Akkam’s Razor

• Daily Kos: State of the Nation: It’s not just 600,000 in Ohio: LA, FL, MI, KS, NM, CO, and NV - Colorado dumped ONE FIFTH of all voter registrations — the largest in history. Florida is refusing to accept 85,000 new registrants — overwhelmingly blacks. New Mexico: purged half of the democrats in Mora county (Hispanics) and 600.000 mailers were returned. Ohio & Nevada are scrubbing tens of 1000s of voters who lost their homes to foreclosures. (Kerry lost by a mere 10-votes per district in Ohio).

Eisenhower warned us about this so many years ago.  Politicians of all stripes, but particularly Republicans, love them some war.  The more the better, in fact.

The public’s is losing patience with the Great War on Terror.  The national as a whole is experiencing  a gradual extinction of the fear response (being replaced with looming financial uncertainty).  Conservatives are clearly anticipating the diminishing financial rewards of the Long War, but as a funder of campaign coffers as well as new plunder for profit.  Iran is not panning out to be the great threat they had hoped.  Simply put, they are running out of war-porn.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Foxnews now confirms that convicted DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey was found dead of a suspected suicide in Florida, as initially reported by their local affiliate. Palfrey was convicted on 4/15/2008 of money laundering, illegal use of the mail, and racketeering in the operation of her “high-quality fantasy service”, operated under the name of “Pamela Martin and Associates”. The investigation of her service resulted in the resignation of Randall Tobias from his position in the US Aid office, Harlan Ullman, the creator of the phrase “Shock-and-Awe”, and an admission of the use of her services by the “very sorry” Louisiana Congressman David Vitter, who is still in office. In the same time period, several additional White House resignations were tendered, apparently unrelated to the DC Madam. In the run-up to her trial, the US DOJ of Justice issued a gag order, stating that her phone records were in fact an asset, forbidding her from discussing (and profiting from) their contents. She intended to call her “johns” to the stand as part of her defense. The case has many interesting unexplored angles.

BC’s Brian Ross had initially said the following (reported at ThinkProgress, with video at Crooks and Liars):

“There are thousands of names, tens of thousands of phone numbers,” Ross said. “And there are people there at the Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers — a long, long list.” Ross added that the women who worked for the service, potentially as prostitutes, “include university professors, legal secretaries, scientists, military officers.”

ABCNEWS’ Brian Ross had acquired many pages of her cell phone records and had breathlessly pitched them as holding several major names, abruptly reversing course on the night that the 20/20 piece aired.

As usually is the case in Washington, much of it is dull. There are no members of Congress we can find in these phone numbers, no White House officials. Quite frankly, but for the few exceptions, most of the men on this list just aren’t newsworthy.

During that same time period, allegations were made that one of the highest persons in the Bush White House as well as an ABC news personality were allegedly affiliated with the list. Larry Flynt also got involved, at one point stating that he was following 20 Congressional leads, but no other names had come forward.

Other little nuggets of interest:

• Cryptome has the phone numbers in list format (note, also on Scribd as images. See this story on Newsvine regarding the crowdsourcing of the bills).
• Maggie Burns mentions what Ms. Palfrey was doing on 9/11, as deduced by the phone records.
• There is a very clever honeypot at dcphonelist.com which allows users to search for a phone number, highlighting suspect phone numbers. They display statistics for numbers of interest.
• This is not the first suicide related to the Madam.

Popularity: 9% [?]

What does the primary mean? What learnings can be taken away? Did Hillary really win? Did Barack really lose? And what about John McCain?

There are two things to take away - the primary means NOTHING, and the primary means EVERYTHING.

Popularity: 9% [?]

• Emptywheel » The Rhetoric of More of the Same
  [W]e want to retain an exception to such regulation for the wilder and more complex financial products. So rather than admit that such a system is no longer sustainable, we will institutionalize a general ‘re-set’ button for the entire financial system.”
  (tags: us treasury finance regulations)
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John Stauber has a post at PR Watch that is sourced from Matt Bai's book, The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, where former NY Governor Mario Cuomo speaks to a group of wealthy Democratic activists:

Shortly after the November 2006 election the Democracy Alliance, an exclusive group of about 100 Democratic Party millionaire activists, met in Miami, Florida. Members and their guests heard their keynote speaker and liberal legend Mario Cuomo analyze the Democratic Party in the wake of its stunning electoral victories that had given Democrats control of the US Congress. Cuomo criticized the Democratic Party for lacking vision, big ideas and a winning political argument. His recipe for future Democratic victories was simple: "You seize the biggest idea you can, the biggest idea you can understand. And this is what moves elections."

