Unrecognizable, Part One of Too Many

I no longer recognize America. Not the America I grew up believing in and learning about and reading about and sharing with all the other citizens of the world around me.

According to the AP, a Justice Department study showed that a staggering 62% of those who are incarcerated have not been charged with a crime yet.

Innocent until proven guilty? How quaint.

What's it going to take until we all wake up and realize that democracy is dying?

Or have the frogs already been boiled and don't realize it yet?

I'm a fixer

Headline:

Senate Votes To Make English The National Language

Wait... that's not right. There's something wrong with that... here, let me fix it:

Senate Votes To Make English Republicanese The National Language

There. That's much more truth-y.

Unofficial results

The unofficial results for the one race I cared about in today's Oregon election are in.

Looks like the new Multnomah County Chair is Ted Wheeler.

The voters overwhelmingly voted against Diane Linn. I tried to do my little part; wonder if it had any effect.

Now let's just see if Ted can clean up this ingrown, festering pool of favoritism...

Voting report

I voted today. I, personally, love vote-by-mail, although as a traditionalist, I also miss the ritual of going down to the precinct voting place and all that goes with it. Basically, I love voting. As Howard Dean once said,

"Democracy requires participation. If all you do is vote, you barely get a passing grade."

(paraphrased from memory of a speech he gave last year in Vancouver, Washington which I attended, so don't get all uppity if I got it wrong.)

I have a general rule, and a corollary and a recently-added special case that follow from it: first, I tend to vote against the incumbent. Rarely am I satisfied with the status quo. There's always another politician that suits my views of policy and agenda better. It's just the way it is. I have sometimes voted for the incumbent, but it hasn't happened often.

The main corollary for the general rule is that if someone is running unopposed, even if they're not the incumbent, I don't bother voting. Why? If enough people opt out, that might mean they don't get in, if the position requires a certain percentage of voters. And if not, I'm sure they'll get at least a few votes and mine won't have much impact.

The special case has happened since the 2004 elections, and the emergence of Howard Dean (see, there was a reason I quoted him) as a force for motivating the grassroots progressives. In a general election, I will vote for the Democratic candidate. Sure, I would have rather had another nominee than John Kerry, but in a contest between Kerry and Bush there was no hesitation. Kerry would have been light-years better than Mr. Twenty-Nine Percent, Nixon-without-a-brain, George W. Bush.

Don't ask me what I'll do if Hillary Clinton gets the nomination in '08. I'll take that as it comes, thankyouverymuch. For now there's the mid-terms to deal with.

There were lots of local races to deal with in Oregon's primary, and one of them as I was making my way through the voter's pamphlet and deciding between the choices was the position of Multnomah County Auditor. Two candidates, and neither of them were incumbents. Odd. One worked in the Auditor's Office, though, and the other was a college professor and a state representative. So, I voted for the state rep/professor.

Moving along, the next position on my ballot was for Metro Auditor (Metro is... um... a quasi-governmental agency that oversees the Oregon Zoo and waste management in the Portland area). And we had two nominees here, too... the incumbent Auditor... and...

The current Multnomah County Auditor! Was this a lateral move on her part? Sheesh. I couldn't rightly vote for either one of these clowns.

So I wrote myself in. Heh.

Reluctant thanks

We found out this week that three big telcos, AT&T (Cingular), BellSouth, and Verizon, have been voluntarily handing over the phone records of tens of millions of Americans to the NSA. I could write about that topic forever, but for the moment my attention was drawn to a particular detail; the fact that, of all the telcos, only Qwest refused to cooperate.

Qwest.

I've blogged before about how Qwest is my mortal enemy for all their years of bad customer service, culminating in a horribly botched phone number transfer that dragged on for months, a situation only resolved when I turned them in to the Oregon Attorney General, the Better Business Bureau, and the Oregon Public Utility Commission. Ugh. I have vowed never to do business with Qwest again.

But considering how their executives have apparently taken a stand against totalitarianism... well, I had to do something.

I work in the same building as the Qwest Public Relations office for Oregon. As I was leaving work yesterday, I found myself on the elevator with someone from one of the floors above me, where their offices are. She was a middle-aged lady, dressed in business attire.

