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Friday, November 20, 2009
Paul Krugman: The Big Squander
So here’s the real tragedy of the botched bailout: Government officials, perhaps influenced by spending too much time with bankers, forgot that if you want to govern effectively you have retain the trust of the people. And by treating the financial industry — which got us into this mess in the first place — with kid gloves, they have squandered that trust.

Friday, November 20, 2009
FDL Book Salon Welcomes Maggie Mahar, Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much
It’s an overwhelming story & through it all we read of physicians torn between the traditional ethics of their profession & incentives & temptations of the money-driven system that surrounds them.Mahar shows the best of them struggling to create islands of ethical sanity,to collaborate & share information (using IT reforms,evidence-based medicine)in a hospital & drug industry that would rather withhold information because

Thursday, November 19, 2009
Playing the Health Care Lottery
(1 comments) That’s the problem with playing the health care lottery. You’re a winner and the system keeps you safe and whole—until it doesn’t.And when that moment comes,when you draw the chit that says “claim denied” or “medication not on the approved list” or “treatment no longer covered,” well, as the story tells us, “‘It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,’ Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.”

Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Obama lawyers to Democrat alleging political prosecution: Go back to jail
The seeming disconnect between Obama's team and numerous Democrats -- including House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr., who's investigated Siegelman's case -- may be because President George W. Bush's US Attorney in Alabama is still in office. Democrats still haven't settled on a replacement, some eleven months after Obama's inauguration.

Sunday, November 15, 2009
Frank Rich: The Missing Link from Killeen to Kabul
Perhaps those on the right are correct about Hasan,and he is just one cog in an apocalyptic jihadist plot that has infiltrated our armed forces.If so,then they have an obligation to explain how pouring more troops into Afghanistan would have stopped Hasan from plotting in Killeen.Don’t hold your breath. If we have learned anything concrete so far from the massacre at Fort Hood, it’s that our hawks,for all their certitude

Sunday, November 15, 2009
Malpractice for Profit: Legal Drugs That Kill
This was published in 1998...before Big Pharma became as big as it is now. It was written by Thomas Moore, who was a senior fellow in health policy at the George Washington University Medical Center, and is the author of "Prescription for Disaster: The Hidden Dangers in Your Medicine Cabinet."

Thursday, November 12, 2009
Trading Women's Rights for Political Power
When it comes to abortion, they[Democrats] seem to think all positions are of equal value so long as the party maintains a majority. But the party will eventually reap what it has sown. If Democrats do not commit themselves to defeating the amendment, then they will face an uncompromising effort by Democratic women to defeat them, regardless of the cost to the party’s precious majority.

Thursday, November 12, 2009
Afghan's "Bravest Woman" Calls on US to Leave
(8 comments) Malalai Joya, called the "bravest woman in Afghanistan," is finishing up a U.S. tour where she has pressed the Obama administration to pull the military out of her country. She says nothing could be worse for women than what she sees as the current civil war

Monday, November 9, 2009
Despite Censorship By Beef Magnate, Michael Pollan Spreads Message About the Real Price of Cheap Food
Pollan took on Big Ag and cheap food in a panel discussion, after the protests of a meat industry chairman led to his speech at a University being canceled.

Monday, November 9, 2009
Exclusive: Mike Connell's Family Copes With His Mysterious Death
His sister Shannon cites ties to Bush Administration and GOP: "It just seems way too convenient, the timing since he had been deposed. He didn't get to testify.But I don't think he would've perjured himself. When it comes down to it,he was basically an honest person.If push came to shove and he was under oath testifying,I believe that he would've told the truth.I think that there were other people who believed that as well."

Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Fixing Bugs in the Ballot
So what's the problem now?"Really,we got ahead of ourselves,"Ash told attendees at last month's New Horizons in Science meeting in Austin."We got ahead of ourselves in the sense that the timeline for instituting new technology to solve the electoral problems was too rapid for the community to really figure out what the protocol&what the specs should be.So a lot of states bought equipment which actually made things not better."

Friday, October 30, 2009
U.S. official resigns over Afghan war
"I'm not some peacenik,pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love.There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," Hoh said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban."I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."But many Afghans,he wrote in his resignation letter,are fighting the US largely because its troops are there--a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders are not welcome

Friday, October 30, 2009
Paul Krugman: The Defining Moment
For this is the moment of truth. The political environment is as favorable for reform as it’s likely to get. The legislation on the table isn’t perfect, but it’s as good as anyone could reasonably have expected. History is about to be made — and everyone has to decide which side they’re on.

Thursday, October 29, 2009
How the Angelides Commission can crack open the Wall Street scandal—if it dares.
If the Angelides commission issues subpoenas to investigate these five questions and promises to set these documents before the public, we will know it is for real and will serve a genuine public purpose. Populist anger is no better a policy guide than libertarian rhetoric. Only hard facts—facts that this commission can gather—will permit the debate to move beyond either one.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Lessons from Detroit Conference on Plug-in Electric Vehicles
If I could sum up last week’s conference on electric vehicles,it would be this:I’m now certain my kids will grow up driving electric cars.Advocates have been saying it for a while,but now all sides of the debate—including automakers,utilities,venture capitalists,& policymakers—are saying it too:electric-powered automobiles are the real deal,& we’re on the cusp of the biggest transformation in automotive history since

Sunday, October 25, 2009
Military Waging War Against The White House
"A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble,"he said.By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan,Gen. McChrystal,says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops,top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation,Hersh contended."If he gives them the extra troops they're asking for,he loses politically.And if he doesn't give them, he also loses politically."

Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Click here to find out more! Your request is being processed... Spitzer On Breaking Up Big Banks: White House
Alan Greenspan is now saying break up the institutions... Volcker in his testimony a few weeks ago said we should not be insuring these big institutions to do proprietary trading. A bank has to be a bank... The White House seems to be the only institution that doesn't get this. You still have Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, and maybe Ben Bernanke out there saying let's keep the status quo.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009
E-Voting Code to Receive 'First-Ever' Public Scrutiny Following Public Records Request
"We have Sequoia source code here, free and clear and legal to download, take apart and *openly* discuss," he told The BRAD BLOG, "no NDAs, no arguments that it's 'stolen', no nothing. Sequoia gave it to us via public records, assuming they'd successfully sabotaged it. Ooops. Not well enough."

Monday, October 19, 2009
The Baucus Bill: 'Reform' or Legislative Obscenity?
Where this nation's founders declared that each individual is born with certain 'inalienable rights' - 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' - under Baucus every birth carries with it a lifetime obligation to pay into to the coffers of the health insurance cartel to maintain the obscene wealth of the privileged few.

