Majikthise

McCain campaign dumps racist organizer Bobby May

"Drug Crisis: Raise taxes to pay for free drugs for Obama's inner-city political base," former McCain campaign member Bobby May's satirical prediction for Barack Obama's drug policy if he is elected president.

The McCain campaign dumped Virginia organizer Bobby May after word got out that he'd written this op/ed, a racially loaded attempt at satire.

May predicted that, amongst other things, President Obama would:
-restrict 2nd Amendment rights to "gang-bangers, illegal aliens, Islamo-Fascist terrorists, and Sen. Jim Webb's aide"
-graffiti the White House and raise taxes for the paint
-replace the "Star Spangled Banner" with the "Black National Anthem"; and,
-mandate all churches to teach 'Black Liberation Theology.'

A McCain campaign spokeswoman acknowledged that these kinds of attacks have no place in political discourse.

Max Hardcore goes to jail, real torturers stay free

Glenn Greenwald has a great post about the irony of the 4-year jail term handed to pornographer Max Hardcore this week in Florida.

Hardcore produced and distributed pornographic films of consenting adults simulating torture. For this, he's off to federal prison for four years.

Mind you, Max Hardcore movies are disgusting. Susana Breslin describes some of the sexual degradation scenarios that Hardcore's actors play out.

However, the CIA interrogators who videotaped the torture and degradation of non-consenting prisoners are still free.

The same Justice Department that defended the legality of "enhanced interrogation" methods has named mainstream adult pornography a top enforcement priority.

Private military contractor to investigate Blackwater

The State Department will outsource the investigation of Blackwater's conduct in Iraq to another private military contractor, US Investigations Services.

USIS trained Iraqi commando teams under a Pentagon contract.

The late Col. Ted Westhusing was investigating possible contract violations and human rights abuses by USIS personel in Iraq when he died under mysterious circumstances in 2005.

So, USIS is an ideal choice for the Bush administration to investigate a massacre by private military contractors.

McCain threatened federal official over telescope and lied about it

John McCain threatened a U.S. forest supervisor's job in 1989 and lied about it, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

At the time, McCain adamantly denied threatening the official, but documents obtained by the Review-Journal cast doubt on the candidate's heated denial:

McCain had already shown a willingness to throw his weight around, according to some involved in the Mount Graham project.

At one point, he targeted Jim Abbott, a U.S. Forest Service supervisor he blamed for slowing progress on the observatory.

 

McCain was alleged at the time to have told Abbott that he would be "the shortest-tenured forest supervisor in the history of the Forest Service" if he didn't help the project move forward.

Federal law prohibits threats that obstruct or impede the work of federal employees.

McCain, when confronted with the allegation in the early 1990s, adamantly denied threatening Abbott and railed against anyone who accused him of misconduct. Abbott later backed McCain's story.

But Gibbons and other GAO investigators charged with examining the scientific fights over the project also reached conclusions about related personal clashes.

An internal GAO memo from 1990 obtained by the Review-Journal refers to McCain's "admitted threat" to the forest supervisor. The memo was designed to remain between the GAO and McCain's office. Its contents have never been made public before.

Ironically, the fight was over the construction of a giant optical telescope in McCain's home state of Arizona.

Ironically, McCain loves to bash earmarks, a more traditional strategy for facilitating pet projects in a legislator's district. He brags, falsely, that he has never asked for earmarks.

He has openly mocked federally funded science projects, including the $4 million the USGS has spent compiling genetic profiles on grizzly populations in Montana.

This episode shows the lengths McCain was willing to go to deliver the kind of federal spending that he would now deride as pork.

[HT: bmaz.]

In NY, a grassroots push to repeal Rockefeller Drug Laws

Community activists in New York are gathering signatures on a petition urging State lawmakers to reform the Rockefeller Drug laws.

With their stiff manadatory minimum sentences, these laws are among the harshest in the nation, even after the partial reforms of 2005:

Amendments to the laws had reduced the minimum sentences, Mr. Gangi said. Now, for defendants convicted of selling two ounces or possessing eight ounces of heroin or cocaine, judges are given a sentencing range of 8 to 20 years, he said. But he said the sentences were still mandatory.

“Eight to 20 years is still a very long sentence for a relatively minor offense,” Mr. Gangi said, adding that judges do not have the option to order alternatives to jail, like drug treatment. [NYT]

Organizers hope to collect 35,000 signatures before the end of the year.