"Are you a Qwest employee?" I asked her.

"Yes, I am" she replied.

"I just wanted to say, I've had problems with Qwest in the past, but I wanted to send along my thanks to Qwest for their stand against the NSA." The words all rushed out of me.

She chuckled and said, "Oh, yes, that's an interesting story, isn't it?" She seemed amused.

The elevator doors opened. As I held the door for her, I said, "Well, it's one small step away from a police state. I appreciate it."

She said nothing as she left and walked out of the building. I got the strangest impression that she didn't agree with Qwest's actions.

Which, strangely, made me feel better about continuing to dislike Qwest. But just a little bit less for their stand.

BRO / Diane Linn

I had an email conversation with Roey Thorpe of Basic Rights Oregon, or BRO. My main question concerned the relationship between BRO's political organizer and Equality PAC co-chair Alisa Simmons and Diane Linn's campaign manager, Alisa Simmons.

Turns out they're the same person.

Some folks, myself included, believe that to be a conflict of interest, considering BRO gave Diane Linn their endorsement in the election for Multnomah County Chair. The feeling is that having Ms. Simmons both manage Ms. Linn's campaign and be on the board giving their endorsement might lead some to believe that the endorsement could be based on personal relationships or even a base financial motive, rather than the merits of the candidate.

As a side note, my earlier post contains a misunderstanding on my part: I confused BRO as a whole, with their Equality PAC, which is a separate entity. Ms. Simmons, as I stated above, is the political organizer for BRO but is also the co-chair for the Equality PAC. I regret the misunderstanding.

My email conversation with Ms. Thorpe on this topic were respectful and enlightening. Ms. Thorpe states that Ms. Simmons was not present when the Equality PAC board discussed the endorsement - she left the room. Also, when I raised the issue of Ms. Simmons being paid by both the Diane Linn campaign and BRO, Ms. Thorpe assured me that board members are not compensated by BRO. She agreed with me that there would be a conflict of interest if a paid staff person were to also serve on a political campaign. I acknowledge her admission. Because I do agree with BRO's basic mission, bringing equal rights to all Oregonians, I am glad I investigated the issue myself and am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

However, there is still the appearance of impropriety, I believe, even if it's not a financial one. Assuming what Ms. Thorpe told me is true, the board for BRO may have been technically correct. Someone hostile or even neutral to BRO's mission is not going to be so accomodating, and BRO is being politically naive if they think that someone can't make political hay out of how they've acted. Perhaps they can believe and portray themselves to be above-board. But they must expect others to see their actions in the weakest possible light, and to use that view to demean their political reputation.

Either BRO is expecting their opponents to take the high road, or they are covering for a political mistake. They would do well to be more open and public with their actions and to take into consideration how their political opponents may view them to ensure that they can maintain their effectiveness in the public eye.

This, too, is an issue that reflects poorly on Diane Linn. Where BRO appears guileless, Diane Linn and her campaign appears willfully insulated from how the public percieves her. Did Ms. Linn really not see how this would look? Is she that blind to her repuation? She has squandered whatever political capital she may have gained two years ago when she was forced to allow same-sex marriage by Multnomah County counsel Agnes Sowle.

In my conversation with Ms. Thorpe she mentioned that BRO needed people with knowledge of Oregon politics, and that meant relying on people who often worked on candidate campaigns. My suggestion for her, based on my own experience (limited though it may be) is that the people with intimate knowledge of a political machine is often someone with a vested interest in the status quo. Perhaps it would be best not to rely on such folks. An entire section of the manifesto of the blogosphere, "Crashing the Gates" by Moulitsas and Armstrong, is that the professional consultant class and the political insiders are not adequate leadership. A similar lesson, I believe, can be applied to Oregon.

If you're working for systemic change you don't need to be incurring favors from the folks currently benefiting.

Conflict of interest alert

The local blog BRO Watch apparently is dedicated to blogging about Basic Rights Oregon, which is itself a PAC dedicated to equal rights.

Well, the blogger at BRO Watch has pointed out a teensy-tiny conflict of interest.

BRO gave Diane Linn its endorsement in the election for Multnomah County Chair. And I'm sure the endorsement had nothing at all to do with Alisa A. Simmons' being on the Board of Directors for BRO and Diane Linn's campaign manager.

