tdaxp

First the Murtha implosion, and now a Democrat calls for a Draft.

It's hard to imagine a worse week for Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi.

As long as she is able to pass Bush's comprehensive immigration reform, her speakership won't be a failure. So, for now, I am still wishing her the best.

Still... her inability to lead is noticeable.

"Verdict is in: Fulton judge way over the line," by Bob Barr, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 26 April 2006, http://www.bobbarr.org/default.asp?pt=newsdescr&RI=739 (from nowcobbblog).

"State Judge Voids Georgia Law Requiring a Photo ID of Voters," by Brenda Goodman, New York Times, 20 September 2006, A24, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/us/20georgia.html (also at Digital DJs, Election Law, Webloggin).

In a completely unsurprising move for a political party that has failed to win two Presidential cycles (2000,2004) -- and six Congressional cycles (1994,1996,1998,2000,2002,2004) -- in a row, the Georgia-state Democrats are trying to keep the hope of voting fraud alive.

A state judge ruled [T. Jackson Bedford Jr.] ruled Tuesday that a Georgia law requiring voters to present government-issued photo identification violates the State Constitution and could not be enforced.

...

Judge Bedford wrote he was particularly troubled by a provision in the law that allows a registered voter without an approved photo ID to cast a ballot on Election Day but says that vote would not be counted unless the voter returned with an ID within two days..

Legislators [had already rewritten] the measure to make ID cards free. Supporters of the law say the cards are necessary to prevent voter fraud.

..

"Yet again, an activist judge is thwarting the will of a majority of Georgia citizens and their elected officials, Speaker Glenn Richardson said.

The suit challenging the ID requirements was filed in state court by former Gov. Roy E. Barnes, a Democrat, on half of two registered voters who said they lacked the kind of photo ID's required by the law.

The article ends hilariously, with a claim that a voting process which makes it very difficult to find cheaters has found few cheaters. One may as well say rape does not exist in Islamic countries, because it is nearly impossible to process criminally.

This is not the first time that Judge Bedford has made questionable decisions:

The recent incident in Fulton County Superior Court when Judge T. Jackson Bedford ordered District Attorney Paul Howard handcuffed and detained in a holding cell is not only unseemly and bordering on bizarre, but also highly corrosive of the respect for the law and for our judicial process that is essential to the proper functioning of civil society.

Judge Bedford may have set-back efforts to bring elections in the US up to at least Mexican levels of seriousness. So have the Georgia-state Democrats. Shame.

Update The Republicans prove themselves to be the party of voter integrity (hat-tip to the corner), the Democratic National Committee proves itself to be the party of voter fraud, and more works remains to be done. And don't forget to join the conversation at digg.com.

"In the Defense of Basic Rights, An Official Led a City's Defiance," by William Yardley, New York Times, 8 September 2006, A20, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/us/08liberties.html.

There is no reason for Conservatives to vote Republican in the 2006 House elections. An obvious refrain is "security," but America is united on the issue:

Leaving aside criticisms of the questions' pro-Left phrasing, the conclusion remains... A strong, domestic anti-terrorism policy enjoys support of a majority of Americans. Among critics, Right Malkinists are nearly as popular as Left Kossacks. When the Democrats take the House in 2006, they will be unable to enact a Leftist agenda. Indeed, a worse-case Democratic majority in the 110th Congress would look a lot like the Republican 109th Congress.

"End Of An Affair," Washington Post, 1 September 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101460_pf.html (from Democratic Underground).

Thirteen months ago, I wrote of Joe Wilson's reckless accusations. It is good to see the Washington Post, that left-of-center bullwark, now agrees with me

It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago.

...

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Sometimes, news is funny. This isn't. Valerie's career was destroyed by her husband -- a man who also tarred the reputation a moderate and well respected war hero.

Joe Biden, a man running for President in 2008, has delighted this blogger by endorsing the tdaxp plan for victory in Iraq.

Iraq should be divided into three largely autonomous regions -- Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab -- with a weaker central government in Baghdad, Sen. Joseph Biden said on Monday.

In an op-ed article in The New York Times, Biden, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee's top Democrat, said the Bush administration's effort to establish a strong central government in Baghdad had been a failure, doomed by ethnic rivalry that had spawned widespread sectarian violence.

