Tag: Politics

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McCain breaks his word on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

Three years ago, John McCain had this to say regarding the United States’ discriminatory policy on homosexuals serving in the military:

“The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to.”

Today, the leadership of the military – Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen – testified to the Senate Armed Service Committee that it is time to change the policy. McCain’s response to the military’s highest leadership?

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been an imperfect but effective policy.  And at this moment, when we are asking more of our military than at any time in recent memory, we should not repeal this law.”

Admiral Mullen testified, “It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.… I cannot escape being troubled in the fact that we have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.” But apparently that’s not good enough for Senator McCain any more.

John McCain has been an interesting character to me, and my coverage of him on this blog reflects that. I’ve given him high praise for his sometimes unpopular stand on torture, and endorsed him in the Republican primaries. But despite the noble values the Senator sometimes espouses, this is not the first time he has made a complete political about-face – check out his argument for troop withdrawal from Haiti in the early ’90s compared to his unflinching support of our current extended occupations in the Middle East.

It’s one thing to be a “maverick” and express your views even when they conflict with political convenience. It’s another thing to actually follow through on those views as an honest man. I honor your opinions, Senator McCain, but I question your integrity when you won’t stand by your own commitments.

Uncategorized

The New Three-Fifths Compromise

In short, the Supreme Court ruled today that proprietors of corporations are entitled to more freedoms than non-proprietors.

Does anybody remember the three-fifths compromise?

When considering this case, did the Supreme Court consider Section 2 of the fourteenth amendment? It states:

Representatives shall be apportioned …counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed…

A corporation is now a “whole person” under this interpretation. It is owned by “whole persons” who are already guaranteed representation, making them count more than once. This is literally a revival of the three-fifths compromise, as some are entitled to more representation than others. It’s unjust and tyrannical.

One last thing, for those who would argue that corporate personhood is fair because corporations are taxed: taxation does not a person make. I’d actually argue that double taxation should not exist for this same reason; as corporations are collective property of real people, those people should pay personal taxes on their capital gains instead of the corporate “entity” being taxed instead. This preserves the concepts of “no taxation without representation” and “one person, one vote” equally.

Tech

Google Grows a Pair

I’ve long disapproved of American companies’ willingness to go along with oppressive regimes’ human rights abuses. Some companies have given information on dissidents to governments and helped in the apprehension of political prisoners. This has attracted significant attention over the years, both in the media and in Congressional inquiries.

For years, Google has censored search results on their Chinese domain, Google.cn, in an effort to keep their site from being blocked by the “Great Firewall of China,” which blocks access to countless sites on an unpublished Government blacklist.

Today, Google made public their findings of targeted malicious break-ins to Google accounts of various activists for Chinese human rights, both within China, and in the U.S. and Europe. The attacks weren’t exclusive to Google, but widespread across other major companies.

Amazingly, after finding this, Google has made the decision to fight back and stop participating in China’s self-censorship mandates:

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

I applaud this policy decision by Google. It’s a shame that American companies benefit so often from doing their business in ways that support corrupt governments, and our own country should do more to prevent it from happening to others.

China is growing and has the potential to improve the quality of life for people worldwide, but it has some very disturbing issues that it needs to address as it matures

Tech

U.S. Intel failed on Underpants Bomber due to Misspelling, Software

Well, this isn’t good. According to an official White House review, the intelligence community failed to notice red flags about the underpants bomber. Why? The software that would have correlated intel and raised alarms was rendered ineffective by a one-letter misspelling of the would-be bomber’s name.

From the White House’s review of the government’s failures in the Flight 253 debacle:

Mr. Abdulmutallab possessed a U.S. visa, but this fact was not correlated with the concerns of Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father about Mr. Abdulmutallab’s potential radicalization. A misspelling of Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name initially resulted in the State Department believing he did not have a valid U.S. visa. A determination to revoke his visa however would have only occurred if there had been a successful integration of intelligence by the CT [counterterrorism] community, resulting in his being watchlisted.

According to Talking Points Memo, Abdulmutallab’s name was misspelled by just one letter.

Via TPM

Travel

On Yesterday’s “Terrorist” Incident

Airport security yet again failed to catch a person’s improvised weapon aboard a plane yesterday. Passengers yet again proved that they aren’t going to let shit happen on a plane in the first place. The cabin of a plane is no longer a viable place from which to carry out a terrorist act.

The American government responded by adding more “security” measures.

I’d feel a lot safer if my government focused on making less enemies in the world instead of treating us all as if we are the enemy ourselves. That isn’t the kind of self-fulfilling prophecy I like.