In the comments over at BRO Watch, Ms. Simmons claims, post-facto, that she comported herself with "absolute integrity".

Why do county executives and their hirelings seem to think that denials are the best way to approach a conflict of interest? From my vantage point the problem is systemic.

Let me spell it out for any county managers (or anyone else confused by this concept) who may be reading:

The way to address even the appearance of a conflict of interest is to publicly remove yourself from the entire process.

Claiming afterward that you were fair just doesn't cut it. Sorry.

As a side note, the blogger(s) at BRO Watch link to the BRO Board of Directors page and say that Ms. Simmons was the Chair. That page shows Jim Morris as the Chair; Ms. Simmons is listed as the "Political Organizer". I wonder if BRO changed their website recently? Like, since BRO Watch posted about this issue?

The most recent entry for that page at the Wayback Machine is dated 14 May 2005, and lists Ms. Simmons as "Co-Chair". Too bad there isn't a more recent entry. If I hear back from BRO on this I will update this post.

Senator Ron on CNN

Found the transcript from today's CNN Situation Room with Senator Ron Wyden. Wanted to toss up a link. Haven't had a chance to discuss it yet - I'm heading out for a run. I'll read it when I get back.

G'head and dissect it and post in the comments. I'll be back in a bit.

Senator Ron doesn't get it

My Democratic Senator appeared on CNN's The Situation Room today and (apparently) said this about General Hayden, Bush's nominee to replace Porter "Poker and hookers" Goss at the CIA:

I have substantial questions about the nominee's credibility. ...

It's possible to fight terrorism ferociously and still protect privacy. [General Hayden] has talked at length with the Intelligence Committee about privacy, but earlier this year he became the Bush Administration point man for warrantless surveillance. ...

We need somebody independent of the Pentagon; somebody to tell the truth to the President. We don't need any more of this 'slam dunk' syndrome. Your viewers will remember it was George Tenet who said the invasion of Iraq was a 'slam dunk'.

I'm going to find and read a full transcript of the interview. You know Ronnie's on the Senate Intelligence Committee, right?

But, c'mon... does he really think that Bush is going to appoint anyone who will "tell the truth" to the President? People who tell the truth to Bush get demoted or fired, not promoted.

Flip-flop en español?

Digby has a post up that pulls up some old news: that George W. Bush featured a Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in his initial campaign.

It's so old, apparently, that the national media has apparently completely forgotten about reporting it. That's pre-9/11 thinking, I guess. In fact, they're reporting that Bush is dissing the Spanish national anthem.

There are letters to the editor to our local daily, the bOregonian, that whine about how all the brown people need to shut up or learn English.

I'm not sure how I feel about the immigration issue as a whole, but this fear of people who still want to be part of our country even after our leadership has shown such hatred and contempt towards them just doesn't sit right with me. Let's call it what it is: bigotry.

If any of my readers have to deal with bigots who get all up in arms about the recent marchers waving a Mexican flag, or racists who clutch their pearls and wail about translating the national anthem into some brown people's language, just send 'em this link and ask them if maybe those folk swiped their translation from George W. Bush.

Then run for cover because the bigot's head is sure to explode. Fun!

Update

: Apparently the Cox News Service report that Digby quotes above is incorrect, according to the Washington Post (by way of Think Progress) - Jon Secada was not singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish, he was singing "America, The Beautiful" in Spanish.

And I'm apparently (happily, in this case) incorrect that the national media is ignoring the contradiction. I regret the error. But expect some flack from your bigot friend, co-worker or family member on the correction, as I'm sure they'll dismiss it if it doesn't come from Fox "News". Better not to tell them where it's being reported...

Tribune on a roll

The Portland Tribune is on a roll with regards to Multnomah County and Chair Diane Linn. Today's edition features three stories about the county.

Car Wars

In a story beginning on the front page above the fold (but not the top story), the Trib details the case of Cecilia Johnson, a department director for Multnomah County who had been taking a county car home with her for more than a year, not paying gas for gas, maintenance, or insurance on the vehicle, nor did she pay the taxes that using an employer-owned vehicle incurs.

