I should clarify... I don't think it's a case of personal animus against Phil Gramm, I think politicians and the more partisan pundits have a political reason to identify a bill which prominently contains his name (as the most prominent Free Market purist & a chief McCain advisor) as the primary cause of the crisis when the particular bill doesn't appear to have had a big effect on the crisis.
Now, the argument that he as a politician and the laissez faire policies he favored more generally contributed to the crisis is a legitimate argument. I'll be honest, I don't fully buy that argument... but it's a legitimate one to make and it deserves serious consideration. It's unfortunate that this larger point ends up encapuslated in a debate about a particular bill that doesn't appear to have much impact when other bills and policies are much more relevant and appear to be much more at fault in precipitating the crisis. I think the politicians have traded a serious argument about deregulation for a few cheap political points based almost entirely on the presence of a mans name in a bill rather than it's actual provisions and their impact. It probably is effective politics in the short run but I suspect in the long run it weakens their argument.
I'm still skeptical. Glass Steagall didn't prevent the lending institutions from lending to investment institutions which is how the contagion has spread from brokerage to bank. It prevented the ownership of both lending institutions and investment institutions by the same entity. But, in this incident it was almost without exception narrowly focused institutions mandated by Glass that have instigated the crisis. The worst damage has been done to, and by, narrow investment banks that got killed when their investment in mortgage backed securities ended up being worth nothing, or in lending institutions narrowly focussed in the mortgage business. The broadly diversified banks that have their hands in all sorts of business took a bath in those areas as well... BUT they were stabilized by their other businesses offsetting their losses. They didn't initiate the crisis, have weathered the storm better and have ridden in to rescue the broken firms (either looking to diversify further into investment banking, or hoping they can somehow mitigate their own losses by buying firms that owe them a lot of money)
Bear Stearns for just one example was exactly the kind of narrowly focussed investment banks required by Glass-Steagall, JP Morgan Chase which bought it up and prevented it's dissolution is exactly the kind of large diversified bank permitted by Gramm (as is the fact that it's legal for Chase to buy them in the first place)
I've read a lot on this controversy over Glass-Steigal vs. Gramm-Leach-Bliley and most of the time when the general punditry or a politician blames Gramm for the crisis there's no explanation of how it's at fault... it's just stated as a truism that requires no explanation. In those cases I suspect the reason is really a knee-jerk opposition to deregulation generally, and Phil Gramm's position as a McCain advisor during the election than any actual analysis of how the act actually impacted the crisis. When more informed economist pundits have made the argument I frankly just couldn't follow their logic. That could be a product of my own economic ignorance but I suspect it's just hand-waving trying to find a way to assign blame on someone they're predisposed against & the bill named for him rather than the product of really honest analysis.
If you want to blame Phil Gramm there's a much better argument to make against him based on his role championing the deregulation of derivatives but that has the disadvantage that the bill didn't bear his name, and worse it was passed by an overwhelming majority of both parties in the house, by unanimous consent in the senate and signed by President Clinton so its hard to pin on him individually or Republicans generally.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that deregulation had a hand in the financial implosion but I'm not sure I understand the logic behind blaming "Gramm-Leach-Bliley" specifically. It seems that, in the early stages of the crisis before it cascaded to impact everyone it was the least diversified investment banks that were remnants of Glass-Stiegall that had, and caused, the most trouble and the most diversified banks that would have been illegal before Gramm were the healthiest and in a few cases because it wasn't illegal (as it would have been without Gramm) were able to ride to the rescue of the more strictly focussed investment banks that were at the financial ground zero. It seems there are probably other decisions having to do with regulating mortgage backed securities, or the degree to which banks could leverage their assets that are more to blame. (Though I can understand the a political logic behind blaming "Gramm" it since Gramm was one of McCain's advisors so it's politically convenient to use "Gramm" as shorthand for deregulation generally even though Gramm's bill itself was probably only a minor contributor to the problem, or perhaps even mitigated some of the damage.)
Trying to end someone else's horrible behavior is of course horrible behavior from his/her perspective.
So? By the time we get a situation where deadly force is justified we don't give a damn about his/her perspective... or perhaps we only care that it is soon from the ground looking up and growing dim. There is an objective moral order, which your own opinions about using deadly force are derived from but which you have overrefined to to the point of being self-defeating. At some point violating the that moral order places you outside it's protection. Nobody *should* give a damn about the perspective of the murder on a killing spree. Shooting someone in the head is morally wrong. Shooting someone in the head to prevent them from doing the same to an innocent third party isn't. In the case of governmental authority FAILING to prevent them when you could is itself morally wrong. That is really the main (and arguably ONLY) point of having a social structure as burdensome and dangerous as government exist in the first place, as the collective expression of our individual human right to self-defense. In crass terms the main (whole?) point of government is to shoot the guy trying to harm you (me, whoever) in the head
while cops might be ready to kill on my behalf, they are also ready to kill me on my behalf too.
No, they're ready to kill you on MY behalf. Again (in legitimate cases) by the time they're willing to kill you on my behalf nobody gives a damn about you anymore, nor should they. With your gun to my head, knife at my throat, or hand on the detonator I hope they are equipped with the most efficient "anonymous-kill-at-a-distance tools" available. I also hope they are unsullied by a moral sense so highly refined as to let you squeeze that trigger, pull that blade across my throat or push that button because in their philosophical musings they realize that from your perspective them stopping you would be "horrible". I might prefer that they find the necessity deeply sad and troubling, but in that moment I'd prefer the callous jerk who doesn't hesitate when he has the shot and laughs about it later to the sensitive, morally correct soul who hesitates and fails to protect my life because taking yours is so heart breaking. In the action that ultimately matters most the insensitive jerk who acted is morally superior to the sensitive soul that failed.
Do you really mean to suggest that we live in such a dangerous world that the *only* way to ensure general public safety is by using anonymous-kill-at-a-distance tools, that without improving the efficiency of these killing machines I'm in mortal danger?
Sadly the fact is we DO live in a dangerous world, at least it is some of the time. On at least some occasions properly used "anonymous-kill-at-a-distance tools" is the best or only way to ensure the general public safety and the lack of them does in fact put people in danger. Humans are capable of some truly horrible behavior and sometimes the threat or actual use of violence is the only thing that will deter... or end... such behavior.
It is legitimate to argue about the appropriateness of using such violence in particular situations: whether we should enter this or that war, whether the violent or deadly response by police was appropriate in this or that particular situation. Fearing that authorities will use deadly force inappropriately is legitimate. But, you are way outside the mainstream if you think there is NEVER a situation where the use of deadly force is appropriate action or you think such situations are so vanishingly rare that being prepared for them is somehow immoral in itself.
I suspect that the only reason you could be so naive as to think the world is NOT that dangerous is that you DO live in a society where there are armed people willing to kill on your behalf.
Ironically I think looking at your list you've actually inspired a more Jobs fanboi attitude than I personally had before. I don't think anyone else on that list has had quite the wide range of influence and/or long duration of influence as Jobs. A few on the list have influence only because they of their business acumen and success in competing well in established markets. Michael Dell for instance has very little influence of interest to me (or most nerds) because it has nothing to do with how computers work, or what they're used for, he's just sold a bunch of them. His few innovations have to do with inventory management & retailing. Important but rather boring work: assembling other peoples technologies into a box for sale, and if we're better at managing inventory we can sell them for less than the next guy selling identical boxes... woohoo!!! THAT'S the guy I want to read about on Slashdot.
