A Progressive on the Prairie » Politics

Obama ballot challenge rejected

Tim — Fri, 11 May 2012 19:30:23 +0000

Bob Mercer reports that the state Board of Elections voted 6-0 this morning to reject a challenge filed by a Rapid City man to President Barack Obama being on the ballot in South Dakota.

The vote was not based on the validity of the claims that Obama isn’t a natural-born U.S. citizen, uses someone else’s Social Security number and posts a false birth certificate. Instead, as Cory pointed out, the challenge is not within the scope of the federal law on which the complaint was based and, as a result, the board lacks jurisdiction.

No word on whether the complainant participated in the 11 minute teleconference. One thing that is certain is that this certainly isn’t the end of these accusations.

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country – and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.

Charles Krauthammer, October 1994

Elections + Obama + zealots = ballot challenge

Tim — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:56:03 +0000

We see all too frequently that getting information in today’s world isn’t the problem; it’s the ability to evaluate it. Latest case in point? The regular meeting Friday of the South Dakota Board of Elections includes an agenda item on a complaint filed to keep President Barack Obama off the ballot.

Thomas Scheveck ~~beats three old horses~~ raises three points in his formal complaint (which I’ve redacted to remove some addresses and phone numbers).

Obama is not a natural born citizen of the U.S. as required by the U.S. Constitution but, rather, “a British subject.”

Obama is using the Social Security number of someone born in 1890 (although I’m not sure what that has to do with the constitutional requirements).

The copy of Obama’s birth certificate on the White House web page “is nothing more than a computer-generated forgery,” a “clever paste document.”

Now, granted, I don’t keep up on the news, particularly Fox News or what passes for “facts” on WorldNetDaily. But it only takes a trip to the Snopes website to see that the claims of Obama not being a natural born citizen, using a dead man’s Social Security number and having a forged birth certificate have been debunked. But then, I’m probably unaware that Snopes is owned and operated by the same Jewish banker Masonic cabal commanding the black helicopters of the New World Order.

Given that South Dakota has a total of three electoral votes and hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in nearly 50 years, including including voting for Nixon over its own George McGovern, I’m guessing Obama isn’t going to sweat how he does here. It’s just too bad a citizen board like this needs to spend time and money entertaining political fantasies.

(Big hat tip to Bob Mercer.)

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

Winston Churchill, Thomas Jefferson, Nov. 24, 1808

Mein Kampf returning to Germany

Tim — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:46:49 +0000

Monday’s announcement that Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is going to be republished in Germany for the first time since the end of World War II brought a couple thoughts to mind.

I find it interesting that the State of Bavaria holds the copyright to the book. According to the news report, Bavaria took over the rights as part of post-war de-Nazification. A bit more surprising is the fact that, while banned in Austria and Russia, Mein Kampf has not been banned in Germany. It just hasn’t been published because the Bavarian government didn’t want to inspire neo-Nazis.

With Bavaria’s copyright set to expire in 2015, the state is trying to beat neo-Nazis to the punch in republishing the work. It plans to publish the book with “commentaries on the text debunking Hitler’s arguments.” An edition tailored for schools is also planned. That all leads to the most philosophical question. Should Mein Kampf ever be published in the German states or Austria?

To me the answer is simple — yes. That, of course, stems from my intractable view that the only way to defeat despicable speech is to expose it to the light. Republication in Germany may inspire some wannabes and assorted miscreants but we can never change the fact that cranks, racists and bigots tend to attract their kind. With or without commentaries, the horrible events Mein Kampf brought to the world and Germany will magnify just what Hitler’s ideas were and what they meant.

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

Justice Louis D. Brandeis, concurring opinion, Whitney v. California (1927)

Local newspaper censorship of Doonesbury is hypocritical

Tim — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:51:21 +0000

Open today’s Argus Leader and you’ll see a couple editorials on the “public’s right to know” in the local section. Go to the next section, though, and something is missing — today’s scheduled Doonesbury comic strip. Instead, the Argus ran an old strip. Where I come from — which is the same place as much of the editorial staff at the Argus — keeping the public from reading something is known as censorship.

Now the First Amendment doesn’t apply to newspapers because they are private businesses, or, in the case of the Gannett chain that owns and runs the Argus, a multibillion dollar corporate conglomerate. But it seems particularly hypocritical for a newspaper that loves to tout itself as a bastion of First Amendment values to censor a comic strip.

What’s so offensive about the Doonesbury many other newspaper published today? Well, Garry Trudeau has been lampooning some of the abortion laws we’re seeing in this country, a third rail shibboleth in this state. Here’s the actual strip:

Although the Argus cut the strip without comment or explanation, I’m guessing it will say it was too graphic for a “family newspaper.” Yet there is no question it is highly topical. And I’d wager that the middle-aged white males who are dictate our state’s policy on abortion and similar social issues are lurking in the minds of the newspaper and its decision-makers.

It’s ~~too bad~~ unforgivable that the Argus is so willing to sacrifice the First Amendment values it claims to protect.

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

The puzzle of party politics

Tim — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:29:07 +0000

Okay, I’ve got a poli sci degree, I was a political reporter and I stay fairly up to date. But I evidently have grown or remain blindly (or perhaps happily) ignorant to much of politics.

For the first time in my 36 years as a registered voter, I voted Tuesday as a registered Republican. The reason was simple and certainly not nefarious or Machiavellian. For 24 years I’ve been lucky enough to practice law with Dave Knudson, who was seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Although Dave left our firm at the end of last year to campaign full-time, he is undoubtedly one of the brightest and most astute people I’ve the pleasure to know. My personal experience working with Dave left no doubt about his ability to identify problems and find workable solutions, skills South Dakota desperately needs.

So although a lifelong registered Democrat, earlier this year I registered as a Republican to vote for him in the primary. Don’t be mistaken. Our politics are different and there are issues on which Dave and I disagree. Yet I have always known Dave to consider arguments from all sides. He investigates and considers issues before deciding. I realize many in the GOP may have considered Dave “too liberal.” Yet my still naive heart of hearts tells me we are in dire need of elected officials who base their decisions on considered evaluation, not playing to a particular constituency or the latest partisan bandwagon. Dave is one such person.

Even knowing little of state GOP politics, I figured Dennis Daugaard had the inside track. But to see the scope of his win and where Dave placed in the race seemed to prove that labels may still carry too much weight in political races. Or it could simply be that me voting for a candidate is a kiss of death. (I did not cast votes in the Congressional primary or the legislative races, only for candidates for two county offices I knew were imminently qualified for the position they were seeking — and one of them lost.)

I’ve known Scott Heidepriem longer than Dave. But despite that and the fact more of Scott’s views are probably closer to mine on many issues, I would have voted for Dave in the general election had he prevailed in the GOP primary. That’s how much respect I have for his talents and abilities. And while I don’t doubt that Dennis Daugaard is a good and qualified man, I believe the South Dakota GOP missed the boat yesterday.

There is silver lining for both me and the GOP. I am hopeful that once Dave has some deserved post-campaign R&R, I will again have the fortune of practicing law with him. And South Dakota Republicans need not worry about my name besmirching their rolls. My new change of registration goes out in today’s mail. And lest you think this was just a Democrat just having a bit of fun with the GOP, my disgust with the dominance of partisan politics in our country means I will now be a registered independent.

…there is a wide difference between the politician and the statesman. A politician … is a man who thinks of the next election; while the statesman thinks of the next generation.

James F. Clarke, “Wanted, a Statesman!”, Old and New, Vol. 2