Lost Lake Tribune Nov 21, 2010
Murkowski proclaims herself the victor
Sen. Lisa Murkowski claimed victory in her historic write-in bid for the U.S. Senate Wednesday night, thanking Alaskans and telling cheering supporters: “I think we can say our miracle is here.”
Unprecedented in modern politics, the win returns the Republican incumbent to Washington, D.C., in a drawn-out defeat of tea party-backed conservative Joe Miller.
The state Republican Party called the race for Murkowski on Wednesday, with the Alaska GOP asking Miller to stand down. “We call on Joe Miller to respect the will of the voters and end his campaign in a dignified manner,” chairman Randy Ruedrich said in a prepared statement. But the Fairbanks Republican -- who staggered the Murkowski camp by winning the party primary in August -- said he's not conceding.
The Miller camp has called the state voting system “suspect.” The campaign is challenging the count in court and says the state Division of Elections has not complied with its request to review “voting tapes” from the ballot machines that record the votes cast. “It's not that we believe necessarily that we're going to come out on top,” Miller said in a phone interview. Instead, he said, the campaign wants to make sure the counting process is a fair one. Asked if he sees any scenario in which he could still win, he said: “I don't think it's impossible.”
Murkowski returned to Anchorage from Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. A throng of supporters ringed the concrete walls of the local laborers union hall for a 6 p.m. rally. Some stood on benches or chairs. A spokesman for the campaign chanted as Murkowski took the stage. “We made history!”
“Yes, we can!” said a man in the crowd.
“We did, we did,” Murkowski said softly. “We made history, and doesn't it just feel ... wow... Still a little bit, uh, a little bit mind-boggling.”
Murkowski's lead stood at more than 10,000 votes as of Tuesday night. Even if every write-in ballot challenged by the Miller campaign was thrown out, she would still be 2,000 votes ahead. Elections officials counted the last of the ballots on Wednesday -- about 700 absentee votes.
The election board had not released a final tally as of Wednesday night. The last of the write-in ballots will be reviewed for eligibility and challenges Friday, Gail Fenumiai said.
Murkowski's margin over Miller appears to make irrelevant his lawsuit asking the courts to toss out misspelled votes.
Miller said Wednesday he didn't know if he'd call for a recount. A Miller spokesman said earlier in the week that the campaign wanted a hand count of all ballots, not just write-in, to avoid any errors in the machine counting process.
But Fenumiai said Wednesday that state does not grant recounts entirely by hand. A traditional recount using optical scan equipment costs about $15,000, she said, and is only paid for by the state if a candidate is within .5 percent of winning.
A rally onWednesday punctuated the general election rematch between the two Republicans.
Myron Naneng, head of an Alaska Native organization that serves more than 50 villages in Western Alaska, watched from a folding chair beside his daughter. Among the standing-room only crowd: the head of the Anchorage police union, former state Sen. Jerry Mackie and a bank of television cameras, including some from national networks.
Murkowski, a well-known incumbent with a lot of campaign money running in a small state, was positioned better than most obscure write-in candidates, but political operatives and academics will be studying her campaign for years. Murkowski distributed T-shirts -- “Too legit to quit” -- temporary tattoos and bracelets emblazoned with her name.
She had $1 million left over from the Republican primary. A Supreme Court ruling earlier this year allowed unrestricted spending from Alaska Native corporations, who poured over $1.2 million into the race on her behalf. Labor groups and some Democrats spooked by Miller's far-right politics supported Murkowski, too.
Murkowski said the write-in battle has made her more independent but stopped at the idea that she now “owes” her non-traditional supporters. “I don't know that it's a question of owing anybody,” she said. “It's doing the best job that I possibly can to represent everybody … that's a challenge. It'd be … easier if all I was going to do was represent the Republicans.”
In a conversation after the rally with Donald Mitchell, a Democratic lawyer, Murkowski acknowledged that she knew it wasn't easy for many Democrats to vote for her, and that it took a “total leap of faith” to believe she would be more independent of the demands of her party's leadership. “People looked at me and said, 'Well, we're deathly afraid of (Joe) Miller,' “ she said, “and I think that they looked at it and said, 'You know, she's not there for us as much as we want her to be, but there's hope, there's hope.' “
While she wouldn't say where she might strike an independent course on national issues, she pledged it would happen. “I'm in a different spot than I ever have been before. Which I think is a good spot for the Democrats and for the independents and for the Natives and the Laborers who are all just a little bit like, 'So what does it mean?' “
Murkowski said she expects to retain her committee assignments and seniority in D.C. Initially, though, her colleagues saw the write-in bid as a lost cause.
