Tuesday Roundup: Cornyn On (Off?) The Fence
Tue, 08/07/2007 - 7:00am
The junior Senator was in El Paso yesterday, talking about the need to increase border security and saying that the key isn't a big border fence. Which is weird, because he voted for a big border fence. Now he is backing off of that assertion, or at least he engaged in a little quibbling and quantifying about it when he was in front of the El Paso Chamber.
In other Senate race news, it has been said many times over the last several months that Mikal Watts, currently competing with Rick Noriega and Emil Reichstadt for the chance to run against John Cornyn in 2008, has a lot of money. The Associated Press has the scoop on his personal financial disclosure, made to the Senate last week: the people who said that were right.
Watts made $40,000,000 in the 18-month period prior to this June. The report lists some comparisons between Watts' activity and Cornyn's, what Watts has put into the campaign so far, and so on: the usual stuff. Noriega and Reichstadt, according to the AP wire, have not made the same filing. For a general, quick update on Watts and Noriega: Watts has been on the offensive lately with press releases attacking Cornyn, and Noriega made the rounds at Yearly Kos, liveblogging from the event. I haven't heard any news from the Reichstadt camp lately.
The Chron has an editorial asserting that changes or overhauls should be made to the election system in Harris County as it uses the Hart InterCivic machines just found to be vulnerable to hackers by a study from California. This has always seemed like a problem that is logically easy but logistically difficult to fix, but that is still worth fixing. I'm not sure why, other than for the wrong reasons, anyone would vote for voting machines that didn't have a verifiable paper trail.
There were probably some uncomfortable phone calls over this item: apparently Rudy Giuliani's daughter was like totally supporting Obama on Facebook. I may write a book for boomer politicians entitled "Keeping Your Kids Off The Internet: Avoiding Stories Like The One Where Giuliani's Daughter Supported Obama On Facebook." This isn't really that big of a deal, but it is bad press, and who needs that when they are running for President?
Although this sort of thing may also be why the Republican presidentials are starting to come around on the YouTube debate. The original date was apparently washed away along with concern over questions from snowmen, and now you may get to enjoy Republicans YouTubing it up around Thanksgiving. Which, and this is just my opinion, sounds like the worst Thanksgiving ever.
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Reddit
Hart in Denton
By George Nassar
Thu, 08/09/2007 - 4:19am
I should've mentioned this earlier: the Hart InterCivic machines that the California researchers found vulnerable are also used in The TB's home town of Denton. Don Alexander, our elections administrator, is a smart guy and has been doing this a while, so when he showed me the machines last year and mentioned that we didn't have to worry because the machines weren't the Diebold machines that so many flaws had been found in, I bit my tongue instead of saying, "well, yes, but that's because the state hasn't given the Hart systems the same scrutiny that the rest of the country has given the Diebold systems."
By contrast, Australia has implemented an electronic voting system that has met with some success. The difference? The source code for the machine's operation was all open-source. Security junkies will recognize this as an effective application of Kerckhoff's principle; the rest of you will have to wait on a blog on the subject. ;-)
The Senator is correct about
By magyart
Tue, 11/20/2007 - 1:51am
The Senator is correct about the border fence. It's important for some portions of the border, but it isn't KEY to our security.
The reason for a partial fence is to partially manage illegal immigration.
A KEY solution to this problem would deny illegal aliens jobs. Turn off the job magnet and your "turn off" illegals. They are stealing across the border for jobs. These jobs are not limited to picking lettuce. Many of these jobs are in contruction, meat packing, and hospitality.
Force all employers to verify every social security number (SSN ) with the federal govt's E-verify program and the job magnet is turn off.
Presently employers do NOT verify SSNs and anyone can secure any job with a false or stolen identity. False papers are easily available for $150.
Contact your congressman today and demand he / she co-sponsor the Save Act HR 4088.
It forces employers to verify SSNs and provides money for border security.