6,400 Terrorists and Anti-Terrorists

That's how many individuals the government has concluded have committed terrorist acts according to a recent report using Dept. of Justice data analyzed by the non-partisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Did you have any idea there were so many? I didn’t. It’s not surprising—now that I think about it. How do we define a terrorist? This study has brought up an interesting point. The GAO has reported that the government’s classification is flawed and both the GAO report and the TRAC report note that there’s little evidence that the government has taken steps to improve the accuracy of its terrorism-related data assessment capabilities.

Apparently, the DOJ added a new classification since 9/11 called “anti-terrorism,” which according to the DOJ, covers immigration, identity theft, drug and other such cases brought by prosecutors that were "intended to prevent or disrupt potential or actual terrorist threats where the offense conduct is not obviously a federal crime of terrorism.” Hmm.

About 3,500 of the 6,400 committed terrorism-terrorism, so the number was almost doubled if you include these anti-terrorists. (Take a look at fig. 2 of the TRAC report for definitions of the post-9/11 classifications).

Even more interesting, I think, are the conviction numbers (compare figures 1 and 3). Notice that of the 879 total convictions (out of the 6,400-plus cases which include anti-terrorism and terrorism-terrorism), only 341 of those convictions were for terrorism-terrorism cases. My math says that less than half of the convictions since 9/11 were for real terrorist activities. Aside from the obvious point that we've convicted less than half of real terrorist related prosecutions, isn't it odd that only 341 cases are convicted for real terrorism out 6,400 referrals for prosecution for what our government is calling terrorism? How can the DOJ say, with a straight face, that there's a reasonable explanation for the large gap other than they're clearly stretching the idea of terrorism?

I’m not claiming that there are mischievous intentions at play on the part of the DOJ or the Bush Administration; there are many ways you can approach an analysis here. I’m simply noticing that we’re doubling the pool of potential terrorists since 9/11. Why?

Mandate

Who knew a single word could be so powerful? The great Mandate Debate has spawned endless discussion on the Sunday talk shows and newspaper editorials. Here’s one definition of the word:

[n] (Politics) the commission that is given to a government and its policies through an electoral victory

It appears to be simple, right?

The Washington Post notes that while Bush won more votes than any previous presidential candidate (over 59 million), second place goes to John Kerry, who took 56 million votes. This President’s policies represent the will of 51% of voters. He wins, so give the man a mandate! Here you go; take your policies and execute. The people have spoken.

But the important thought to consider is not whether the President was awarded a mandate, but how convincing that mandate actually is. How does his mandate translate to political capital?

Capital: [n] assets available for use in the production of further assets.

Bush knows that our country is sharply divided (how could you think otherwise after seeing the vote tallies?). In his victory speech, he said, "We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it." He knows he hasn’t yet earned the support from many. Yet, he later said that "Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style." Tell me, what capital has he earned other than his official mandate which gives him authority to execute the will of the people? More people voted against him in 2004 than in 2000. More people dislike his policies now than they did at the start of his presidency. What has he done to reach out to mend the divide? Without mending, how has he earned capital?

He has the same capital he’s always had: Republicans like him; Democrats hate him. He’s earned nothing but the right to execute the will of the people, as mandated by the election. The will of the people is not a strong will this year; it’s defined by only 51% support. His capital is as weak as ever.

Ohio Recount

It looks like we're headed for a recount in Ohio. Check out the Bloggermann by Keith Olbermann, who has been covering the post-election activities consistently for weeks. His November 22nd post has a detailed description of the recount plans in Ohio.

On NPR, I heard the executive director of the National Voting Rights Institute talking about their involvement in addressing voting problems. They're going to be in Ohio investigating as well.

Who is going to pay?

Congress is considering a scale back of college grants for hundreds of thousands of low-income students. I've been trying to think of an alternative for students who will no longer be able to afford college. Should I just consider them out of luck or should I blame them for not having been born in wealthier families? I'm sure somebody somewhere has a complicated theory explaining the virtue of cutting spending here, but as long as we're keeping kids from getting the help they need to go to college, let's be honest about why and talk about it openly.