Monday, October 19, 2009
BradBlog: Diebold's Optical-Scan System FAILS in Sarasota, FL
Speaking of years-old hacks, good luck to ya on November 3rd, Kathy Dent! And good luck to Sarasota voters this year! And to all the others around the country using identical, or nearly identical equipment to tabulate their paper ballots in lieu of human being actually counting them accurately and publicly. That's democracy! Or...whatever.

Thursday, October 15, 2009
Rep. Weiner: Countdown to Health Care
Sign petition to support the public option.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009
'Ring of Fire' Can't Stop Laughing About BRAD BLOG Headline on GA Supreme Court Decision
It was Rady Ananda's story here last week which expertly covered Diebold's wholly unverifiable touch-screen voting machines receiving the thumbs up for use across the entire state of Georgia, where they've been using them since 2002. That, even though there is no way to determine that any vote ever cast on any of them has ever been recorded accurately as per any voter's intent.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Obama to visit New Orleans for a post-Katrina survey
Said Bob Brown, managing director of the Business Council of New Orleans: "Even if you hate him, if you see the delivery of things that are helpful to the state, and you compare that to the performance of the previous administration after Katrina, you'd have to be the biggest ideologue in the universe not to soften up a little bit."

Friday, October 9, 2009
Calling 'Em Out: The White House Takes on the Press
(1 comments) All the criticism,both fair & misleading,took a toll,regularly knocking the WH off message.So a new White House strategy has emerged: rather than just giving reporters ammunition to "fact-check" Obama's many critics,the WH decided it would become a player,issuing biting attacks on those pundits,politicians & outlets that make what the WH believes to be misleading or simply false claims.O cheered on the effort to "call them out

Thursday, October 8, 2009
Garrison Keillor: Health Care for All - Even Republicans
In the great contest of autumn-Art & Adventure vs.Parenthood,Hitting the Road In Search Of The True You vs. Attending Parent-Teacher Conferences & Hearing About How We Need To Work On Sharing-Republicans vote Neither. They're mostly about maximizing profit in the short run.They are the folks who buy a healthy company&then sink it under an enormous debt load that goes to pay them a vast profit even though the company is sinking

Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Does Obama Get It?
(1 comments) The Obama administration seems hamstrung by the unemployment crisis. If that does not change, these staggering levels of joblessness have the potential to cripple not just the well-being of millions of American families, but any real prospects for sustained economic recovery and the political prospects of the president as well. An unemployed electorate is an unhappy electorate.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Study: Bush administration blocked efforts to prevent housing crisis
(1 comments) Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers,it embarked on an aggressive &unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.Spitzer's Post column ran a month before the NYT reported that federal authorities were investigating him as a patron of high-end hookers,ending his political career& crusasde vs

Friday, October 2, 2009
Paul Krugman: Mission Not Accomplished
spending money now means a stronger economy, both in the short run and in the long run. And a stronger economy means more revenues, which offset a large fraction of the upfront cost. I know more stimulus is a hard sell politically. But it’s urgently needed. The question shouldn’t be whether we can afford to do more to promote recovery. It should be whether we can afford not to. And the answer is no.

Thursday, October 1, 2009
Stewart Destroys Dems For Not Getting Public Option Passed
The Democrats had the numbers on the committee, but several members of their party voted against the amendments despite 65% national approval for the plan. Stewart argued that the "Democrats couldn't get laid in a house [where people's] sole purpose is to have consequence and disease-free sex with legislators on finance committees."

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Grayson stands by criticism of Republican plan: ‘I would like to apologize to the dead.’
(2 comments) Yesterday,Rep.Grayson(D-FL)said the Republican health care plan is “don’t get sick,”&if you do get sick,“die quickly.”After offering those facetious& sadly accurate remarks,Grayson came under criticism from Rep.Price(R-GA),who demanded that Grayson apologize on the House floor."We have to have the guts to take the majority the American people gave us & do something with it.We have to do is solve people's problems."

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Yes! Senate Climate and Clean Energy Bill draft includes access and opportunity for all!
These provisions,which we also successfully fought to include in the House's clean energy bill,will ensure that low-income communities and communities of color can access good jobs and job trhe bill must remain strong and pass through the Environment and Public Works Committee and the full Senate. We've got to be organized and persistent in order to keep our provisions in the bill.Please stay in the fight with us.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Civil Rights Groups Seek International Help on Felony Voting
They may know as early as next week whether the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will accept their request for a hearing."We wanted to bring attention to the issue of felony disenfranchisement and put a human rights framework on the issue," said Johnson-Blanco,a voting rights attorney with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.By casting the issue as a human rights matter, advocates have another avenue to

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
FEC Opens a New Avenue for Weathy Donors
That may not seem like a big deal. But William McGinley, the lawyer at Patton Boggs who argued to case, says: “Now wealthy individuals have another way of expressing their views. Now they can seek professional assistance to shape their messages.”

Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Act Blue Presents ACCOUNTABILITY: Max Baucus & Olympia Snowe
The Senate Finance Committee just finished voting on amendments to add a public option to their healthcare reform bill -- and both Senators Max Baucus of Montana and Olympia Snowe of Maine voted against them. That's right; both Senators just voted the way the insurance interests who fund their campaigns wanted -- and against what voters in their states demand.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Why the Current Bills Don't Solve Our Health Care Crisis
Some laudable elements are in various versions of the bills,especially expanding Medicaid,cutting the private insurance-padding waste of Medicare Advantage,and limiting the ability of the insurance giants to ban and dump people who have been or who ever will be sick.But,overall, the leading bills and the President's proposal are,like the dog that didn't bark,more notable for what is missing: Read more at: http://www.h

Thursday, September 24, 2009
Technology U: How to Save Democracy, the Press < and the Legal Profession
I’m just going to come right out and say it. I know how to save the press and democracy – and the right to sue in this country. The question is will the right people listen? Will they listen in time?

