Washblog

We need to push back on Sam Reed's latest assault against the integrity of our elections. His bill Concerning Overseas and Service Voters would permit casting votes via the Internet. Use Verified Voting's online form to contact your state senator and the caucus leaders.

The action alert email is below the fold. Here's the most important point:

Military and overseas voters can be served without compromising security and privacy.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Sam Reed is back again with the Internet voting. Thus far, Olympia is unanimous with their support. Message sent to my representatives in the 46th LD. Please write to your own representatives and party chairs.

Date: February 3, 2010
To: Sen. Ken Jacobsen, Rep. Phyllis Gutierrez Kenney, Rep. Scott White
Subject: HB 2483 / SB 6238 - Concerning Overseas and Service Voters

Sen Jacobsen, Rep Kenney, Rep White-

I'm writing to oppose the bill Concerning Overseas and Service Voters (HB 2483 / SB 6238).

Casting votes via email or fax is a very bad idea. There is no way to verify the voter's identity. There is no way to protect the secret ballot. The Dept of Defense's SERVE report is conclusive on these points.

Counties can already issue ballots via email or fax. All ballots received before an election is certified get counted. Military and overseas voters are not being routinely disenfranchised in Washington State through any shortcoming of our current system.

Sam Reed's latest effort to undermine the integrity of our elections is a solution looking for a problem. No one is asking for voting via email. In fact, the Dept of Defense opposes this scheme. This "thin end of the wedge" is merely part of nationwide vendor financed effort to bring about Internet voting.

I apologize that this note is so tardy. Election integrity advocates soundly defeated Reed's Internet voting proposal last year. I thought, "Surely, with so much going on this year, and a short session, and everyone knowing that Internet voting is a horrible idea, Olympia won't  touch this."

I'm sorry I was wrong. I'll try to not make the same mistake again.

Cheers, Jason Osgood

A Security Analysis of the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE)

http://www.servesecurityreport.org/

As a result of a recent event involving an aircraft and underpants Representative Peter King (R-Not From Iowa), the senior Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, has again come forth to bring his expertise on questions of international terrorism to the national debate.

King, a Congressman who represents a district that straddles New York’s Long Island (NY-3), previously served as the Comptroller of Nassau County and a member of Hempstead, New York’s Town Council, which wouldn’t seem to be the kind of résumé that would give you much credibility in this arena—but Mr. King is a special case.

You see, Mr. King knows a great deal about terrorism...from the inside...because for many years the personal cause that drove his life was to be an active and public supporter of a terrorist group.

And that’s why, today, we’ll be connecting the dots between Congressman King and the Irish Republican Army.

Al-Kareem Shadeed.  Photo by Inye Wokoma, used with permission.  ColorsNW Magazine		Major federal court decision yesterday! According to a December, 2006 Amici Curiae (friend of the court) briefing in the case of Farrakhan v Gregoire, nearly one-quarter of otherwise qualified black male voters, and almost 17% of the entire adult black population of Washington state were prohibited from voting because of prior felonies. Last session's House Bill 1517 restored the right to vote to an estimated 167,000 people in the state who were barred due to Legal Financial Obligations owed on prior felonies. Now a 9th Circuit Federal court decision has ruled that the state's high rate of minority imprisonment cannot be explained in a race neutral way and that the right to vote must be restored to people currently in prison.
3-Striker Al-Kareem Shadeed, who was recommended unanimously for clemency by the state's Clemency and Pardons Board in December, is a plaintiff in this case.  Washington state is less than 4% Black. Our 3-Strikes population is 40% Black. (1) The state prison population as a whole is 19.3% Black. Other minority groups are also over-represented. (2) The Brennan Center has more information and links to the decision and other documents: "On Jan. 5, 2010, the Ninth Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, reversed the District Court's decision on remand, claiming that Washington's constitutional provision regarding felony disenfranchisement is in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. the Ninth Circuit has ruled that  Associated Press reports. "The two appellate judges ruled that disparities in the state's justice system "cannot be explained in race-neutral ways." Persistent Offenders, Through June 2008, State of Washington, Sentencing Guidelines Commission. Offender Fact Card, Fiscal Year 2009, Washington Department of Corrections

