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Iowa Caucus Vote Counter Says Santorum Won, Claims Typo Gave Romney 20 Extra Votes (Updated)

By Ian Millhiser on Jan 5, 2012 at 9:26 pm

An Iowa GOP caucus voter who helped count the votes at his small caucus meeting in Moulton, Iowa claims that former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) accidentally received 20 extra votes than he earned — a claim which, if true, would change the winner of the unusually close caucus to former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA):

Edward True, 28, of Moulton, said he helped count the votes and jotted the results down on a piece of paper to post to his Facebook page. He said when he checked to make sure the Republican Party of Iowa got the count right, he said he was shocked to find they hadn’t.

“When Mitt Romney won Iowa by eight votes and I’ve got a 20-vote discrepancy here, that right there says Rick Santorum won Iowa,” True said. “Not Mitt Romney.”

True said at his 53-person caucus at the Garrett Memorial Library, Romney received two votes. According to the Iowa Republican Party’s website, True’s precinct cast 22 votes for Romney.

Des Moines TV station KCCI 8 captured an image of Moulton’s handwritten vote count:

Minor counting errors such as this one are extremely common on election day, so it is perfectly plausible that Moulton is correct and Romney did receive 20 unearned votes. It is equally plausible, however, that these lost votes could be canceled out by a similar error at another caucus site. The tentative results, which showed Romney with the barest 8 vote lead, have not yet been certified.

Nevertheless, the Iowa GOP does not seem happy that True is questioning the early result. According to KCCI, a spokesperson for the Iowa GOP said that “True is not a precinct captain and he’s not a county chairperson so he has no business talking about election results.”

Update

On Fox News’ On The Record tonight, Santorum said that he spoke with the head of the Iowa Republican Party, who told him that there was a separate counting error that incorrectly stripped 21 votes from Romney. Therefore, the two counting errors, according to Santorum, have largely offset themselves, although the final certification is yet to be completed.

Politics

Santorum Suggests Romney Nomination ‘Will Destroy This Country’

By Scott Keyes on Jan 5, 2012 at 8:10 pm

During an appearance on Mark Levin’s radio show yesterday, Rick Santorum had harsh words for rival Mitt Romney, telling the radio host that Romney’s policy approach “will destroy this country.”

Santorum made the comment while discussing the health care law Romney signed while governor of Massachusetts, which, Santorum correctly noted, served as a model for the Affordable Care Act. The similarities between the two laws, Santorum contended, would make it so Romney “is not going to be willing to take on Obamacare.” As a result, the former Pennsylvania senator warned, nominating Romney “will destroy this country.”

LEVIN: So the Romney campaign would give opposition research against a candidate to other candidates to use against that candidate? [...]

SANTORUM: Am I going to go after Mitt Romney on Romneycare? You bet I will, because it was the basis for Obamacare. Why? Because it’s top-down, government-run medicine. Does the state of Massachusetts have the right to do it, as you said? Yes they do, states have the right to do that. That doesn’t make it the right thing to do. I’m going to go out and piece by piece talk about how his approach is wrong, how it will destroy this country to have someone up against, who is not going to be willing to take on Obamacare, and has a track record of supporting that kind of statist government.

Listen to it:

Santorum, who is now considered Romney’s strongest challenger for the nomination, is no stranger to apocalyptic rhetoric. Campaigning in Iowa last month, he told a group of workers that America is increasingly “edging our way toward” becoming like fascist Italy and that the Affordable Care Act will be the “final death knell.”

Politics

Georgia State Rep: ‘I’m Afraid’ Of Romney’s Mormon Faith, But ‘It’s Better Than A Muslim’

By Zaid Jilani on Jan 5, 2012 at 7:10 pm

State Rep. Judy Manning (R-GA)

One obstacle that Mitt Romney may face as he asks for the support of Republican primary voters is bigotry against the Mormon faith.

A Marietta Daily Journal story published yesterday demonstrates the bigotry that Romney may have to overcome. The Journal quotes Republican state Rep. Judy Manning saying that she’s scared of Romney’s Mormon faith. But at least he’s “better than a Muslim”:

“I think Mitt Romney is a nice man, but I’m afraid of his Mormon faith,” Manning said. “It’s better than a Muslim. Of course, every time you look at the TV these days you find an ad on there telling us how normal they are. So why do they have to put ads on the TV just to convince us that they’re normal if they are normal? … If the Mormon faith adhered to a past philosophy of pluralism, multi-wives, that doesn’t follow the Christian faith of one man and one woman, and that concerns me.”