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
How the Baucus Bill Screws People Over Fifty
(2 comments) Under Senator Baucus's plan,insurers would be permitted to charge older people 5 times more for their health insurance premiums than younger people.If there's no public alternative to compete with private insurance companies, guess where all those people will have to go to buy their government-mandated insurance? We might as well be writing our checks directly to United Healthcare, Wellpoint,and Humana,instead of the the IRS.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Robert Reich: Why Wall St booms while Main St suffers
(1 comments) The Dow is up despite the biggest consumer retreat from the market since the Great Depression because of the very thing so many executives are complaining about, which is government’s expansion.Trickle-down economics didn't work when the supply-siders were in charge. And it's not working now, at a time when -- despite all their cries of "socialism" -- big business and Wall Street are more politically potent than ever.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Video: We're #37! (France is #1)
Satiric song about America's position in the top 40 countries on the quality of the health care it provides for its citizens. Funny, but very, very sad.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Don't Americans Deserve a Health Care System as good as the one in France?
(2 comments) If you walk into one store and a suit costs $600-and next door the very same suit is $300-most people would call you a chump for spending $600.In this case the French are paying $300 and getting a better suit.What are we,idiots?Those executives must not believe their luck.They are laughing all the way to the bank- laughing at us that we could be such suckers-and doing everything they can to keep things just the way they are.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
There's Virtually Zero Percent Chance of There Ever Being a Real Afghan Army -- So What's the Pentagon Talking About?
Calls are growing for training more Afghan troops and police rather than sending in more American troops.But this is pure fantasy.Jones first went to Afghanistan in '02 and,in Kabul in Winter,has vividly described her years working with Afghan women,spent time visiting US training programs for both the Afghan army &police.She offers an eye-opening,on-the-spot look at certain realities which turn the "debate" in DC upside down.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Video: Will Ferrell stands up for the real health care victims
Warning: Satire. Proceed at your own risk!

Friday, September 18, 2009
Me Talk Presidential One Day
Latimer worked as one of Dubya’s speechwriters during his final 22 months in office.He was there to help sell the surge to a skeptical public.He was there as we pretended that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.And he was there to see a president who failed to grasp his own $700 billion bailout package—even as he was pitching it to the public on live TV.A disillusioned insider reveals just how messy things got.

Friday, September 18, 2009
Indiana Court Strikes Down Voter ID Law
The state court said the law violated the Indiana Constitution by not treating all voters equally. The legislature passed the voter ID law in 2005, and it was challenged in federal court. The Supreme Court upheld it in April 2008, but that July the League of Women Voters brought a new suit in state court.

Friday, September 18, 2009
Canadian Health Care, Even With Queues, Bests US
(12 comments) Opponents of overhauling US health care argue that Canada shows what happens when government gets involved in medicine,saying the country is plagued by inferior treatment, rationing and months-long queues.The allegations are wrong by almost every measure,according to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development & other independent studies published during the past 5 years.

Friday, September 18, 2009
Back to the Health Care Drawing Board
(6 comments) the whole debate needs to be reset & restarted,beginning with this absolute truth:there will be no bipartisan bill,no matter what, period,end of file,turn out the lights when you leave.The GOP won't vote for anything the Dems come up with,because they don't care about reform.Obama needs to go back to the drawing board,& come up with something that will pass that will actually help people worthy of the word "reform".

Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Second Siegelman whistle-blower interviewed...
Why is Canary still in office?Why was Grimes fired?Why is no one asking these serious questions?As for Siegelman,the list of former Attorneys General-of both parties - who have now signed on in demanding that the US Supreme Court hear Siegelman's case has grown to 91. That is correct,91 former state Attorneys General of both parties are demanding SCOTUS address this because Mr. Holder has not and will not seemingly.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009
The Insurance Industry's Heartless Logic: Getting Beaten by Your Husband Is an Excuse to Deny Coverage
(2 comments) In 1994,then-Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY),now a member of Senate leadership,had his staff survey 16 insurance companies.He found that eight would not write health,life or disability policies for women who have been abused.The Boston Globe found that Nationwide,Allstate,State Farm,Aetna,Metropolitan Life,The Equitable Companies,First Colony Life,Prudential&Principal Financial Group had all either canceled or denied coverage to

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Your Once-Public Elections & Your Once-Public Elections on ES&S Monopoly Steroids
Dear Teabaggers: Here's something REAL you can actually worry about and/or take action on...

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
A World of Hurt
President Obama took a bit of a victory lap on Wall Street on Monday, declaring that the economy had been brought back from the abyss and “the storms of the past two years are beginning to break.”...It’s eerie to me how little attention this crisis is receiving.The poor seem to be completely out of the picture.The recession may be ending for some. Tell that to the unemployed.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
You're appointing who? Please, Obama, say it isn't so!
(2 comments) The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar. This is no joke. Here's the back story.This month Michael Taylor became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America's food safety czar. What have we done?Obama is considering Dennis Wolff for the top food safety post at the USDA. Yikes!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Imprisoned Democrat Paul Minor Has Major 1st Amendment Implications
(1 comments) Without quid pro quo proof of a deal between donor and recipient,anyone- regardless of political affiliation- could be accused of "bribery" just for giving money to a candidate running for office.The 5th Circuit's decision in Minor's case will determine if this form of free speech is indeed protected as laid out in the Constitution,or punishable by severe prison sentences dictated by partisan politics.They must get it right.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Senator Rockefeller, a Key Democrat, Says He Opposes Baucus Plan
Rockefeller also complained that the level of subsidies Baucus has proposed to help low-income families buy insurance would be too low,and the eligibility requirements for that assistance too stringent,to help many uninsured Americans.also said the Baucus bill would adversely affect the Children’s Health Insurance Program — an existing government health insurance program for children from low-income households that do

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Wendell Potter: Public Option Essential, Baucus Plan An "Absolute Gift" To Health Insurance Industry (VIDEO)
Speaking before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee Tuesday, former health insurance industry executive-turned-whistleblower Wendell Potter warned that if Congress "fails to create a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, the bill it sends to the president might as well be called the Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act."

Monday, September 14, 2009
The Recession's Racial Divide
WHAT do you get when you combine the worst economic downturn since the Depression with the first black president?A surge of white racial resentment,loosely disguised as populist revolt.An article on the Fox News Website put forth that health reform is a stealth version of reparations for slavery:whites will foot the bill &,by some undisclosed mechanism, blacks will get all the care.When you’re going down,it's all too easy

Sunday, September 13, 2009
Get Real on Health Care
O has retreated a little&portrayed this option as a“only a means to an end”that could be discarded.He should not retreat.The public option best enshrines the principle of the state’s commitment to insuring everyone.It’s therefore essential.Without it,we’ll get tinkering at best.The commitment to that health-as-right principle:what distinguishes France from the US far more than all the socialist-capitalist claptrap.

Friday, September 11, 2009
Rebecca Solnit: 9/11's Living Monuments
(2 comments) The dead must be remembered, but the living are the monument, the living who coexist in peace in ordinary times and who save one another in extraordinary times. Civil society triumphed that morning in full glory. Look at it: remember that this is who we were and can be.

