P-G Editorial Rebuttal/Fact-check

As we all know by now, yesterday the Post-Gazette posted an abhorrent endorsement of Donald Trump.

You can read it here.

Today, The Pittsburgh Current published a rebuke/fact-check of the P-G abhorrence.

I wrote it.

The Post-Gazette Endorses...RICK SACCONE

Think back to when we were a world-class republic (it was only a little more than one year ago) and then remember that there was this raging election going on for the future of the country. One candidate (the Democrat - a woman) had a great deal of governmental experience (with a resume that included Secretary of State) and the other (the Republican - a man) was an admitted harasser of women who lied/misspoke/got things factually wrong more often than he pumped his orange hair solid with hairspray.

Hundreds of newspapers endorsed the former. Six endorsed the latter. One-two-three-four-five-six.

Showing the first signs of being infected with teh crazie, once left-of-center Post-Gazette published an editorial that went a different route. They went all-neutral and refused to endorse either candidate.

To paraphrase Archbishop Desmond Tutu:

If you are neutral in situations of sexual harassment, you have chosen the side of the harasser. If the elephant has admitted to some non-consensual pussy-grabbing and you say that you are neutral, no one should appreciate your neutrality.

Then there was this lil bit o'racism that was so nasty the Pittsburgh Foundation and Heinz Endowments felt compelled to respond with this:

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has done our community and the cause of justice a grave disservice with its lead editorial, “Reason as Racism,” published of all days on Martin Luther King Day, when we as a nation commemorate the ongoing fight to end racism in our country.

Repeated verbatim from an opinion piece printed Saturday in its sister publication the Toledo Blade, the editorial is a silly mix of deflection and distortion that provides cover for racist rhetoric while masquerading as a defense of decency. It is unworthy of a proud paper and an embarrassment to Pittsburgh.

It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. In Pittsburgh, with the passing of one ultra-rich right-wing nutjob (Richard Mellon Scaife) and the shrinkage of his media outlet - the Tribune-Review - from national to regional importance, I suppose that left open room for another ultra rich right-wing nutjob (John Block) to expand his media outlet - the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - into the political vacuum of thus created.

 And so, we can see today's endorsement of Rick Saccone.

Let's see what the Toledo Block Bugler has to say about Tim Murphy, the guy they want Saccone to replace. If you don't get the reference, that's ok google it. The right wing Tribune-Review editorial board used to taunt the P-G by calling it the "Block Bugler" because John Block owned both the Toledo Blade AND the Post-Gazette. Now back to our story:

It was pragmatic, moderate conservatism — not extremism — that sustained Mr. Murphy for almost 15 years in office. The issues he pursued, such as an overhaul of mental health law and saving the national veterans cemetery in Cecil, had practical benefits for his constituents.

Hmm...they think Murphy was a moderate conservative. I wonder how they'd explain these ratings:

• 100% rating from the National Right To Life Committee (exceptionally ironic considering how and why Murphy was forced to resign) 
• 60% rating from the John Birch Society (60%! - from The BIRCHERS!)
• 100% rating from the Family Resource Council (again, ironic considering the affair and the talk of abortion)
• 93% rating from the NRA

This is a moderate conservative to the Toledo Block Bugler?  Evidence that the frame itself has already silently skewed rightward.

When describing Saccone, they go with:

A former Air Force counterintelligence officer who later worked in North Korea and studied the Middle East in Egypt, Mr. Saccone would bring a valuable resume to Congress. He is also a college professor and a four-term state legislator. Given his time of life, he is 60, and varied background, he is equipped to be a strong and independent voice for the 18th.

Independent voice? Look at what they leave out of Saccone's experience.  A decade ago he wrote:

Our politicians should support coerced interrogations and stop demagoguing the issue. Respectable newspapers should refuse to print stories, such as the one about the three young men and only continue to blur the debate.

And by "coerced interrogations" he meant waterboarding, but only when done by trained professionals and fall "short of those that leave long-lasting or permanent physical harm."

Seven years ago he said:

Basically, torture is an act intentionally intended to inflict severe and long-lasting physical and mental pain, including amputation, scarring, burning, maiming, mutilation. Coercion means a much lower threshold of pain or discomfort such as stress positions, pushing, temperature change, meal manipulation, loud music, exploiting phobias, trickery, yelling, etc. If done skillfully and in the right circumstances, water-boarding or WB is very effective and causes no long-lasting damage. It is used to train our special forces so I don't consider it torture.

Too bad that Rick Saccone doesn't get to define "torture" as it's defined by UN Convention and US Law and it's always a war crime:

For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

Then there's this lil bit o'crazie - legislating 2012 as the year of The Bible while at roughly the same time co-sponsoring Anti-Sharia legislation .  So I guess the "good" religion can be lauded while the "bad" religion can be banned.

How is any of that constitutional?

And this is the guy the Toledo Block Bugler thinks would be a better representative than Conor Lamb.

This is not the Post-Gazette we knew.