Manning’s criticism of Romney’s faith and her attack on Islam as an even more inferior religion — in addition to other comments she has made against LGBT rights — demonstrates an important point. Progressives and others who oppose bigotry and preach tolerance must denounce discrimination of every kind, not just because all discrimination is wrong, but because validating discrimination against one group can lead to increased discrimination against other groups in the future. (HT: @GregFrayser)

NEWS FLASH

Man Arrested For Florida Abortion Clinic Fire | Police in Alabama arrested a man accused of setting fire to and destroying an abortion clinic in Florida on New Year’s Day. Bobby Joe Rogers was charged with violating federal explosives laws and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The clinic, in Florida’s Panhandle, has been a frequent target of anti-abortion violence: It was bombed on Christmas Day in 1984 and was the location of a shooting in 1994 that left a doctor and a volunteer dead.

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Jan 5, 2012 at 6:10 pm

NEWS FLASH

Public Sector Layoffs Hit Record High In 2011 | Layoffs of public sector workers hit a record high last year, with 183,064 workers losing their jobs due to budget cuts in the wake of the Great Recession, according to an analysis by the consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Private sector layoffs accounted for nearly one-third of total jobs lost. These numbers don’t take into account 120,000 proposed layoffs at the United States Postal Service.

NEWS FLASH

New Hampshire House Passes Fetal Homicide Bill | Yesterday, New Hampshire’s GOP-controlled House approved a bill that allows authorities to criminally charge anyone who causes the death of a fetus. Advocates claim the legislation would protect pregnant women from attackers who wish to harm them or their fetuses, but opponents say it’s a transparent back-door attempt to outlaw abortion by redefining personhood. If the bill becomes law, New Hampshire will join 37 other states that also recognize fetuses as victims in violent crimes. The bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Kathleen Souza (R), tried unsuccessfully to reverse changes to the bill that restrict fetal homicide to fetuses more than 24 weeks, and require the perpetrator to “knowingly or purposely cause the death and also know that the woman is pregnant.”

By Marie Diamond on Jan 5, 2012 at 5:35 pm

Security

UPDATED With Audio: Rick Santorum’s Islamophobia Problem

By Ali Gharib on Jan 5, 2012 at 5:33 pm

GOP presidential hopeful and former senator Rick Santorum found himself amid a flurry of new attention after placing a close second in the Iowa caucuses. One of the fiery right-wing politician’s views coming under increased scrutiny is his attitude toward Islam. Already in this campaign, Santorum endorsed profiling in airport security and, when pressed, said, “Obviously, Muslims would be someone you’d look at.”

Now, journalist Max Blumenthal unearthed a 2007 speech Santorum gave to a Washington conference at the invitation of David Horowitz. In the speech (audio can be found at anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller‘s site), Santorum outlined the “war” against “radical Islam”:

What must we do to win? We must educate, engage, evangelize and eradicate. …

The other thing we need to do is eradicate, and that’s the final thing. As I said, this is going to be a long war. There are going to be pluses and minuses, ups and downs. But we have to win this war to — fight this war to win this war.

Santorum insists that he’s “not suggesting that we have to go in there and blow them up.” But, later in the speech, he compares the “long war” to World War II, adding, “Americans don’t like war. They don’t like suffering and dying. No one does.”

Both in this speech and in other writings and remarks, Santorum often specifies that he’s speaking of “radical Islam.” But what does “radical Islam” mean to Santorum? In fact, the former senator often times conflates extremists with the entire Muslim faith at-large and, at other times, he states outright that radicals dominate Islam. In the 2007 D.C. speech, Santorum compared Muslim wars from hundreds of years ago to 9/11: “Does anybody know when the high-water mark of Islam was? September the 11th, 1683,” he said to gasps from the audience.

As to what “losing” the war with “radical Islam” looks like, Santorum discussed Europe. “Europe is on the way to losing,” he said. “The most popular male name in Belgium — Mohammad. It’s the fifth most popular name in France among boys.” The other data point he cited was larger birthrates among “Islamic Europeans” as opposed to “Westernized Europeans.” Nowhere did he indicate a growing “radical” threat in Europe.

