Last Call

Turns out not only do I owe TPM's Paul Werdel an apology for spotting this on Friday where he flagged down that the Romney administration really is making a serious foreign policy shift by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's rightful capital, but that he was right for reasons that I didn't even consider.  In his speech Sunday, he declared a sea change in US policy if he is elected:

Romney's declaration that Jerusalem is Israel's capital was matter-of-fact and in keeping with claims made by Israeli governments for decades, even though the United States, like other nations, maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv.

He did not say if he would order the embassy moved if he wins the White House, but strongly suggested so in a CNN interview.

"My understanding is the policy of our nation has been a desire to move our embassy ultimately to the capital (Jerusalem)," he said, adding, "I would only want to do so and to select the timing in accordance with the government of Israel."

His remarks on the subject during his speech drew a standing ovation from his audience, which included Sheldon Adelson, the American businessman who has said he will donate millions to help elect Romney to the White House.

So not only was Werdel right when he said this on Friday:

So, accepting that Romney is aware of the significance, it seems likely he’s prepared to signal a very real, very controversial departure from decades of U.S. peacemaking policy, and put the weight of his potential presidency behind a declaration that he believes Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. That would be a very big deal. 

...but Romney apparently really has decided to throw away any pretense that Bibi Netanyahu does not control our foreign policy totally.  The Palestinians are livid:

US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s endorsement of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is “harmful” to US interests in the Middle East, a senior Palestinian official said on Sunday.

“Romney’s declarations are harmful to American interests in our region, and they harm peace, security and stability,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.

“Even if this statement is within the US election campaign, it is unacceptable and we completely reject it. The US election campaign should never be at the expense of the Palestinians,” he said.

“Romney is rewarding occupation, settlement and extremism in the region with such declarations.”

Romney is insane.  I absolutely believe electing him means open war with Iran now.  All indications are that Netanyahu used Romney to say what was on his mind to attack President Obama, and Romney was more than happy to go along, doing the bidding of a foreign leader to go after the President.

That's the kind of guy Mitt Romney is, of course.  In order to score campaign points, he's using a foreign power to do it with on top of now hoping to force President Obama to change decades of stated US foreign policy to benefit a foreign power.  That's dangerous as hell.  Romney doesn't care.  He'll do anything to win.

Even if it means a major diplomatic incident.

Voting Against All Odds

The Cincinnati Enquirer has a major story today on widespread voter disenfranchisement in the state, finding that Ohio regularly tosses thousands of valid votes due to a combination of a "confusing maze of state laws, administrative directives and court rulings on voting procedures, errors – by voters and poll workers alike – and other factors".  Republicans will of course tell you it's working as intended.

    The problems call into question both whether every Ohioan’s vote will be counted Nov. 6 and whether the state, always pivotal in close presidential races, can assure the nation a timely, accurate and lawsuit-free count.

    “If the Wednesday headlines the day after the election say, ‘All eyes are on Ohio,’ it probably won’t be a good thing,” said Ed Foley, an Ohio State University law professor and a nationally respected expert on election laws.

    In Hamilton County alone, hundreds of votes are routinely disqualified in major statewide elections because they are cast in the wrong precinct, often only feet from the correct location. Hundreds more votes have been tossed out for another relatively minor miscue: voters’ failure to seal an inner envelope containing their absentee ballot.

    “Every vote is a voice,” said new Hamilton County Juvenile Court Judge Tracie Hunter, who owes her election to a federal court ordering local officials to count some contested 2010 ballots. “People fought, bled and died for the right not only to vote but to have that vote counted.”

And yet the disenfranchisement is -- surprise! -- most likely to happen in Ohio's three largest urban counties, Hamilton (Cincinnati), Cuyahoga (Cleveland), and Franklin (Columbus).

    The Enquirer’s examination of how well Ohio is prepared for November found:

    • Unless voters take a more proactive approach about how and precisely where to vote, poll workers improve their performance over past elections or courts order new changes before Election Day, tens of thousands of ballots are likely to be disqualified.

    • Ohio has adopted only a few of the changes recommended after the 2008 election to improve registration, Election Day and vote-counting procedures.