This is the new right wing Toledo Block Bugler.

Fixed it for you!

(Bonus: You can use this headline for pretty much every shooting story!)

I guess we're meant to be grateful the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette didn't actually endorse Trump

You can read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's "A guide to decide: Twelve tests to choose between Clinton and Trump" embarrassing non-endorsement here, or you can save some time and just watch this dumpster fire:

According to the editorial in today's paper, the "test" is meant to be "a useful exercise for the citizen’s own decision-making" lovingly curated by...we assume the Block Family (owners of the P-G).

If you're not familiar with the Blocks, here's John Block on Trump's private plane:

His brother Allan was notably heard in a NYC restaurant loudly voicing his support for Trump, and who "according to FEC filings, donated tens of thousands to Republican political candidates across the country since the late nineties."

There were even reports earlier this year that some P-G journalists were "worried about their paper’s credibility should it support the billionaire candidate who’s campaigned on a platform that includes deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants, building a wall between the United States and Mexico and banning Muslims from entering the country." (Sorry! Mission accomplished!)

So far, the P-G's endorsements have been running a bit heavy on the R side, especially for what was once considered a liberal paper:

Post-Gazette 2016 General Election Endorsements

REPUBLICANS Pat Toomey, U.S. Senate
John Rafferty Jr., Pennsylvania Attorney General
Guy Reschenthaler, State Senate
Mike Turzai, State Representative
John Maher, State Representative
Jason Ortitay, State Representative

DEMOCRATS
Mike Doyle, U.S. Representative
Erin McClelland, U.S. Representative
Eugene DePasquale, Auditor General
Joe Torsella, Pennsylvania Treasurer

Mike Turzai? Doesn't this forever disqualify him from public office?

But, I digress. Back to the "test."

I assume the editorial board was, oh let's say, grabbed by their metaphorical pussies by the Blocks and had to come up with...something. What they came up with is mostly nonsense and false equivalence that ignores the worst that is Donald Trump. The absolute nadir of the editorial comes in the "Character" portion of the "Leadership Traits."

While acknowledging that Trump is "a vulgarian who never seems to study, to apologize or to learn" and a "sexist and a cad," they feel the need to throw in a bash at Bill Clinton, who is not the one running for office. Moreover, Trump is not just a "cad" (how purposely quaint!), he is according to his own words, a serial sexual predator. And a misogynist, and a racist, and a bigot, and a xenophobe, and a proponent of torturing innocent Muslims. He's a terrible businessman who doesn't pay his vendors, who declared bankruptcy six times, who wrote-off nearly a billion dollars in debt, who refuses to release his taxes because he hasn't paid any federal taxes in decades. He's a man who has a fraud trial starting later this month over his fake "university" and who has hundreds of lawsuits pending against him. He's a man who declared a war hero not a hero because he was captured and who tormented a Gold Star mother. He's a man with questionable ties to Russia's President Vladimir Putin and who doesn't understand why we have nukes if we don't use them.

He is a man who so thin-skinned, he can be provoked by a tweet. Reliably. Repeatedly.

He is a man who has called for his political opponent to be jailed and has alluded to her assassination.

And dozens and dozens of other horrors too many to list -- or even recall at this point.

All this, the P-G ignores.

But it gets worse. Here's what they say about Hillary Clinton's character:

Ms. Clinton would begin her presidential term under criminal investigation. Impeachment is a very real possibility from Day 1. How would she function? Like Richard Nixon, who won in a landslide in 1972, she might not serve out her term. But her dishonesty is more than legal — it is deeply embedded in her every word and gesture. The WikiLeaks provide us many smoking guns, not least of which is this: Nothing about her is genuine.

Christ Almighty!

She is not under criminal investigation.

Impeachment may be "a very real possibility from Day 1" only because the Republican Party, along with their standard-bearer, is determined to turn us into a banana republic.

And her dishonesty? Her dishonesty?!? PolitiFact, the nonpartisan fact-checking outlet, has found that '78 percent of all of Trump's fact-checked claims have been scored "mostly false" or worse.' They also awarded their "2015 Lie of the Year" to the collective campaign misstatements of Donald Trump!

Lastly, the Post-Gazette is on the wrong side of history. 456 newspapers and magazines have endorsed Hillary Clinton. 22 have endorsed Donald Trump (including the KKK’s official newspaper).

Post-Gazette Editorial Board -- you all cisgender, all-but-one white men -- you had a choice to make and you chose instead to make no choice. You chose to cover yourself in shame. You chose to write a dumpster fire of an editorial.

In the immortal word of Donald Trump, "Sad."


UPDATE: From one member of the Editorial Board:

Notice to All Candidates for Public Office

Notice to All Candidates for Public Office: 

In order to receive an endorsement from the Post-Gazette, it is absolutely mandatory that you be for the abolishment of the State Store system as some person/persons on the Editorial Board desire to open a lovely, little wine & cheese shop after they retire.