"It is increasingly clear that President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and pass the problem along to his successor," said Biden and co-author Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Grand strategist Thomas PM Barnett defines four "flows" of the contemporary world

(1) the movement of people from the Gap to the Core;
(2) the movement of energy from the Gap to the New Core;
(3) the movement of money from the Old Core to the New Core;
(4) the exporting of security that only America can provide to the Gap

Now the Republican Senate identifies two more

(5) the movement of clean air from the New Core to the Old Core
(6) the movement of terrorism from the Gap to the Core

and is about to speed up one, and decrease the other

"Failed Mutiny?," by Jimmy Chuang and Rich Chang, Taipei Times, 22 March 2006, page 1, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/03/22/2003298577 (from The Korea Liberator).

"C.I.A. Fires Senior Officer Over Leaks," by David Johnston and Scott Shane, New York Times, 22 April 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/22/washington/22leak.html (from Just One Minute, hat-tip to Larwyn).

During the run-up to the Iraq War, remember how the neocons kept claiming that the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department are subverting our elected government.

Well, they were right.

State: Check
CIA: Check

And surprise, surprise, the latest ne'er-do-well is a Kerry supporter.

a tdaxp Special Report by "Aaron"

Well, a month and ten days after the invitation was extended, I decide to sully TDAXP with my presence. I'm posting in the category "Democrats," although by rights I think I ought to make a completely new TDAXP category, say perhaps "Eat Your Fishheads" or "Things You Know are Right (Left)," but I'll tamper with Google rank later. TDAXP has put a lot of work into his setup and I wouldn't want to jeopardize it. Did you know it is Google Search #1 for "polar bear fetish"? Go ahead, look it up. That doesn't happen by accident.

Anways, enough chicanery. I've nearly posted two or three times on various topics since Dan's invitation to blog, but kept stopping short for fear of not enough time or not enough research to do the topic justice. So, to finally quiet him up about not publishing, and to hopefully stave off another reminder that my own precious "blog" (http://aaron.groundrocket.org) is down, I'm going to pseudo post and do better the next time. Here we go.

I've criticized Democratic Underground before, but mad props to DU for shouting-out tdaxp!

Some comments on the tdaxp article "4GPS1 v 4GPS2 (Netroots Think 4GPS1 Is More Important)"

karynnj (1000+ posts) says:

It puts into very elegant form what many hear have argued about Kos. The most serious thing is that it's likely not just Kerry. Kos will likely continue doing this. It's interesting that the analysis posits that Kerry's positions expand the party, Kos's will continually shrink it to get to the perfectly pure people they agree with.

whometense (1000+ posts) says:

His technical political terminology slowed me down a bit, but I find his diagrams fascinating. It's the first thing I've read (though probably there's a lot out there that political scientists are aware of) that demonstrates the lefty freeper phenomenon in a scientific way.

beachmom (749 posts) says:

That diagram is disheartening, isn't it? The media hasn't really picked up on this too much, so hopefully nobody will know how bad the underbelly of our rank and file has gotten . . .

globalvillage (1000+ posts) says:

I can't decide if the writer is correct, that kos and his ilk are intentionally subverting liberals and moderate Dems for some narrow ideological purpose, or if his ego is just so massive that he can't stand to be wrong (bush* syndrome)and lashes out in response like a child having a tantrum. Whatever his motivation, this absolutely describes the result.
But the diagrams are particularly fascinating. Like someone snapped a photo of the left and the freepers, pixellated it and blew the dots up really big. That one with the big X through is is scary.

The diagram that got so much attention.



Read the tdaxp original, or the Democratic Underground reaction.

"Arnold's 'Harriet Miers Moment': Has Gov. Schwarzenegger jumped the shark?," by John Fund, Opinion Journal, 5 December 2005, http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110007637 (from The Corner).

One of the reasons I am a registered Republican is the big-government morality of the Democrat Party. This ranges from the perhaps wise, like Hillary Clinton's protection for religions in the work force, to the questionable, such as Cherry Cayabyab's sexual dinner plate regulations,

to the dumb, like Charles Schumer's attack on video games, to the idiotic:

One of the victims of that ruthlessness was Bruce Herschensohn, who in 1992 was the GOP candidate for U.S. senator against Barbara Boxer. Four days before the election, the Field Poll showed Mr. Herschensohn only one point behind. But that day Bob Mulholland, Ms. Kennedy's political director, confronted Mr. Herschensohn by parading down the aisle at a campaign appearance holding a giant poster of a strip club and shouting, "Should the voters of California elect someone who frequently travels the strip joints of Hollywood?" Reporters seized on the story. Mr. Herschensohn admitted he and his girlfriend had gone to a strip club once with another couple. Enough social conservatives stayed home to give Ms. Boxer a five-point victory.

And who was the mastermind of this puritan scheme?

Socially-liberal Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's new Chief of Staff, socially-liberal Democrat Susan Kennedy.



I guess she doesn't like bar girls either.