politics

Tomorrow, I'll be heading for the Rally to Restore Sanity in D.C.

Now, this is being billed as a "million moderate march"...and while I fit neatly into no one's system of political boxes, a moderate I am not. I'm the small-government liberal, the gun-owning pacifist, the free-market socialist. If a Green Party member and a big-L Libertarian had a baby who was raised by gorillas, you might come out with something like my views on Practical Zenarchy and what to do until Universal Enlightenment makes the state redundant.

And while this event is intended to draw lots of people who've never been to a protest or demonstration before, I won't be one of them.

Hell, this is supposed to be a "pro-reasonableness" event, and you can see the name of this blog.

But while I think vigorous debate, and even a certain about of unreasonableness, is important, I strongly agree with Jon Stewart's call to "turn it down a notch for America." And it's not just the birthers, tea baggers, and people who think mild health insurance reform is an insidious sleeper Soviet plot (the USSR faked its death, don't you know). It's also the deep-conspiracy 9/11 truthers who think that the civil engineers at NIST are part of a convoluted "false flag" operation set up by Bush and his cronies; it's the anti-war protestors carrying Che Guevara posters; it's the self-proclaimed "anarchists" -- with no idea of what anarchy actually is -- who think that breaking windows is going to bring about political change.

So, count me as a Radical for Moderate Discourse. I say yes to vigorous debate, and no to hostile and asinine behavior. Let's argue, sure, but let's do it over a beer, not over waving guns or overturned dumpsters.

And when you hear somebody talking about refreshing the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants, tell 'em to take it down a notch. For America.

And if you see somebody about to step on somebody's head, for chrissake, step up and stop 'em. Thanks.

"But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever." -- 1984, George Orwell (one of the great socialist writers of the 20th century, but that's a rant for another time)

A few years ago, before the teabaggers got ahold of it, I wrote in praise of the Gadsden flag -- the "Don't Tread On Me" rattlesnake -- and of Benjamin Franklin's essay on the rattlesnake as an American symbol.

Now, of course, it's become a symbol for our modern Know Nothings, the Tea Party.

I have to wonder, then, whether the Rand Paul supporters who tackled and then stomped on the head of a MoveOn.org protester have Gadsden flag stickers on their cars. Ah, irony.

Paul is not responsible for his nutcase of a father, Ron Paul, and deserves to be considered on his own merits -- or rather, his own total lack of merit. Because what he is responsible for is his excreable comments about civil rights law, and his fraudlent self-certification in ophthalmology.

And he's responsible for his asinine defense of BP during the oil spill disaster, when he said "What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP,'...I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business."

Apparently, though, having one of your high level campaign workers put his sneaker heel on the head of your political opponents isn't cause for apology in Paul's mind.

Security expert Bruce Schneier discusses a recent case where Yasir Afifi, a 20-year-old marketing college student in Silicon Valley of partially Egyptian ancestry, found a big ugly tracking device attached to his car. Turns out it was placed there by the FBI -- sans a warrant, in keeping with the recent Ninth Circuit Court ruling.

The scary part is that all Afifi had done was be friends with a guy who made a blog post noting that it's logistically easy to carry out a suicide bombing. The friend didn't say such attacks were good, recommend them, or anything like that: he noted that "if terrorism were actually a legitimate threat, think about how many fucking malls would have blown up already," since such attacks are not difficult. That's it: a legitimate analysis of a common terrorist tactic.

Schneier says the case raises three questions: 1) Is the FBI's car surveillance technology that lame? 2) If they're doing this to someone so tangentially connected to a vaguely bothersome post on an obscure blog, just how many of us have tracking devices on our cars right now? (I've been net active since the late 80s. I've posted much more interesting stuff than the post by Afifi's friend in question. And you're reading my stuff...we might as well all paint "suspect" on our foreheads.) 3) How many people are being paid to read obscure blogs, looking for more college students to surveil?

One amusing bit, though: the FBI demanded that Afifi return the gizmo. A note to my fans in domestic surveillance: it's finder's keepers as far as I'm concerned, and without a court order to the contrary any spook gear I find will end up on eBay. Or maybe just shipped directly to WikiLeaks for an informative dissection.