Cuomo then dared to voice an inconvenient truth: "Now it's 2006 and we're all rejoicing. Why? Because of Iraq. A GIFT. A gift to the Democrats. A lot of whom voted for the war anyway." The former New York governor challenged his partisan audience, "If Iraq is not an issue, then what issues do we have to talk about? … Where does that leave you? It leaves you in the same position you were in in 2004 – without an issue. Because you have no big idea."

Stauber goes on to illustrate why Iraq is a "gift":

The Argument is an important book but Bai muffed the title. He should have titled it “The Gift,” because as Cuomo points out it was primarily the political gift of voter anger and revulsion over a horrific, continuing war that caused them to oust Republicans.

He then goes on to lament how the current Democratic Congressional Leadership is failing to deliver on the voting public's wishes (he is, of course, correct, but that's a whole-another-post).

It's simply too easy to beat the administration over the head with their incompetence regarding Iraq, and that's even if totally ignoring the deceptions and ideology driven mechanisms that created, sold, and marketed this war.  Strangely, most pundits choose to look at the war in isolation, as though it were a unique creature born of unique circumstances.

Popularity: 45% [?]

This should elate approximately 30% of you and disgust the balance.

A newly formed Pro-War astroturf - think false, ideological grassroots organization - group, Freedom Watch (YouTube) has some local connections, as described at Fables of the Reconstruction.  Most prominently, sports fans, is CEO of Comcast-Spectacor Ed Snider (wiki) Comcast-Spectacorp is a partnership with the Comcast Corporation, which manages the sports arenas, the ComcastSportsnet, the 76ers, the Philadelphia Flyers, and some other related ventures.

Via Politico:

A new group, Freedom’s Watch, is launching Wednesday with a $15 million, five-week campaign of TV, radio and Web ads featuring military veterans that is aimed at retaining support in Congress for President Bush’s “surge” policy on Iraq. 

The Orwellian-named Freedom Watch, helmed by Plamegate-accomplice Ari Fleischer has an interesting cast of characters.

Again, from FotR: 

The board consists of Blakeman; [Ari] Fleischer; Mel Sembler, a Florida Republican who was Bush’s ambassador to Italy; William P. Weidner, president and chief operating officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corp.; and Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

The donors include Sembler; Anthony Gioia, a Buffalo businessman who was Bush’s ambassador to Malta; Kevin Moley, who was Bush’s ambassador to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva; Howard Leach, a former Republican National Committee finance chairman who was Bush’s ambassador to France; Dr. John Templeton of Pennsylvania, chairman and president of the John Templeton Foundation; Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast Spectacor, the huge Philadelphia sports and entertainment firm; Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and ranked by Forbes magazine as the third-wealthiest American; and Richard Fox, who is chairman of the Jewish Policy Center and was Pennsylvania State Chairman of the Reagan/Bush campaign in 1980.

 [...]

Richard Fox is local. Comcast, as the article says, is right here in Center City Philly. So Philly is subsidizing pro-war propaganda. Wonderful. The Templeton Foundation is located in a Philadelphia suburb, and has a right-wing track record.

The TV-buys are interesting in that they attack both Democrats and any moderate Republicans who have been less than 100% loyal to the President, and seem to imply that the participation in our Democracy is tantamount to treason and "stabbing the troops in the back". 

The ads are an attempt to grab the security-moms and armchair generals by having Laura and Vicky relate the sacrifices of their sons, Travis and Jesse, as well as linking retreat from Iraq with retreat from Vietnam, and further attempting to confuse Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda with the insurgents in Iraq.  As September draws nearer, expect more political attacks designed to attack any criticism of the effectiveness of "the surge".

Popularity: 38% [?]

I like Dick Yeungling's tasty products, but this is a clear failure to bargain on good terms and a blatent attempt to bust the Union.  The last case I have will be the last case I buy until this gets resolved:

Union leaders say Yuengling told the workers that he would sell the business or shut it down unless they shed their decades-long affiliation with the Teamsters. How else, they ask, to explain the sudden decision to decertify?

Popularity: 19% [?]