Job's influence is more interesting because it isn't from primarily from his business success but from being the first one to identify new technologies as important and viable. To be the first one to do new things in a big enough way to have a wide impact. Other people may have invented or done the early pioneering of any/all of the innovations we associate with Apple or Jobs but in each case it was Jobs who was the first to take those innovations and introduce them to the broader word. The PC, the GUI, the MP3 player, Computer animated films, etc. That plus a colorful personality and an enormous ego that ensures a lot of drama in the process and sure, he merits the constant attention he gets on slashdot.
Warren Buffet, Murdoch etc. are as influential in their way as Jobs is but you might have noticed a slight bias on this site towards news about computers and technology as opposed to major market newspaper circulation numbers or stock valuations. Others on the list are known for new, innovative, influential technologies we're all interested in. Though not many have been doing so repeatedly for over 30 years. Tim Berners Lee for instance had one huge breakthrough innovation that changed the world. It's Individually more impressive than anything Steve Jobs ever personally did because it was his sole invention whereas Jobs just identifies such inventions and markets them to the world. On the other hand Jobs has had his more modest involvement in more such innovations. Berners Lee gets his fair amount of mention here but Jobs gets more press because he's still doing stuff that influences the technologies we're using. Berners Lee, not quite as much or as colorfully. (As an interesting aside Berners Lee used Objective-C on a NeXT machine to write the first web server & client... Not to in any way credit Steve Jobs but funny to note in such a conversation)
Looking at crime statistics from nationmaster.com it appears the United States has slightly higher rates of most violent crimes and a significantly higher murder rate (4 times as high.4/1000 vs.1/1000), while the UK has slightly higher rates of most property crimes and significantly higher rates of burglary (about twice as high 14/1000 vs 7/1000). Since the US and the UK are different in many ways other than their gun laws (culturally, demographically etc. plus the methodologies behind the statistics are different) I'm not convinced that the differences in crime rates are entirely the result of having different gun laws. But, it does make a certain amount of sense. The increased likelihood that guns will be present during the commission of a crime seems like it would raise the stakes so murder become more likely, by the same token those increased stakes probably serve as a deterrent for lesser crimes, so robbery becomes a less appealing occupation since there's a small chance the victim may be armed and burglary becomes much less appealing since there's a good chance (in some places a near certainty) that the victim (if they're home) will be armed.
Over-stated perhaps but not "bullshit"... Libertarians to ARE quite vocally opposed to the state monopoly on violence to protect life and property, I don't see how you could have missed it. To the libertarian the ONLY legitimate use of power (by which they mean the use or threat of violence to compel others against their will) is self-defense. Self-defense is an individual, natural, "inalienable right". Government power is merely the collective expression of that same individual right. SO, anything that would not be justified by an individual acting in self-defense cannot be justified by a government acting on our collective behalf. This is the basic premise of Bastiat's "The Law" and more humorously by P.J. O'Rourke's dictum "don't pass a law if it isn't worth shooting granny over."
Or, like, going to the post office and waiting often for minutes in short lines with government workers who are helpful and fri... wait, that wouldn't back up your example.
You obviously aren't going to the same Post Office I'm going to.
The federal government really isn't the appropriate place to deal with any kind of primary educational policy.
>> It's called investing in our workforce to remain competitive in a global economy. I realize long-term planning isn't the Republican's forte; sorry we see things differently
Well sure. But don't you have any concept of jurisdiction? Is the idea that different branches and levels of government have different responsibilities and jurisdictions so alien to you that the idea that something is outside of the federal government's mandate is tantamount in your mind to saying that it's unimportant? Is fighting fires unimportant because we have no Federal Department of Firefighting?
You can (and do) argue that for some reason it's better to make educational decisions at the national level. That's a legitimate argument. But it's arguing in bad faith to suggest that people arguing against the proposition therefore think that education is unimportant. "No child left behind" is the ultimate expression of centralized government control over education. It's a bipartisan effort proposed by a Republican President, sponsored (and largely written) by a Democratic Senator, passed by overwhelming majorities of both parties (though with more Republicans than Democrats voting "nay"... supposedly because "long-term planning isn't the Republican's forte"). It is the crown jewel of national educational policy at the expense of state and local control.... how's that working out for us? Do those opposed to the policy oppose education because they think the local governments on the ground actually implementing policy are better equipped to assess and set that policy?
Do you have a citation for the "racism and fairness" bit? What actually happened is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got greedy and paid congress to stop the regulations
These two statements aren't at odds with each other. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did increase their already significant lobbying efforts in response to administration calls for increased regulation after their accounting scandals in 2003. But that didn't stop the debate dead in it's tracks of course, it's in the ensuing debate that issues of racism and fairness were a factor. Counterintuitively it was Republicans urging more regulation and Democrats urging less. A big part of the argument in defense of Fannie and Freddie was their role in promoting affordable housing for the lower classes and they painted the reforms as a threat to that role... inevitably given the parties involved and the nature of the proposed regulations (for instance moving regulation of the GSEs from HUD to Treasury) "racism and fairness" were the subtext of the defense even though they weren't explicitly invoked. Witness Rep. Meeks angry outburst with federal regulators for even reporting on the accounting irregularities... it's obvious that he saw Fannie Mae only in it's role as a benefactor of the lower classes and even when they were caught red-handed cooking the books that no criticism could be made because it would empower the GSE's (and the lower-classe?) nefarious opponents. For the record I don't think that Meeks took that position because he was bought by GSE lobbying money... I think he really saw the whole issue in those Manichean good vs. evil class warfare terms.
heh, just tried that and you're right. I've never noticed it before. I just realized I lift my index finger when right clicking without even noticing I do so. I don't know if it's what I've always done or if at some point in the past I just started doing that to adjust to that deficiency in the might mouse.
Let me just note that pretty much every item in your list is BS or blown out of proportion:
1) Politician hires supporters and fires opponents. MY GOD WHAT A SCANDAL!!! So we expect that secretary Rice, Gates etc. will remain an Obama administration?
2) No, she did not try to ban books, and the librarian stayed on for years after the supposed cause of her firing.
Even if she had tried to get "My Two Mommies" removed that would have made her a pretty standard social conservative which we already know about her.
3) Didn't we cover this one already?
4) So, Earmarks are themselves a sign of corruption. And you are supporting Obama?
5) Granted, it was a stupid claim. She should have highlighted her taking on of the Republican establishment in Alaska instead. Tricky though since they are (mostly) still there. However, she is the one that finally killed the project (until she did it was still going forward)... still a tenuous and awfully "nuanced" claim.
6) I believe this is where we all came in;). The law is silent on email. It is not illegal to have a private email, nor even to use it for state business. It's stupid but not illegal in itself.
7) Granted, though under circumstances most people find understandable.
8) Reread that hit piece you linked to. That $4000 line item that was cut to $1000 didn't just cover medical exams but things as diverse as snow removal, road maintenance and equipment rental. The medical exams included weren't just rape kits but blood test for drunk drivers. Also the bit in there about there having been 5 sexual assaults but not enough money disbursed to cover a single rape kit... I hope the author isn't so ignorant as to believe that sexual == rape. Sexual assault covers crimes from voyeurism & lewd verbal suggestions to attempted rapes that wouldn't require a rape kit to rape itself. Actual rapes are a tiny minority of the total it's likely there wasn't a single rape in the town during the one year the budget was reduced by a quarter. Indeed a search in google news for that single year of 2000 finds an attempted rape but no actual rapes.