Thank you

The Jack Kelly "US Slavery Was Bad, But..." Monument

Yet another great read on this here: http://verysmartbrothas.com/jack-kelly-of-the-pittsburgh-post-gazette-is-a-fucking-disgrace-and-probably-needs-to-get-fired/

Not fit for print

I'm certain there has not been another time when an opinion piece in the Post-Gazette has defamed and insulted anyone as terribly as Jennifer Graham has in her column about Caitlyn Jenner: 

- She questions her mental fitness three times ("gender dysphoria," "psychiatric disorder," and "the inmates have overrun the proverbial asylum").  

- She calls her false three times ("fiction," "a lie," and "sinister"). 

- She refers to her as freakish five times ("he/she," "female from the waist up, male from the belly button down," "headlined the tragic freak shows," "bearded lady has no clothes," and "don’t-call-them-freaks parade"). 

- She deliberately refers to Caitlyn--a transgender woman--as a male ten times ("still a mister," "mister," "Mr.," "Mr.," "Mr.," "Mr.," "Mr.," "Mr.," "Mr.," and "Mr.") 

- And, she throws in a silly, childish insult for good measure ("Brucette").

Murderers have received better treatment in the pages of the P-G than we see given to Caitlyn Jenner. And for what? Clickbait? Some calculated attempt to not be labeled too liberal a paper? 

Really, why was this column seen as fit to be published? Especially when so many transgender people are either bullied into committing suicide or outright murdered by people with the same attitudes expressed in this piece.

This article should be deleted and an apology is due to all P-G readers.

Arch Conservative Richard Mellon Scaife Blew Hundreds of Millions on his Tribune-Review in Grudge Match Against Post-Gazette

(We're talking three to four of these.)

Richard Mellon Scaife's children have been battling over a trust fund set up in 1935 for Scaife for his "welfare" by his mother, the remainder of which would have gone to them upon his death. That fund went from nine figures to zero. They are demanding an accounting of the trust fund which they believe should not have been used to prop up their father's conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper because of his "vehement dislike for the owners of the Post-Gazette."

Via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Jennie Scaife’s attorneys wrote that the trustees “distributed over $300 million ... to Richard M. Scaife ... to use in funding Scaife’s newspaper and media operations — the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review — which by admission lost no less than $250 million as of 2007 alone and upon belief lost many millions more to date.”

A total of $700 million went to non-charitable and non-family recipients, including the Trib.

But don't cry too many tears for poor Jennie and David Scaife.

According to the article, they receive one million dollars a month each (yes, you read that right) from another trust set up by their grandmother. Apparently, this is not enough for them.

Yes, the rich are different. Cause if I had money like that...well...

Chickenshit

Shorter Post-Gazette Gubernatorial Non Endorsement:

We're going to totally chicken out and say neither guy is worthwhile, but hey, get out there and vote!

 (FY, P-G)

And Now...A Message From The Pentagon

A few days ago the Post-Gazette editorial board published this:

Conservative members of Congress may not be ready to acknowledge the reality of climate change, but the Pentagon sees it for what it is — a threat to national security.

On Monday, the Pentagon issued a report assessing the immediate dangers of climate change.

And here's the report itself.

And this is from Secretary Hagel's forward:

The responsibility of the Department of Defense is the security of our country. That requires thinking ahead and planning for a wide range of contingencies.

Among the future trends that will impact our national security is climate change. Rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, climbing sea levels, and more extreme weather events will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. They will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.

And so on.

While the other, smaller, and far more ideological (in this case rightwing) paper in town, the Tribune-Review did reprint this AP piece that said:

The report — described as a Pentagon road map — identifies four things that it says will affect the military: rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, more extreme weather and rising sea levels. It calls on the department and the military services to identify more specific concerns, including possible effects on the more than 7,000 bases and facilities, and to start putting plans in place to deal with them.

More broadly, the report warns that as temperatures rise and severe weather increases, food, water and electricity shortages could cause instability in many countries, spreading disease, causing mass migration and opening the door for extremists to take advantage of fractures in unstable countries.

However, our friends on the Trib's editorial board are still looking to disprove the science with this:

Wattsupwiththat.com , which bills itself as “the world's most viewed site on global warming and climate change,” says the water temperature of the Great Lakes is more than 6 degrees colder than last year at this time and 3 degrees colder than normal. Experts say should the trend continue, the lakes could freeze over earlier. And that could impair Great Lakes shipping. This global warming stuff is getting ridiculous.

So, I guess, because a rightwing science denying website says the Great Lakes are warmer this year than last year the Pentagon has to be wrong,

Hmm...ponder that for a bit because that's what the braintrust wants you to believe.

A Scaife Follow-up. (Where's His Money Going?)

There's a pair of local articles (one in the P-G and the other in the Trib) describing where Richard Mellon Scaife's stuff is going to go, now that he's passed on.

The P-G has more info than the Trib but perhaps that's because the Trib's Mike Wereschagin is writing more about Scaife's art collection than about his estate.