The latest SurveyUSA poll of California voters has Democratic incumbent Barbra Boxer narrowly ahead 46% to 43% over Republican Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard who got a golden parachute for running a once-proud tech company into the ground (the source of much of the fortune she's spending to buy this Senate seat) and is campaign as a demagogic know-nothing science denailist. I'm not a fan of Boxer, but a win for the Palin-endorsed Fiorina would be a sure sign that the U.S. is no longer interested in being a civilized nation; for the love of whatever gods you believe in, if you live in California, please help see that Fiorina is defeated.

Democrat Jerry Brown is up 47% to 43% over Republican Meg Whitman in the Governor's race. Brown has more than doubled his lead among Hispanics since it came to light that despite her strong rhetoric on immigration, Whitman employed an undocumented immigrant as a maid for several years, throwing her under the bus once she became a political liability. (Has anyone else noticed how "throwing someone under the bus" has become a favorite political metaphor the past few years?)

I have fond memories of Brown being the last actual liberal-leaning candidate in the 1992 presidential race, holding on to his primary challenge against moderate conservative Bill Clinton; and I like that Brown took a strong stance against Proposition 8 and for constitutional democracy when he was Attorney General. I'd like to see him back in the governor's mansion.

Polling better than either Boxer or Brown is the chronic: Proposition 19, which would legalize recreational cannabis in the state, would pass 48% to 41% according to this poll. The demographics on this are quite interesting: men favor it 54% to 38%, while women are just about evenly split, 43% in favor, 44% against. Voters 18 to 34 and 50 to 64 both strongly favor it (60% to 30% and 50% to 38% respectively), voters 35 to 49 are split 47% to 45%, and voters 65 and older are strongly against it, 48% to 36%. Whites and blacks favor it by substantial margins; Hispanics and Asians are evenly split. I can see older voters being against it, and the families of more recent immigrants being more comfortable with keeping the law as it is also makes sense; I've no idea about the gender gap, or why there's a "donut hole" in support by age group here -- did "Just Say No" really bend the minds of my generation that much?

Republicans and conservatives oppose it; Democrats, independents, liberals and moderates favor it by large margins. This has not gone unnoticed; some Democratic strategists are exploring putting cannabis initiatives on the ballot in Colorado, Nevada, and Washington in 2012 to help energize young liberal voters -- rather like the GOP's homophobic ballot initiatives (along with a stunning amount of voter fraud) helped Bush II win in 2004.

The Sun reports that a Circuit Court judge in Harford County (Maryland) has dismissed wiretapping charges against Anthony Graber.

I've previously mentioned Graber's story: he was (apparently) being a dangerous jerk on his motorcycle, and got pulled over by a Maryland state cop who made a illegitimate traffic stop, cutting Graber off in an unmarked car (no lights or siren either) and jumping out his his car with his gun in his hand. Graber was wearing a helmet camera which recorded the incident. When Graber posted the video to Youtube, Joseph Cassilly -- State’s Attorney for Harford Count -- threatened to prosecute Graber for violating Maryland's wiretap law, a felony carrying a penalty of up to five years. It was in an act of pure intimidation for daring to embarrass a cop gone wild.

In yesterday's ruling, Circuit Court Judge Emory A. Plitt Jr. quite sensibly noted that "Those of us who are public officials and are entrusted with the power of the state are ultimately accountable to the public...When we exercise that power in a public forum, we should not expect our activity to be shielded from public scrutiny." He added that the incident "took place on a public highway in full view of the public. Under such circumstances, I cannot, by any stretch, conclude that the troopers had any reasonable expectation of privacy in their conversation with the defendant which society would be prepared to recognize as reasonable."

Jackass Cassilly claims the ruling "will make it more difficult for the police to do their jobs"; I can only interpret this to mean that he thinks that cops' jobs include intimidation and abuse.

According to the Sun's coverage, cops throughout the state have been using the wiretap excuse to seize people's cameras; a Baltimore cop threatened to arrest an amateur cameraman recording the arrest of a woman at Preakness, telling him, "It's illegal to record anybody's voice or anything else in the state of Maryland."

Recognizing our right to watch the watchers is a small, but important, step to get our out-of-control police forces to respect citizen's rights.

I recently mentioned Natasha Pettigrew, the Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate here in Maryland. In fact, I was planning on voting for her. (No worries about "throwing away your vote" on a third party candidate here; for good or for ill, Democrat Barbra Mikulski has the race all but sewn up.)

According to the Washington Post, Natasha Pettigrew was struck by a car early Sunday morning while she was biking, training for a triathlon. She died Monday night.