    • All 88 Ohio counties have prepared lengthy election administration plans outlining their preparations for November, including recruitment and training of poll workers, steps to ensure that individuals vote in their correct precinct and how to process ballots. Some, however, have failed to make adjustments that could help remedy past electoral problems.

The bottom line is that in a state that may be decided by a few thousand votes, we could see tens of thousands of votes thrown out.  A healthy chunk of them will be in the state's most urban districts.  Nothing's changed since these institutionalized problems cost John Kerry the state and the election in 2004, problems created through years of neglect.  Now Ohio may decide the White House or control of the Senate once again.

And keep in mind, Ohio does not have strict Voter ID laws like neighboring Indiana or Pennsylvania.  Imagine if it did.  Tens of thousands more would be disenfranchised.  And this will only get worse.

Video Stupidity: Paralyzed Woman Uses Bionic Suit To Walk

"Walking never gets old for me," she says looking at the camera.

Moving is something most of us take for granted.  If we want something across the room, we can hop up and get it.  Some of us even complain at having to expend the energy.  But for someone who can't walk, it's a miracle to be able to move again. 

Bomb Threats Now 80% Off

At least seven Walmarts across Missouri were evacuated this week because of bomb threats, KCTV reports.

Stores in Gladstone, Raytown, Nixa, Ozark, Jefferson City, St. Peters and Piedmont all received threats Friday evening.

Dan Fogleman, a spokesman for Walmart, told The Kansas City Star that any retail establishment may be subject to such an event. He added however that it was uncommon for so many to be threatened in one evening.

"We're concerned anytime someone makes a threat that may endanger our customers," Fogleman told the paper. "We're grateful that no one was injured and we apologize to our customers for the inconvenience. We will work very closely with police in these jurisdictions."

Nixa and Ozark were among those affected, but none within Springfield city limits.  Was this an orchestrated prank?  A distraction or response test?  Nobody seems to know yet.  However, people were more annoyed than concerned by the bulk of the reports.  I'm pretty sure no blowout on school supplies is worth my safety.  There have been no more calls since this original incident.  If an update becomes available we'll share it here.

Follow Up To Marine Story

I got a few comments and quite a few emails about the marine story that ran yesterday.  Let me add just a couple of things, in a way that I think will reach most of our readers:

1.  I apologize for the soldier comment.  I do not come from a military family, and I did not realize that the word did not apply to all who fight on behalf of their country.  I used the wrong word, and would never intentionally offend anyone who risked life and limb to protect me.  I did not check dictionary.com before using the word soldier, but when I went there this morning it does clearly mention a person serving "in an army" and did give a general definition of someone with military skill.  I sent them a note explaining our conversation here, to make amends for what is clearly a common misunderstanding of how the word soldier applies to Marines specifically.

2.  I got a couple of comments that seemed to think I was saying this was unheard of for a Marine.  I did not intend to sound shocked beyond belief that a Marine would show this level of dedication.  I think it's amazing, generous and beyond awesome.  But I am not surprised, I simply felt it should be shared so we see another side, and can enjoy simple pride in the goodness of another person.

I hope that resolves the bulk of the comments, and thank you all for correcting my choice of phrasing.

Oops! Where Did I Leave That Kidnapping Victim Edition

NEW YORK -- An NYPD detective has been suspended without pay after a kidnapping victim was found tied up in his Queens garage, sources tell NBC 4 New York.

Sources say Ondre Johnson, a 17-year veteran of the Brooklyn North gang unit, was being questioned by internal affairs about his involvement in the kidnapping of a 25-year-old victim off the street early Friday morning.

A ransom note was left, and there is some confusion as to what this detective played in the kidnapping.  Several men have been arrested, including a cousin of the detective.

In the meantime, for the first time outside of a bad 80s movie, he has been "stripped of his gun and badge" while this is sorted out.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Things that Supreme Court Justice Antonin "Wario" Scalia thinks you have a right to:  rocket launchers.

In the wake of a massacre in Colorado that left 12 dead and 58 wounded, host Chris Wallace asked Scalia if the Constitution would support assault-type AR-15 rifles and 100-round clips.

The justice explained that under his principle of originalism, some limitations on weapons were possible. Fox example, laws to restrict people from carrying a “head axe” would be constitutional because it was a misdemeanor when the Constitution was adopted in the late 1700s.

