Cheney and Gonzalas Indicted in Texas

Not waiting for the dust to settle on the election, a District Attorney in Willacy County, Texas has indicted Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzalas on seperate charges related to alleged prisoner abuse in federal detention centers. CNN reports:

The indictment stems from Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group -- an investment management company that reportedly has interests in the prison companies in charge of the detention centers, according to The Associated Press. It also charges Gonzales halted an investigation into abuse at the detention centers while he was attorney general.

That seems to me to be a conflict of interest on Cheney's part to begin with. Cheney's spokesperson indicated that he had not recieved an indictment.

Let's see what he tries to use to avoid this circus.

The Obama Transition

It's been two weeks to the day, and Obama has been busy. Settled is his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, and word has it that his Attorney General will be Eric Holder, the first African-American in that post. Holder was assistant AG under Clinton. Obama had also had discussions with Hillary Clinton, and Bill Richardson. Are the rumors about Hillary being nominated for Secretary of State a result of 'leaks' from the transition team to test the waters? He's even had time to sit down with John McCain, a meeting that must have been a bit awkward for them both.

The buzz on the inaugaration are that the demand for tickets is thousands of times higher than the available seats. Even if you are lucky enough to get a ticket (and who knows how our senators and representatives are going to handle the process), the chances of being able to get a flight, a hotel, and a place to sit (or even stand) are pretty small.

Ted Stevens Career Withering

As the last major block of votes are counted in Alaska today, Mark Begich's lead more than doubled to almost 3,000 votes. That puts him past the margin requiring an automatic recount. It remains to be seen if the Republican party requests one.

Meanwhile, the Alaska Supreme Court delayed issuing an interim suspension of Mr. Stevens law license, giving him a birthday present of a week's delay. According to Alaska law, suspending his license is required upon conviction of a felony. If he were to win his felony appeal, he can then appeal the suspension.

The US Senate also delayed it's vote to oust Mr. Stevens from the Republican caucus, hoping that the election results would make such a vote moot. He would still have the right to vote in the coming week's lame duck session, unless some bold Republican moves to oust him from the senate entirely, which is unlikely.

Mr. Stevens today was insisting that he would win the election. Why can't he just concede and retire like a gentleman? I'm sure his colleagues would appreciate the gesture, and probably find some kind things to say about his long career, ever since Alaska obtained statehood! Instead, he's just withering as we watch.

Count, Count and Recount

The counting in Alaska continues. Good news for Mark Begich(D) who is now up by 1061 votes. Lots more votes to count on Monday and particularly on Tuesday. He's up by .4% so is still in Recount territory. With his momentum, hopefully he will exceed the .5% automatic recount threshold. One never knows about Ted Stevens though. He's appealing his 7 felony convictions, so don't expect him not to demand a recount as well. Can't he just retire PLEASE!

Is America Ready for Same-Sex Marriage?

To disallow same-sex marriage by claiming that gay couples can have all the same rights under a civil union flies in the face of a plethora of civil and equal rights decisions by the Supreme Court. For example, desegregation rulings declared that "separate but equal" is not equal enough under the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. To bar same-sex marriages with this logic would open the door for the return of "Jim Crow" laws against minority groups of all types.

Ready or not, America cannot afford to go backwards to an era of "separation".

California's passage of Proposition 8 poses additional concerns going far beyond same-sex marriage. Using the initiative process to modify the state constitution via a simple plurality vote bypasses the court's jurisdiction and responsibility to protect the rights of the minority against the majority. The proposition reverses the change the court made in determining that the rights of the minority had been abridged. The suit filed against prop. 8 with the court seeks not only to throw out the proposition's results, but will have the effect of throwing out the entire process by which the California State Constitution can be modified. It is a landmark state constitutional question that needs to be answered. The initiative process is too easily influenced by outside special interests. Compared to the process required to modify the US Constitution, it is clearly lacking in the protections and oversight necessary to prevent abuse.

Sarah Palin's Future

As Sarah Palin makes the rounds of the network interviews, it seems as if she can't stop talking. For all appearances, she seems out to prove that she can talk to the media, although from what I've seen, the McCain campaign wasn't wrong to limit those opportunities. I'm still waiting for something coherent or of substance to be uttered by the former Republican running mate, and I've had no indication that it will be forthcoming anytime soon. If she's trying to disprove the polls showing her negative approval ratings and lack of readiness to be president, this media onslaught is not going to help. It may make it worse. She might do well to remember that the those poll numbers got worse the more people were exposed to her, and Obama's campaign really had little to do with it.

If Sen. Ted Steven's lead holds through the inevitable recount, and his felony convictions appeals fail, he'll be expelled from the Senate, forcing a special election in Alaska to replace him. Perhaps that would be the cracked open door Sarah Palin was talking about in recent network interviews that she is looking for her God to show her. She says she will barge through even the slightest opening in a door, clearly indicating that she's interested in a 2012 or 16 race. She would have to resign her position as governor to run for the Senate seat, but would be setting herself up for a future national campaign.

