A Bhutto-free Headline Roundup

• Senate Meets Briefly to Block Bush Appointment [USA Today]
  
• New Law Allows Needle Exchanges in Washington [New York Times]
  
• Mail From Congress Isn't Cheap [Newsvine (AP)]
  
• USDA Makes a Deal with Monsanto: Hey Farmers! Buy Genetically Modified Seeds, Get Insurance Cheap [The Daily Green]
• Giuliani pressed, dissembles on faulty 9/11 radios [The Carpetbagger Report]

Political Online Reputation

Slate's Map the Candidates

Online magazine Slate gives us Map the Candidates, an interactive Google map allowing you to "follow the campaigns virtually." The top of the map hosts an adjustable "date range." Set it to the desired dates, and the candidates pop up on the map showing the when and where of each campaign stop.

Write-ups -- a feature on the left column -- "are eyewitness reports from citizens who have attended campaign events." YouTube videos and links to articles covering the campaigning are also available.

-Dippold

Political Online Reputation

Lakota Indians secede from U.S.

Russel Means

Leaders from the Lakota Indians said Wednesday that they have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," said Russel Means, an Indian rights activist.

Lakota leaders announced their unilateral withdrawal from all treaties with the U.S. federal government to the State Department on Monday.

The leaders also visited the embassies of Bolivia, Chile, South Africa and Venezuela in a diplomatic effort they say will continue and go overseas in the coming weeks and months.

Lakota country includes parts of the states of Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska.

As long as residents of the new country renounce their U.S. citizenship they may live there tax free. It would also issue its own passports and drivers licenses.

According to an AFP report the Lakota freedom activists say on their website the treaties they signed are "worthless words on worthless paper." (The report does not give the web address, but it could be LakotaFreedom.com which, at approximately 2 pm central, had exceeded its bandwidth and is inaccessible.)

Means claims withdrawing from the treaties is completely legal.

Michael of the blog UnCivil Defense weighs in with several questions:

The implications are monumental. Think of the corporatist drones who are scurrying about even now, worried that the lucrative contracts given to them by the feral government will now have to be renegotiated with the rightful owners. Oil and mining interests will be the least of it. Water rights will need to be addressed , as will land leases given out by the feds.

The political complexities are labyrinthine, to say the least. Best of all is the implication that many will be welcomed by the new Lakota Nation, as long as they renounce their U.S. citizenship. Organizations such as Free State Wyoming and New Hampshire should begin contacting the new nation now. Individuals might well wish to contact Lakota Nation Embassies and Consulates when they are finally set up.

It would certainly behoove members of the "freedom movement" to query the Lakota Nation as to what form of nation they will be setting up. Will it be significantly freer than the U.S.? Will non-Indians be welcomed as equals or will they be accorded 2nd class citizenship? I really cannot wait to see how this plays out. Will the feds react with violence, as has often been the case? Or will sanity and sovereignty prevail? Will we see the beginnings of a second Secessionist War? Or the birth of a new country within a country? Will the new country embrace libertarian principles or something more statist? And who will side with the Lakota, should the worst come to pass? There are so many questions to be answered here.

I am curious myself how the government will handle the matter, as there is no response to the Lakota's announcement in the news reports yet.

Update: Citing several sources, Daily Kos claims this entire story is mainly a load of bull.  "In other words, a group of prominent activists from a controversial group (AIM) are shopping around for recognition of an independent country they want to declare." 

-Dippold

Political Online Reputation

More Examples of Flawed Election Machines

In addition to the above Lou Dobbs video about a flawed Diebold voting machine, the New York Times reports that "all five voting systems used in Ohio . . . have critical flaws that could undermine the integrity of the 2008 general election."

Here is Democracy Now's report on the Ohio voting machine situation, an interview with Harvey Wasserman, author of “What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election.”

And Brad Blog reports that "Colorado's Republican Secretary of State, Mike Coffman, has announced that a number of Colorado's e-voting machines have failed state certification testings, and will not be allowed for use in the 2008 election cycle."

-Dippold

Political Online Reputation

Iowa Debates

Looks like this site will stream the Iowa Democratic Debate today at 1 pm central time. Regardless, it should have video and transcripts afterwards.


-Dippold

Political Online Reputation

In the News: A Links Round-up

• Bush pardons carjackers, drug dealers, a moonshiner and a violator of election laws, but not I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. [HuffPo: No Holiday Pardon for Libby]

• Crackheads rejoice as the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to allow about 19,500 inmates to seek reductions in their crack cocaine prison sentences. [Kansas City Star: Federal commission lets inmates seek shorter sentences for crack cocaine convictions]

• The ABA Journal -- a magazine published by the American Bar Association -- names Alberto Gonzales Lawyer of the Year. [Newsvine: Gonzales Named Lawyer of the Year]

• The U.S. is still threatened by terrorists from abroad and within despite steps taken to tighten the way people and goods enter the country. [WSJ.com: Chertoff Says Terror Threat Hasn't Abated Despite Rules]

• "In the past three years, Department of Energy nuclear swat teams have safely locked up enough material to make 34 nuclear bombs." [CBS News: Agents Locking Down Loose Nuke Material]

• New Jersey may soon ban the death penalty. [ABC News: N.J. Senate Moves to Ban Death Penalty]

-Dippold

Political Online Reputation

Bruce Schneier on Electronic Voting

Bruce Schneier's website describes the man as "an internationally renowned security technologist and author. . . When people want to know how security really works, they turn to Schneier."

So what does this have have to do with politics? Well, in a post on the New York Times' Freakonomics blog today, Mr. Schneier answers questions on security. Two questions focus on electronic voting:

Q: What is the future of electronic voting?

A: I’ve written a lot about this issue (see here and here as well). Basically, the problem is that the secret ballot means that most of the security tricks we use in things like electronic funds transfers don’t work in voting machines. The only workable solution against hacking the voting machines, or — more commonly — innocent programming errors, is something called a voter-verifiable paper trail. Vote on whatever touch-screen machine you want in whatever way you want. Then, that machine must spit out a printed piece of paper with your vote on it, which you have the option of reviewing for accuracy. The machine collects the votes electronically for a quick tally, and the paper is the actual vote in case of recounts. Nothing else is secure.

Q: Do you think it will ever be feasible to vote for public officials via the Internet? Why or why not?

A: Internet voting has the same problems as electronic voting machines, only more so. That being said, we are moving towards vote-by-mail and (for the military) vote-by-fax. Just because something is a bad security idea doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

-Dippold

Political Online Reputation