“There was not a one that supported the endeavor … They were all very concerned because history does not bode well for a write-in candidate,” Murkowski said.
Murkowski's write-in victory is the first for a U.S. Senate candidate since Strom Thurmond of South Carolina won in 1954, and the first write-in candidate elected to statewide office in Alaska.
Information Gained from: http://www.adn.com/2010/11/17/1560285/murkowski-proclaims-herself-the.html#disqus_thread#ixzz15eeDzCQH
President Obama Gains Initial Support for
Continental Missile Shield in Europe
President Barack Obama won NATO summit agreement Friday to build a missile shield over Europe. This is an ambitious commitment to protect against Iranian attack while demonstrating the alliance's continuing relevance — but at the risk of further aggravating Russia.
On another major issue, Obama and the allies are expected to announce plans on Saturday to begin handing off security responsibility in Afghanistan to local forces next year and to complete the transition by the end of 2014.
That end date is three years beyond the time that Obama has said he will start withdrawing U.S. troops, and the challenge is to avoid a rush to the exits as public opinion turns more sharply against the war and Afghan President Hamid Karzai pushes for greater Afghan control.
While celebrating the missile shield decision, Obama also made a renewed pitch for Senate ratification back in the U.S. of a nuclear arms treaty with Russia, asserting that Europeans believe rejection of the deal would hurt their security and damage relations with the Russians.
Two key unanswered questions about the missile shield — will it work and can the Europeans afford it? — were put aside for the present in the interest of celebrating the agreement as a boost for NATO solidarity.
“It offers a role for all of our allies,” Obama told reporters. “It responds to the threats of our times. It shows our determination to protect our citizens from the threat of ballistic missiles.” He did not mention Iran by name, acceding to the wishes of NATO member Turkey, which had threatened to block the deal if its neighbor was singled out.
Under the arrangement, a limited system of U.S. anti-missile interceptors and radars already planned for Europe — to include interceptors in Romania and Poland and possibly a radar in Turkey — would be linked to expanded European-owned missile defenses. That would create a broad system that protects every NATO country against medium-range missile attack.
NATO plans to invite Russia to join the missile shield effort, although Moscow would not be given joint control. The gesture would mark a historic milestone for the alliance, created after World War II to defend Western Europe against the threat of an invasion by Soviet forces.
As for the U.S.-Russia arms treaty, Obama was backed by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark, who told reporters that the treaty, called New START and signed last April by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, would improve security not only in Europe but also beyond.
“I would strongly regret if it is delayed,” Fogh Rasmussen said. “A delay would be damaging for security in Europe, and I urge all parties involved to ratify it.” Obama needs 67 votes in the Senate for ratification, and many Republicans have balked at even taking a vote before the new, more heavily GOP Congress convenes in January.
The allies opened their summit by agreeing on the first rewrite of NATO's basic mission — formally called its “strategic concept” — since 1999. They reaffirmed their bedrock commitment that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all. In that context, the agreement to build a missile defense for all of Europe is meant to strengthen the alliance.
What remains in conflict, however, is the question of the future role of nuclear weapons in NATO's basic strategy. The document members agreed to Friday says NATO will retain an “appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities” to deter a potential aggressor. Germany and some other NATO members want U.S. nuclear weapons withdrawn from Europe.
Non-government advocates of the German view were quick to criticize what they saw as a missed opportunity here for further nuclear disarmament. “In an astonishing demonstration of weakness, NATO [leaders] failed to tackle the Cold War legacy of the deployment of U.S. nuclear gravity bombs in Europe, threatening the credibility of NATO members' claims to be interested in non-proliferation and global disarmament,” said Paul Ingram, executive director of the British American Security Information Council in London.
The specter of continued stalemate in Afghanistan hung over the Lisbon summit. Obama said Afghanistan must get ready for the start of a shift away from reliance on U.S. and NATO combat power “as we move toward a new phase, a transition to Afghan responsibility beginning in 2011 with Afghan forces taking the lead for security across Afghanistan by 2014.”