Even if I accepted your attribution of the worst possible motives and most malign possible interpretation of the fact underlaying your list they aren't the only relevant facts, which was my point. All these items have gotten extensive coverage, which as I said is fair, right and good. There are however just as important and revealing facts that are not reported. Obama has received both positive and negative coverage. Coverage of Palin has been unrelentingly negative even though there are interesting and compelling stories that would (if reported) cast her in a more positive light. I also think that the negative coverage of Obama has often been in the form of an apologia minimizing the potential damage while that of Palin hasn't similarly benefited. Palin's record as a reformer is a compelling story that is only ever referenced in passing on they way to dishing up some dirt. To say as you did before that she was a rat fleeing the sinking Alaska Republican ship (and so should get no credit for her stance) is anachronistic. She resigned in protest over Ruedrich and took on Renkes years before the Veco scandal erupted to bring down the Republican party, which is why she was so successful in taking on the incumbent of her own party when it finally did. She had taken on her own party before the scandals when it cost her politically & she reaped the benefits of what appears to have been a truly principled stance when additional dirt came out and vindicated her. I know our politics are such that it's not enough to disagree with our opponents but that we have hate them as well to whip up the troops... just be careful with the Kool-aid. You're showing symptoms of having over-indulged.
It's fair for politicians to make the negative case against their opponents but it's disturbing to see the press (on the left at the NY times or on the right at FOX) so in the tank that "their" candidate might as well have a byline.
*sight* i honestly don't feel like I have a dog in this fight. I dislike McCain and am planning to vote Libertarian (not that i like Barr but because I'm a libertarian and I'm sick of the rot in the Republican party. Perhaps though that's why i like Palin's bio as a cleaner of Alaska's Republican Augean stables and am frustrated by the one-sided coverage of her. Anyway to address a few of your points.
The facts are NOT unfair in themselves (there's plenty of legitimate complaints to make of her) it's that there's been no other reporting at all.
Fixed that up a bit for you.
Reread what i wrote, try to address the point honestly. I am SAYING that these are facts, and that reporting them is (of course) fair. My complaint is the failure to report other pertinent facts.
No, it's called blatant double standards. Like how the media obsessed over Rev. Wright for two months, yet ignored John "the Catholic Church is the Great Whore" Hagee
With all due respect there's a pretty big difference between being endorsed by a pastor and having someone BE your pastor for over 20 years. The association here is a bit closer between Wright & Obama than it is between Hagee and McCain. It is at least conceivable that McCain wasn't fully aware of Hagee's views and when they were reported he moved from vaguely supportive statements to denouncing Haggee's statements in the matter of a few hours. In Wright's case it's inconceivable that Obama wasn't aware of Wright's views and he clung to Wright for a lot longer. Wright didn't help matters by implying that Obama was being disingenuous in his denunciation.
Because they should be, because this "associations" game is crap, and the Republicans who play it are firing howitzers in a big glass house:
Hmm... Vogler said some incendiary things. Ayers set off some incendiaries. Vogler and Ayers both had/have radical ideas. Vogler's approach to implementing his ideas was to form a political party and try to get elected. Ayer's approach to get his ideas implemented was to blow things up and kill people. That right there is a rather critical difference in the situations. It takes pretty screwed up priorities to see Vogler as beyond-the-pale and at the same time to see Ayers as perfectly acceptable.
You mean media pundits like Republicans Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough? Or even better, Karl Rove on mayor/governor VP candidates when he though Obama might pick mayor/governor Tim Kaine of Virginia...
Aha... I see the source of your confusion. You don't understand the difference between a commentator and a reporter. Let's see if i can explain this... Some people on TV, or in the opinion pages of the papers are hired to express their biased opinions. Often TV shows will have two of these people on each side of a controversy, they are SUPPOSED to be biased in favor of one side or the other. Some of them are opinionated but try to be fair, some are party hacks who will say whatever is expedient and in the best interests of their party at any given moment. Now, on the other hand there are other people that write for the papers or TV news shows called reporters. They are supposed to report the facts of a matter and make great claims to be UNbiased. When people complain about media bias they are NOT talking about the intentionally biased opinion writers but the purportedly unbiased reporters.
I don't know how this keeps getting repeated. The media has been much easier on Palin than they were on Obama or even his wife. Not so much an anti Obama thing either it was that they got lambasted for going off into the trivial.
I don't think any reasonable person can say that the media has been easier on Obama than Palin. Almost all of the coverage of Palin has been negative, most coverage of Obama has been positive. Since she was chosen as McCains running mate it's been an unending series of hit pieces to the degree that it has obscured rather than illuminated her record. The hit pieces are NOT unfair in themselves (there's plenty of legitimate complaints to make of her) it's that there's been no other reporting at all.
I think I can prove this point with a couple questions, see if the answers come to you without googling the answers: What hypothetical question did she pose to the head librarian in Wasilla? What job did Palin hold between being mayor of Wasilla and becoming governor, and why did she quit? I would bet that the majority of average news consumers can answer the first question, while not one in 10 can answer the second, despite the fact that the answer to the second question is the most significant political story about Palin explaining the foundation of her popularity and subsequent political success in Alaska, and that it is at least as revealing of her character and motivations as the first.
How long did they go on about "why doesn't he wear a flag pin?" Is your memory so short that you can't remember from two months ago?
Reporting on an opponents criticisms, and making criticisms yourself are somewhat different things. On those occasions where reporting negative stories about Obama has become unavoidable they've largely been written in the form of an apologia. Witness the NYtimes story on his associations with Ayers. Somehow I doubt Palin would have gotten the same "inconsequential crossed paths" treatment if an abortion clinic bomber had hosted a fundraiser for her and served with her on a charitable board.
McCain crying that the media hates him doesn't make it so.
He's only crying because he was a former media darling, he's feels betrayed. He had been the recipient of similarly fawning pieces that Obama now receives... I for one have no pity for him.
... If he didn't want a media frenzy then he shouldn't have picked a complete unknown as his VP.
That's a pretty damning admission of the myopia of the media. Palin has been a minor celebrity and rising star in the GOP since she beat Murkowski and Knowles. Her name had been out there as a possible (though admittedly dark horse) VP pick since before McCain won the nomination. It's inconceivable that the media would be as ignorant of an equivalent rising star in the Democratic party as they professed to be of Palin. Even granting their unaccountable ignorance of an up-and-coming politician in one of the two major parties that doesn't of itself explain or justify the unrelenting negative nature of the coverage. There are interesting and illuminating stories about Palin they aren't reporting and the only distinction I can see between those they report and those they choose not to appears to be whether of not they cast her in a positive light at all.
Sorry. Governors definitely don't get to plead ignorance of the law.
Sure... my point is that this is no matter how you slice it is a fairly minor scandal in and of itself. (though it could potentially be used to hide more serious scandals). On the other hand her political enemies in Alaska pushing this are guilty of much more serious crimes.