Friday, September 11, 2009
Insurance Companies: By the Numbers
A major reason why a sensible health system has been throttled for decades:insurance companies,which thrive best when they deny care; insurance companies,which unlike hospitals,doctors,nurses,and other health workers,contribute nothing of value to national health;insurance companies,which line the pockets of the people's legislators.Here are some numbers to bear in mind, inscribe on signs,pass out on flyers, & send to friends

Friday, September 11, 2009
Obama Explains the "Rules of Reform"
(2 comments) Rule 1: the best way to make money is to have the government force people to buy your product.Rule 2: Any major industry with a revenue stream is entitled to that revenue stream forever, no matter how bad the service they provide is, or how much they overcharge.Rule 3: Any failure of the system will be paid for by forcing ordinary people to pay to bail out the elites who failed. Making the rich pay for their own mistakes.

Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Business of Voting Machines
(1 comments) The combo of Election Systems&Software and Diebold American voting machine divisions raises classic antitrust concerns.Congress,the states & cities should look for ways to have governments own and manage their voting machines,as the reform group FairVote has advocated.It makes no sense to allow private companies to count votes using secret,proprietary software.Even if this deserves to be blocked,it will take a lot more to fix

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Sick and Wrong How Washington is screwing up health care reform – and why it may take a revolt to fix it
It's a joke,a parody of Solomonic governance.By the time all the various bills are combined, health care will be a baby not split in half but in fourths & eighths & fractions of eighths.It's what happens when a government accustomed to dealing on the level of perception tries to take on a profound emergency that exists in reality.No matter how hard Congress may try,it simply is not possible to paper over a crisis this vast.

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Kucinich responds to Obama's health care address
The insurance companies are going to get a windfall,because it's mandated that people have to buy private insurance. It's not like auto insurance,though, because people may have an accident once in a lifetime,but they could get sick several times.The costs are not going to be sustainable.Inevitably, you'll be talking about cutting benefits to people.This system is another bailout for insurance & pharmaceutical companies.

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Voter Rights: Is Robert Popper the Fox Guarding the Henhouse?
Popper’s charter is to be one of the chief"enforcers"of the Voting Rights Act.Ironically,Popper has been involved in at least a half-dozen cases which purportedly tried to accomplish exactly the opposite of guaranteeing the rights of those he has been charged with protecting. McClatchy:"On virtually every significant decision affecting election balloting since 2001,the division's Voting Rights Section has [ruled for Repubs."

Thursday, September 10, 2009
YouTube Health Care Reform Thought Bubble
Video makes it pretty clear in a fun way. What do you think?

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Who's a Liar? In Search of the Million Dollar Illegal Immigrant to End All Health Care Reform
How to keep illegal aliens to foxtrot through loopholes,however,is a sticky matter.In 2005,a law passed requiring all applicants to Medicaid to verify their citizenship status,and some have floated the idea of using those same guidelines for any new program.The more stringent rules imposed by the 2005 legislation requiring proof of citizenship increased federal costs by $8.3 million and only detected eight illegal immigrants.

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Opposition to Health-Care Reform Revives Christian Right
(2 comments) Gary Bauer,who heads the conservative American Values,said that the list to which he sends his daily e-mail alerts was down to 170,000 and that he was getting only 50 requests a week to sign up for it before the election.Now,the e-mail list is up to 225,000 and he is getting 1,000 or more requests a week asking to be added."The passion that was so evident in the Obama campaign right now, at least,has shifted to our side".

Thursday, September 10, 2009
Venomous Visitors: Religious Right Leaders Had Run Of Bush White House
It is hardly a secret that the Religious Right helped elect President George W Bush and exercised extraordinary influence with his administration.But if we need more evidence,it's just been put on the table.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government(CREW)has just released a report tallying visits to the Bush White House by major Religious Right players.CREW filed a request for visitor records that coughed up the info

Wednesday, September 9, 2009
BlackBoxVoting to file AntiTrust complaint re: ES&S/Diebold (Premier) merger
(3 comments) An ES&S/Diebold-Premier acquisition would consolidate most US voting under one privately held manufacturer.And it's not just the concealed vote-counting;these companies now also produce polling place check-in software(electronic pollbooks),voter registration software and vote-by-mail authentication software.ES&S attempted to consolidate the electronic voting industry in 1997 with a purchase of Business Records Corporation

Wednesday, September 9, 2009
What's Next After Taking Out Van Jones? Fox News Blurts Out Agenda to Sabotage the Environment
The job destroyers and climate destroyers of the right wing most certainly smell blood -- and what they want to do is no joke.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Michael Moore's 'Capitalism' Flick Rips into Crimes of Wall Street
Moore's latest documentary drew tumultuous applause at the Venice film festival, suggesting that the veteran tub-thumper has lost none of his power to whip up a response.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Think Vietnam Vets Were Screwed? Wait Until You See How Many Veterans of Bush's Wars End up in Jail
"Listen," he says,"you pop up out of a foxhole, and you blow a guy's head open like a watermelon.The other two guys in the foxhole start patting you on the back and saying,'Good job!' because you just did the worst thing that you can do to another person. How do you translate that into civilian life?" For far too many soldiers, the simple answer is, you don't.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Help for Obama's Speech to Congress: The Speech the President Should Give to Congress, September 9, 2009
Any Senator or Rep who does not have affordable health care,please rise. No one is standing up.Now a more important question:How many of you Senators and Reps will stand up for legislation that will give ALL Americans essentially the same access to health care that you enjoy?I’m dead serious.You and I and the families of members of Congress can get all the health care we need, while millions of Americans cannot.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Protect President Obama
Sign the petition:"As racist attacks increase and protestors continue to bring guns to presidential events,it is strikingly clear that Pres. Obama is vulnerable to harm.Threats against the president have grown 400%,while funding for the agents that must confront and investigate threats against him has significantly decreased.I urge you to do everything in your power to ensure that the FBI and Secret Service do everything

Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Thank you, Glenn Beck
No longer tied to his desk with a sock in his mouth,Van is now freed to do what he does best:inspire/energize groups around the country. Student groups/labor groups and small business groups and middle class Americans everywhere who are losing jobs and losing homes and losing hope.He's free to push with all his might/insight for the vision tens of millions of Americans tirelessly worked for during the presidential campaign but

Tuesday, September 8, 2009
My Life with Public Health Care
(1 comments) I look back on my 25-year-long life of being treated by public health care,and am honestly insulted by the misinformation that comes from anti-reformers.Do they genuinely want to deny the 1st-class care I receive from the Depart of Veterans Affairs? Or have they been the victims of misinformation perpetrated by those who have something to gain from keeping every American from receiving the same quality,1stclass,evil,godless

Monday, September 7, 2009
Exclusive: Grassley Attends Secret Miami Fundraiser And Touts Opposition To Obama Health Care Plan
ThinkProgress attended the closed-door reception.Upon arriving at the venue,we were surprised to see a conference room that was marked as a fundraising reception room for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).He was not listed on the official invitation. In his remarks, Grassley told the wealthy Republican activists that he was committed to fighting Obama’s health care plan.

