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Thad McCotter has fun with antonyms
Congratulations, Congressman Thad. You found out how to use a thesaurus, and you put it on big placards and read it on the floor of the House. Hilarious!
Posterity is the new justification for FISA
You can picture it now. Just when they’ve whittled away the last possible explanation for warrantless wiretapping, History offers a new opening.
FBI wiretaps have “given us the most powerful and persuasive source of all for seeing how utterly selfless Martin Luther King was,” as a civil rights leader, according to a leading civil rights scholar.
Think about it. If we wiretap everyone, chances are something will be interesting. Then we can use the tapes for good, not evil. Do you hate history?
Facebook Changes "Political Views" Options to Political Parties
Today Facebook changed the way it lets users identify their political views today, replacing a simple spectrum of views with a cluttered list of international political parties. Organizing people into political parties allows Facebook to sell microtargeted ads to advertisers looking to reach, say, Democrats in Ohio. Unfortunately, the change in emphasizing in party over position will organize a small base of users who self-identify as members of the national parties, and scatter the rest into free-form identification.
The New York Times has a revealing portrait of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who finds himself an ‘improbable liberal.’ This is particularly disturbing:
[Stevens] considers himself a “judicial conservative,” he said, and only appears liberal today because he has been surrounded by increasingly conservative colleagues. “Including myself,” he said, “every judge who’s been appointed to the court since Lewis Powell” — nominated by Richard Nixon in 1971 — “has been more conservative than his or her predecessor. Except maybe Justice Ginsburg. That’s bound to have an effect on the court.”
Mitt Romney's Jewish-focused emails
A while back I signed up for every presidential candidate’s email list, and have since been flooded by email after email asking for money and everything else the campaigns think people should see.
Unique among the candidates is Mitt Romney’s sign up page, which offers the widest array of what I guess you can call “sub-groups” of special interests, including:
- African Americans
- Catholics
- Faith & Values
- Farm & Ranch
- High Tech
- Hispanics
- Jewish
- Law Enforcement
- Tax Cutters [ed: wtf is a tax cutter?]
- Veterans
- Women
- Students
I signed up for every single one. It’s not clear how they’re using these special interests, because I certainly haven’t got any “Farm & Ranch” emails. I have received an email invitation to Students for Romney; however, these groups could be used to suppress recipients of certain emails. (I’ll leave that up to the imagination of how that would work.)
But to the title of this post: I have received two emails to the Jewish-focused list. The first was sent for Rosh Hashanah:
As we approach the Jewish New Year, Ann and I wish you and your family a happy and healthy Rosh Hashanah. We hope with this new year that encouraging new strides are made to reach lasting peace and security for all Americans, as well as comfort for Jewish communities around the world. [...]I am sure that you agree that it is crucial that the United States remain a steadfast friend and ally of the State of Israel, the eternal homeland of the Jewish people, which stands as a true example of democracy in the Middle East and a force on the side of Western values and virtues in the global war against terrorism. [...]
L’Shanah Tovah Tikatevu,
Mitt
The second came tonight (from Romney for President, but the email is signed by former US Ambassador Mel Sembler), and is really kind of scary.
Subject: Romney Stands Against IranTo my fellow members of the Jewish Community, I feel compelled to update you on the recent action taken by Governor Mitt Romney. Governor Romney is a strong advocate for Israel and in turn, he considers one of the greatest challenges we face to be defeating radical Jihadists. Further, Governor Romney believes Iran’s regime under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has stated that Israel must be wiped off the map is at the heart of this challenge – a threat to Israel, the Middle East and ultimately the world.
President Ahmadinejad has been invited to address the UN General Assembly. Outraged by this invitation, Governor Romney wrote a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urging him to revoke any invitation to President Ahmadinejad to address the UN General Assembly and instead hand him an indictment under the Genocide Convention.
[...] If the United Nations allows this address, Governor Romney wrote that “the United States must reconsider its level of support and funding for the United Nations as we look to rebuild and revitalize effective international partnerships to meet 21st century threats.”
Forgetting that there is an actual genocide happening and not a hypothetical one, all of this Republican chest-thumping about Iran is just insane! Our army is so overextended and the Republicans won’t even support letting them come home to rest!
Ugh. I’ll continue to monitor all the candidates’ emails for more micro-targetting and other stuff. I wanted to share this with the world in case you don’t see all of this that the candidates are sending to their ‘supporters.’
Sep 20, 09:18 PM / Comment [1]
Umm, Senator Spector?
Wasn’t this the problem in the first place?
“There’s been a lot of favorable talk about Larry in the cloak room,” Specter told CNN.
Rep. Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) staff did a video choose-your-own-adventure featuring his interns on the exciting subject of taxes or something, I forgot already because this is SO UNBELIEVABLY PAINFUL OMG!!!!1
Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) had a “he said/he said misunderstanding” in a public restroom with an undercover police officer. BlogActive previously outed Craig during the Mark Foley scandal in October.
And then there were nine. (Fine, John Cox, fine. Ten.)
Tonight Tommy Thompson, former Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services, ended his way-long-shot bid for the presidency. Phew. I didn’t know how many more awkward debate appearances I could endure. Thompson’s departure raises a question on all our minds: who’s next?
While I’d like to see a way-early exit by McCain, I think it’s safe to say we’ll say goodbye to Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter before Straight Shot John will close his campaign. On the Democratic side, I’ve already said it’s time for Mike Gravel and Joe Biden to give up, and I can’t say I’d cry if Kucinich quit. I love the energy and idealism that Chris Dodd brings to the debates – it’s a shame I just can’t see him as president.
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