As for ignorance of the law... the law is fuzzier than you think. There's no law forbidding the use of private email (the open records law doesn't say anything about email at all) Such emails wouldn't be exempt from open records requests so by extension private accounts would be problematic. Yahoo for instance automatically deletes emails... unless Palin stored them offline, or they were to or from a state account which IS stored she could find herself unable to fulfill an open records request and so in violation of the law. Most of the "incriminating" subject lines in her inbox were from state accounts so she could provide them if requested so she's legally OK there. To make the waters even muddier the Alaska supreme court has held that internal deliberations between the governor and staff ARE exempt from the open records laws. A 1986 ruling granting the governor "deliberative process" privilege is still the ruling precedent in Alaska. Most of the subject lines in those emails appear to be of a deliberative nature i.e. "Draft letter...." so they are potentially exempt.
The application of open records laws to Internal deliberations within state and national administrations have been a consistent source of controversy because the laws aren't in fact clear. Or more accurately the laws may be clear but their constitutionality isn't. Executives have asserted and courts have upheld executive privilege. The legislature can write a clear and uncompromising law with no exemptions but they don't have the only or final say. The executive branch asserts that the law unconstitutionally violates the separation of powers and the courts have upheld their theory but often not their specific application of it. So in practice there's a very fuzzy line. Most communications are clearly covered by the law, some in theory at least aren't, and the controversy arises in figuring where a particular communication falls when a request is made.
Check out the wikipedia entry on her to confirm those facts.
I happen to think that Sarah Palin is not yet experienced enough to be President or even Vice President. But, I also think that much of the coverage in the press has been deeply unfair. That's to be expected (even fair in it's way) from her opponents but it's disappointing from the press. She's had a microscope applied to every flaw & blemish while the larger context which is really quite compelling has been utterly ignored. The coverage has been like one of those concave bathroom mirrors for examining blemishes that don't show the whole face.
As a result more people know that as a small town mayor she once asked a librarian a hypothetical about banning books than that she resigned her post on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in protest of her fellow republican's corruption or any of the other facts I mentioned in the previous post. Heck, they don't even know she held any position between being mayor and Governor at all... I've heard supposedly well informed commentators/pundits who's job it is to know about this stuff say that "just two years ago she was a small-town mayor" (hint: she hasn't been mayor since 2002). If we had decent reporting people would know both the pros and the cons in some detail. As it is rational news readers must wonder what the hell is wrong with Alaska that a snake-handling, flat-earther ignorant back-woods rube whose single achievement was failing to get her ex-brother-in-law fired could possibly enjoy approval ratings above 60% from *democrats* and around 80% overall.
The Republicans in Alaska had had just about enough of her before McCain swooped in. There was bipartisan support for several investigations against her and a growing consensus towards impeachment.
News flash... politician's enemies dislike her!!!
Palin essentially ran against the Republican party in Alaska, of course they've had enough of her. She came to fame by accusing the (still sitting to this day) Republican Party Chairman of corruption (he ended up paying a record fine) and filing an ethics complaint against the Republican State Attorney General (who resigned due to the scandal). She then ran against the sitting Republican Governor (and father of the current Republican Senator) and went on to support the (under Federal investigation) sitting Republican Congressional Representative's primary opponent. She went on to becomethe first prominent republican to break with her former patron the indicted Republican Senator Ted Stevens calling on him to come clean on the corruption charges against him (he describes his relationship to her as "frosty"). Lower down the food chain given the number of Republican state senators and representatives currently indicted, under investigation or already convicted of various corruption charges the conviction among them that Sarah is "not a team player" is frankly the most positive fact about her.
It is quite possible that Sarah Palin used personal email to conduct state business... though apparently in a willy-nilly manner since the emails are *from* and *to* state accounts suggesting foolish ignorance more than systematically trying hide something. It's also quite possible that she abused her power to try and get her former brother-in-law fired. Though if as alleged he made death threats against her father that's arguably not corruption... and if it is it's at least of an understandable sort. Compare those charges to the level of institutional corruption, bribery, kickbacks etc. rampant among those bringing these ethics charges against her and it seems pretty weak stuff.
I'm not sure I understand you. Emails about campaigning would be illegal on the STATE email account. The issue is about using the private account for state business not campaign business.
This analysis is a little deceptive in that he's creating hypotheticals for the minimum votes that would need to change in select states to change the result. He then compares that number of changed votes as percentage of the national vote. So his margin of victory may be ~1% of the national vote for a given election but that change has to all occur in a handful of smaller state elections where the margin of victory is by necessity much larger. So the (much) less than 1% difference in the national vote to change the result in 2004 ends up being a slightly bigger than 2% change in Colorado (Plus iowa and New Mexico but both of those cases are also less than 1% so themselves within the margin of error.)
The 2000 election is really exceptional. The margin of victory was well within the margin of error in a single state that by itself changes the result.
I've heard this take on the story in a few places but I have a couple of questions about it:
1) Politicians are barred from using their public offices, phones, letterhead etc. for partisan political fundraising, organizing, campaigning etc. Does that extend to their official state email? I can't imagine it would be legal to send something like a campaign fundraising request out using a state email address. If that is the case having a private email account distinct from the official email would actually be required. Also in that case some of the emails would be scandalous if they were found in the official state email account (campaign talking points etc.) rather than vice versa. Does anyone here know what the legalities are of using state email accounts for partisan political purposes?
2) Have any emails of actual official business come out? Of the emails I've seen the text of it would be a stretch to call them official state business. We have a quite a few from other politicians or members of her cabinet, but they appear to personal messages: "We're praying for you, don't let the negative press get you down" or the Lt. Gov. complaining about a talk show host "Can you believe that jerk". In that case his complaints are about a political campaign and if it's unethical to use state resources for partisan purposes it might be unethical to convey using the state email account. So far the only evidence I've seen offered in relation to this particular incident that's cited as evidence of conducting state business is the fact that some of the emails are coming from state officers but the only text we have of those are in fact personal or partisan (which again it might be unethical if they WERE conveyed using the state email address)
The only subject line I saw on the list that appears like it might be state business is a draft email to Gov. Schwarzenegger regarding a container tax. But, since we don't have the text of that one we don't know for sure. The "hackers" stated objective was to find something scandalous or incriminating and he expressed disappointment that he didn't find anything. Since he became aware of the private email accounts existence because of the press coverage of the controversy over conducting state business using private email presumably he would be aware that any serious state business would fit the bill (though probably a minor scandal if the state business being conveyed wasn't scandalous in itself.)
From the subject lines and the text of the actual emails that came out the accusation comes across as pretty weak.
I get somewhat frustrated with this argument because it ignores the full scope of the election. We are now down to two choices. But overall there were about eight viable choices (McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Guliani, Thompson, Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Biden) and any number of lesser "protest vote"/"throw your vote away choices" (Paul, Gravel, Hunter, etc.)
Constituencies that would under other multi-party systems form their own parties are generally part of the broad coalitions that form the major parties and as such have their own candidates in the primaries OR they find themselves in the perhaps even more influential position of being the much coveted "swing voters". Rather than cobbling together the different blocs after the election they two major parties attempt to do so before hand.
Granted it's not the kind of system anyone would design from scratch according to a theoretical ideal (the founders didn't anticipate political parties). Rather, It is the product of the living history of the nation. Think of it as a product of evolution rather than of intelligent design. As such it has funky, counterintuitive features yet it gets the same basic job done and may be balancing competing requirements more effectively than a theoretically pure designed system would. A system produced over time by the pressures, reforms and even the corrupt influence of self-interested parties will be balancing competing interests in ways a nice pure system won't but which may be important to the stability of the system.