Monday, September 7, 2009
Whole Foods CEO's Dumb, Hypocritical Conservative Talking Points
Why Mackey's libertarian blast against health reform has touched a sensitive nerve with many health-conscious, reform-minded Americans.

Monday, September 7, 2009
We All Blew It
Jones cares,passionately,about helping young men and women find their way in the world,even if they had the misfortune to grow up in bad neighborhoods or make bad choices -- and he sees in a new green economy a powerful instrument to heal their lives.But that kind of hope is profoundly threatening to Glenn Beck and people like him.When it comes from a black man,they reach back to an old and ugly instinct.

Monday, September 7, 2009
EJ Dionne: A Test Case for Roberts
(1 comments) the most important will be the argument before the Supreme Court about a case that,if decided wrongly,could surrender control of our democracy to corporate interests. This is the clearest test Roberts has faced so far as to whether he meant what he said to Congress in '05.I truly hope he passes it.If he doesn't,he will unleash havoc in our political system and greatly undermine the legitimacy of the court he leads.

Sunday, September 6, 2009
Bill Moyers Lays it All Out on Bill Maher¹s Show
(1 comments) I don’t want to live in a nation where I am in a hospital getting a treatment for $25,000 and a person just a few floors away is being denied the same treatment, because they have no money. What kind of civilization is that? What kind of moral order is that?” -Bill Moyers

Sunday, September 6, 2009
A Bill Moyers essay on health care reform
Come on, Mr. President. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors whose only interest is a company's share price and profits... This health care thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it's life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter.

Friday, September 4, 2009
Does anyone really know what time it is?
You really have two corporate parties who in their own way and their own time are serving the interests of basically a narrow set of economic interests in the country."In other words, it's the people versus the corporate state.You hear it more and more.We have reached the tipping point.The enemy has been identified.It's not left versus right it's democracy versus greed.This realization sits there like an unexploded bomb.

Thursday, September 3, 2009
Why Is Universal Health Care ‘Un-American’?
(2 comments) Churches are strange places;charity is fine,speaking of justice is heresy in many churches.The Brazilian bishop Dom Hélder Câmara said it well:"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.When I ask why the poor have no food,they call me a Communist."Too often today in the US,if you talk about helping the poor,they call you Christian,but if you actually try to do something to help the poor, they call you a socialist."

Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Erica Jong: Don't let the crazy people win this one
(3 comments) So come on Dems,get with the program. We need a public option--or we're gonna have to start a new political party with guts. We could call it the Healthy Party.Or we could move to Canada--or Ireland or Italy or France. We could move almost anywhere and get health care without breaking the bank.What's wrong with the US?The crazy people make the decisions--on health,on guns,on wildlife,on the environment.What stupidity.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Who's paying to kill healthcare reform?
Great graphic. Pass it along.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Bob Herbert: Innocent but Dead
(1 comments) The report is devastating,the kind of disclosure that should send a tremor through one’s conscience.There was absolutely no scientific basis for determining that the fire was arson, said Beyler.No basis at all.He said the marshal’s approach seemed to lack “rational reasoning” and he likened it to the practices “of mystics or psychics.”

Sunday, August 30, 2009
Whole Foods Looks and Acts More Like Wal-Mart Than a 'Sustainable' Natural Foods Store
Lost in the uproar over Whole Foods CEO Mackey's controversial venture into the health care debate,is a bigger though less subtle story.It's a story about how a small, well-intentioned sustainable food company lost its way.t's a story of how that company went from a single natural foods store in Austin to industry juggernaut,in the nearly-identical way its conventional competitors came to dominate their sectors...

Sunday, August 30, 2009
Hurricane George: Four Years After Katrina
fter calling NO home for 4 of the most important years of my life, teaching at Loyola and then having the free-lance writing ride of my life,I found it excruciating to watch from a distance. Because the worst of it was not the storm itself or even the flood of the century.The worst of it was how it was handled by the government,mainly the Bush government,as W vacationed in Crawford—and the National Guard waited for orders.

Friday, August 28, 2009
In Birmingham, Holder Lobbied on Behalf of Siegelman
Several people, including Alabama Democratic Party officials, spoke to Holder on behalf of Siegelman, and about firing U.S. Attorney Leura Canary — the prosecutor married to Karl Rove’s political ally Bill Canary of the conservative Business Council of Alabama — according to sources present for the swearing in.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009
This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery
“It will basically be a government law that says you have to buy their defective product,” says Dr. David Himmelstein, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a founder of Physicians for a National Health Plan. “Next the government will tell us a Pinto in every garage, a lead-coated toy to every child and melamine-laced puppy chow for every dog.”

Tuesday, August 25, 2009
As Whole Foods Boycott Grows on Facebook, Brand Perception Drops
While we take no sides on the issue, it's hard not to attribute at least some of the drop in consumer perception to the vocal Facebook group that has emerged in the aftermath of the CEO's Wall Street Journal op-ed. Should YouGov's research be as accurate as it claims to be, then Whole Foods definitely needs to be concerned about this social media backlash that's negatively impacting consumer opinion.

Monday, August 24, 2009
New Hack of Sequoia Voting Machine Changes Votes Undetectably
Media, Congress yawn..."In the end we found that it is possible to undetectably change votes and that such an attack takes a lot less time and money than one might expect,"the announcer said.A Princeton professor was able to acquire five voting machines for just $82 that had been resold on a government surplus website.The acquired machines were originally sold by Sequoia Voting Systems.

Monday, August 24, 2009
The Policy-Speak Disaster for Health Care
In the Obama campaign, honest, effective framing was used with great success. But in the Obama administration, something has changed. It needs to change back.

Monday, August 24, 2009
The Beltway consensus: the Left is to blame for health care battle
(1 comments) As always, the way things should be done in Washington is that the proper scorn should be heaped on The Left until they're bullied into giving up what they believe so that Things Can Get Done (i.e., so that corporate dictates can be fulfilled). Tom Daschle is still exerting a major role in advising Obama on health care even as he maintains his stable of health care industry clients.

Monday, August 24, 2009
BPA industry fights back Public relations blitz takes cue from tobacco companies' past tactics
David Rosner,prof of public health & history at Columbia,watched Carteaux's June speech and saw striking similarities between the plastics & tobacco industries."If I hadn't studied how this industry has operated in the past, I would say I was shocked.But this attempt to deflect and distort public opinion is par for the course.They will ultimately do virtually anything to protect their product, even attack the messengers."

Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Guns of August
In last year’s campaign debates, Obama liked to cite his unlikely Senate friendship with Tom Coburn, of all people, as proof that he could work with his adversaries. If the president insists that enemies like this are his friends — and that the nuts they represent can be placated by reason — he will waste his opportunity to effect real change and have no one to blame but himself.

Sunday, August 23, 2009
Robert Reich: Why the Gang of Six is deciding healthcare for 300 million of us
(6 comments) The three Dems in the gang are from Montana,NM & ND–states that together account for just over 1% of Americans.The three Republicans are from Maine, Wyoming & Iowa,which together account for 1.6% of the American population.Why has it come down to these six? Who anointed them?Apparently,the White House."The Finance Committee is where the action is.They'll tee up the final bill," says someone who should know.

Sunday, August 23, 2009
5 Myths About Health Care Around the World
As Americans search for the cure to what ails our health-care system, we've overlooked an invaluable source of ideas and solutions: the rest of the world. All the other industrialized democracies have faced problems like ours, yet they've found ways to cover everybody -- and still spend far less than we do.

Sunday, August 23, 2009
A School Bus for Shamsia
(2 comments) Afghanistan, the Taliban, attacks on hundreds of schools, girls attacked by acid-wielding men. A journalist for the NY Times steps beyond professional detachment and gets involved with one school, one family, one girl whose face is covered with scars from burns months after the attack.

Saturday, August 22, 2009
Hi! I’m an Evangelical With the U.S. Department of Justice, and I’m Here to Lie to You
(1 comments) A recent article about the overturning of a criminal conviction in federal court has managed to surprise me, if only to be amazed at the sheer hubris by DOJ personnel. Indeed, at a federal appeals court hearing, a DOJ official openly admitted that she and her colleagues presented a false case – and clearly was proud of it.

Friday, August 21, 2009
Conyers May Call Rove, Miers to Testify Publicly About Attorney Firings
In March,when House Judiciary Committee Chair Conyers announced that he and his staff had reached an agreement to have Rove and ex-WH counsel Miers testify privately about their roles in the firings of nine US attorneys, he said his panel also reserved the right to haul the former Bush admin officials before Congress to testify publicly about the matter.Conyers now intends to take advantage of that prearranged agreement

Friday, August 21, 2009
Video: Rachel Maddow: Republican MiNOrity Strategy for Health Care
Rachel Maddow uses former WNBA Star Sue Wicks to demonstrate the Republicans' ridiculous, unprecedented push for an 80 vote majority to pass health care reform.

Friday, August 21, 2009
Video: Rachel Maddow: Rove's Sorry Victim Act
Another homerun by Rachel Maddow. This time, she takes on Karl Rove. His piece in the Wall Street Journal informs the press to lay off, he did nothing wrong in the Attorneygate scandal. Maddow says "fat chance."

Friday, August 21, 2009
How Yawning Got One Court Spectator Six Months in the Slammer & Eight Other Disturbing Acts of Judicial Tyranny
When judges take on airs and lash out in fits of whimsical bullying, innocent people can end up paying the price with jail time -- or their lives.

Friday, August 21, 2009
Health Care Rats Come Out of the Woodwork
On both sides of the "debate," pundits' main concern seems to be that readers are demanding the public option, in spite of what they're being told.

Friday, August 21, 2009
Raw Story: Rove op-ed reveals he had inside information about probe
Rove was communicating with GOP staffers throughout the process to get information about the investigation—a process that violated his understanding with the Committee. He also violated his agreement by giving “exclusive” interviews to the NY Times& Wa Po before the process was completed.This shows:Rove isn’t bothered in the slightest by breaking his agreements,and is the master of the half-truth and the outright lie.

Thursday, August 20, 2009
The Baucus Caucus: PhRMA, Insurance, Hospitals and Rahm
(1 comments) If a public plan gets into a final health care bill, it's going to be because of public pressure, because people who put Obama in office demand one. Because in the grand scheme of White House priorities, it was something that could acceptably be dealt away in pursuit of a higher political objective by the guy who was calling the plays: Rahm Emanuel.

Thursday, August 20, 2009
Karl Rove, Rupert Murdoch and Media Bias
Rep. John Conyers says of Karl Rove's latest missive in the Wall Street Journal: Mr. Rove’s self-serving assertions on this subject are simply inconsistent with the documents that the Judiciary Committee recently released... and his claims have been discredited by the analysis of the documents and reporting on these matters by credible news outlets across the country.

Thursday, August 20, 2009
Tom Ridge: I Was Pressured To Raise Terror Alert To Help Bush Win
(2 comments) Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored;and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of Bush's re-election,something he saw as

Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Maybe If You Would Lead, We Would Follow
Hey,Barack.How’s this working out for you?In 8 months time you’ve squandered a massive&historic opportunity.You’ve resuscitated a murderously evil political party that,with a little shove in the right direction, might instead have been buried deadforever.You’ve let just about anybody say just about anything regarding you and your policies,without consequence.People are running around claiming you're gonna kill grannies

Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Kudos to Barney Frank. Leave it to a Gay Guy to Have the Biggest Balls in the Room
It's about time someone stood up to these belligerent,ignorant freaks & simply told them to fuck off.He's the only politician so far who's refused to dignify this hate-filled, incendiary nonsense with a reply.I'm sorry,but these Town Hall meetings are not a forum of entitlement,where vile rebel-rousers have an inalienable right to bitch-slap politicians and waste their time with inflammatory crazy-speak.What Frank did today

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Former Gov. Dean calls public option indispensable
"You can't really do health reform without it," he said. Dean maintained that the health insurance industry has "put enormous pressure on patients and doctors" in recent years. He called a direct government role "the entirety of health care reform. It isn't the entirety of insurance reform ... We shouldn't spend $60 billion a year subsidizing the insurance industry."

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
It's Now or Never for a Public Option: Why We Need to Take a Stand Against to the Insurance Industry's Greed
We are at a crucial moment in the health care debate -- Obama needs pressure from all of us to keep the public option as part of his agenda.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Video Satire: If Steve Jobs Was George Bush (or Barak Obama)
Where's the exit? Over 4,000,000 people have watched this video on YouTube. It would be funny if it weren't so true and so tragic.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
The News of Its Death Is Greatly Exaggerated
statements add to a steadily growing conventional wisdom that the public option is now dead. Not so fast. This fight hasn't even come close to being played out yet.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
This is Reform?
It’s never a contest when the interests of big business are pitted against the public interest.So if we manage to get health care “reform” this time around it will be the kind of reform that benefits the very people who have given us a failed system, and thus made reform so necessary...If the drug companies and the insurance industry are smiling, it can only mean that the public interest is being left behind.

