THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† What Al Gore Hath Wrought (second item): MN Senate opponents Al Franken (D) and former Sen. Norm Coleman (R) are “caught in a political twilight, players in a race that will not end,” reports The New York Times:
This is not merely another example of the kind of whisker-close political contest that has become a regular part of the American political landscape since the 2000 presidential race.
It is a source of frustration to a White House eager to get Mr. Franken’s vote in the Senate as it prepares for big battles over health care, taxes, the environment, spending and other issues. He would be the 59th Democrat, putting the party just one shy of what it needs to stop Republicans from blocking bills through procedural means. …
It is embarrassing to many Minnesotans who fear the drawn out vote count is turning this proud and proper state into, as an editorial in The Albert Lea Tribune put it last week, a laughing stock. …
Neither man can lay claim to Senate offices in Washington or Minneapolis, begin hiring staff or participate in any official way with Senate proceedings. Both men have struggled to keep up with what they are missing in Washington even as they raise money to finance mounting legal bills.
For their part, MN voters just want closure: an automated poll conducted by Public Policy Polling finds that 63 percent think Coleman should drop his appeal and 59 want Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) to sign the election certificate that formally declares Franken the winner.
But wait, there’s more! The National Law Journal reports that “at least two judges” on the state Supreme Court have donated to the political campaigns of Coleman or Franken, which could raise conflict of interest issues should Coleman’s case get that far:
Two members of the Minnesota Supreme Court, Chief Justice Eric Magnuson and Associate Justice G. Barry Anderson, have said they would recuse themselves from a potential appeal of the case to the state's highest court because they were part of a five-person board that oversaw the original recount, declaring Franken the winner.
But criticism has mounted regarding whether some of the other judges should recuse themselves for giving political contributions that could be construed as conflicts of interest. …
But Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the
He said he doesn't think an "iron clad purist view about contributions is feasible or necessarily reasonable." …
"If we take this hard-line purist approach, we'll find a lot of judges recusing themselves," he said.
Meanwhile, the race to replace Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) in NY's 20th Congressional District is equally entertaining, with Republican Jim Tedisco challenging the absentee ballot cast by Gillibrand on the grounds that she was in the district on March 31st, the day of the special election - campaigning for his Democrat opponent, Scott Murphy – which meant she could have voted in person.
† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: You know we’re in a recession when rappers and hip-hop artists tone down the bling, reports The Associated Press:
The music genre has been defined as much by diamond-encrusted watches and platinum chains as its gritty urban lyrics. But in the last couple of years, it has scaled down its flash, a trend insiders say has become more pronounced during the recent recession. …
Photo shoots, for example, are being done with fewer of the specialized medallions considered a calling card for the likes of Rick Ross, whose chain with a likeness of his head - complete with black diamond beard - has an estimated value of $30,000.
Instead you might see a rapper in an off-the-shelf diamond cross or wearing lower-quality stones.
As for the rest of us, we’re scaling down from off-the-shelf to second-hand – both as buyers and sellers - reports USA Today:
At a time when most retailers are begging for customers, second-hand shops are thriving as the laid-off, and those worried they will be, turn to them for less expensive clothes, furniture and household items. But many thrift shops are also running low on merchandise as fewer people are able to donate.
"Resale has historically been a recession-proof industry," says Adele Meyer of the National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops. "Consumers ... are turning to resale as a way of providing for their families while still staying within their budgets."
† Never Mind Marxism. Will An Obama Administration Be Totalitarian?: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has apologized to U.S. military veterans for slandering them as being susceptible to violent anti-government, right-wing (or “rightwing,” as the report prepared by her employees has it) radicalization because the economy is in the toilet and we have a black president (really half-white, but why let the facts get in the way of a wild-eyed narrative). Napolitano told FOX News that the offense was unintentional and was the result of bad “word-smithing.” However, she did not disavow the report’s completely unsubstantiated supposition that being anti-abortion or anti-tax or even anti-Obama is synonymous with being a right-wing domestic terrorist.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders slams the report as being written on the level of “a sophomore's bad political science essay” and contrasts it with a Jan. 26, 2009, assessment entitled "Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber-Attacks over the Coming Decade":
The "left-wing" assessment named entities - the Earth Liberation Front, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, The Hacktivist, the Internet Liberation Front - and explained the methods used in specific and recent cyber-attacks. It also warned how specific groups - loggers, farmers and named corporations - were or could be targeted. That is, the "left-wing" assessment included information that would be useful to officials investigating crimes.
The "right-wing" document, however, targeted, not activities, but political thought - opposition to abortion, immigration amnesty and gun laws. While the "left-wing" assessment reported on known criminal activities, the "right-wing" document started with the acknowledgment that Department of Homeland Security intelligence "has no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence." (The italics are mine.)
Not without reason, Sean Hannity wondered whether government agents were taking down the license plate numbers of everyone who showed up at the Tea Parties held around the nation on April 15th. And right on cue CNN reporter Susan Roesgen characterized the tax protesters as being “anti-government.” Fash to CNN's newsroom: Even if many of the protesters were also anti-Obama, it’s not the same thing as being anti-government – at least not in the
As it happens, the DHS civil rights division had flagged the offensive wording but the report was issued nonetheless. In a letter to Napolitano, American Legion National Commander David K. Rehbein called the report incomplete and politically biased, and The Associated Press reports that “[t]he top Republican on the House intelligence committee, Michigan's Pete Hoekstra, has asked the director of national intelligence's ombudsman to investigate the Homeland Security report for ‘unsubstantiated conclusions and political bias.’”
Or, as New York Post columnist Ralph Peters put it: “The Obama administration just knows that vets are all racist, Jew-hating crazies waiting to explode.”
Editorial Note: The bio note on Peters’ column speaks volumes: “Ralph Peters is so stupid he served in our military for almost 22 years.”
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