Which is a laughable thing to say for even a drug enhanced imagination.
You're letting your partisanship get the best of your objectivity. They are both rookies only part way through their first terms in nationally prominent offices. Even granting Obama double or triple, or four times as much experience as Palin (not that I think the gap is quite that large) they are still in the same ballpark when compared to almost any other serious candidates for the presidency through history, and particularly when compared to McCain who was first elected to congress in 1982 and prior to that had some fairly significant life experiences outside of politics. We're talking about two and four years in nationally prominent, consequential offices next to the decade or two that are the historic norm and over three decades for McCain. Listening to Obama supporters bash Palin on inexperience is like witnessing a second grader boasting that he's more mature than his kindergartner sister. He's got a point, and the difference seems huge to him. But the end result doesn't impress the onlooker with his vast maturity but emphasizes the lack of it.
Inexperience isn't always a bad thing in politics. Voters like new blood, change, reform, outsiders that can shake things up etc. Obama is running on the theme of change. That's an appropriate theme for a young optimistic and relatively inexperienced politician. Letting your much older and much more experienced opponent bait you into a pissing contest over experience with his VICE presidential pick is a suckers game that does serious damage to Obama's campaign.
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I should clarify... I don't think it's a case of personal animus against Phil Gramm, I think politicians and the more partisan pundits have a political reason to identify a bill which prominently contains his name (as the most prominent Free Market purist & a chief McCain advisor) as the primary cause of the crisis when the particular bill doesn't appear to have had a big effect on the crisis.
Now, the argument that he as a politician and the laissez faire policies he favored more generally contributed to the crisis is a legitimate argument. I'll be honest, I don't fully buy that argument... but it's a legitimate one to make and it deserves serious consideration. It's unfortunate that this larger point ends up encapuslated in a debate about a particular bill that doesn't appear to have much impact when other bills and policies are much more relevant and appear to be much more at fault in precipitating the crisis. I think the politicians have traded a serious argument about deregulation for a few cheap political points based almost entirely on the presence of a mans name in a bill rather than it's actual provisions and their impact. It probably is effective politics in the short run but I suspect in the long run it weakens their argument.
I'm still skeptical. Glass Steagall didn't prevent the lending institutions from lending to investment institutions which is how the contagion has spread from brokerage to bank. It prevented the ownership of both lending institutions and investment institutions by the same entity. But, in this incident it was almost without exception narrowly focused institutions mandated by Glass that have instigated the crisis. The worst damage has been done to, and by, narrow investment banks that got killed when their investment in mortgage backed securities ended up being worth nothing, or in lending institutions narrowly focussed in the mortgage business. The broadly diversified banks that have their hands in all sorts of business took a bath in those areas as well... BUT they were stabilized by their other businesses offsetting their losses. They didn't initiate the crisis, have weathered the storm better and have ridden in to rescue the broken firms (either looking to diversify further into investment banking, or hoping they can somehow mitigate their own losses by buying firms that owe them a lot of money)
Bear Stearns for just one example was exactly the kind of narrowly focussed investment banks required by Glass-Steagall, JP Morgan Chase which bought it up and prevented it's dissolution is exactly the kind of large diversified bank permitted by Gramm (as is the fact that it's legal for Chase to buy them in the first place)
I've read a lot on this controversy over Glass-Steigal vs. Gramm-Leach-Bliley and most of the time when the general punditry or a politician blames Gramm for the crisis there's no explanation of how it's at fault... it's just stated as a truism that requires no explanation. In those cases I suspect the reason is really a knee-jerk opposition to deregulation generally, and Phil Gramm's position as a McCain advisor during the election than any actual analysis of how the act actually impacted the crisis. When more informed economist pundits have made the argument I frankly just couldn't follow their logic. That could be a product of my own economic ignorance but I suspect it's just hand-waving trying to find a way to assign blame on someone they're predisposed against & the bill named for him rather than the product of really honest analysis.
If you want to blame Phil Gramm there's a much better argument to make against him based on his role championing the deregulation of derivatives but that has the disadvantage that the bill didn't bear his name, and worse it was passed by an overwhelming majority of both parties in the house, by unanimous consent in the senate and signed by President Clinton so its hard to pin on him individually or Republicans generally.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that deregulation had a hand in the financial implosion but I'm not sure I understand the logic behind blaming "Gramm-Leach-Bliley" specifically. It seems that, in the early stages of the crisis before it cascaded to impact everyone it was the least diversified investment banks that were remnants of Glass-Stiegall that had, and caused, the most trouble and the most diversified banks that would have been illegal before Gramm were the healthiest and in a few cases because it wasn't illegal (as it would have been without Gramm) were able to ride to the rescue of the more strictly focussed investment banks that were at the financial ground zero. It seems there are probably other decisions having to do with regulating mortgage backed securities, or the degree to which banks could leverage their assets that are more to blame. (Though I can understand the a political logic behind blaming "Gramm" it since Gramm was one of McCain's advisors so it's politically convenient to use "Gramm" as shorthand for deregulation generally even though Gramm's bill itself was probably only a minor contributor to the problem, or perhaps even mitigated some of the damage.)
So? By the time we get a situation where deadly force is justified we don't give a damn about his/her perspective... or perhaps we only care that it is soon from the ground looking up and growing dim. There is an objective moral order, which your own opinions about using deadly force are derived from but which you have overrefined to to the point of being self-defeating. At some point violating the that moral order places you outside it's protection. Nobody *should* give a damn about the perspective of the murder on a killing spree. Shooting someone in the head is morally wrong. Shooting someone in the head to prevent them from doing the same to an innocent third party isn't. In the case of governmental authority FAILING to prevent them when you could is itself morally wrong. That is really the main (and arguably ONLY) point of having a social structure as burdensome and dangerous as government exist in the first place, as the collective expression of our individual human right to self-defense. In crass terms the main (whole?) point of government is to shoot the guy trying to harm you (me, whoever) in the head
No, they're ready to kill you on MY behalf. Again (in legitimate cases) by the time they're willing to kill you on my behalf nobody gives a damn about you anymore, nor should they. With your gun to my head, knife at my throat, or hand on the detonator I hope they are equipped with the most efficient "anonymous-kill-at-a-distance tools" available. I also hope they are unsullied by a moral sense so highly refined as to let you squeeze that trigger, pull that blade across my throat or push that button because in their philosophical musings they realize that from your perspective them stopping you would be "horrible". I might prefer that they find the necessity deeply sad and troubling, but in that moment I'd prefer the callous jerk who doesn't hesitate when he has the shot and laughs about it later to the sensitive, morally correct soul who hesitates and fails to protect my life because taking yours is so heart breaking. In the action that ultimately matters most the insensitive jerk who acted is morally superior to the sensitive soul that failed.
Sadly the fact is we DO live in a dangerous world, at least it is some of the time. On at least some occasions properly used "anonymous-kill-at-a-distance tools" is the best or only way to ensure the general public safety and the lack of them does in fact put people in danger. Humans are capable of some truly horrible behavior and sometimes the threat or actual use of violence is the only thing that will deter... or end... such behavior.
It is legitimate to argue about the appropriateness of using such violence in particular situations: whether we should enter this or that war, whether the violent or deadly response by police was appropriate in this or that particular situation. Fearing that authorities will use deadly force inappropriately is legitimate. But, you are way outside the mainstream if you think there is NEVER a situation where the use of deadly force is appropriate action or you think such situations are so vanishingly rare that being prepared for them is somehow immoral in itself.