We start with the Trib:

The wealth, land and art collections of Richard Mellon Scaife, the late owner of the Tribune-Review, will be distributed among two foundations, a trust, an art museum and a conservancy, according to his will.

And then:

The Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg and Brandywine Conservancy near Philadelphia will split Scaife's art collection, according to the will. The will allows the organizations to decide how to divide the collection and sets up a rotating selection system to resolve disagreements.

That's certainly good news for those two art museums.

But let's try to follow the money.  Where is the money going?  This is where Wereschagin stumbles:

The Sarah Scaife Foundation and Allegheny Foundation will divide the assets Scaife inherited from his parents, according to the will. The value of the assets was not available. The Sarah Scaife Foundation, which gives to organizations that study public policy issues, donated $13.5 million in 2012, according to the foundation's most recent annual report available. The Washington-based American Enterprise Institute and Cambridge, Mass.-based Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis received the most money, at $600,000 and $760,000, respectively.

The Allegheny Foundation, whose giving supports historic preservation, civic development and education in Western Pennsylvania, donated $2.6 million in 2012, according to its most recent annual report. The largest gifts — $210,000 and $200,000 — went to the Westmoreland Museum of American Art and Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, respectively.

Ah, Mike. The two foundations are so much more than the borderline innocent with civic pride description you give us.  But let's take a look at the 2012 gifts.

You'll note that among the top 15 recipients there are a number of important conservative/free market institutions:

• The Hoover Institution ($409,000)
• The Claremont Institute ($400,000)
• The Heritage Foundation ($400,000)
• The Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation ($375,000)
• The Competitive Enterprise Institute ($300,000)
• The Hudson Institute ($250,000)

Include the money sent to AEI and Foreign Policy Analysis, and that gets you (by my count) about $3.5 million.  So if the total donated in 2012 was about $13.5 million and at least $3.5 million went to conservative think tanks (remember, I only looked at the top 15 recipients - out of 78), then that's a tad more than a quarter of the funds right there.

Given such a large chunk went to conservative think tanks, why not just say so?  Why omit that part?
It gets worse when you look at the Allegheny Foundation, which Wereschagin describes as "whose giving supports historic preservation, civic development and education in Western Pennsylvania".

Let's see who else the Allegheny Foundation gave money to in 2012.  On the list we find these profoundly non Pennsylvania historic preservation and civic development organizations:

• America's Survival ($150,000)
• David Horowitz Freedom Center ($150,000)
• Young America's Foundation ($150,000)
• Allegheny Institute for Public Policy ($125,000)
• The Institute of World Politics ($100,000)
• American Legislative Exchange Council ($50,000)

Why not mention any of that?  I mean the president of America's Survival is a man named Cliff Kincaid and on May 1 of this year, RightWing watch quoted Kincaid as saying:

...you cannot be a conservative in the traditional sense and be a homosexual, you cannot be a conservative in the traditional sense and promote homosexual marriage and all these other libertine and left-wing causes...

Then there's the David Horowitz Freedom Center.  In late June RightWingWatch reported:

Yesterday on NewsMax TV, David Horowitz said that President Obama is intentionally destroying America and Israel, but no one dares to criticize him “because he’s black.”

“Obama is the Manchurian candidate, he represents America’s enemies and he has just cut us off at the knees,” he said. “He’s a traitor, you have to look at Obama as a traitor, he supports the enemy.”

And did you see the last bullet point on that list?  ALEC.

So perhaps we have a reason why that stuff went unmentioned.

But do not tell us that The Allegheny Foundation is best (or even accurately) described with this phrase, "whose giving supports historic preservation, civic development and education in Western Pennsylvania."

Just don't do it.  It insults our intelligence.

O'Toole and Silver do a better job over at the P-G:

The will steers Scaife’‍s art, his late mother’s real estate, and stock trusts that she left behind to various charities. It indicates the existence of two trust funds, one of which appears to be tied to the Tribune-Review newspapers.

And then:

The will also mentions, but does not detail, an irrevocable trust created in 2004 which includes among its five trustees at least three people involved with the Tribune-Review: Mr. Gutnick, former Tribune-Review president Edward H. Harrell and Trib Total Media CEO Ralph J. Martin.

Something else left out of the Trib's coverage.  Go figure.

When Editorials Collide

Every now and then the editorial board over at the Tribune-Review takes issue with something the editorial board over at the Post-Gazette publishes.  More often than not, they don't like what they read.  Surprising, I know.

Which in itself is fine.  Conflicting between editorial boards is a good thing.  But only if both are honest with, you know, the facts.

And we all know by now that the relationship between Scaife's braintrust and the facts is iffy, at best.

Take a look at this from this morning:

Huh?: Those economic “scholars” at The Toledo, Ohio, Block Bugler once again are shilling for a higher minimum wage — this time for fast-food workers and to $10.50 an hour. And, hey, it argues (a word we use loosely), it would raise the price of a Big Mac by only a nickel. “That's a small amount to pay for meaningful change,” it says. Actually, it's a steep price to pay, given that the real result would be fewer of these entry-level jobs.