I'm sure someone could come up with an explanation for not adjusting to the budget shortfall, but let's be sincere about this; we couldn't come up with the extra $300 million needed to keep the old aid formula in place for another year, so kids are going to suffer. Meanwhile, tuition is rising across the nation. I’m tired of talking about policy without addressing the real effects policies have on people—as though people are just players in a model. Let’s be clear that while there are always trade-offs in our decisions, real people get hurt. We should talk about how we’ve hurt them and why we chose to help others instead of them.

What is the virtue of spending $380 million to track the entry and exit of immigrants to protect us all from terrorism when we fail to protect lower income families from slipping into poverty? Is protecting all kids from a future of economic grief not at least equally virtuous?
Even if I can be convinced that tax policies can increase jobs and economic prosperity for the lower economic classes, it’s a fact that jobs and economic stability don’t appear overnight. There will be kids and families who will lose hope of improving their standards of living because they lost funding for college this year. If we’re going to let many slip by until a new budget or alternative comes along, let’s say so--let’s be clear that they’ll be sacrificed. For a government that touts accountability in education, they suck at practicing it.

The Energizer Bunny is Naked!

Free speech is not guaranteed. Your ability to express yourself depends on the content, the context and the consequences of your expression. Acknowledging that a line that limits the freedom of speech will always exist, it seems a bit high these days, doesn’t it? Has anyone ever heard of the FCC spreading fines and threaths like they have this year? Is it any surprise that a conservative like George Bush won re-election or that Al Gore, a long-time critic of modern music lyrics, was the democratic candidate in 2000? We've always been conservative, haven't we?

In a previous post, I argued that companies and individuals should consider society’s interests, in addition to their own, when making decisions. Whose interests are being considered when we limit speech on this level? How is it that we worry about a woman in a towel on the one hand but networks will air cheerleaders in skimpy uniforms during football games?

I’m not a communist

Aside from the usual taunts for being “liberal” and of the flag-burning persuasion, I’ve been called a communist on two occasions in my life. The first time I was labeled a communist, I was just 15 years old. My 8th grade teacher, who will remain nameless, called me a communist in front of my entire history class after questioning why I had planned to play soccer in high school rather than football. “What don’t you like about football? Is it the hitting? I guess you communists rather play sissy games with your feet than real games with contact.” (It’s worth mentioning that this teacher’s sport-of-choice was baseball—a really violent game for non-sissies, I guess.) To his credit, he gave me a good grade despite chiding me openly several times for being a girl. Also to his credit, his knowledge of guns and frequent rants about hunting proved useful in pursuing success beyond the 8th grade. Honestly, all I remember from that class is that he had once hunted a squirrel with a Howitzer. Is that even legal? The second time was a few months ago. I was arguing with a public policy classmate about the role of government —a dry conversation among public policy students that somehow turned personal when he threw out the c-word. Silence followed and I turned away slowly trying my best not to kick his ass thoroughly.

(skip down if you're not interested in the boring details) I had argued that there is no evidence in public policy or economics literature of an inherent advantage to providing services through markets or private provision and that the merits of privatization vs. public provision are dependent on the characteristics of the industry, the level of government—whether it’s local, state or federal—and the state of existing markets, i.e. whether they’re competitive, have players with market power, etc. I had just finished a summer of studying privatization theories so I thought I had some pretty good arguments to make here, not intending at all to suggest that capitalism is a bad thing; it’s just not perfect and certain services and products are sometimes better left for public provision. Sensing a certain amount of hostility to begin with, I even started by conceding that as long as accountability, efficiency, and equity concerns can be addressed, private markets tend to be better providers than public; it’s just quite often the case that these concerns are not adequately addressed. I guess he decided not to hear that part.