A key question: Will Afghan security forces and the central government be ready to take full responsibility by then?
Mark Sedwill, the top NATO civilian official in Afghanistan, told reporters in Lisbon that it was possible the transition could be completed before 2014, although it's not yet clear whether even that date will mark the end of NATO combat there.
A member of Karzai's delegation to the summit, former Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani, said that once 2014 is set as the target date, NATO needs to work with Kabul to establish milestones to get there. “We as Afghans are responsive to our public opinion, and our public opinion is raising these issues, and what is fortunate is now, NATO has become ... a listening organization,” Ghani said on the sidelines of the summit.
Stating the U.S. view in clear terms, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell had said Thursday that 2014 is an “aspirational goal,” not a deadline either for Afghan forces to take full control or for a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who met privately with Karzai on Friday, said earlier that despite the economic burdens faced by much of Europe and the U.S., she believes the war campaign must continue. “The challenge posed by radical extremists who utilize terror to promote their agenda is one that threatens the people of Portugal, the people of Europe, the people of the United States and, indeed, nations around the world,” Clinton said. Her comments seemed aimed at slowing any rush to withdrawal by allies who believe military force is not the solution in Afghanistan. Canada, for example, is ending its combat mission next year while keeping 950 troops there in a support role.
The summit comes in a pivotal period for NATO, whose relevance is questioned by some who view the alliance as a relic. The adversary that prompted NATO's creation in 1949 — the Soviet Union along with its Warsaw Pact allies — no longer exists, in the mind of some.
After NATO's rapid expansion over the past decade and a half — growing from 16 members to 28 — the gap in military prowess between the U.S. and most of the rest of the alliance has widened to the point where the basic nature of the defense partnership is in doubt.
Rasmussen told Friday's opening session that it is time for NATO countries to start “cutting fat and investing in muscle.”
This is where the U.S. push for a NATO missile defense comes in. It would require a lot of money from European countries — estimated at about $260 million over 10 years — and a commitment to a more active type of defense. It also risks aggravating Russia, which has expressed worry that missile defenses could undermine the deterrent value of its own nuclear arsenal.
Ivo Daalder, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, took a positive view of prospects for working with Moscow. “I believe we will find Russia and NATO will now decide that this is a time we move forward together on how to cooperate,” said Daalder, though he said Saturday's meetings weren't likely to result in concrete agreements on missile defense cooperation.
Information Gained from: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/11/19/afghanistan-handover-issue-hangs-nato-summit-440124980/
County officials blast GOP request for vote match
Counties say Tom Emmer's call for signature count is unwarranted. Election officials unleashed a storm of sharp words and legal arguments Friday in filings aimed at blocking Republican Tom Emmer's request that state's highest court order the local officials to prove there were no more votes than voters on Election Night.
If the Supreme Court, which appears to be on a fast track to a decision, sides with Emmer, the recount process could slow and some votes could be tossed before an expected statewide recount. Should the court side with Democrat Mark Dayton, who holds an 8,755-vote lead, the state could order the recount on Tuesday.
Hennepin County election officials argued that being forced to undertake a count of voter signatures, as Republicans want, would “add confusion, delay, and uncertainty in the service of an exceedingly suspect goal of randomly removing properly cast ballots of fully eligible voters.” Ramsey County officials called the GOP argument “fundamentally flawed” and based on “obsolete” information.
Dayton attorneys said that Republicans want to “change the rules after the game has been played” and that the GOP petition “should be dismissed on that ground alone.”
Republican Party Chairman Tony Sutton said of the responses: “The fact of the matter is they're wrong ... If you want to make sure that Minnesotans have confidence in the result, just follow the law.”
The Minnesota Supreme Court has scheduled possible oral arguments “if necessary,” for Monday afternoon.
At the heart of the disagreement between the counties and Emmer's campaign is whether election officials should have followed the letter of a law that requires election judges to count either “signed voter's certificates” or “names entered in the election register” and then match the number of signatures to the number of votes cast. An administrative rule adopted nearly 30 years ago allows election officials to count receipts instead. If there are excess votes, state statute stipulates that votes must be randomly pulled and discarded.