It would also be a good escape from the Governor's office. Since the price of oil has dropped down to around $60, Alaska's budget may actually face a budget shortfall next year with the drastic drop in oil tax revenue. The huge surplus they ran last year, that Palin refunded to Alaskans this year, goes away next year if oil stays below about $70. All signs are that it would be good to NOT be governor of Alaska next year.

Since Palin took office, she bet heavy on the price of oil staying high to pay for the big tax cuts and cash payouts she is so popular for. It looked great short term, but her budget strategy of taxing oil to replace more traditional and stable sources of revenue made government revenue highly dependent on the price of oil, and that has been in rapid decline to less than 40% of it's peak this year. With the current global recession, America's move to diversified energy under Obama's energy plan, and the Alaska natural gas pipeline at least 20 years away, the horizon for Alaska's economic largess is near. They are in an economic crisis, but "the fundamentals of the economy are strong". All of Palin's "experience" may be found wanting.

If she did end up running for the senate seat (and it's not clear that she would even have that opportunity), she could likely be facing Mark Begich, mayor of Anchorage and Steven's current opponent (if he could afford another run). It would not be a cakewalk. The economic reality of Alaska's oil revenue dependence might have started to show up in the state budget, and Palin has not been able to organize a state level campaign organization while running for national office.

As governor, when that extra check won't come next year, the budget is in crisis, and the taxes that were cut are put back in place, her popularity will quickly sour. Funny how a budget surplus, boldly distributed directly to state residents, will become a political liability as her speculation with the state budget on the price of oil comes to light. Using that surplus to ensure stability in the state budget would have been a better choice. Her failure to hedge the state's risk on the volatility of it's revenue stream will cost her political capital.

The Election Isn't Over Till It's Over

What you say?
Yes, the electoral college is yet to vote, and elections are yet to be certified. But we all know the outcome right? Let's look at Missouri.

The race has tightened over the last week. McCain now leads by less than 5,000 votes out of something close to 3 million. There are some 7,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted. 3,200 votes were recently 'found' in the electronic voting machines when it was discovered that they weren't tallied properly by poll workers. Until the election is certified in a couple of weeks, no one can request a recount. Why a recount? What's at stake? Missouri's bellwether status!

More important undecided races (unless your from Missouri of course) are Senate races. In Michigan, there are about 200 votes out of almost 3 million deciding the race between Franken(D) and Coleman(R). The lawyers are now wrangling over the recount process ala Florida 2000. In Georgia, the race is starting all over, with Chambliss(R) getting only 49.8% in a state where a plurality is required to win. It looks like every Republican presidential candidate from the primaries will be down there campaigning - McCain, Huckabee, Guliani and Romney are all slated to hit the campaign trail. Obama is sending aids from his campaign staff to assist Jim Martin (D) in getting all those people who voted for Obama to turn out again for this new battle. Too bad they didn't all vote for Martin to begin with. It seem there were a lot of ballots cast for Obama that didn't vote the rest of the ticket.

Of course, there is still the pending election in Alaska, where recently convicted felon and incumbent Ted Stevens is still leading by a few thousand votes. There are over 90,000 votes yet to be counted (mostly absentee ballots), half of which should be counted by this weekend. His opponent, Mark Begich will probably benefit from the absentee and early voter counts that are going on now. Of course, if things tighten up, there will probably be a call for a recount, and more lawyers arguing and deadlines for election certification looming. In any case, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint (R) is calling for a vote next week to eject Stevens from the Republican caucus. While not exactly expulsion from the senate (the GOP wants to wait until his appeals process is complete), it would remove him from any committees and any Republican only decision making process. At least one conservative Senator has some integrity left.

A lot of pundits are questioning the turnout and results in Alaska. I'm sure that many questions will be asked more aggressively if a recount gets underway. Alaska is the only state that pollsters got COMPLETELY wrong. Turnout was lower than 2004, even with historically large turnouts for caucuses earlier in the campaign season. No one expected such a low turnout. Pollers expected Stevens to lose by double digits.

Personally, I think that the major media projecting the Obama victory as early as 3pm Alaska time might has suppressed a lot of the turnout. None of the media pundits are giving that much weight, but I do remember how loudly people here in California complained when they called elections before the polls closed. They didn't call the election, but it was everything BUT that, and anyone who listened or watched knew it. So, how should the media be responsible? Should they not project results until polls are closed everywhere? Is that realistic? Tough questions. Perhaps they should run a poll in Alaska and actually find out why people didn't vote.

Why does all this matter? Politically, it matters because the Senate is close to a filibuster proof majority. More importantly, it's about the integrity of the election process in general. There is still a lot of suspicion surrounding the voting process and voter suppression tactics that we've seen in 2000 and 2004.

Elections like the Michigan senate race highlight the need to have certainty not only in the result, but also in the process by which that result is achieved, down to the individual ballot. Quite the task, and I'm not sure that the systems we have are completely up to it.

Watch the process closely. It will tell us a lot about what progress has been made. In Michigan, expect that every absentee ballot that was rejected will be challenged, and probably any recounts that vary or ballots that don't scan. At least there are no hanging chads in Michigan, but optical ballots have those little boxes to fill in, so be prepared!