Monday, August 17, 2009
Netherlands: "Hacking at Random" Summer Hacker Festival Further Disses Computer Voting
Those who have doubts about voting machine technology have always suspected what some proponents of digital voting still deny – that voting machines emit electromagnetic radiation which can be measured from several metres away using an appropriate antenna. CCC technician Bogk carried out a live demonstration using a scanner that recorded the radiation as audible signals.

Monday, August 17, 2009
Siegelman confronts Obama adviser: ‘Time for Dr. Obama to perform surgery on Rove-appointed attorneys’
“It’s time to clean house of all the Bush-Rove appointees in the Justice Department,including all 93 US Attorneys,and ensure justice for all. Please email WH Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett:Urge President Obama to do the right thing and Fire Rove’s Prosecutors!”He told the audience that “no other president left the other team” in place after assuming office,rhetorically adding “Why not leave Condoleezza Rice?"

Friday, August 14, 2009
Jason Leopold: Rove "Driving Force" Behind US Attorney Firings
"Political adviser Karl Rove and other officials inside George W. Bush's White House pushed for the firing of a key federal prosecutor because he wasn't cooperating with Republican plans for indicting Democrats and their allies before the 2006 election, according to internal documents and depositions.The evidence was released Tuesday and turned over to a special prosecutor by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers."

Thursday, August 13, 2009
Your request is being processed... Afghan Election 2009: Taliban Commander Threatens To Cut Off Any Finger St
The Taliban have escalated a campaign of threats and intimidation ahead of the presidential election next Thursday, warning voters in mosques and through leaflets and radio announcements not to vote, or face strong punishment.

Thursday, August 13, 2009
Boycott Whole Foods
(5 comments) John Mackey is a right wing libertarian. He’s a union buster. He believes that corporations should not be criminally prosecuted for their crimes. He has just launched a campaign to defeat a single payer national health insurance system. And he’s the CEO of Whole Foods. Primo hangout of liberal Democratic yuppies.

Thursday, July 30, 2009
Brave New Films: 450,000 Can’t Be Wrong About Health Care Reform
It’s time to put our health back where it belongs, out of greedy insurance companies’ grasp and back into your and your doctor’s hands. It’s time to stand with more than 450,000 doctors who support health care reform.

Thursday, July 30, 2009
Rove Concludes Second Closed-Door Meeting with House Judiciary; Spins His Side to WaPo, NYTimes
the answer was that while election fraud by insiders such as yourself,is certainly a concern,"voter fraud" is not actually a substantive problem--at least not at the polling place--other than for Repubs who hope to use the specter of same as a way to limit which legal voters are actually allowed to cast their legal vote.Or for Ann Coulter,who actually did commit voter fraud.Several times, apparently.Though Rove didn't bother

Monday, July 27, 2009
Will Obama Sell out the Healthcare Industry?
(1 comments) This is part of the reason, as Alicia Mundy and Laura Meckler recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, that "the pharmaceuticals industry, which President Barack Obama promised to 'take on' during his campaign, is winning most of what it wants in the health-care overhaul." No wonder the cost of reform keeps going up and up and up. Could it be that Harry and Louise are happier because, this time, they're in on the deal?

Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Rather Wins Access to Thousands of Documents in Suit Against CBS
Mr. Rather filed suit against CBS in September 2007, charging that his career had been damaged by what he called a politically biased report from the panel, which consisted of a former chief executive of The Associated Press, Louis D. Boccardi, and a former Republican attorney general, Richard Thornburgh.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Governor/Prisoner: Don Siegelman
(1 comments) Once again Karl Rove has manipulated the government to achieve his own ends and we capitulate.It makes one wonder why we treat our own so poorly? We have let Senator Stevens off the hook because the prosecution withheld documents and we are letting the Bush Regime off the hook because they were not actually caught WHILE they had their hand in the cookie jar. So, why is this public servant not given an equal consideration.

Sunday, July 12, 2009
Torture Prosecution Turnaround?
The attorney general is leaning toward appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era torture policy, sources tell Scott Horton. Inside the logic driving Eric Holder’s possible conversion.

Friday, July 10, 2009
Keep the Change: Obama Backs Bush's Political Prisoner Operation
Surely there is some real "change" going on in government,isn't there?How about at the throughly rotted DoJ,where Bush cronies turned federal law into a partisan weapon, even jailing opposition political figures on trumped-up charges,like the worst kind of third-rate,tinpot tyranny?Surely Obama and his highly progressive AG Holder,are going to clean out the fetid swamp of lawlessness at Justice, aren't they? Er, no.

Friday, July 10, 2009
Fairness at General Motors
(1 comments) "The cost of all my medicines combined is about $3,900 a month. That's several thousand dollars more than what I make in my pension. I'm really worried about not being able to afford this medication."Debra-and thousands more retirees like her- spent their lives working for GM expecting that their health care would be taken care of once they retired.Now they're being cast aside because of the irresponsible management

Friday, July 3, 2009
On health insurance, 5 questions to ask your Senators and Representatives
You elected this Congress.They answer to you.They might be able to dodge the media,but as a constituent,they have to give you answers.Email your Senators the following five, short, specific questions on where they stand on a public option.Don’t stop until you receive a clear,written response from them.We need to know Congress is standing with us on the public health insurance option, when they are up for re-election.

Friday, July 3, 2009
Washington Post Cancels Off The Record Salons Following Uproar Over Pay To Play Access
(1 comments) "Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,"says the one-page flier. "Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon,an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. ... Bring your organization's CEO or executive director literally to the table.Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders ..

Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Obama Organic Family Garden: Swimming in Sludge?
Recently the National Park Service discovered that the White House lawn, where the garden was planted, contains highly elevated levels of lead -- 93 parts per million. It's enough lead for anyone planning to have children pick vegetables in that garden or eat produce from it to reconsider their plans: lead is highly toxic to children's developing organs and brain functions.

Monday, June 29, 2009
Prisoner Was Crucified at Abu Grahib
(1 comments) Get ready for this Al Qaeda doozy of a video which will enrage more Jihadis to want to come across the Mexican border and kill us.Of course Obama's answer to this challenge is try to bury it and pretend it never happened, even as the Jihadis finish up taking their oaths to die and plan the next move,rather than address it, prosecute it,and tell the world: "This is not America.This is what George Bush had wrought."

Friday, June 26, 2009
WaPo: Senate Panel Hears of Health Insurers' Wrongs Ex-Insider Testifies to 'Fear Tactics'
(2 comments) Health insurers have forced us to pay billions in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid,according to a report released yesterday by the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee.It came at a time when Rockefeller,Obama & others are seeking to offer a public alternative to private health plans as part of broad health-care reform legislation.Health insurers are doing everything to block the public option.

