on the aircraft carrier, isn't the war over?) at Guantanamo in Cuba?
Rumors are flying around the war in Lebanon was planned in advance by Israel and the US and was just waiting for some incident, like the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, to use for justification. While this theory would explain why the US was slow to push for a UN cease fire I'm not absolutely sure I completely believe it. I guess part of me still has some hope that there's still some common sense in Bush's cabinet. Oh wait, Colin Powell resigned...
The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preemptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground...
...A Pentagon consultant said that the Bush White House “has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preemptive blow against Hezbollah.” He added, “It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it.” -- The New Yorker
The recent photo of Castro holding a recent newspaper appears to have possibly been photoshopped raising the question "Where is Castro?". This blog post does a very good job of pointing out the areas that are allegedly photoshopped (although you'll have to save the image and zoom in on it yourself). I don't really think that Castro is in fact dead as my title alludes but I do believe that is is in far worse shape than Cuban officials claim. I also find it hard to believe that Castro would give up the military fatigues for a red, white, and blue track jacket.
I just remembered that Google Reader had a "Blog This!" option and decided to try it out. The story is well worth checking out though so I'm killing two birds with one stone.
Terror Arrest Timing: White House Spins Lamont Victory at Expense of Our Safety:
"The Tattered Coat has a great post on how the Bush administration forced the timing of the recent London terror plot arrests. Analyzing reporting done by NBC and others, TTC’s Matt notes:For the whole story head over to MotherJones.com.
This goes way beyond what we understood previously — that the Bush Administration knew about the arrests ahead of time, and timed a PR offensive against the Democrats around it.
It turns out that it was the other way around: the Bush Administration orchestrated the timing of the arrests to coordinate them with the PR offensive, which attacked Democrats after Ned Lamont’s victory in the Connecticut primary.
For the GOP, the short-term political importance of getting the Lamont victory, and the developing sense that America had fully turned against the Iraq War, off the news was reason enough to disrupt an active terror investigation. The disruption hurt the legal case against the terrorists — it will be much harder to convict them without passports or airline tickets. The GOP was so insistent on... "
This is just one of many strange tactics that Republicans are using in an effort to save their campaigns. File this story in the same category as Cheney saying that a vote for Lamont was a vote for Al-Qaeda.
Facing a strong re-election challenge from Democrat Heath Shuler, veteran Republican Rep. Charles Taylor is going after a candidate who gets an "F" from the National Rifle Association and a perfect score from a leading abortion-rights group.
But that's not Shuler, a former NFL quarterback who hopes his pro-gun and anti-abortion positions appeal to swing voters and social conservatives alike in this mountainous district in western North Carolina.
Instead, Taylor's target this summer is Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the California congresswoman who has emerged as a "boogey-woman" of sorts for Republicans campaigning this year on the idea that Democrats can't be trusted with control of the House. -- ABC News
The Hope Line still is in desperate need of donations to stay open past August 26th. I urge you to donate what you can before we lose this valuable service forever.
The Save1800SUICIDE.org site has also posted a few new PDF's showing how much cheaper it is to run the Hope Line compared to the recently launched Government run hotline. One is a story about the real reasons that the Government and SAMHSA are trying to have the line shut off. The other is a chart showing side by side statistics for the Hope Line and the Government run line for the month of June. They're both pretty educational and show just how valuable and efficient the Hope Line actually is. I urge you to check them out.
Following the foiled United Kingdom bomb plot, the Bush administration is expected to use the terrorist threat to regain the upper hand in congressional debates and push for government action before the November elections.
Republicans appear to be circling around a new strategy to advocate stronger counterterrorism laws and expand domestic surveillance, while pushing back against civil libertarians. -- Wall Street Journal Online
As if we couldn't see this coming it's the return of the post 9/11 scare tactics. President Bush has already proven that he has no regard for law, the Constitution, civil liberties, and the Judicial System but now it seems that he want's to be sure that everyone knows it.
What really worries me though is numbers like the poll below, also from the WSJ.com story. How does that make sense? They worry that the Government will go to far yet they support the Patriot Act which was the first major step in that direction.
Recent polls show while Americans are concerned that the U.S. government will go too far in monitoring the activities of potential terrorists in the U.S. and violate the privacy of average citizens, they also are supportive of legislation such as the Patriot Act, and on balance have been inclined to embrace controversial antiterror steps, such as telephone and financial surveillance, over civil-liberties concerns. Republican congressional leaders have already begun to raise the possibility that changes might be needed.
Another news story on this can be found at Bloomberg.com.
I'd also like to go more in depth about my feelings on the issue but keep in mind that it's 2:16 A.M. I think that by taking away our freedoms and privacy the President is letting the terrorists win. I also think that freedom is worth dying for and that I'd much rather die in a terrorist attack than live in a 1984-like world where Big Brother watches everything. Again these are just my thoughts and I have been up for way too long.
Each day more and more sources are reporting that the Bush Administration tried to divert $6 million away from the development of explosive detection equipment even while the alleged terrorists in England were being arrested.
As the British terror plot was unfolding, the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology.
Congressional leaders rejected the diversion of funds, the latest in a series of Homeland Security Department steps that have left lawmakers and some of the department’s own experts questioning the commitment to create better antiterror technologies. -- MSNBC.com
The terror plot itself seems to be far less dangerous than originally portrayed with no suspects having plane tickets and many not even having passports. There have even been stories that the US forced Britain to move up it's timetable for breaking up the plot. A Bush aide has denied these reports but another US official has confirmed these reports as well as a British official with knowledge about the investigation. It's also worth mentioning that a plot dealing with the mixing of liquids into an explosive on a plane was uncovered in 1995 in L.A. as well, so the idea is hardly new.
This is a test of a new blog client (that cl really looks like a d in the program, hope the format doesn't carry over into the blog). My current client, W.Bloggar doesn't seem to be in development anymore so I've been looking for a new one for some time now and today Microsoft released a beta version of Windows Live Writer so I decided to give it a shot.
RSS