I suspect that the only reason you could be so naive as to think the world is NOT that dangerous is that you DO live in a society where there are armed people willing to kill on your behalf.
Ironically I think looking at your list you've actually inspired a more Jobs fanboi attitude than I personally had before. I don't think anyone else on that list has had quite the wide range of influence and/or long duration of influence as Jobs. A few on the list have influence only because they of their business acumen and success in competing well in established markets. Michael Dell for instance has very little influence of interest to me (or most nerds) because it has nothing to do with how computers work, or what they're used for, he's just sold a bunch of them. His few innovations have to do with inventory management & retailing. Important but rather boring work: assembling other peoples technologies into a box for sale, and if we're better at managing inventory we can sell them for less than the next guy selling identical boxes... woohoo!!! THAT'S the guy I want to read about on Slashdot.
Job's influence is more interesting because it isn't from primarily from his business success but from being the first one to identify new technologies as important and viable. To be the first one to do new things in a big enough way to have a wide impact. Other people may have invented or done the early pioneering of any/all of the innovations we associate with Apple or Jobs but in each case it was Jobs who was the first to take those innovations and introduce them to the broader word. The PC, the GUI, the MP3 player, Computer animated films, etc. That plus a colorful personality and an enormous ego that ensures a lot of drama in the process and sure, he merits the constant attention he gets on slashdot.
Warren Buffet, Murdoch etc. are as influential in their way as Jobs is but you might have noticed a slight bias on this site towards news about computers and technology as opposed to major market newspaper circulation numbers or stock valuations. Others on the list are known for new, innovative, influential technologies we're all interested in. Though not many have been doing so repeatedly for over 30 years. Tim Berners Lee for instance had one huge breakthrough innovation that changed the world. It's Individually more impressive than anything Steve Jobs ever personally did because it was his sole invention whereas Jobs just identifies such inventions and markets them to the world. On the other hand Jobs has had his more modest involvement in more such innovations. Berners Lee gets his fair amount of mention here but Jobs gets more press because he's still doing stuff that influences the technologies we're using. Berners Lee, not quite as much or as colorfully. (As an interesting aside Berners Lee used Objective-C on a NeXT machine to write the first web server & client... Not to in any way credit Steve Jobs but funny to note in such a conversation)
Looking at crime statistics from nationmaster.com it appears the United States has slightly higher rates of most violent crimes and a significantly higher murder rate (4 times as high .4/1000 vs .1/1000), while the UK has slightly higher rates of most property crimes and significantly higher rates of burglary (about twice as high 14/1000 vs 7/1000). Since the US and the UK are different in many ways other than their gun laws (culturally, demographically etc. plus the methodologies behind the statistics are different) I'm not convinced that the differences in crime rates are entirely the result of having different gun laws. But, it does make a certain amount of sense. The increased likelihood that guns will be present during the commission of a crime seems like it would raise the stakes so murder become more likely, by the same token those increased stakes probably serve as a deterrent for lesser crimes, so robbery becomes a less appealing occupation since there's a small chance the victim may be armed and burglary becomes much less appealing since there's a good chance (in some places a near certainty) that the victim (if they're home) will be armed.
Over-stated perhaps but not "bullshit"... Libertarians to ARE quite vocally opposed to the state monopoly on violence to protect life and property, I don't see how you could have missed it. To the libertarian the ONLY legitimate use of power (by which they mean the use or threat of violence to compel others against their will) is self-defense. Self-defense is an individual, natural, "inalienable right". Government power is merely the collective expression of that same individual right. SO, anything that would not be justified by an individual acting in self-defense cannot be justified by a government acting on our collective behalf. This is the basic premise of Bastiat's "The Law" and more humorously by P.J. O'Rourke's dictum "don't pass a law if it isn't worth shooting granny over."
You're right and so is he. If you had read the full post you'd see he makes the same distinction between "no" and "any" that you just did.
*woosh*
You obviously aren't going to the same Post Office I'm going to.
Well sure. But don't you have any concept of jurisdiction? Is the idea that different branches and levels of government have different responsibilities and jurisdictions so alien to you that the idea that something is outside of the federal government's mandate is tantamount in your mind to saying that it's unimportant? Is fighting fires unimportant because we have no Federal Department of Firefighting?
You can (and do) argue that for some reason it's better to make educational decisions at the national level. That's a legitimate argument. But it's arguing in bad faith to suggest that people arguing against the proposition therefore think that education is unimportant. "No child left behind" is the ultimate expression of centralized government control over education. It's a bipartisan effort proposed by a Republican President, sponsored (and largely written) by a Democratic Senator, passed by overwhelming majorities of both parties (though with more Republicans than Democrats voting "nay"... supposedly because "long-term planning isn't the Republican's forte"). It is the crown jewel of national educational policy at the expense of state and local control.... how's that working out for us? Do those opposed to the policy oppose education because they think the local governments on the ground actually implementing policy are better equipped to assess and set that policy?
These two statements aren't at odds with each other. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did increase their already significant lobbying efforts in response to administration calls for increased regulation after their accounting scandals in 2003. But that didn't stop the debate dead in it's tracks of course, it's in the ensuing debate that issues of racism and fairness were a factor. Counterintuitively it was Republicans urging more regulation and Democrats urging less. A big part of the argument in defense of Fannie and Freddie was their role in promoting affordable housing for the lower classes and they painted the reforms as a threat to that role... inevitably given the parties involved and the nature of the proposed regulations (for instance moving regulation of the GSEs from HUD to Treasury) "racism and fairness" were the subtext of the defense even though they weren't explicitly invoked. Witness Rep. Meeks angry outburst with federal regulators for even reporting on the accounting irregularities... it's obvious that he saw Fannie Mae only in it's role as a benefactor of the lower classes and even when they were caught red-handed cooking the books that no criticism could be made because it would empower the GSE's (and the lower-classe?) nefarious opponents. For the record I don't think that Meeks took that position because he was bought by GSE lobbying money... I think he really saw the whole issue in those Manichean good vs. evil class warfare terms.
heh, just tried that and you're right. I've never noticed it before. I just realized I lift my index finger when right clicking without even noticing I do so. I don't know if it's what I've always done or if at some point in the past I just started doing that to adjust to that deficiency in the might mouse.
Let me just note that pretty much every item in your list is BS or blown out of proportion: ;). The law is silent on email. It is not illegal to have a private email, nor even to use it for state business. It's stupid but not illegal in itself.
1) Politician hires supporters and fires opponents. MY GOD WHAT A SCANDAL!!! So we expect that secretary Rice, Gates etc. will remain an Obama administration?
2) No, she did not try to ban books, and the librarian stayed on for years after the supposed cause of her firing.
Even if she had tried to get "My Two Mommies" removed that would have made her a pretty standard social conservative which we already know about her.
3) Didn't we cover this one already?
4) So, Earmarks are themselves a sign of corruption. And you are supporting Obama?
5) Granted, it was a stupid claim. She should have highlighted her taking on of the Republican establishment in Alaska instead. Tricky though since they are (mostly) still there. However, she is the one that finally killed the project (until she did it was still going forward)... still a tenuous and awfully "nuanced" claim.
6) I believe this is where we all came in
7) Granted, though under circumstances most people find understandable.