Anyway, I’m writing this because I’m tired of childish name-calling on both sides. I admit that I’ve been guilty of this in some way, although I don’t recall ever calling a Republican a Nazi. Things are complex. Good debates get cut short without resolution when we resort to misusing labels or creating new ones that are vague and misleading, e.g. activist judges. The most disturbing thing about my story is that the classmate is actually pursuing an in-career masters degree in public policy and holds a prominent position in an Ohio county government agency.

Margaret

As most of us have probably heard today, it appears that Margaret Hassan has been killed by her captors. This is the saddest kind of news; she had worked for many years among the Iraqi people to try and improve conditions there, and her death is senseless. It is all the sadder when I consider the many thousands of other Iraqi civilians who have also been killed without such global attention, without the uniqueness of being a foreigner, but each sharing the fact of a family left behind and undoubtedly many contributions of their own.

Something else, though, makes this story even more persistent in my mind: Margaret was a friend of friends. Specifically, she was a colleague of my coworkers Rick and Mary, who have (until recent months) been living in Baghdad doing relief work for our organization. They were here in Philadelphia the week before last, on a speaking tour until it is safe enough that they can (they hope) return and resume their work. I had a chance to speak with Rick, and he mentioned that Margaret (who was at that point being held hostage) had had them over to dinner not so long before (and vice versa) and that they knew her well. Just today, I learned that another friend of mine from work, who works closely with Rick and Mary on Iraq issues, knew Margaret, too, as well as the Italian women who were kidnapped and released in September.

I know that many Americans (let alone Iraqis) have experienced the losses of this war even more closely, many of them having military friends or family members who've been killed in the war so far. Some of them even manage to believe they died for a noble cause. For everyone who has lost someone, though, there are thousands of people whose lives will not be immediately affected by this war, by these decisions, by this violence. Regardless of their political leanings, many people will watch this war and make their judgment of it with the luxury of distance. All I can say is that it looks very different when the pronouns are replaced by the names of people you know.

Nan for President ’08!

Just kidding. It turns out I’m short about 300 million dollars, a career in politics, an on-camera personality, the skills and knowledge needed for international diplomacy, and a Karl Rove-like mastermind at my side (so is President Bush–well, he has Karl Rove and 300 million bucks, but that’s not the point).

Also stopping me–and The Terminator–is Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution. How is this ban still in place? Even if there is a major push to amend the Constitution, do you honestly think it could pass with the required two-thirds votes in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states?

I want justice (and power).

Don't go, Colin!

It's official! Colin Powell is resigning. I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed with this. After reading Plan of Attack, I feel like we're losing a necessary balance to Rumsfeld and Cheney.

Press too easy on President Bush?

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press did a recent survey of journalists. It's an interesting snapshot of the state of the news media and how they rate their own coverage of President Bush and the election. Not surprisingly, Fox has the most striking profile in terms of political point of view; nobody else comes close.

The Point

I was watching the local news late last night (my first mistake!), drifting between sleep and semi-consciousness. I got up to go to bed just as The Point, a commentary by Mark Hyman, was wrapping up. When I got up, I rewound in my head what I had been watching so I could get my daily “I hate the local news” feeling before going to bed. The problem was I couldn’t distinguish what I had seen during the regular news and what was featured on The Point. That’s a problem, isn’t it? Isn’t it a bad thing to have one guy use the news show context to deliver his opinion on news stories? Forget Fox. The news-opinion format has already hit our local stations and, not surprisingly, it’s in support of the same crowd.

Like many of you, the first time I saw Mark Hyman interrupt news broadcasts with a one-minute commentary called The Point, it took me some time to realize that he was not actually part of the local affiliate giving us a local commentary on news. In fact, it’s only recently that I realized that Mark Hyman is actually vice president of Sinclair Broadcast Group, the owner of 62 television stations who forced the airing of the anti-Kerry documentary before the election. The Point is aired across the country, dangerously blurring the line between news and political campaigning. Hyman uses the context of a news show to seamlessly evolve news into political commentary, hoping that you don’t notice and realize who he is, what his political affiliation is, what company he works for or how bias his point of view is against liberal positions.