“What about these technological limitations?” Wallace wondered. “Obviously, we’re not now talking about a handgun or a musket, we’re talking about a weapon that can fire a hundred shots in a minute.”

“We’ll see,” Scalia replied. “Obviously the amendment does not apply to arms that can not be carried. It’s to ‘keep and bear’ so it doesn’t apply to cannons.”

“But I suppose there are handheld rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes that will have to — it’s will have to be decided,” he added.

Things that Supreme Court Justice Antonin "Wario" Scalia thinks you do not have a right to:  birth control.

During an interview on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Scalia why he believed that it is a “lie” that women have a Constitutional right to abortion.

“Nobody ever thought that the America people voted to prohibit limitations on abortions,” the 76-year-old conservative justice explained. “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says that.”

“What about the right to privacy that the court found in 1965?” Wallace pressed.

“There’s no right to privacy in the Constitution — no generalized right to privacy,” Scalia insisted.
“Well, in the Griswold case, the court said there was,” Wallace pointed out.

“Yeah, it did,” Scalia agreed. “And that was wrong.”

But please go ahead and tell me how it doesn't matter if Romney gets to pick a couple more Supreme Court nominees in the next four years.   Also, what the hell is a Supreme Court Justice doing on FOX News?

Wimping Out

You think the media is a little pissed off at Mitt Romney over shutting them out of his Israel trip and only letting them in at the last minute?

I'm going to say "yes".

In 1987, this magazine created a famous hubbub by labeling George H.W. Bush a “wimp” on its cover. “The Wimp Factor.” Huge stir. And not entirely fair—the guy had been an aviator in the war, the big war, the good war, and he was even shot down out over the Pacific, cockpit drenched in smoke and fumes, at an age (20) when in most states he couldn’t even legally drink a beer. In hindsight, Poppy looks like Dirty Harry Callahan compared with Romney, who spent his war (Vietnam) in—ready?—Paris. Where he learned ... French. Up to his eyeballs in deferments. Where Reagan saddled up a horse with the masculine name of El Alamein, Mitt saddles up something called Rafalca—except that he doesn’t even really do that, his wife does (dressage). And speaking of Ann—did you notice that she was the one driving the Jet Ski on their recent vacation, while Mitt rode on the back, hanging on, as Paul Begala put it to me last week, “like a helpless papoose”?

Like I said, the Romney campaign declared war on the Village back in early July.  Only one problem:  the Village has now decided to fight back.  Things just got interesting, because as Mitt is finding out, the only thing worse than our fickle, power-hungry, egotistical press is our press in a bad, bad mood.  On the other hand, the plan to attack the press worked wonders for Sarah Palin.

Too bad Mitt Romney isn't Sarah Palin.  McCain was on to something in 2008 after all.  After all, when Bibi Netanyahu owns your testicles...yes, you get called a wimp.

StupidiNews!

• The UN, citing the Red Cross/Red Crescent in Syria, are reporting some 200,000 have fled Aleppo ahead of  imminent open civil war for the country's second-largest city.
• Scientists are pushing for further exploration of one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus, a 310-mile rock complete with water and atmosphere.
• Fans and athletes alike are voicing concern to London games organizers about the number of tickets at events given to corporate sponsors and not being used.
• In a clear sign the luxury home market has recovered, sales of homes in the Hamptons on Long Island in New York are back to summer 2007 levels.
• Both Apple and Samsung will have to admit evidence in their patent trial battle as public knowledge, rankling both sides and worrying suppliers for both companies.

Last Call

Shorter Romney camp to America's press:  Know your role and shut your mouth as the Romney team decides to put an end to the gaffe factory by simply excluding the media on his trip to Israel.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, who touched down here Saturday night for a day of meetings with top Israeli and Palestinian leaders, plans to wrap up his visit to Israel by collecting money from some of his biggest benefactors behind closed doors.

Some of Romney’s Jewish donors are flying here from the United States to attend the Jerusalem fundraiser on Monday morning, including Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has pledged to personally give tens of millions of dollars to a pro-Romney super PAC.

But Romney’s campaign announced Saturday that it would block the news media from covering the event, which will be held at the King David Hotel. The campaign’s decision to close the fundraiser to the press violates the ground rules it negotiated with news organizations in April, when Romney wrapped up the Republican nomination and began opening some of his finance events to the news media.