What they're talking about is this P-G editorial.  Look closely at how the braintrust characterizes the idea of raising the minimum wage to $10.50.  Now let's go see what the P-G editorial board actually says about it:

The low wages don't do great things for the restaurants, either. According to Time magazine, the National Restaurant Association estimates that a fast-food outlet sees 75 percent turnover in employees every year. The story also reported that a letter signed by more than 100 economists said that raising the minimum wage to $10.50 would add only a nickel to the price of a Big Mac.

That's a small amount to pay for meaningful change. We think most Americans would be willing to fork over a few more cents for a Happy Meal if it meant happier times for the workers who make them.

Wait, you mean that wasn't just an argument from the editorial board, but it was from something from Time Magazine?  And it's a group of 100 economists who are making the argument NOT the P-G editorial board? 

Huh, I guess that still would be some real "economic 'scholars'" but just not at the P-G.  Funny how that part got left out.  The argument looks a lot different if it comes from 100 economists, doesn't it?

Here's the Time article, by the way - the real source of that idea.

But why would those actual "economic scholars" say that about raising the minimun wage to $10.50?

Here's what they say from the petition:

We, the undersigned professional economists, support the “Catching Up to 1968 Act of 2013, ” sponsored by Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida. This measure would raise the federal minimum wage from its current level of $7.25, established in 2009, to $10.50 per hour , and with automatic increases indexed to inflation thereafter.

As is conveyed by the title of the bill itself, the real , inflation-adjusted, value of the federal minimum wage has fallen dramatically over time. In 1968, the real value of the minimum wage was $10.65, so that, in fact, an increase today to a $10.50 federal minimum would not even bring the minimum wage fully back to the 1968 standard.

And:

Businesses can readily absorb these small cost increases through minor increases in prices and productivity as well as enabling low-wage workers to receive a slightly larger share of businesses’ total revenues. On average, even fast-food restaurants, which employ a disproportionate share of minimum wage workers, are likely to see their overall business costs increase by only about 2. 7 percent from a rise today to a $10.50 federal minimum wage. That means, for example, that McDonalds could cover fully half of the cost increase by raising the price of a Big Mac, on average, from $4.00 to $4.05.

And as to whether that will decrease  minimum wage employment, they say:

Opponents of minimum wage increases frequently argue that such measures will mean fewer employment opportunities for low-wage workers because businesses will be less willing to hire workers at the increased wage level. But the weight of evidence from the extensive professional literature has , for decades, consistently found that no significant effects on employment opportunities result when the minimum wage rises in reasonable increments. This is because the increases in overall business costs resulting from a minimum wage increase are modest .

And there's more:

Moreover, the overwhelming factor determining employment opportunities for low - wage workers is macroeconomic conditions — whether the economy is growing or in a recession. Thus, in 1968, when the U.S. minimum wage reached $10.65 in real dollars, the overall unemployment rate was 3.6 percent. By contrast, during the depths of the 1982 recession, the real value of the minimum wage had fallen to $8.05 while unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent

You can even check out the economic scholarship supporting the petition here.  Where's the work supporting the braintrust's position?  Someplace NOT bought and paid for by Scaife foundation money, that is.

There's a lot behind the P-G editorial, isn't there?  Not so much for the editorial from the braintrust.

When editorials collide, said George Pal to his bride, I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills.

I Am Not Sure The Braintrust Knows How To Read

Take a look at this from today:

Come again?: The Toledo, Ohio, Block Bugler editorializes that since the Framers could not have envisioned DNA testing, swabbing the mouth of those arrested for their DNA is not a Fourth Amendment violation. Neither could the Framers have envisioned high-speed printing presses. Does this mean The Bugler has no First Amendment right to publish? [Bolding in original.]

While I realize there's a vigorous debate surrounding Maryland v King, the braintrust does itself no favors by misrepresenting both what the Supreme Court said and then what the P-G said about it.

First, let's go back to what the braintrust said about the decision:

The Supreme Court's Monday decision affirming the right of police, without probable cause and without a warrant, to take DNA samples from those they arrest (but supposedly only for serious crimes) is chilling.[Emphasis added.]

Now let's take a look at the "Held" section of the decision:

When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. [Emphasis added.]

Notice anything?  I even bolded/italicized the important words for any braintrust visitors that may be visiting.  If there's any nuances of difference between an arrest supported by probably cause and a search done after that arrest though unrelated to it, they should have explained them.  As it is, the braintrust gets it wrong by omitting such details.

Yea, I know - what a surprise!!

The issue here, and it's pointed out in the P-G editorial, is:

There's no argument that a DNA sample taken from someone arrested by the police is a search of sorts, but the key word in the amendment is "unreasonable." On reasonableness grounds, the majority had the best of this argument. The decision to restore the conviction of a man arrested on a different charge but identified and subsequently tried as a rapist because of a DNA test was the right one.[Emphasis added.]