The county's position is that the investigation into Ms. Johnson's use of the car is "ongoing." However, retiring CFO Dave Boyer had headed up the investigation... and concluded in February that her use was improper. Apparently, the fact that the Board has not disciplined Ms. Johnson and is stalling is one of the straws that caused Mr. Boyer to resign in disgust.

Ms. Johnson, like her boss Diane Linn, claims that it wasn't her fault, that she never used the car for personal business, and that she's an unfortunate political victim of the feud between Chair Linn and CFO Boyer.

The best quote from the story (in my opinion) is from Ms. Johnson's lawyer, Nick Fish:

He also said he believes Johnson’s role in hiring a diversity consultant two years ago to assess county employees’ attitude about diversity and racial issues in their employment could also be influencing the investigation. The consultant’s report detailed more than 100 allegations from county employees of discriminatory behavior. Johnson is black.

“That investigation and the fallout caused a lot of heartburn at the county,” Fish said. “And frankly, the way Cecilia has been treated not only confirms the finding of the investigation, but also retaliation. Because they’re not treating her fairly.”

See, because she stirred up a bunch of trouble over race, then obviously she's in trouble not because she mis-used a county car, but because she's black. It's not her fault!

The Commissioners are the ones directly responsible for department directors. Why have they failed to act in this matter? Why would the chief of staff for Chair Linn want to "keep this to ourselves", as he apparently advised Dave Boyer?

Hmmm... I'm speculating here, mind you, but... could it be... that Chair Linn, who is facing re-election... might be suppressing this to get sympathy from black voters?

The Opposite of the Midas Touch

The second story is part of the Sources Say column, written by Nick Budnick. In the first section, Mr. Budnick brings up the Great Linn Calendar Cook-Off and Chair Linn's assertion that this is just dirty politics, that her opponents have cooked up a minor scandal and sully her reputation.

Mr. Budnick has this to report:

Following last week’s allegation that County Chairwoman Diane Linn directed staff to falsify her calendar before making it public, her denials could make things worse for her. Why? Because her accusers, former Linn aides Laura Bridges and Kathy Turner — whom Linn has portrayed as liars seeking to elect her opponent, Ted Wheeler — are well-known in Portland political circles.

Bridges, who once led the nonprofit X-PAC, is widely known and respected among local progressives — which explains why, on the Democratic blog Blueoregon.com, people have been trashing Linn and attesting to Bridges’ “unimpeachable” credibility.

Turner, meanwhile, worked for then-Commissioner Jim Francesconi before joining Linn and was viewed in City Hall as an ethical player who avoided controversy.

So Linn's line isn't going over too well with those in the know. And Mr. Budnick is making sure that those who might be outside the political community know about the reputations of Linn's accusers as well.

Good job, Nick!

Recap

And finally, columnist Phil Stanford gives a tidy recap of the Linn Calendar Cook-Off pros and cons before summing up his position - firmly in the Schadenfreude camp:

None of which, of course, addresses the question of whether the time schedules should have been altered in the first place — but hey, the silly season is upon us. Whatever would we do without election campaigns to entertain us?

Fine Linn Line

Well, where to turn for more information on all this? How about Chair Linn's newsletter, where she talks about all the great things she's done for the county, also known as The Linn Line?

...hmm, no, nothing there about her calendar nor her political enemies. Damn shame. It'd be a much more interesting read if she'd just rant a little about how everyone is against her.

Maybe next time.

Transcript Tuesday #3

This week for Transcript Tuesday I'm going to do something a little different. As I did twice previously, I focus on the trial transcript for the case of Lea Lakeside-Scott vs. Jann Brown and Multnomah County, which took place before the Honorable Michael W. Mossman for the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, from 16 November 2004 to 18 November 2004.

The full transcripts can be found archived in plain text or in Adobe Acrobat formats in the Lie Factory's archives.

The following section takes place in open court, but the jury has not been called in. It's near the beginning of day 3, the last day, and earlier in the proceedings Judge Mossman was urging counsel for the plaintiff, George Fischer, and counsel for the defendants, Jenny Morf and David Blankenfeld, to try to keep things moving.