Ramsey County told the court that “certificates” were used in a bygone era, before Minnesota's statewide registration system, and that receipts are merely the modern equivalent.
The Emmer team says that local officials could make the required ballot check before they actually start counting ballots with “minimal time and effort.”
As a backup to the court request, Eric Magnuson, a former Supreme Court chief justice who now is an attorney for Emmer, has asked the state canvassing board to request such a check either before or during the recount. The canvassing board is due to meet Tuesday, Nov. 23, to certify vote totals and order a gubernatorial recount.
The Dayton team added heft to its legal team on Friday, reassembling nearly the entire legal gang that led U.S. Sen. Al Franken to a 312-vote victory in Minnesota's 2008 U.S. Senate recount. Attorneys Marc Elias and Kevin Hamilton will join David Lillehaug and Charlie Nauen on the legal team. Denise Cardinal, a Dayton spokeswoman, said that Emmer appears to be preparing for an extended legal challenge, so the Democrats felt they needed to prepare as well.
Emmer's team includes Magnuson, who was a member of the 2008 state canvassing board; former Supreme Court Justice Sam Hanson; Michael Toner, a Washington, D.C., attorney and former head of the Federal Elections Commission, and Tony Trimble, a longtime Minnesota Republican attorney.
The quest for a records check may not yield many votes for Emmer, who trails Dayton by 8,755 votes. Though Sutton contends that there could be thousands of “phantom votes” in the count, the state's county officials recorded only handfuls of excess votes that could be tossed.
In Hennepin County, Minnesota's largest, officials said they found only 22 excess ballots out of more than 450,000 voters. Ramsey County found five more ballots cast than recorded signatures. In Stearns County, officials found and discarded six excess ballots.
Hennepin and Ramsey did not discard excess ballots, arguing that miniscule discrepancies do not warrant such action. Hennepin County officials said removing ballots under those circumstances would be a “drastic remedy,” while Ramsey officials said it would “disenfranchise a legitimate voter simply because” of human error.
In Hennepin County, auditor Jill Alverson told the court that “randomly disenfranchising eligible voters after the fact is a statutory remedy that should be used only in the narrowest of circumstances and then only after careful, transparent and deliberate study.”
Information Gained from: http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/109351909.html
Sen. Lisa Murkowski claimed victory in her historic write-in bid for the U.S. Senate Wednesday night, thanking Alaskans and telling cheering supporters: “I think we can say our miracle is here.”
Unprecedented in modern politics, the win returns the Republican incumbent to Washington, D.C., in a drawn-out defeat of tea party-backed conservative Joe Miller.
The state Republican Party called the race for Murkowski on Wednesday, with the Alaska GOP asking Miller to stand down. “We call on Joe Miller to respect the will of the voters and end his campaign in a dignified manner,” chairman Randy Ruedrich said in a prepared statement. But the Fairbanks Republican -- who staggered the Murkowski camp by winning the party primary in August -- said he's not conceding.
The Miller camp has called the state voting system “suspect.” The campaign is challenging the count in court and says the state Division of Elections has not complied with its request to review “voting tapes” from the ballot machines that record the votes cast. “It's not that we believe necessarily that we're going to come out on top,” Miller said in a phone interview. Instead, he said, the campaign wants to make sure the counting process is a fair one. Asked if he sees any scenario in which he could still win, he said: “I don't think it's impossible.”
Murkowski returned to Anchorage from Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. A throng of supporters ringed the concrete walls of the local laborers union hall for a 6 p.m. rally. Some stood on benches or chairs. A spokesman for the campaign chanted as Murkowski took the stage. “We made history!”
“Yes, we can!” said a man in the crowd.
“We did, we did,” Murkowski said softly. “We made history, and doesn't it just feel ... wow... Still a little bit, uh, a little bit mind-boggling.”
Murkowski's lead stood at more than 10,000 votes as of Tuesday night. Even if every write-in ballot challenged by the Miller campaign was thrown out, she would still be 2,000 votes ahead. Elections officials counted the last of the ballots on Wednesday -- about 700 absentee votes.
The election board had not released a final tally as of Wednesday night. The last of the write-in ballots will be reviewed for eligibility and challenges Friday, Gail Fenumiai said.
Murkowski's margin over Miller appears to make irrelevant his lawsuit asking the courts to toss out misspelled votes.