But let's get on to the main point here: go back and read what the braintrust's take on the P-G editorial

Now read what the P-G actually wrote:

DNA, of course, can be a window into family histories and genetic dispositions, which might be alarming if the Maryland law did not specifically limit testing to identification. Only those charged with serious crimes are tested. Fourth Amendment purists might be reassured but Justice Scalia was not, basing his analysis as always on what the tyranny-fearing Founding Fathers might have thought.

The trouble with this is that DNA testing could not be dreamed of in their day -- indeed, fingerprinting was at least a century away from being used. Besides, the purist approach sells the Founding Fathers short. They were not against scientific progress and were resolutely practical men. If they had to choose between a hypothetical threat and a reasonably applied test that beyond doubt can convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent, they might have decided as the Supreme Court did.

Seems to me, that by the braintrust's own argument they'd have to reject the use of fingerprints by police as well.  I mean, since the founders could not have envisioned fingerprinting either....

But that's a question for another day.

David Conrad Disagrees With The P-G's Wagner Endorsement

While we usually don't have "guest bloggers" here at 2PJ, when a friend of the blog emails in (unsolicited, by the way) such a powerful commentary, the idea of just leaving it sit in my in-box unread by anyone else just doesn't seem right.

Ladies and Gentlemen, David Conrad:

The Post Gazette endorsed Jack Wagner for two reasons that I want to refute:

1. Bill Peduto's too compromised by his position on City Council. In the paper's eyes, Council is irredeemable and Bill's got too many enemies, fatwas, and blood feuds running there to work with them if he becomes Mayor.
2. Bill is, on the other hand, too cosy with our county executive Rich Fitzgerald. The PG doesn't want that kind of concentrated power running Allegheny county. Otherwise the PG calls Peduto hardworking, progressive, inspired, uncorrupted, and an all around decent guy who's partnered with them - the PG itself - to promote particular projects in Pittsburgh.

Reminds me of the joke about the producer and the scriptwriter, "We love this, we're behind you, we believe in you and we want to be a part of this. So we're gonna pass."

This schizophrenia in Pittsburgh's paper of note comes from the cold war between its owners, the Block family, and its managing editors. In other words between the money and the people on the ground. But more on that later.

POINT 1

Bill's been swimming with Council's sharks for more than a decade and there hasn't been a single corruption charge against him. If anything his time on Council has made him MORE progressive. He's turned away from the mad infighting to national and international sources of urban growth, studied them and tried to bring pieces of their programs to Pgh. He's not fighting for kickback dollars on building projects, or trying to settle Ward scores. He's not looking ahead to a seat on the board of Duquesne Light.

More importantly, Murphy's and Ravenstahl's administrations each in their own way demonstrated that a Mayor doesn't need to be beholden to or lovey dovey with Council to get stuff done. In fact he can ignore them half the time. If he's a driven powerhouse of a man like Murphy or the late Dick Caligiuri he can do amazing things, if he's a morally compromised teenager like Luke R he can ....well blacken the name of an entire political organization and hopefully go to jail.

What I'm saying is that there's no absolute power to corrupt anyone absolutely in any part of Pgh city government. The measure of the man determines how he'll use it. I think Bill's shown himself to be finely drawn. You can't buy him. He's a political creature. That's what he wants, the power, the work, not the payoff which could follow.

Jack Wagner's a machine politician. He has connections in Harrisburg that could smooth certain processes between our city and the capital but...how smooth do we want things between Corbett's Harrisburg and City Hall? Do you want drilling concessions at the city border which, if you've forgotten is, going roughly clockwise - Swissvale, just East of Banksville and North of Washington's landing?

Where Jack's been doing his work is probably more unsavory and just as dirty as Bill's backyard. Which is our backyard. I'd rather have someone who knows it and the bullies within that need a lesson.

Plain and simple, Luke's campaign money went to Jack. He accepted it. More importantly, the Dem powers that be - and if you think they don't exist I'm not a conspiracy theorist and you're a dreamer - they said, Yes Luke you can move that money to back Jack. Ipso facto Jack's their new man. Luke was their old one. Jack will have to owe them. Anyone humming a Who tune?

POINT 2

The plain fact of the matter is Pittsburgh will never be a great city...let me rephrase that...it will never have the political intelligence and might commensurate to its greatness until the day comes when the city IS the county. You've all read the numbers down the decades how we've gone from 600,000 to what is it now 307, 488? (Although I think we've just started to add a few, if only in Lawrenceville.)  Point is, Pittsburgh isn't a city. It's a city-state. It's a heartland of sorts to the Steeler nation and it stretches spiritually almost to the Ohio and West Virginia borders, up 79 to the fields of Meadville and as far East on the turnpike till DVE dies.

Okay maybe I'm exaggerating.

But Pittsburgh as a force and as a physical entity should shed its political borders. Philadelphia did, Buffalo did, Indianapolis has, Portland will...melt the city into the county, save all that municipal waste the suburbs complain about - while they live off the shoulder of the city like pilot fish - and at the same become a regional power to rival Philly in size.