Under the agreement, a pool of wire, print and television reporters can cover every Romney fundraiser held in public venues, including hotels and country clubs. The campaign does not allow media coverage of fundraisers held in private residences.

Campaign spokesman Rick Gorka declined to explain the campaign’s decision to violate protocol with the Jerusalem event. Pressed repeatedly by reporters to offer an explanation, Gorka said only that the fundraiser was “closed press.”

“That’s all I’ve got for you — it’s closed press,” Gorka said. 

Translation:  screw you for the London trip.  Your job is to help Mitt get elected, not "report objectively on the facts".  This is the Romney camp putting the media "in its place" for daring to report on unflattering news.  LA Times political reporter Maeve Reston summed it up on Twitter:

The length to which Romney has gone to try to avoid making news on this trip is beyond mind-bending. Why are we here again? 

To which she gets a brutally truthful answer from National Review's John Podhoretz:

@MaeveReston Who told you to go along?

Such is our "media".  The Romney camp declared you the enemy weeks ago if you had been paying attention.

By the way, can you imagine what kind of coverage and what kind of screaming Barack Obama would have gotten by going to a foreign country, holding a fundraiser with billionaire fat cats, and then closing it to the press?

Think about it.

Arms Akimbo

Negotiations for the UN Small Arms Treaty, globally regulating the flow of firearms, has completely collapsed.  Some are blaming President Obama.  Smarter people are blaming the NRA and the gun lobby that controls our politics.

The United Nations indefinitely suspended action on an international arms trade treaty Friday after the United States and several other countries asked for more time.

The decision sparked angry reactions from human rights groups often allied with the Obama administration, who believed a treaty to regulate the export of deadly weapons to rogue regimes was within reach. The UN had spent the entire month of July hammering out a deal, and Friday was the deadline for an agreement on a treaty that has met with the staunch opposition of the National Rifle Association and bipartisan concerns in the Senate.

“This was stunning cowardice by the Obama administration, which at the last minute did an about-face and scuttled progress toward a global arms treaty, just as it reached the finish line,” said Suzanne Nossel, the executive director of Amnesty International USA. “It’s a staggering abdication of leadership by the world’s largest exporter of conventional weapons to pull the plug on the talks just as they were nearing an historic breakthrough that would have required all nations to deny arms export licenses where there was an overriding risk that the weapons would be used to facilitate serious crimes against humanity.”

And Scott Stedjan, Oxfam America’s senior policy advisor, called the failure “a tremendous loss for thousands of innocent civilians around the globe who die each year from armed violence fueled by the unregulated transfer of arms.”

The treaty never would have passed the Senate, period.  Under no circumstances would the United States ever ratify an international gun control law.  Blaming President Obama for "stunning cowardice" is pointless when our Senate is bought and paid for by the NRA and firearms makers.  The treaty itself only affected transfers of firearms to foreign countries and specifically was changed to protect the Second Amendment, but that of course meant the gun makers couldn't ship thousands of weapons to rogue regimes and warlords willing to pay big bucks.

Doesn't matter.  Our society is ill and corrupt in many ways, and this is one that will continue to kill for years to come.

Touching Story Passes Snopes Test

Ah, Snopes, you made me proud today.

I compulsively check the rumor-crushing site that lets me know when circulating stories are made up or embellished.  I checked this one out, fully expecting it to be confirmed as too good to be true.  Stuff like this doesn't just happen.  Except this time it did.  That awkward moment when you expect something to fail and it blows you away instead.

The super condensed version will never touch the full story, so please read it here.  The condensed version goes like this: 12-year-old boy has been sick his entire life.  After beating leukemia for a third time he contracts a brain infection that is going to kill him because of his compromised immune system.  He has expressed repeated admiration for Marines.  The Marines decide to make him an honorary member.  The boy's health fails, and one soldier stood guard outside his hospital room all night until he passed away.  The solider and the boy's family stay in touch.

That's all I can do without tearing up, but please check it out.

Senseless Stupidity

(CBS News) WASHINGTON, Mo. - A 17-year-old Missouri mother was killed when her car was hit by a truck driven by a 13-year-old girl.