McCain campaign member race baiting in Virginia

Stay classy, Bobby May:

A local newspaper columnist, in a spoof of Obama’s platform, wrote in one recent piece that the Democrat would hire the rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black (a reference to a pro-Obama song by Ludacris), and divert more foreign aid to Africa so "the Obama family there can skim enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American Dream." He joked that Obama would replace the 50 stars on the U.S. flag "with a star and crescent logo," an Islamic symbol, and that his policy on drugs would be to "raise taxes to pay for Obama's inner-city political base."

The columnist, Bobby May, is also treasurer of the Buchanan County Republican Party and was listed in a July news release as the county's representative on McCain's Virginia leadership team, though he said his column reflected his views alone, and he denied it was racist. [LAT]

I wonder if the McCain campaign will ask him to step down, or give him a promotion.

Beyerstein wins Project Censored award

My story on the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act has been chosen as one of Project Censored's top 25 most censored stories of the year.

I'll be speaking about the story on October 9 at the Sonoma State University School of Journalism in Senoma, CA.

Sonoma State University
Fall 2008 - alternate Thursdays
             (Aug 28, Sep 11 & 25, Oct 9 & 23, Nov 6 & 20, Dec 4)
Lectures begin at 7 PM
Darwin 103

Story: Examining the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, In These Times, Nov 1, 2007.

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society Joins NewAm Roster

Big news: Darcy James Argue's Secret Society signs with NewAm Records.

McScary

John McCain seethed a the editors of the Des Moines Register earlier this week. The seething contempt is difficult to watch, especially when you think back to McCain's jovial public persona in the good times. It seems like the stresses of the campaign trail are really getting to him. Look at his posture.

The best part is when McCain snarls that he's not an astronaut, but he knows the challenges of space.

Would you buy a used space shuttle from this man?

The media used to be John McCain's base. Now, we're bothering him. Ten bucks says he takes a swing at a reporter before the campaign is over.

James Nachtwey breaks his story: Multi-drug resistent TB

Photojournalist James Nachtwey is the winner of the 2007 TED Award. The TED prize is $100,000 and one wish to change the world. Nachtwey's wish was for help breaking an unspecified story. Today, Nachtwey's photo essay on the emerging global threat of extreme multi-drug resistant tuberculosis was published online.

Here's the photo essay as a video slideshow:

You can also view his harrowing black and white stills on the project website, XDRTB.org.

7-year-old rampages in reptile house

A 7-year-old boy broke into the reptile area of an Australian zoo where he fed several rare lizards and a large turtle to a crocodile and bludgeoned other reptiles to death.

Zoo officials told CNN that the security system probably failed to go off because the boy was too small to trigger the motion detectors.

The zoo plans to sue the boy's parents for damages. Good.

FDA funnelled money through AK native corp to DC PR firm

The Food and Drug Administration wanted to give a propaganda contract to Qorvis Communications, but they didn't want to open the contract for competitive bidding, so the agency funneled $300,000 through an Alaska native corporation with the understanding that the work would be subcontracted to Qorvis.

Alaska native corporations are curious entities that were created as part of land claims settlements about 30 years ago. These companies enjoy set-asides for federal contracts, which means they can circumvent the competitive bidding provisions that apply to other firms seeking to provide goods and services to the federal government.

Unscrupulous federal and corporate operators figured out to game this system a long time ago. The Native corporation puts its name on the paperwork and the work gets subcontracted to the same companies that would have bid on the work themselves. Of course, the natives who are supposed to be represented by the corporations don't usually see much of the profits.

While major corporations use native corporations to thwart competition rules, small minority- and woman-owned businesses are struggling to negotiate the federal contracting system.

The "expectations game" is stupid

Reuters reports that the "expectations game is in full swing" ahead of tonight's vice presidential debates.

According to conventional wisdom, it's better for a candidate to surpass low expectations than to fall short of high expectations.

So, we're treated to the unusual spectacle of partisans throwing cold water on their preferred candidates and lavishly praising the other side.

We've got Obama's right hand man, David Plouffe proclaiming that Sarah Palin is one of the best debaters in American politics.

Perhaps the most ridiculous example of this tactic was when Republican operative Matthew Dowd said that John Kerry was a better debater than Cicero.

Is there any evidence that this ritual actually works? It's better to under-promise and over-deliver than it is to disappoint.

Then again, we see what we expect to see. That's what the soft bigotry of low expectations is all about. When we start with low expectations, we're apt to seize on evidence that confirms our belief--and vice versa.

Does anyone have any empirical evidence to support the notion that artificially distorting expectations works? Or is this just another irrational pregame ritual?