Shockingly, the driver of the SUV that killed Pettigrew didn't realize it for perhaps as long as an hour:

State police said the driver apparently thought she had hit a deer or another animal and realized what had happened only when she arrived home and found Pettigrew's bicycle trapped under her car. Pettigrew was not dragged by the vehicle but suffered severe injuries, police said.

The driver, who police identified as Christy R. Littleford, 41, called Prince George's County police sometime before 6:30 a.m. on Sunday to report the crash. County police then relayed the information to state police, who were on the scene.

"She had driven to her home and called from her home," said Greg Shipley, a Maryland State Police spokesman. "The initial indication was that she thought she may have hit a deer or an animal in the roadway. . . . When she arrived home and saw the bicycle, she assumed it was something else."

That, folks, is how careless drivers can be.

Brian Bittner, Maryland Green Party co-chairman, expressed the loss felt by those who worked with her in the party, saying that Pettigrew had "incredible potential as a future leader for this party and this state...We all looked forward to working with Natasha for years to come."

I previously mentioned Colorado gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes, who argued that efforts by Denver's mayor -- and now Democractic nominee for governor -- John Hickenlooper to make that city more bike-friendly were "converting Denver into a United Nations community, " "part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty, " and "contradictory to our own Constitution."

Maes, in this year where insanity has become a popular fashion accessory for victors in Republican primaries, won the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Apparently the fatal blow to his opponent, former Representative Scott McInnis, was self-inflicted -- McInnis admitted to plagiarizing a paper on water issues, one that he was paid $300,000 to write.

But now, not only the Republican establishment but the Tea Party leadership is backing away from Maes. Seems that not only is he a UN conspiracy theory nut, but he lied about working undercover for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and about how he left a small-town Kansas police department, and has incurred record fines for paying himself more than $40,000 from his campaign fund.

I recently mentioned nutcase Christine O'Donnell, a candidate for the GOP nomination for the Delaware Senate race whom the "Tea Party Express" has backed to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars. O'Donnell grabbed my attention because she's opposed to masturbation on the basis that the Bible says "lusting in your heart" is the same as committing adultery, and called the fact that we have a sexually unhealthy society "wonderful," saying "It's called modesty."

The Delaware GOP tried hard to shoot her down and get more-or-less sane Rep. Mike Castle, a former two-term governor, as the nominee; they went so far as to put out robocalls featuring O'Donnell's campaign manager from her 2008 campaign, accusing O'Donnell of "living on campaign donations — using them for rent and personal expenses, while leaving her workers unpaid and piling up thousands in debt." The GOP dug up records showing that the IRS had once placed a lien against her and that her house had been on the brink of foreclosure; it's also been revealed that she -- falsely -- claimed to have carried two of the state's counties in a race against Biden six years ago.

Showing just how deranged the GOP is this year, Republican voters chose Christine O'Donnell as the nominee for the U.S. Senate seat for Delaware, with 53 percent of the vote. I expect that Democrats all across the country are smiling that someone the state's GOP chairman said "couldn't be elected dog catcher" is now the candidate they'll have to beat, rather than the experienced and well-liked Castle.

While a lot of Marylanders will be heading to the polls tomorrow to select the Democratic (not "Democrat", if you can't get the grammar right you disqualify yourself from being taken seriously) and Republican candidates for the upcoming general elections, there are some other alternatives.

The Maryland Green Party is running Maria Allwine and Ken Eidel for Governor/Lt. Gov and Natasha Pettigrew for the Senate. They've also got candidates for Anne Arundel County Executive, and for the Montgomery County Council and the Washington County Commission.

The Libertarians (who generally don't understand the meaning of the word, having stolen it from socialist anarchists, but I'll cut them some slack) have Susan Gaztañaga and Doug McNeil for Governor/Lt. Gov, and candidates for most of the Congressional seats and several down-ticket races.

There's also a Maryland chapter of the nutjob Constitution Party (link deliberately omitted), who believe that the U.S. was founded "on the Gospel of Jesus Christ" and wants to "restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations" -- showing that, like a lot of folks on the far right making a lot of noise about the Constitution these days, they have failed to read and understand it. Sort of like the barbarians in that Star Trek episode whose "holy words" were "E pleb neesta"; it took Captain Kirk to come along and teach them about "We the People" and the Preamble to the Constitution.

As I write this, www.elections.state.md.us, the website for the Maryland election board, is down. Maryland's primary elections are tomorrow. I'm not a member of any party, so I don't get to play; still, I must wonder -- incompetence, or deliberate denial-of-service attack?