The Bizarre Tale of Graft and Sleazy Political Opportunism That Brought Us the ‘Porno Scanners’
By Michael Collins, Smirking Chimp
Posted on November 18, 2010, Printed on November 19, 2010
How did we get to the point of full body scans at airports, the massive personal intrusion that represents, and the tens of millions spent for machines that irradiate us as a consequence of merely flying from here to there?
This all-too-timely piece came out in May.
MCM
Scientists Question Safety Of New Airport Scanners
by Richard Knox
May 17, 2010
After the “underwear bomber” incident on Christmas Day, President Obama accelerated the deployment of new airport scanners that look beneath travelers’ clothes to spot any weapons or explosives.
From Jeremy Hubbell:
Mark,
Good post yesterday on the pollsters in MN. Here’s two more with the first piece = the stakes.
Dayton won, BUT if the recount is in doubt for long enough, then PAWLENTY (who has eyes on the presidency) will get to set the budget and deny MN participation in a Medicaid expansion (which everyone here wants – meaning the hospitals, etc. – but tea partiers don’t).
Now, second piece below: They are bringing in the courts to – get this – make sure the number of votes match the voters – that’s right. To make sure voting fraud did not happen and thus add a layer of delay to the recount…
Jeremy
GOP asks high court to act before recount
Maurice E. Stucke
University of Tennessee College of Law Allen P. Grunes
Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy
Abstract:
With their financial difficulties, some traditional media firms have called for greater leniency under the federal antitrust laws. The Federal Trade Commission, for example, in recent hearings inquired as to whether antitrust immunity is necessary for newspapers’ collaboration and under what circumstances, if any, antitrust immunity for certain joint conduct could be justified.
Our essay explores why relaxing the federal antitrust laws for traditional media will not help consumers or the marketplace of ideas. We discuss the past problems with antitrust immunity generally and for the media industries specifically. We address the failures of the Newspaper Preservation Act, how deregulation that followed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 failed to promote competition in the radio industry, and why further liberalizing the FCC’s cross-ownership rules to permit greater media consolidation will not promote competition in the marketplace of ideas.
We conclude that, because our democracy’s health depends on competition among traditional media, the cost of allowing already dominant firms to acquire the assets of their remaining competitors outweighs the benefits of looser antitrust laws.
Joe Miller May Seek ‘Hand Count’ in Alaska’s U.S. Senate Race – He’d Be Wise To Do So.
A fully transparent reconciliation would well serve democracy, particularly given AK’s dreadful election history…
- Brad Friedman, The BRAD BLOG
After a week of hand-counting paper write-in ballots in Alaska’s three-way U.S. Senate race between incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (who ran as an independent write-in candidate), Republican candidate Joe Miller and Democratic candidate Scott McAdams, the Associate Press called the race this afternoon for Murkowski.
There’s a big brouhaha in Minnesota, where Republicans are screaming at those polling outfits that, they charge, got several races “wrong,” in that they showed the Democrats ahead.
And now those pollsters are backpedaling and, in effect, apologizing, vowing “to do better next time.”
Thus what’s happening is much like what went down after the 2004 election, when everybody–both parties and the “liberal media–laughed off all those exit polls which showed John Kerry winning in eleven states.
The problem here is the absurd presumption that the official count is always right, while contradictory polls are always wrong. (That presumption, oddly enough, holds for the US alone, since contradictory exit polls are always right in Iran, Venezuela, and wherever else the government is wrong in US eyes.)
Instead of backing off and eating crow, the pollsters in MN should be attacking their attackers–and asking if their own polls might, in fact, not indicate the possibility that the Republicans did less well with the voters than we think.
Because there’s actually no evidence, aside from the official numbers, that those winners really won, or that those losers really lost. And so it is throughout the nation, since we now have a completely faith-based voting system, as more of us ought to be pointing out.
MCM
Chagrined pollsters hope to do better next time
By Dave Orrick
Dayton ahead by 12 points.
Oberstar to win by 10 percentage points.
Republicans to pick up eight state Senate seats.
Wrong, wrong and wrong.
Those prognostications, by nonpartisan and partisan polls in advance of Nov. 2′s power-shifting election, weren’t just off. They were way off when compared with the election results.
And now the pollsters are under fire.
Hedges: We’re Losing Our Intelligence — How the Purge of True Dissent Has Starved Our Discourse
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig
Posted on November 15, 2010, Printed on November 16, 2010
The blacklisted mathematics instructor Chandler Davis, after serving six months in the Danbury federal penitentiary for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), warned the universities that ousted him and thousands of other professors that the purges would decimate the country’s intellectual life.
That’s what “lobbying effort” means.
MCM
Chamber to unveil pro-business lobbying effort
The group plans to announce an agenda that includes attacking regulations covering labor, energy, healthcare and financial services, which it says it hampering the economic recovery.
November 15, 2010 | By Tom Hamburger and Noam N. Levey, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Washington – After spending a record amount this election season to change the balance of power in Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce this week plans to announce a pro-business agenda that will include attacking federal regulations in four areas: labor, energy, healthcare and financial services.
The business organization’s leaders will announce their targets Wednesday, arguing that excessive government regulation is hampering economic recovery.
“American businesses are sinking under its weight,” chamber President Thomas J. Donohue said Monday.
PBS edits Tina Fey’s remarks from Twain event
By Paul Farhi
Tina Fey got a little political airbrushing from PBS Sunday night during its annual broadcast of theKennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Fey, this year’s recipient of the prize, caused a few ripples during her acceptance speech at the ceremony on Tuesday when she mock-praised “conservative women” like Sarah Palin, whom Fey has so memorably impersonated on “Saturday Night Live.”
“And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women – except, of course –those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape ‘kit ‘n’ stuff,” Fey said. “But for everybody else, it’s a win-win. Unless you’re a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years – whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know – actually, I take it back. The whole thing’s a disaster.”
Orwell Rolls In His Grave, featuring MCM – Buy the DVD
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