Although Hyman’s anti-Kerry position is clear, he still insists that there was no bias against the candidate: Asked if there is bias at Sinclair against Kerry, Hyman said, “I certainly hope not. There shouldn't be."
Hyman desperately attempts to continue disguising himself and his show as independent from political affiliation, supposedly providing information that you’re otherwise not getting—information that is “newsworthy.” He’s betting on the hope that you don’t realize, or care, that Sinclair has donated an enormous amount of money to the Republican Party since 1993. But all you really have to do is check out Hyman’s recommended readings. See a trend?

Worst of all, the man encourages you to send comments via his website. Why? Maybe to continue the guise of independence from party affiliation, much like Bill O’Reilly discusses emails during The O’Reilly Factor. Do the opinions of others alter the point on The Point?

We can’t have another election allowing this. We need to re-examine the use of airwaves for political discourse. This is where the battle should begin for the Democrats; get the playing field even again (after we set uniform national voting standards!).

Bad handwriting can kill you

Are you ready for this? I agree with President Bush on something! (GASP!)

I'm thankful that President Bush has continued the work of previous presidents to restructure our nation's health records systems. He is doing something other than blaming lawyers for our health care problems, so my apologies to Republicans everywhere for implying that his limited focus of health care issues in mainstream discussions means that he’s not doing anything else to address other health care problems.

The Institute of Medicine, the Dept. of Health and Human Services, and others have performed many studies on the state of health records and the impact that written records and filing systems have on our health outcomes. The IOM put together an interesting fact sheet about this and the Secretary of HHS has some interesting comments about medical errors. I’m glad to see that the my concern with depending on medical doctors’ handwriting for passing along critical information is justified.

I’m writing a grant with a non-profit organization to plan the development of an interoperable, electronic health records system in Ohio. LOTS of money is being spent across the nation on such projects. If you want more information, let me know and I’ll throw out more sources.

"Red scare" made less scary

I already posted this as a comment on another blog, but I thought it would be at least as appropriate (and encouraging) to post here:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

It's a page comparing the U.S. political maps we've been seeing this election with a more balanced depiction using cartograms. They distort the geography to depict area proportional to population, and represent closely contested areas with appropriate shades of purple, thus adjusting for huge and lightly populated areas and narrowly won states and counties. The effect is a much more intuitive, less depressing way to look at the electorate, and it avoids the "acreage" bias so apparent in the red/blue maps we've seen so much this season.

Call me cynical, but I suspect that these sorts of adjustments and alternative depictions would already be in common use in the mainstream media were the poll numbers reversed.

My pie tastes funny.

I don't know how representative these Northern Ohio numbers are of regions in other swing states, but it certainly underscores how much of an advantage the Republicans had with only one guy to raise funds for; Bush is shown outraising the next highest fundraiser (Kerry) by 23 percent, even though the total raised by all the non-Bush candidates combined beats his figure by 31 percent, the vast majority of it from the "mainstream" Democratic candidates.

The site's the best of its kind that I've come across. You can do other more fun things, too, like looking up salaries of your favorite RNC and DNC staffers, and seeing the top political givers from your neck of the woods.

Lest we forget...

Lord knows I don't want to dwell on this election for long, but I stumbled across an insightful piece (RealAudio, 15 min.) on NPR's This American Life that does a nice job encapsulating some of the most egregious voter suppression efforts that have so far been uncovered, the vast majority of them by the GOP or other right-wing groups.

"Bipartisan" means republican

Two Bush quotes to consider (italics added):

"With the campaign over, Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results. I will reach out to everyone who shares our goals and I'm eager to start the work ahead."

and

"I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it."

What are your thoughts on what these statements mean? The first quote is downright scary. Is that we he means by bipartisan? He’ll only reach out to those who share his goals?

Ohh!! Lawsuits are the problem!! Right...

Today, in Bush's first radio address since winning the election, he said that, "We must confront the junk and frivolous lawsuits that are driving up the cost of health care and hurting doctors and patients," an argument he hammered repeatedly over the last year. He’s at it again. THE ELECTION IS OVER!! You can stop feeding us crap now.