Miller said Wednesday he didn't know if he'd call for a recount. A Miller spokesman said earlier in the week that the campaign wanted a hand count of all ballots, not just write-in, to avoid any errors in the machine counting process.
But Fenumiai said Wednesday that state does not grant recounts entirely by hand. A traditional recount using optical scan equipment costs about $15,000, she said, and is only paid for by the state if a candidate is within .5 percent of winning.
A rally onWednesday punctuated the general election rematch between the two Republicans.
Myron Naneng, head of an Alaska Native organization that serves more than 50 villages in Western Alaska, watched from a folding chair beside his daughter. Among the standing-room only crowd: the head of the Anchorage police union, former state Sen. Jerry Mackie and a bank of television cameras, including some from national networks.
Murkowski, a well-known incumbent with a lot of campaign money running in a small state, was positioned better than most obscure write-in candidates, but political operatives and academics will be studying her campaign for years. Murkowski distributed T-shirts -- “Too legit to quit” -- temporary tattoos and bracelets emblazoned with her name.
She had $1 million left over from the Republican primary. A Supreme Court ruling earlier this year allowed unrestricted spending from Alaska Native corporations, who poured over $1.2 million into the race on her behalf. Labor groups and some Democrats spooked by Miller's far-right politics supported Murkowski, too.
Murkowski said the write-in battle has made her more independent but stopped at the idea that she now “owes” her non-traditional supporters. “I don't know that it's a question of owing anybody,” she said. “It's doing the best job that I possibly can to represent everybody … that's a challenge. It'd be … easier if all I was going to do was represent the Republicans.”
In a conversation after the rally with Donald Mitchell, a Democratic lawyer, Murkowski acknowledged that she knew it wasn't easy for many Democrats to vote for her, and that it took a “total leap of faith” to believe she would be more independent of the demands of her party's leadership. “People looked at me and said, 'Well, we're deathly afraid of (Joe) Miller,' “ she said, “and I think that they looked at it and said, 'You know, she's not there for us as much as we want her to be, but there's hope, there's hope.' “
While she wouldn't say where she might strike an independent course on national issues, she pledged it would happen. “I'm in a different spot than I ever have been before. Which I think is a good spot for the Democrats and for the independents and for the Natives and the Laborers who are all just a little bit like, 'So what does it mean?' “
Murkowski said she expects to retain her committee assignments and seniority in D.C. Initially, though, her colleagues saw the write-in bid as a lost cause.
“There was not a one that supported the endeavor … They were all very concerned because history does not bode well for a write-in candidate,” Murkowski said.
Murkowski's write-in victory is the first for a U.S. Senate candidate since Strom Thurmond of South Carolina won in 1954, and the first write-in candidate elected to statewide office in Alaska.
Information Gained from: http://www.adn.com/2010/11/17/1560285/murkowski-proclaims-herself-the.html#disqus_thread#ixzz15eeDzCQH
President Obama Gains Initial Support for
Continental Missile Shield in Europe
President Barack Obama won NATO summit agreement Friday to build a missile shield over Europe. This is an ambitious commitment to protect against Iranian attack while demonstrating the alliance's continuing relevance — but at the risk of further aggravating Russia.
On another major issue, Obama and the allies are expected to announce plans on Saturday to begin handing off security responsibility in Afghanistan to local forces next year and to complete the transition by the end of 2014.
That end date is three years beyond the time that Obama has said he will start withdrawing U.S. troops, and the challenge is to avoid a rush to the exits as public opinion turns more sharply against the war and Afghan President Hamid Karzai pushes for greater Afghan control.
While celebrating the missile shield decision, Obama also made a renewed pitch for Senate ratification back in the U.S. of a nuclear arms treaty with Russia, asserting that Europeans believe rejection of the deal would hurt their security and damage relations with the Russians.
Two key unanswered questions about the missile shield — will it work and can the Europeans afford it? — were put aside for the present in the interest of celebrating the agreement as a boost for NATO solidarity.
“It offers a role for all of our allies,” Obama told reporters. “It responds to the threats of our times. It shows our determination to protect our citizens from the threat of ballistic missiles.” He did not mention Iran by name, acceding to the wishes of NATO member Turkey, which had threatened to block the deal if its neighbor was singled out.