Vance Bartley, founder of Gifts for Kids:  "You're a chickenhawk!  That's a chickenhawk hat you're wearing!"  Child: "No!  You're a BIG. FAT. chickenhawk!"  (overheard at Gifts for Kids) The second annual Gifts for Kids was held at Nova High School in Seattle on December 19, 2009.  This day-long celebration for children of incarcerated parents was founded by Vance Bartley and co-organized by Justice Works! under the direction of Lea Zengage and Nova High School under the direction of Joleen Franklin, a teacher at the school.
Vance Bartley, thanking organizers of Gifts for Kids Lea Zengage and Joleen Franklin. Click on images for larger version.		Chet Hunter, working with his wife Sherry, cut and styled the hair of about 40 people.
Dozens of children poured in as the event started and they continued to arrive throughout the day.  Over 180 volunteers and donors, from both inside and outside of prison, contributed to the event.  Nova students and Justice Works! volunteers were the backbone of much of the preparation for months in advance - as well as serving during the day. Vance Bartley, who was serving a Life Without Parole sentence under Washington's 3-Strikes law when he originated the idea of Gifts for Kids, commented on those early beginnings in thanking Lea Zengage and Joleen Franklin:  "So let me just say that what began as just an idea and a concept in my mind when I was lying in a prison cell, sentenced to do the rest of my life in prison, I brought to these ladies and they made this happen." A link to a video of Vance's presentation and the response of the women honored is HERE.
Chef Young Pang prepared gourmet - and mouth- watering - sushi.  His beautiful Japanese radish and cucumber creatures attracted a lot of attention.		The dance group, Pulse, gave an amazing step-dance performance.

This is a rewrite of something posted a year or so ago. I believe it is now even more appropriate.

The notion of "America's Core Values" is nothing more than that, a mythical array of benign images and buzz words that has been used for generations to suggest that this country as a global partner has never possessed anything but the most drinkable bathwater for the rest of humanity.

Our government has forever publicly portrayed itself as bearing only the fondest and most gentle desires for world peace, as sending only entirely noble and honorable soldiers as a last resort and whose citizens and business would NEVER think of exploiting any beyond-our-boundaries circumstance for profit.

After a decade-long slide into semi-irrelevance, it’s now being announced that the major television broadcast networks are considering leaving behind the “free TV/advertiser supported” business model in order to turn themselves into something more closely resembling a cable operation; the idea being that they could create a second revenue stream from the same “subscriber fees” that are paid by cable and satellite operators to all the other channels those operators carry.

This has become necessary, according to the networks, partly because the market has become so fragmented...which, naturally, is cable’s fault—and presumably the fault of the disloyal viewer, as well.

Another reason driving the change is related to the desire of the networks to have a source of revenue that’s more reliable in times of economic downturn, when advertisers often try to husband scarce resources by cutting back on all their expenses, particularly advertising dollars.

Will this new change in the business model reverse the fortunes of the networks?
Is it possible that the networks are simply poor business managers?

And what about...Krystal Carey?

Tune in for the rest of the story—and we’ll find out.

The Discovery Institute and Turkish Islamic fundamentalists are now allies in the culture war against evolution.

In Turkey, fertile ground for creationism (Washington Post 11/08/09):

The Discovery Institute … sent speakers to Turkey after being invited by the Istanbul municipal government in 2007. President Bruce Chapman said the institute helped bring Turkish evolution critic Mustafa Akyol to a 2005 Kansas school board hearing …

David Berlinski confirmed this alliance during an interview on CBC, reported here. Bruce Chapman took exception to this report, but was refuted.

I can't say this emphatically enough: This alliance exhibits extremely poor judgment.

Islam's Darwin problem (Boston Globe 10/09/09):

Critics of the movement fear that this makes it more likely that creationism will find its way into policies there, especially when the theory of evolution is portrayed among Muslim thinkers, as it often is, as an instrument of Western intellectual hegemony.

…

For many Muslims, the fact that the theory of evolution was worked out in the West makes it even more suspect: Islamic creationists will often describe evolution as something foreign and invasive, even as a legacy of colonialism.

Fanning the flames of anti-American sentiments with attacks on reason is irresponsible. That "creationism" is just a political wedge strategy meant to trick people into supporting a pro-corporate agenda makes the whole affair rather tragic.

Ironically, Chapman made his mark criticizing Republicans for their extremism in the book The Party That Lost Its Head. I wonder what changed.

According to this first hand account, China wrecked the climate change negotiations at the Copenhagen conference. China's economic growth requires coal. They are understandably reluctant to change.

Fine. The correct response is to place a 100% tariff on Chinese imports.

China needs us more than we need them. We can make our own stuff. Whereas China has no one else to buy all their stuff.

China owns ~$800b of our debt. As we learned from Donald Trump, borrow enough and you own the bank. Let the dollar crash. China's advantage will disappear. A lower dollar leads to more American exports.

China will cry uncle when the economic pain causes more social unrest than they can manage. Perhaps 400m unemployed, angry Chinese citizens will suffice.