In October 2007 at his alma mater Penn State, Santorum gave a speech and failed to break out the radical strain from the faith at-large: “Islam, unlike Christianity, is an all-encompassing ideology. It is not just something you do on Sunday. … We (as Americans) don’t get that.” The quote is particularly ironic from someone who, among other such statements, has said, “[O]ur civil laws have to comport with a higher law: God’s law.”

In a January 2007 speech, Santorum suggested Islam at-large was responsible for religious freedom issues and put the onus Muslims to deal with these issues to end the “war”:

Until we have the kind of discussion and dialogue with Islam — that democracy and freedom of religion, along with religious pluralism, are essential for the stability of the world and our ability to cohabit in this world. Unless Islam is willing to make that conscious decision, then we are going to be at war for a long time.

If Santorum’s discourse sounds like some of the Islamophobia network outlined in CAP’s Fear, Inc. report, that should be no surprise. Horowitz has repeatedly hosted Santorum for “Islamo-fascism Awareness Week” events and Geller and her associate Robert Spencer cite his work approvingly.

In a 2008 appearance at the Christians United For Israel confab, Santorum outflanked even Daniel Pipes. When Pipes mentioned that radicals only constituted about 10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide, Santorum, before wondering whether Muslims are capable of making moral decisions at all, challenged him:

It’s not a small number. OK? It’s not a fringe. It’s a sizable group of people that hold these views. [Pipes' notion of 'moderate' Islam] is the exception, I would argue, of what traditional Islam is doing.

No decent American — or anyone across the globe — should oppose “eradicat(ing)” extremist ideologies like militant, “radical Islam.” But Santorum’s history of statements raises questions about just exactly what and who he’s targeting for eradication.

Update

Listen to the relevant clips of Rick Santorum’s 2007 Washington conference speech (captured from anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller’s site) here:

NEWS FLASH

FDA To Restrict Some Antibiotics Overuse In Livestock | The Food and Drug Administration is limiting the amount of certain antibiotics in livestock in an effort to slow growing antibiotic resistance in humans. For years, farmers have used antibiotics without restraint, even in healthy animals, to help them grow and prevent sickness. The FDA has made small steps to reduce the amount used in feed, the latest being new restrictions on cephalosporins. The order restricts use of the antibiotic commonly used in cattle, swine, chickens, and turkey before slaughter; one that’s also found in pneumonia, skin infections, and meningitis treatments for humans.

Alyssa

The Importance Of ‘Hugo Cabret’

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jan 5, 2012 at 5:21 pm

I’m sorry to see that Hugo hasn’t earned back its production costs yet: it’s a very good movie that deserves a tremendous audience. But I also want it to succeed not just because it deserves to, but because it strikes me as a promising reinterpretation of an entry in a promising genre.

I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the book on which the movie was based, over the break, and two things about it struck me. First, the interpolation of words and pictures — it’s not a straight graphic novel, there aren’t speech bubbles — is a great way to enrich and flesh out a narrative that might be more viable as a short story than as a full novel. In a way, it fills in the interpretive space between prose writer and reader. The illustrations show us what Hugo looks like rather than letting us imagine it for ourselves, providing us with bone structure, with a visual guide through the train station and the streets of Paris. By putting Selznick’s illustrations next to photographs of old movie productions, the book gives them an authority, a sense of authenticity.

Second, I’d like to see more movies that have the kind of relationship to their source material that Hugo has to The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Part of Watchmen‘s airlessness came from the fact that it’s a shot-by-shot remake of the graphic novel. But Hugo takes the shots from the illustrations that work and fill in those that don’t, or that don’t exist at all, adding new whimsy and a sense of scale and grandeur. It’s a good template without being a suffocating one.

Climate Progress

The 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards

By Climate Guest Blogger on Jan 5, 2012 at 5:17 pm

[*B.S. means “Bad Science.” What did you think it meant?]

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/badscience1.gif

by Peter Gleick

The Earth’s climate continued to change during 2011 – a year in which unprecedented combinations of extreme weather events killed people and damaged property around the world. The scientific evidence for the accelerating human influence on climate further strengthened, as it has for decades now. Yet on the policy front, once again, national leaders did little to stem the growing emissions of greenhouse gases or to help societies prepare for increasingly severe consequences of climate changes, including rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, rising sea-levels, loss of snowpack and glaciers, disappearance of Arctic sea ice, and much more.