8) Reread that hit piece you linked to. That $4000 line item that was cut to $1000 didn't just cover medical exams but things as diverse as snow removal, road maintenance and equipment rental. The medical exams included weren't just rape kits but blood test for drunk drivers. Also the bit in there about there having been 5 sexual assaults but not enough money disbursed to cover a single rape kit... I hope the author isn't so ignorant as to believe that sexual == rape. Sexual assault covers crimes from voyeurism & lewd verbal suggestions to attempted rapes that wouldn't require a rape kit to rape itself. Actual rapes are a tiny minority of the total it's likely there wasn't a single rape in the town during the one year the budget was reduced by a quarter. Indeed a search in google news for that single year of 2000 finds an attempted rape but no actual rapes.
Even if I accepted your attribution of the worst possible motives and most malign possible interpretation of the fact underlaying your list they aren't the only relevant facts, which was my point. All these items have gotten extensive coverage, which as I said is fair, right and good. There are however just as important and revealing facts that are not reported. Obama has received both positive and negative coverage. Coverage of Palin has been unrelentingly negative even though there are interesting and compelling stories that would (if reported) cast her in a more positive light. I also think that the negative coverage of Obama has often been in the form of an apologia minimizing the potential damage while that of Palin hasn't similarly benefited. Palin's record as a reformer is a compelling story that is only ever referenced in passing on they way to dishing up some dirt. To say as you did before that she was a rat fleeing the sinking Alaska Republican ship (and so should get no credit for her stance) is anachronistic. She resigned in protest over Ruedrich and took on Renkes years before the Veco scandal erupted to bring down the Republican party, which is why she was so successful in taking on the incumbent of her own party when it finally did. She had taken on her own party before the scandals when it cost her politically & she reaped the benefits of what appears to have been a truly principled stance when additional dirt came out and vindicated her. I know our politics are such that it's not enough to disagree with our opponents but that we have hate them as well to whip up the troops... just be careful with the Kool-aid. You're showing symptoms of having over-indulged.
It's fair for politicians to make the negative case against their opponents but it's disturbing to see the press (on the left at the NY times or on the right at FOX) so in the tank that "their" candidate might as well have a byline.
Reread what i wrote, try to address the point honestly. I am SAYING that these are facts, and that reporting them is (of course) fair. My complaint is the failure to report other pertinent facts.
With all due respect there's a pretty big difference between being endorsed by a pastor and having someone BE your pastor for over 20 years. The association here is a bit closer between Wright & Obama than it is between Hagee and McCain. It is at least conceivable that McCain wasn't fully aware of Hagee's views and when they were reported he moved from vaguely supportive statements to denouncing Haggee's statements in the matter of a few hours. In Wright's case it's inconceivable that Obama wasn't aware of Wright's views and he clung to Wright for a lot longer. Wright didn't help matters by implying that Obama was being disingenuous in his denunciation.
Hmm... Vogler said some incendiary things. Ayers set off some incendiaries. Vogler and Ayers both had/have radical ideas. Vogler's approach to implementing his ideas was to form a political party and try to get elected. Ayer's approach to get his ideas implemented was to blow things up and kill people. That right there is a rather critical difference in the situations. It takes pretty screwed up priorities to see Vogler as beyond-the-pale and at the same time to see Ayers as perfectly acceptable.
Aha... I see the source of your confusion. You don't understand the difference between a commentator and a reporter. Let's see if i can explain this... Some people on TV, or in the opinion pages of the papers are hired to express their biased opinions. Often TV shows will have two of these people on each side of a controversy, they are SUPPOSED to be biased in favor of one side or the other. Some of them are opinionated but try to be fair, some are party hacks who will say whatever is expedient and in the best interests of their party at any given moment. Now, on the other hand there are other people that write for the papers or TV news shows called reporters. They are supposed to report the facts of a matter and make great claims to be UNbiased. When people complain about media bias they are NOT talking about the intentionally biased opinion writers but the purportedly unbiased reporters.
I don't think any reasonable person can say that the media has been easier on Obama than Palin. Almost all of the coverage of Palin has been negative, most coverage of Obama has been positive. Since she was chosen as McCains running mate it's been an unending series of hit pieces to the degree that it has obscured rather than illuminated her record. The hit pieces are NOT unfair in themselves (there's plenty of legitimate complaints to make of her) it's that there's been no other reporting at all.
I think I can prove this point with a couple questions, see if the answers come to you without googling the answers: What hypothetical question did she pose to the head librarian in Wasilla? What job did Palin hold between being mayor of Wasilla and becoming governor, and why did she quit? I would bet that the majority of average news consumers can answer the first question, while not one in 10 can answer the second, despite the fact that the answer to the second question is the most significant political story about Palin explaining the foundation of her popularity and subsequent political success in Alaska, and that it is at least as revealing of her character and motivations as the first.
Reporting on an opponents criticisms, and making criticisms yourself are somewhat different things. On those occasions where reporting negative stories about Obama has become unavoidable they've largely been written in the form of an apologia. Witness the NYtimes story on his associations with Ayers. Somehow I doubt Palin would have gotten the same "inconsequential crossed paths" treatment if an abortion clinic bomber had hosted a fundraiser for her and served with her on a charitable board.
He's only crying because he was a former media darling, he's feels betrayed. He had been the recipient of similarly fawning pieces that Obama now receives... I for one have no pity for him.
That's a pretty damning admission of the myopia of the media. Palin has been a minor celebrity and rising star in the GOP since she beat Murkowski and Knowles. Her name had been out there as a possible (though admittedly dark horse) VP pick since before McCain won the nomination. It's inconceivable that the media would be as ignorant of an equivalent rising star in the Democratic party as they professed to be of Palin. Even granting their unaccountable ignorance of an up-and-coming politician in one of the two major parties that doesn't of itself explain or justify the unrelenting negative nature of the coverage. There are interesting and illuminating stories about Palin they aren't reporting and the only distinction I can see between those they report and those they choose not to appears to be whether of not they cast her in a positive light at all.
Sure... my point is that this is no matter how you slice it is a fairly minor scandal in and of itself. (though it could potentially be used to hide more serious scandals). On the other hand her political enemies in Alaska pushing this are guilty of much more serious crimes.
As for ignorance of the law... the law is fuzzier than you think. There's no law forbidding the use of private email (the open records law doesn't say anything about email at all) Such emails wouldn't be exempt from open records requests so by extension private accounts would be problematic. Yahoo for instance automatically deletes emails... unless Palin stored them offline, or they were to or from a state account which IS stored she could find herself unable to fulfill an open records request and so in violation of the law. Most of the "incriminating" subject lines in her inbox were from state accounts so she could provide them if requested so she's legally OK there. To make the waters even muddier the Alaska supreme court has held that internal deliberations between the governor and staff ARE exempt from the open records laws. A 1986 ruling granting the governor "deliberative process" privilege is still the ruling precedent in Alaska. Most of the subject lines in those emails appear to be of a deliberative nature i.e. "Draft letter...." so they are potentially exempt.
The application of open records laws to Internal deliberations within state and national administrations have been a consistent source of controversy because the laws aren't in fact clear. Or more accurately the laws may be clear but their constitutionality isn't. Executives have asserted and courts have upheld executive privilege. The legislature can write a clear and uncompromising law with no exemptions but they don't have the only or final say. The executive branch asserts that the law unconstitutionally violates the separation of powers and the courts have upheld their theory but often not their specific application of it. So in practice there's a very fuzzy line. Most communications are clearly covered by the law, some in theory at least aren't, and the controversy arises in figuring where a particular communication falls when a request is made.