The defense is preparing to call to the stands Monna Hogue, who was Ms. Lakeside-Scott's direct supervisor prior to Ms. Lakeside-Scott being terminated. In the three years since that termination Ms. Hogue has contracted a neurological disorder, gone on sick leave, and was terminated almost a year later.

As we begin, Judge Mossman asks counsel for the defendant:

THE COURT: Are you prepared to call this witness?

MS. MORF: We're ready to call this witness.

MR. FISHER: I am objecting to the appearance of the witness, Your Honor, given the delay in my accessing this witness, and that the period of time I did have available that you kindly extended to me was taken up in some discussion in whether or not county counsel represented this witness, and they are asserting an attorney-client privilege in this matter. I think that's a specific misstatement of the law; that the Oregon Bar has issued opinions specific to this point, saying that public employees, even if they were at management level, are not represented by the County even if they were part of the decision-making process.

And so I was not able and not permitted to make the inquiry that I wanted. Questions were taken out of the room so that I could not hear the discussion between counsel and the witness. And so I feel that the conduct up to this point in anticipation of this witness is prejudicial to my client, because I have not had a chance to adequately, from day one in this case, to have access to this witness, and because she is a key fact witness, for the jury to decide about whether or not there was an exchange authorizing my client to access these documents is extremely prejudicial to my client. And so for that reason I would move to strike the witness.

MS. MORF: Your Honor, with regard to this witness, Mr. Fisher just ended the meeting shortly, and he said it was a waste of time and he believes it's a waste of time because Ms. Hogue isn't going to say something that furthers his client's case.

With regard to the attorney-client privilege, I understand that as a matter of course employees who are no longer employed by the County are not automatically entitled to the attorney-client privilege. However, that does not mean that county counsel cannot represent individual employees who no longer work for the County who are being asked to engage in matters because of their employment as a manager with Multnomah County. And that's all I'm doing here.

Mr. Fisher had the opportunity for additional questions, and he told Ms. Stephens that it was a waste of time and he didn't want to continue. So, I would also note that Mr. Fisher had the opportunity to give written deposition questions to Ms. Hogue. He did so. There were 56 questions with several subparts, and so probably he had over 200 questions. He also had the opportunity to do follow-up questions, but he didn't do it.

So, I mean, the fact that at this point he is not happy with the testimony that Ms. Hogue is about to give, I don't feel that that should not allow her to testify.

THE COURT: I'm going to allow the witness to take the stand. I understand Mr. Fisher's position. It's not that he's not happy with the answers, he is quite understandably not happy with not having had a true chance to depose this witness before she takes the stand. So we'll call her on the chance that I'll hear more about this later, since we've -- we're wasting the jury's time right now, and strike the whole testimony. I do feel there's a serious issue about whether she is taking the stand in a way that has allowed him a fair opportunity to prepare for the testimony, and it may well be also that if she can't communicate through the process of cross-examination, that her inability to communicate through cross-examination would affect whether I allow her direct examination to stand.

With that in mind, we can call the witness.

The county was attempting to assert attorney-client privilege for a former employee of the county, a manager.

Not being a lawyer myself, I'm not certain if that is an appropriate assertion for county counsel to make. However, one of Lea Lakeside-Scott's defenses was that Monna Hogue had directed Lea to assemble the documentation that showed management abuse of email, and other abuses of the public trust.

As I have demonstrated in the past, I believe Multnomah County management uses intimidation as a management tool. I'm speculating that Multnomah County intimidated Monna Hogue into changing her testimony to help the county and to weaken Lea's case.

When the jury was faced with a monolithic response from management who had much to cover up, and an opposing but equally consistent response from the staff who had much to lose simply by speaking up in the face of such intimidation... Deciding between the two became an issue of credibility. Who does one believe?

As noted before, the jury believed Lea and her witnesses. The county's intimidation tactics failed in this case.

Non-review of "United 93"

Call me un-American, but I honestly have no desire to see "United 93".

Although I still might go see it. I'm just... I don't know, there's just so much else wrong about our country these days, and much of it stems from that murky time before 9/11, believe it or not.

For example? Go read what The Boston Globe has to say and get back to me. The events of 9/11 did not trigger the walking, talking Constitutional crisis that is the Republican party.

It only enboldened them.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to "execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on presidential power.

But with the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override.