What makes Pittsburgh truly "small", what is making it smaller is its small ambitions and its petty crimes. We have a political culture that fights over what it perceives are limited resources. We horde power and money in line offices that shouldn't exist, we hold fast to doctrines both laborite and managerial which sound respectively proud and real politic but eventually lead to paralysis, we sell out for payoffs that wouldn't pay off the balance of a car.

Redefine the pie. Get out of the engine room, as my dad used to say, and realize there's a ship to sail. Insert your own metaphor.

On a practical level, I hope the Mayor and the County Exec DO work hand in hand. I hope they get along like David Lawrence and (an elected) Richard Mellon, or Dick Caliguiri and Henry Hillman (or Elsie). We NEED to move as a body that's at least county wide and these guys are our chance to do it. They're not, neither of them and even their enemies couldn't pin it on them, they're not crooks. They're decent men who've arrived at just the right time.

Because in 5 years Pittsburgh's going to blow up on the national scene. We're going to have even more powerful health care, university and resource based industries, we're going to alter the map on urban farming and urban redevelopment. We're going to be a culinary, printmaking, bookmaking, beer making, and town making model for the entire country. You're gonna be flying to Portland Oregon to drink boutique coffee a decade late or Austin Texas to see SouthXSouthwest and you're gonna take out the airline magazine of your choice and there's gonna be an article about Pittsburgh, the phoenix from the industrial flameout, the emerald city risen from the brownfields, the gem of the Appalachians  that held fast against fracking (okay Brian, maybe The Paris..), and you're going to laugh. And hopefully turn around. Or have your head turned around when you get back and arrive where we first started and know the place for the first time.

And if we don't have the political vision to run alongside that urban assault, to assist and guide it, to check and delay it, we're going to be a war zone. Libertarians in the Cranberrys of their minds vs the radicals of Greater Homestead. We'll fracture even more and fight over smaller and smaller pieces of Pittsburgh's pie while the foundations despair and the drilling, banking and insurance companies chuckle.

Don't let it happen. You vote for Jack Wagner you vote for the past. Which needs to stop happening in Pittsburgh over and over again.

Listen to the PG's editors writing BETWEEN the lines of the editorial their owner demanded. Listen to the backlash.

Pick a good man not a party.

Shorter Post-Gazette Mayoral Endorsement

Ravenstahl's a putz and Peduto rightfully opposed him, but that proves he can't work well with Ravenstahl's minions on Council so you shouldn't vote for him. Wagner contemplated maybe running against Ravenstahl in the fall but wouldn't jump into the primary until Ravenstahl dropped out which proves how brave Wagner is and how unconnected to the Ravenstahl crowd he is so you should vote for him. Also, Wagner works well with Republicans so he will work well with Council which is all Democrats. Policies? We don't need no stinkin' polices. The End.

Tips for Mayors

Endorsements? We Got Your Endorsements, Right Here!

The Post-Gazette:

In Washington

For Senate: Democrat Bob Casey

For The House -

• 12th District: Democrat Mark Critz
• 14th District: Democrat Mike Doyle
• 18th District: Republican Tim Murphy 

In Harrisburg

For State Senate - 

• 37th District. Democrat Matt Smith

For The State House -

• 16th District: Democrat Robert Matzie
• 20th District: Democrat Adam Ravenstahl
• 22nd District: Democrat Erin Molchany
• 25th District: Democrat Joseph Markosek
• 30th District: Democrat David Tusick
• 32nd District: Democrat Anthony DeLuca
• 33rd District: Democrat Frank Dermody
• 39th District: Democrat David Levdansky
• 44th District: Democrat Mark Scappe
• 45th District: Democrat Nick Kotik

For other statewide offices -

• Pa. Attorney General:  Republican David Freed
• Pa. Auditor General:  Republican John Maher 
• Pa. Treasurer Democrat Rob McCord

And for President:  Democrat Barack Obama And The Tribune-Review:

In Washington

For The White House -

• For president: Republican Mitt Romney

For The Senate - 

• Pa.: Democrat Bob Casey Jr.
• Ohio: Republican Josh Mandel
• W.Va.: Republican John Raese

For The House (PA) - 

• 3rd Congressional District: Republican Mike Kelly 
• 9th Congressional District: Republican Bill Shuster
• 12th Congressional District: Either Republican Keith Rothfus or Democrat Mark Critz 
• 14th Congressional District: Republican Hans Lessmann 
• 18th Congressional District: No endorsement 

For The House (OH) - 

• 6th Congressional District: Republican Bill Johnson • For U.S. House

For The House (W. VA) - 

• 1st Congressional District: Republican David McKinley

For other statewide offices - 

• Attorney general: Republican David Freed 
• Auditor general: Republican John Maher 
• Treasurer: Republican Diana Irey-Vaughan

There you have it.

The Latest On The GOP's Voter Disenfranchisement Bill

It might get blocked.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

With just six weeks until the presidential election, a judge raised the possibility Tuesday that he would move to block Pennsylvania's controversial voter ID law.