Authorities say a Franklin County Deputy was on Highway 47 around 12:04 a.m. early Friday when he saw the 13-year-old's truck cross the shoulder line.

The deputy tried to make a stop, but the suspect did not yield.

Deputies said the driver lost control of the truck while approaching the intersection of Highway 47 and Highway 100. The truck then hit 17-year-old Aubrey Nothum's Mazda, which was stopped at a traffic light.

This is the sort of thing that I read over with my niece and nephew.  They are old enough to think up stunts like this and young enough to possibly give in to stupidity.  The reality is, dumb kids do this all the time.  Unfortunately, the reality is also that things like this can happen.  A mother gone, a child left to grow up never having known her, and a teenager left with guilty and memories that will never go away.  Everybody loses, and it was all preventable.

I Was Blind But Now I See

The conversion of climate change skeptic and UC Berkeley physics professor Richard Mueller to a believer in the overwhelming data supporting man-made climate shifts was to be expected, but let's remember that his skepticism was turned into a cause celebre' by the wingers and the Koch Foundation, who gave him a lot of money in order to test his skepticism.  He did and found that it's the deniers on the right who have always been full of hot air.

My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases. 

These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded only that most of the warming of the prior 50 years could be attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the I.P.C.C. consensus statement, that the warming before 1956 could be because of changes in solar activity, and that even a substantial part of the more recent warming could be natural. 

Our Berkeley Earth approach used sophisticated statistical methods developed largely by our lead scientist, Robert Rohde, which allowed us to determine earth land temperature much further back in time. We carefully studied issues raised by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the available temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations and poor ones) and from human intervention and data adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions. 

I'm hoping that this will put an end to the debate and allow the country and the world to move on to try to do anything before it's too late.   Sadly, there's little to no chance of that as long as Republicans and the uncaring corporate masters remain in power over our political process.  Mueller too calls for action:

What about the future? As carbon dioxide emissions increase, the temperature should continue to rise. I expect the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace, about one and a half degrees over land in the next 50 years, less if the oceans are included. But if China continues its rapid economic growth (it has averaged 10 percent per year over the last 20 years) and its vast use of coal (it typically adds one new gigawatt per month), then that same warming could take place in less than 20 years. 

Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and should be done. 

Sadly, as long as our politics are controlled by people who believe that evolution never happened and that the Earth is 6,000 years old, we will continue to do absolutely nothing.  Another 1.5 degrees in 20 years would be a catastrophe.  And yet if nothing changes, the summer of 2012 here in the US will be considered mild by comparison very very soon.

Last Call

Here's hoping House Republican Ways and Means Committee chair Dave Camp of Michigan recovers fully from his recent diagnosis of treatable cancer, he has non-Hodgkins lymphoma and will be undergoing chemo treatment.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp has been diagnosed with a "very early, highly treatable and curable" type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and will undergo chemotherapy during the next few months, his office announced Saturday.

As chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, Camp heads one of the most powerful panels on Capitol Hill. The news comes as the House is set to vote on an extension of all the Bush-era tax rates for one additional year, with guidelines for enacting comprehensive tax reform in 2013.

Per the statement from Camp's office:

“After a recent routine yearly physical, it was discovered that I have a very early, highly treatable and curable type of non-Hodgkins lymphoma – large B-cell lymphoma. My treatment will take place every three weeks over the next few months. It will consist of a series of chemotherapy sessions. In between treatments I will continue my work as a United States Representative for Michigan’s Fourth District and as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Thankfully my health is otherwise excellent and my doctors and I expect a full recovery and cure. My family and I appreciate the support, good wishes and understanding we have received.”

That's good to hear, all politics aside, cancer is something I would never want to see anyone suffering from.

Having said that, as a member of Congress, Dave Camp has no worries about medical bankruptcy or being able to pay his medical bills, and he'll get the best treatment available, even if he wasn't a multimillionaire.

And Dave Camp has a serious problem it seems with people getting health insurance assistance from the government.  Oh, not seniors on Medicare, no.  Just poor people who probably vote Democrat if they vote at all.  He says he wants to craft "common-sense solutions" but of course he has no actual plan.  None of them do.

But he has no problem with you going bankrupt trying to treat your cancer, our Dave.

It's nice to be one of the one percent, isn't it?  Now shut up and get back to work.