Check out the wikipedia entry on her to confirm those facts.
I happen to think that Sarah Palin is not yet experienced enough to be President or even Vice President. But, I also think that much of the coverage in the press has been deeply unfair. That's to be expected (even fair in it's way) from her opponents but it's disappointing from the press. She's had a microscope applied to every flaw & blemish while the larger context which is really quite compelling has been utterly ignored. The coverage has been like one of those concave bathroom mirrors for examining blemishes that don't show the whole face.
As a result more people know that as a small town mayor she once asked a librarian a hypothetical about banning books than that she resigned her post on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in protest of her fellow republican's corruption or any of the other facts I mentioned in the previous post. Heck, they don't even know she held any position between being mayor and Governor at all... I've heard supposedly well informed commentators/pundits who's job it is to know about this stuff say that "just two years ago she was a small-town mayor" (hint: she hasn't been mayor since 2002). If we had decent reporting people would know both the pros and the cons in some detail. As it is rational news readers must wonder what the hell is wrong with Alaska that a snake-handling, flat-earther ignorant back-woods rube whose single achievement was failing to get her ex-brother-in-law fired could possibly enjoy approval ratings above 60% from *democrats* and around 80% overall.
News flash... politician's enemies dislike her!!!
Palin essentially ran against the Republican party in Alaska, of course they've had enough of her. She came to fame by accusing the (still sitting to this day) Republican Party Chairman of corruption (he ended up paying a record fine) and filing an ethics complaint against the Republican State Attorney General (who resigned due to the scandal). She then ran against the sitting Republican Governor (and father of the current Republican Senator) and went on to support the (under Federal investigation) sitting Republican Congressional Representative's primary opponent. She went on to becomethe first prominent republican to break with her former patron the indicted Republican Senator Ted Stevens calling on him to come clean on the corruption charges against him (he describes his relationship to her as "frosty"). Lower down the food chain given the number of Republican state senators and representatives currently indicted, under investigation or already convicted of various corruption charges the conviction among them that Sarah is "not a team player" is frankly the most positive fact about her.
It is quite possible that Sarah Palin used personal email to conduct state business... though apparently in a willy-nilly manner since the emails are *from* and *to* state accounts suggesting foolish ignorance more than systematically trying hide something. It's also quite possible that she abused her power to try and get her former brother-in-law fired. Though if as alleged he made death threats against her father that's arguably not corruption... and if it is it's at least of an understandable sort. Compare those charges to the level of institutional corruption, bribery, kickbacks etc. rampant among those bringing these ethics charges against her and it seems pretty weak stuff.
I'm not sure I understand you. Emails about campaigning would be illegal on the STATE email account. The issue is about using the private account for state business not campaign business.
This analysis is a little deceptive in that he's creating hypotheticals for the minimum votes that would need to change in select states to change the result. He then compares that number of changed votes as percentage of the national vote. So his margin of victory may be ~1% of the national vote for a given election but that change has to all occur in a handful of smaller state elections where the margin of victory is by necessity much larger. So the (much) less than 1% difference in the national vote to change the result in 2004 ends up being a slightly bigger than 2% change in Colorado (Plus iowa and New Mexico but both of those cases are also less than 1% so themselves within the margin of error.)
The 2000 election is really exceptional. The margin of victory was well within the margin of error in a single state that by itself changes the result.
I've heard this take on the story in a few places but I have a couple of questions about it:
1) Politicians are barred from using their public offices, phones, letterhead etc. for partisan political fundraising, organizing, campaigning etc. Does that extend to their official state email? I can't imagine it would be legal to send something like a campaign fundraising request out using a state email address. If that is the case having a private email account distinct from the official email would actually be required. Also in that case some of the emails would be scandalous if they were found in the official state email account (campaign talking points etc.) rather than vice versa. Does anyone here know what the legalities are of using state email accounts for partisan political purposes?
2) Have any emails of actual official business come out? Of the emails I've seen the text of it would be a stretch to call them official state business. We have a quite a few from other politicians or members of her cabinet, but they appear to personal messages: "We're praying for you, don't let the negative press get you down" or the Lt. Gov. complaining about a talk show host "Can you believe that jerk". In that case his complaints are about a political campaign and if it's unethical to use state resources for partisan purposes it might be unethical to convey using the state email account. So far the only evidence I've seen offered in relation to this particular incident that's cited as evidence of conducting state business is the fact that some of the emails are coming from state officers but the only text we have of those are in fact personal or partisan (which again it might be unethical if they WERE conveyed using the state email address)
The only subject line I saw on the list that appears like it might be state business is a draft email to Gov. Schwarzenegger regarding a container tax. But, since we don't have the text of that one we don't know for sure. The "hackers" stated objective was to find something scandalous or incriminating and he expressed disappointment that he didn't find anything. Since he became aware of the private email accounts existence because of the press coverage of the controversy over conducting state business using private email presumably he would be aware that any serious state business would fit the bill (though probably a minor scandal if the state business being conveyed wasn't scandalous in itself.)
From the subject lines and the text of the actual emails that came out the accusation comes across as pretty weak.
I get somewhat frustrated with this argument because it ignores the full scope of the election. We are now down to two choices. But overall there were about eight viable choices (McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Guliani, Thompson, Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Biden) and any number of lesser "protest vote"/"throw your vote away choices" (Paul, Gravel, Hunter, etc.)
Constituencies that would under other multi-party systems form their own parties are generally part of the broad coalitions that form the major parties and as such have their own candidates in the primaries OR they find themselves in the perhaps even more influential position of being the much coveted "swing voters". Rather than cobbling together the different blocs after the election they two major parties attempt to do so before hand.
Granted it's not the kind of system anyone would design from scratch according to a theoretical ideal (the founders didn't anticipate political parties). Rather, It is the product of the living history of the nation. Think of it as a product of evolution rather than of intelligent design. As such it has funky, counterintuitive features yet it gets the same basic job done and may be balancing competing requirements more effectively than a theoretically pure designed system would. A system produced over time by the pressures, reforms and even the corrupt influence of self-interested parties will be balancing competing interests in ways a nice pure system won't but which may be important to the stability of the system.
You're letting your partisanship get the best of your objectivity. They are both rookies only part way through their first terms in nationally prominent offices. Even granting Obama double or triple, or four times as much experience as Palin (not that I think the gap is quite that large) they are still in the same ballpark when compared to almost any other serious candidates for the presidency through history, and particularly when compared to McCain who was first elected to congress in 1982 and prior to that had some fairly significant life experiences outside of politics. We're talking about two and four years in nationally prominent, consequential offices next to the decade or two that are the historic norm and over three decades for McCain. Listening to Obama supporters bash Palin on inexperience is like witnessing a second grader boasting that he's more mature than his kindergartner sister. He's got a point, and the difference seems huge to him. But the end result doesn't impress the onlooker with his vast maturity but emphasizes the lack of it.
Inexperience isn't always a bad thing in politics. Voters like new blood, change, reform, outsiders that can shake things up etc. Obama is running on the theme of change. That's an appropriate theme for a young optimistic and relatively inexperienced politician. Letting your much older and much more experienced opponent bait you into a pissing contest over experience with his VICE presidential pick is a suckers game that does serious damage to Obama's campaign.