Why the failure to act? In part because climate change is a truly difficult challenge. But in part because of a concerted, well-funded, and aggressive anti-science campaign by climate change deniers and contrarians. These are mostly groups focused on protecting narrow financial interests, ideologues fearful of any government regulation, or scientific contrarians who cling to outdated, long-refuted interpretations of science. While much of the opposition to addressing the issue of climate change is political, it often hides behind pseudo-scientific claims, with persistent efforts to intentionally mislead the public and policymakers with bad science about climate change. Much of this effort is based on intentional falsehoods, misrepresentations, inflated uncertainties, or pure and utter B.S. – the same tactics that delayed efforts to tackle tobacco’s health risks long after the science was understood (as documented in Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s book, Merchants of Doubt).

Last year, we issued the first ever “Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards.” I am now pleased to present the 2nd Annual (2011) Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards. In preparing the 2011 list of nominees, suggestions were received from around the world and a panel of reviewers — all climate scientists or climate communicators — waded through them. We present here the top nominees and the winner of the 2011 Climate B.S.* of the Year Awards.

The 2011 Winner:

Climate B.S.* from all of the Republican candidates for President of the United States

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b231/mumbly_joe/cementshoes1.gifIs it really necessary to be anti-science in general, and anti-climate science in particular, in order to be nominated to lead the Republican Party in the United States? Apparently, yes, at least in the minds of the Republican presidential candidates or their advisors. These candidates can be split into three groups: those ignorant or uninterested in science and its role in informing policy; those who intentionally distort science because it conflicts with deeply held political or religious ideology; and those who blow with the wind, giving their allegiance to whatever ideology seems most expedient at any given moment. There is some overlap, of course: some candidates, such as Rick Perry, have been in all three groups at various times. The third group includes candidates who have at one time or another held positions more or less consistent with scientific understanding but who in 2011 adopted anti-scientific positions during their primary campaigns. For example, Gingrich, Romney, and Huntsman, at some point in the past, all expressed at least a partial understanding about the reality and seriousness of human-caused climate change. Yet all three have now retreated from the scientific evidence to faulty but ideological safe positions demanded by the conservative wing of the Republican Party. In October, Romney caved in to conservative pressure and changed his stance on the issue. Just days ago, after pressure from anti-climate-science activists, Gingrich cut a chapter on climate science from a book of environmental essays he had agreed to produce. Ironically, that chapter was to have been written by an atmospheric scientist (Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University) who happens to be an evangelical and speaks regularly to conservative groups. She was also targeted by these activists for personal abuse – a tactic often pursued by climate deniers and contrarians.  (For a few of the craziest things the top GOP candidates have said on climate change, see Joe Romm’s recent essay at Think Progress.)

In short, the choice among the Republican candidates on the issue of climate change is scientific ignorance, disdain for science, blatant misrepresentation of facts, or naked political expediency, any one of which would make the Republican candidates strong contenders for the 2011 Climate B.S. Award. Combined? They win hands down.

[For comparison, while the Obama Administration has made little progress (and some would argue insufficient effort) on climate change, the President’s stated position on climate change is clear and in line with scientific evidence. And here is his unequivocal comment on scientific integrity:

“Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation. It’s time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world’s leader in science and technology…the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources. It’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient. Especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth, and a greater understanding of the world around us…” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFsB1Jk1OQ0]

Second Place: Disinformation from Fox News and Murdoch’s News Corporation

In this year’s competition, we award Fox News second place – up from their fifth place finish last year. This year, the award is extended to the entire News Corporation empire of Rupert Murdoch because of its apparent efforts to synchronize anti-climate science reporting among the different Murdoch outlets in the UK, the U.S., and Australia. Among the bad climate science promoted by Fox News is that snowy weather disproves global warming (while ignoring or inaccurately reporting record high temperatures recorded around the world); biased and misleading reporting about the content of emails stolen from climate scientists; incorrect claims that El Niños are responsible for global warming; and inaccurate reporting about fundamental scientific principles.

Other Murdoch empire assaults on climate science?

Read more

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