"I'm giving you a heads-up," Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. told lawyers after a day's testimony on whether the law is being implemented in ways that ensure no voters will be disenfranchised. "I think it's a possibility there could be an injunction here."

Simpson then asked lawyers on both sides to be prepared to return to court Thursday to present arguments on what such an injunction should look like. There is no hearing Wednesday because of Yom Kippur.

And from the P-G:

Judge Simpson ruled last month that the new law requiring photo ID of all voters was being implemented appropriately and he declined to grant an injunction halting the statute.

But the state Supreme Court sent a challenge of the law back to the lower court last week, asking it to ensure there is "liberal access" to new voting-only IDs and there will be "no disenfranchisement" of voters on Nov. 6. A supplemental opinion is due back to the Supreme Court by Oct. 2.

Judge Simpson said this morning that he does not intend to wait until that deadline to issue his updated opinion.

"I think the sooner the better for everyone," he told the courtroom audience.

Of course Brad Bumstead of the Trib doesn't see what the problem is:

A poll released on Wednesday by Franklin & Marshall College found 99 percent of respondents had IDs suitable for use when voting.

Fifty-nine percent said they support the law, compared with 39 percent who do not. Even if inadequate IDs kept eligible voters from casting ballots, 75 percent said they still support the law.

Opponents, who include the American Civil Liberties Union, argue that hundreds of thousands of voters would not have proper identification to vote. They believe the law would mostly restrict minorities and low-income and elderly Pennsylvanians.

“The data doesn’t support that there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people without ID,” testified Kurt Myers, a deputy PennDOT secretary

Brad, the State Supreme Court wasn't talking about almost no disenfranchisement but NO disenfranchisement.

But that's the Trib.

Ruth Ann Dailey On "Facts" and Facts

In today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, columnist Ruth Ann Dailey writes:

The Obama administration and its media partisans now navigating the "Fast and Furious" drama and looking ahead to the far more scandalous matter of classified intelligence leaks should remember this name: Valerie Plame.

And then a few paragraphs later:

The truth is in the details, but in political theater the truth rarely matters.

Which is followed by some examples, including this one:

It didn't matter that her husband Joe Wilson's investigation and subsequent New York Times editorial had actually bolstered the claim of British and Italian intelligence that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Niger.

Which is why, of course, that Joe Wilson wrote in the New York Times:

In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.

The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq -- and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place. [emphasis added.]

So how does that bolster the (incorrect, as it turns out) claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger?  Dailey never explains, she just assumes that you, her loyal reading public, will assume that her incorrect claim is actually correct and, y'know, factual.

Then there's this:

It didn't matter that the source for Robert Novak's column identifying Ms. Plame as a CIA employee was the State Department's Richard Armitage, not vice presidential aide Scooter Libby.

You'd think that Libby was charged with leaking Ms Plame's identity and that the conveniently avoided "facts" showed otherwise.  That's certainly what Dailey is implying.

Except Libby wasn't charged with leaking Plame's identity.  He was charged with Obstruction of Justice, Perjury and Making False Statements.

For Ruth Ann Dailey to get some easily researched facts wrong in a column about how facts are ignored by the partisan media is both sadly humorous and completely unforgivable.

Perhaps Jack Kelly's fact checker is doing double duty as Ruth Ann Dailey's fact checker.

Um...Guys?

A week or so ago, the OPJ posted this.

It was about a rally, set for April 28 in Harrisburg, to "Defend Rights and Equality for Women."

The event happened.  A couple hundred people attended:

About 300 people, a mostly female audience, gathered on the state Capitol steps for four hours today as part of a national grassroots movement called United Against the War on Women.

Similar rallies were sponsored around the country in most of the 50 states from Wisconsin, to Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, Calif.

The rallies were held as a show of strength against recent threats to women’s rights on issues ranging from from reproductive to economic and human rights.

“We can’t sit back and take it anymore. We can’t sit back and allow them to erode our lives,” said Julia Ramsey, president of Pennsylvania NOW.

Ramsey, one of about two dozen speakers at the Harrisburg rally, encouraged women in the crowd to speak to their female friends and family and spread the message about fighting back.

“This is a war against us and it affects all of us,” she said.

A nationwide effort with a rally at the state capital (with flickr photos to prove it and everything) and as far as I can tell (by googling ""War on women" Harrisburg"), there's not a peep of coverage from the local "liberal" paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

On the other hand, the P-G has seen fit to report on this:

A national Tea Party group Friday kicked off a 20-city bus tour in Cranberry, where it endorsed Republican Tom Smith's U.S. Senate bid, skewered Democratic President Barack Obama and appealed for help in what it called a watershed election year.

About 200 people attended the rally at North Boundary Park organized by Tea Party Express, which describes itself as the conservative movement's largest political action committee.

So the next time someone asks about the "liberal bias" over at the Post-Gazette, just show them this.