Under the arrangement, a limited system of U.S. anti-missile interceptors and radars already planned for Europe — to include interceptors in Romania and Poland and possibly a radar in Turkey — would be linked to expanded European-owned missile defenses. That would create a broad system that protects every NATO country against medium-range missile attack.
NATO plans to invite Russia to join the missile shield effort, although Moscow would not be given joint control. The gesture would mark a historic milestone for the alliance, created after World War II to defend Western Europe against the threat of an invasion by Soviet forces.
As for the U.S.-Russia arms treaty, Obama was backed by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark, who told reporters that the treaty, called New START and signed last April by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, would improve security not only in Europe but also beyond.
“I would strongly regret if it is delayed,” Fogh Rasmussen said. “A delay would be damaging for security in Europe, and I urge all parties involved to ratify it.” Obama needs 67 votes in the Senate for ratification, and many Republicans have balked at even taking a vote before the new, more heavily GOP Congress convenes in January.
The allies opened their summit by agreeing on the first rewrite of NATO's basic mission — formally called its “strategic concept” — since 1999. They reaffirmed their bedrock commitment that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all. In that context, the agreement to build a missile defense for all of Europe is meant to strengthen the alliance.
What remains in conflict, however, is the question of the future role of nuclear weapons in NATO's basic strategy. The document members agreed to Friday says NATO will retain an “appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities” to deter a potential aggressor. Germany and some other NATO members want U.S. nuclear weapons withdrawn from Europe.
Non-government advocates of the German view were quick to criticize what they saw as a missed opportunity here for further nuclear disarmament. “In an astonishing demonstration of weakness, NATO [leaders] failed to tackle the Cold War legacy of the deployment of U.S. nuclear gravity bombs in Europe, threatening the credibility of NATO members' claims to be interested in non-proliferation and global disarmament,” said Paul Ingram, executive director of the British American Security Information Council in London.
The specter of continued stalemate in Afghanistan hung over the Lisbon summit. Obama said Afghanistan must get ready for the start of a shift away from reliance on U.S. and NATO combat power “as we move toward a new phase, a transition to Afghan responsibility beginning in 2011 with Afghan forces taking the lead for security across Afghanistan by 2014.”
A key question: Will Afghan security forces and the central government be ready to take full responsibility by then?
Mark Sedwill, the top NATO civilian official in Afghanistan, told reporters in Lisbon that it was possible the transition could be completed before 2014, although it's not yet clear whether even that date will mark the end of NATO combat there.
A member of Karzai's delegation to the summit, former Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani, said that once 2014 is set as the target date, NATO needs to work with Kabul to establish milestones to get there. “We as Afghans are responsive to our public opinion, and our public opinion is raising these issues, and what is fortunate is now, NATO has become ... a listening organization,” Ghani said on the sidelines of the summit.
Stating the U.S. view in clear terms, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell had said Thursday that 2014 is an “aspirational goal,” not a deadline either for Afghan forces to take full control or for a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who met privately with Karzai on Friday, said earlier that despite the economic burdens faced by much of Europe and the U.S., she believes the war campaign must continue. “The challenge posed by radical extremists who utilize terror to promote their agenda is one that threatens the people of Portugal, the people of Europe, the people of the United States and, indeed, nations around the world,” Clinton said. Her comments seemed aimed at slowing any rush to withdrawal by allies who believe military force is not the solution in Afghanistan. Canada, for example, is ending its combat mission next year while keeping 950 troops there in a support role.
The summit comes in a pivotal period for NATO, whose relevance is questioned by some who view the alliance as a relic. The adversary that prompted NATO's creation in 1949 — the Soviet Union along with its Warsaw Pact allies — no longer exists, in the mind of some.
After NATO's rapid expansion over the past decade and a half — growing from 16 members to 28 — the gap in military prowess between the U.S. and most of the rest of the alliance has widened to the point where the basic nature of the defense partnership is in doubt.
Rasmussen told Friday's opening session that it is time for NATO countries to start “cutting fat and investing in muscle.”
This is where the U.S. push for a NATO missile defense comes in. It would require a lot of money from European countries — estimated at about $260 million over 10 years — and a commitment to a more active type of defense. It also risks aggravating Russia, which has expressed worry that missile defenses could undermine the deterrent value of its own nuclear arsenal.