Check out this interesting Op-Ed from the New York Times on this issue http://reclaimdemocracy.org/articles_2004/malpractice_crisis_or_sham.html

Even if it can be established that the legal environment is part of the problem, why is the President of the United States making this one issue the focus of the health care debate. This typifies this administration. Arguments are framed in the most ridiculously simplistic terms, as if lawyers are the problem. This is why I can’t stand the modern Republican Party. They exploit our attention deficit tendencies, our media’s hunger for nifty sound bites, and they speak down to the ignorant among us. It’s insulting and they know it. I want to hear a republican acknowledge that Bush’s approach to policy debate is to oversimplify and misrepresent issues in a way that is unmatched by the democrats. Both sides do it; republicans have mastered it and democrats shamelessly react to it in kind. But republicans started this practice and are in complete power now, so the only way I’ll be satisfied at the end of the next four years is if republicans manage to change their ways. The dems will follow; I promise.

John Kerry Closure

Like many, I'm trying to get a handle on the post-election blues. Actually, I handled this election relatively well. I mean, I didn't get depressed by the result, just frustrated and a bit shocked. I guess I could still be in denial though.

I have to admit, I kind of lost it for a minute when I saw Kerry giving his concession speech. His voice trembled a bit a couple of times, especially when he said, "I wish that I could just wrap you up in my arms and embrace each and every one of you individually all across this nation." I'm not trying to be melodramatic here, but you could tell that he felt helpless. I don't think I was ever under the delusion that Kerry would fix everything, or anything of real importance. In fact, I disagree with him on many issues. But during his speech, I really felt a bond with Kerry, probably for the first time since his campaign started. I saw him as one of us--visibly shaken and not knowing how help make things better.

Any chance we can do the election over again? A do-over? I mean, if the Republicans really have a mandate, then what are they afraid of?

Goodbye, Mr. McAuliffe. Hello, Howie Dean!

I know it's too early to be talking about where the Democrats go from here, but I can't help it. I won't be surprised if nobody responds to this. I'm just now getting comfortable talking about the election without raising my pulse.

I've heard rumors of McAuliffe's firing in the DNC. He headed the 2002 and 2004 election efforts -- both failures. I've also heard Howard Dean's name mentioned as possibly the new chair of the DNC. Interesting! His success raising money for the dems in the primary election was unprecedented. It would also light a spark in the DNC and give us a chance for real party reform.

What about Bill Clinton?

Who loves Ohio?

I always knew that Ohio had a diverse population, especially after growing up in Oberlin. 62 percent of Ohioans voted for a constitutional ban on gay marriage while Bush got 51 percent of the Ohio vote. So that means that a chunk of Kerry supporters probably voted for the ban. Is Ohio that conservative? Maybe the dems should have polled Ohioans' views on gay marriage before pumping all of their money into this State. Maybe they would have found that a Kerry victory here was unlikely because we're a bunch of homophobes (not me though--you know what I mean). Hopefully they'll learn next time. Maybe they can try to convert a couple of midwest States, like Missouri and Iowa, instead. We may be a lost cause.

Fantastiko welcomes you!

This is it -- our piece of the rock, where we set the agenda and lay the smack down. Or (more likely) exchange ideas civilly, listen intently, and learn from each other and from our visitors.

Fantastiko was born in an hour-long coping strategy session between two friends on November 3rd, 2004, the day our dear Mr. Bush won a bitterly contested race for the white house. By welcoming our friends to the discussion, we hope this place will remind us that, despite what the election revealed, we're not as alone in our principles as we're tempted to feel. This blog will also offer little, but important, reminders that life goes on and that political confusion and disillusion can't penetrate everything. You'll sense a political theme in our topics, at least until the pain of the election begins to subside. Let's let the healing begin and get ready to get through the next four years together.

So post your heads off and don't hold back!

- Carl and Nan