Then we say: Oops, big misunderstanding. Tell you what. You agree to meet these new improved aggressive emission reduction targets, we'll drop the tariffs. Everyone will be happy again. Deal?

[Edited to add cites for debt, unemployment. -- Jason]

During my campaign for Secretary of State, I proposed Automatic Voter Registration for Washington State.

Every citizen is registered to vote at age 18. Your registration would follow you as you move. All done automatically.

Automatic registration is cheaper, more accurate, and more fair than our current opt-in system. It'd also simplify election administration by eliminating the need for provisional ballots.

I'm absolutely thrilled to note this issue is gaining support. A small sampling...

The Committee to Modernize Voter Registration -- Utah (!)

Mike Bloomberg Unveils Plan For Automatic Voter Registration & Weekend Voting

Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights

Voter Registration Modernization -- Brennan Center

Automatic Voter Registration bill in NY -- Fair Vote

Each of these efforts is being done independently. People have acknowledged the problem, determined the correct solution, and are starting to organize.

Automatic voter registration is an idea who's time has come.

We are halfway through a story that is about to turn winter in one of the most beautiful places in the world profoundly ugly.

Just like in a Cecil B. DeMille movie, we have a cast of millions, we have epic scenery, and we have made acquaintance with someone who will go on to perform a heroic act.

Unlike your typical Hollywood production, however, this movie is not going to have a happy ending—in fact, you could make the argument that it’s not over yet.

So wrap yourself up in something comfortable, grab something to drink...and when you’re ready, we’re packing up and heading to the Alps.

As was reported in the Kitsap Sun, Sherry Appleton signed onto a bill to legalize Marijuana in Washington State.

The 23rd District representative was one of six House members, all Democrats, to sign their names to a bill on Monday that would call for pot to be legal and for the state to sell it and collect taxes on it at state liquor stores.

"This would be a way of not only saving money by not having to prosecute people who use small amounts of pot," she said. "Millions of people smoke pot and we're not deriving any taxation from it."

Cherisse Luxa, who commented frequently on this site, has passed away from cancer.  She's second from the left here There's a story on NW Progressive Institute Advocate and one on Daily Kos. I took this photo at a July 2007 Service of Lamentation held by clergy to protest the planned destruction of the Lora Lake moderate-income apartments in Burien.  Cherisse was instrumental in organizing the community to try to save this housing.  From left to right in this photo: Donald Bennett, Cherisee Luxa, Representative Tina Orwall from Washington's 33rd Legislative District, Sarajane Siegfriedt. Cherisse had incredible energy, intelligence and caring.  In the last in-depth email I exchanged with her, she told me she was working on her dissertation in the doctoral program on Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University. She was a retired sheriff's deputy -- as she put it, "a retired cop", a victims' rights advocate, and, among many other activities, worked in other countries to help identify the bodies of people who had died as victims of war crimes.  She co-founded Burien's Drinking Liberally.   Cherisse had a keen and integrative intelligence -- noticing and remembering details that few people see (she rescued me several times from errors in my stories) -- but also thinking in a systems-oriented way -- understanding the larger patterns, the connecting dynamics.  She was truly a pleasure to talk with as well as generous with her time and thoughts and help for others.  I feel truly sad that she has passed away.

We have another one of those “amazing history” stories for you today—and this one’s a real doozy.

We’re going to spend the better part of four years in the Italian Alps (or, to be more accurate, what was intended to be the Italian Alps), and by the time we’re done, nearly 400,000 soldiers will have been killed—and 60,000 of those will have died as a result of avalanches that were set by one side or the other.

In the middle of the story: a mountaineer and soldier who was so highly regarded that even those who fought against him accorded him the highest honors they could muster, creating a legend that lives on to this very day.

And even though a young Captain Erwin Rommel fought in these battles...it’s not him.

Oh, by the way: did I mention that there are also some handy object lessons for anyone who might be thinking about fighting a war in Afghanistan?

Well, there are, Gentle Reader, so follow along, and let’s all learn something today.

Now is the time for the opportunistic opposition to pounce on how badly the governor has managed the state's economy.

We have never in our lifetimes been in such a desperate economic community circumstance.

Where are the great Republican voices in our state? Why are they not pointing out how they, their party and their political philosophy had nothing at all to do with this catastrophe?

Where are their supposedly wise and more valid suggestions or alternatives to how the governor and legislature are dealing with this stuff?

What about the conservative religion itself. Isn't this the time for business to step forward, de-emphasize profit maximization and jointly find ways to help all of us care for each other?