Ivo Daalder, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, took a positive view of prospects for working with Moscow. “I believe we will find Russia and NATO will now decide that this is a time we move forward together on how to cooperate,” said Daalder, though he said Saturday's meetings weren't likely to result in concrete agreements on missile defense cooperation.
Information Gained from: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/11/19/afghanistan-handover-issue-hangs-nato-summit-440124980/
County officials blast GOP request for vote match
Counties say Tom Emmer's call for signature count is unwarranted. Election officials unleashed a storm of sharp words and legal arguments Friday in filings aimed at blocking Republican Tom Emmer's request that state's highest court order the local officials to prove there were no more votes than voters on Election Night.
If the Supreme Court, which appears to be on a fast track to a decision, sides with Emmer, the recount process could slow and some votes could be tossed before an expected statewide recount. Should the court side with Democrat Mark Dayton, who holds an 8,755-vote lead, the state could order the recount on Tuesday.
Hennepin County election officials argued that being forced to undertake a count of voter signatures, as Republicans want, would “add confusion, delay, and uncertainty in the service of an exceedingly suspect goal of randomly removing properly cast ballots of fully eligible voters.” Ramsey County officials called the GOP argument “fundamentally flawed” and based on “obsolete” information.
Dayton attorneys said that Republicans want to “change the rules after the game has been played” and that the GOP petition “should be dismissed on that ground alone.”
Republican Party Chairman Tony Sutton said of the responses: “The fact of the matter is they're wrong ... If you want to make sure that Minnesotans have confidence in the result, just follow the law.”
The Minnesota Supreme Court has scheduled possible oral arguments “if necessary,” for Monday afternoon.
At the heart of the disagreement between the counties and Emmer's campaign is whether election officials should have followed the letter of a law that requires election judges to count either “signed voter's certificates” or “names entered in the election register” and then match the number of signatures to the number of votes cast. An administrative rule adopted nearly 30 years ago allows election officials to count receipts instead. If there are excess votes, state statute stipulates that votes must be randomly pulled and discarded.
Ramsey County told the court that “certificates” were used in a bygone era, before Minnesota's statewide registration system, and that receipts are merely the modern equivalent.
The Emmer team says that local officials could make the required ballot check before they actually start counting ballots with “minimal time and effort.”
As a backup to the court request, Eric Magnuson, a former Supreme Court chief justice who now is an attorney for Emmer, has asked the state canvassing board to request such a check either before or during the recount. The canvassing board is due to meet Tuesday, Nov. 23, to certify vote totals and order a gubernatorial recount.
The Dayton team added heft to its legal team on Friday, reassembling nearly the entire legal gang that led U.S. Sen. Al Franken to a 312-vote victory in Minnesota's 2008 U.S. Senate recount. Attorneys Marc Elias and Kevin Hamilton will join David Lillehaug and Charlie Nauen on the legal team. Denise Cardinal, a Dayton spokeswoman, said that Emmer appears to be preparing for an extended legal challenge, so the Democrats felt they needed to prepare as well.
Emmer's team includes Magnuson, who was a member of the 2008 state canvassing board; former Supreme Court Justice Sam Hanson; Michael Toner, a Washington, D.C., attorney and former head of the Federal Elections Commission, and Tony Trimble, a longtime Minnesota Republican attorney.
The quest for a records check may not yield many votes for Emmer, who trails Dayton by 8,755 votes. Though Sutton contends that there could be thousands of “phantom votes” in the count, the state's county officials recorded only handfuls of excess votes that could be tossed.
In Hennepin County, Minnesota's largest, officials said they found only 22 excess ballots out of more than 450,000 voters. Ramsey County found five more ballots cast than recorded signatures. In Stearns County, officials found and discarded six excess ballots.
Hennepin and Ramsey did not discard excess ballots, arguing that miniscule discrepancies do not warrant such action. Hennepin County officials said removing ballots under those circumstances would be a “drastic remedy,” while Ramsey officials said it would “disenfranchise a legitimate voter simply because” of human error.
In Hennepin County, auditor Jill Alverson told the court that “randomly disenfranchising eligible voters after the fact is a statutory remedy that should be used only in the narrowest of circumstances and then only after careful, transparent and deliberate study.”
Information Gained from: http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/109351909.html
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