Friday, June 26, 2009
Columbia Journalism Review: Interview with Wendell Potter
The industry knows its image is at an all-time low.So they can’t be as obvious in attacking a plan as in 1994.They will work through front groups and allies to attack it through ads and commercials.[The press] should be looking at what insurers,drug companies,and organized medicine said during earlier reform efforts, and then report on how well they’ve delivered on those promises.

Friday, June 26, 2009
Not Enough Audacity
Behind the boilerplate about big government,rationing and all that lies the real concern:fear that the public plan would succeed.So Obama & Dems in Congress have to hang tough — no more gratuitous giveaways in the attempt to sound reasonable.And reform advocates have to keep up the pressure to stay on track.Yes,the perfect is the enemy of the good;but so is the not-good-enough-to-work. Health reform has to be done right.

Thursday, June 25, 2009
Fed's Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman Missing Trillions of Taxpayers' Dollars
(2 comments) If you care about the many thousands of missing dollars you personally have paid in taxes,you must watch the astonishing five-minute video clip and read the accompanying commentary This is incredibly important information. And please let your friends and colleagues know about this.By informing caring citizens about what's going on behind the scenes with banking & our tax dollars,we can force major change for the better

Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Justice Department Misconduct Conference in DC June 26 National Press Club to Host Speakers Including Conyers, Clemon, H
Experts from Congress and federal courts along with defendants and legal commentators will discuss evidence before the Judiciary Committee that the Bush administration targeted defendants on the basis of political beliefs. Evidence includes the fact that elected Democrats were seven times more likely to be investigated than Republican officials.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Senate Panel Hears of Health Insurers' Wrongs Ex-Insider Testifies to 'Fear Tactics'
At a committee hearing yesterday, three health-care specialists testified that insurers go to great lengths to avoid responsibility for sick people, use deliberately incomprehensible documents to mislead consumers about their benefits, and sell "junk" policies that do not cover needed care. Rockefeller said he was exploring "why consumers get such a raw deal from their insurance companies."

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
A New Hero Enters TN History Books
(1 comments) Thank you,Sen. Burchett.Your intelligence,courage and sense of honor and fairness are what this country was built on,and what we must have in order for this nation to survive...A modern-day patriot, the latest in a long line of American heros who sprang from the hills of our Tennessee when they were needed to help keep our nation strong and safe — and free. Yesterday, you saved our democracy.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
New York Times Wrong Again on 'E-Voting'
(2 comments) The New York Times just doesn't get it. You'd think, by now, they would. But they don't. And they should print a correction immediately. In a brief, unbylined editorial yesterday, headlined as "How to Trust Electronic Voting", the paper endorses this year's version of Rep. Rush Holt's election reform bill. The editorial is misleading and, even worse, blatantly (and inexcusably) inaccurate on at least one important point...

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
PR insider to testify re: healthcare propaganda
He will testify about how big, for-profit insurers have hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street investors and how the industry is using its massive wealth and influence to determine what is (and is not) included in the legislation currently before Congress.

Friday, June 19, 2009
Helen Thomas: Obama is 'Following In the Footsteps of President Bush' (AUDIO)
egendary White House correspondent Helen Thomas made an exclusive appearance on the Ron Reagan Show to talk about presidents past and present, Iran, health care, and other topics. She likes most of Obama's work thus far, but thinks his positions on Iraq and Afghanistan are larded with Dubya.

Thursday, June 18, 2009
Warning: Health Care Lobbyists Are Winning the Battle to Screw All of Us
Lobbyists sense that their chances of protecting big insurers, drug companies, medical specialties, technology companies are improving. They're probably right.

Thursday, June 18, 2009
Head of CA GOP Voter Registration Firm Pleads Guilty to Voter Registration Fraud
Given the way the LA Times blog "covered" the story of Jacoby's plea --- not even mentioning the fact that this guy and his group were hired by the California state Republican Party --- I'd say it's a fair bet Fox wouldn't even have bothered to mention the original arrest at all had I not been on air and forcing them to do so myself. Much as they are unlikely to bother reporting Jacoby's plea today.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Restore Justice at Justice Coalition Seeks DOJ and Congressional Investigations of Judge Who Presided Over Trial of Ex-A
According to coalition spokesman Brad Friedman,"after almost two months,we have heard nothing from Mr. Holder despite a tidal wave of information about the impropriety of these cases. The Holder DOJ has been quick to dismiss charges against Republicans such as Alaska politicians Ted Stevens,Pete Kott and Vic Kohring for prosecutorial misconduct while taking no corrective action in the cases of Democrats such as Siegelman &

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Right-On Cartoon on the Iranian "Election"

Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Internet Kills Another of My Favorite Spots
Go ahead and make all the "cranky grandpa" jokes you want. I'm ready. But what I'm not ready for is a culture that will eventually do everything from the comfort of home except have real socialization and intimacy with real live actual people. If this is progress, I'd rather be old school.

Monday, June 15, 2009
Neo-Nazis are in the Army now
Hunter Glass was a paratrooper in the 1980s and became a gang cop in 1999 in Fayetteville,NC,near Fort Bragg. "In the early 1990s,the military was hard on them.They could pick and choose.They were looking for swastikas. They were looking for anything." But the regulations on racist extremists got jettisoned with the war on terror.Rooting out extremists is difficult because racism pervades the military

Monday, June 15, 2009
Russian Roulette...Without the Certainty
For those of us who claim to give a damn, isn't it time we stood up to make our voices heard to demand the implementation of 100% transparent, publicly-witnessed processes that would, once and for all, put an end to the second-guessing and Monday Morning quarterbacking, so that nobody can question the results --- no matter which outcome they may have preferred?

Sunday, June 14, 2009
Too Poor to Make the News
Hourly wage growth, which had been running at about 4 percent a year, has undergone what the Economic Policy Institute calls a “dramatic collapse” in the last six months alone. In good times and grim ones, the misery at the bottom just keeps piling up, like a bad debt that will eventually come due.

Sunday, June 14, 2009
Robert Reich: The Healthcare War is Now Official
The last president to successfully take on the giant health care lobbies was LBJ. He got Medicare and Medicaid enacted because he weighed into the details, twisted congressional arms, threatened and cajoled, drew lines in the sand, and went to war against the AMA and the other giant lobbyists standing in the way. The question now is how much LBJ is in Barack Obama.

Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Exodus Obama Forgot to Mention
(3 comments) The president never said a word about me.Or,for that matter,about any of the other 800,000 or so Jews born in the Middle East who fled the Arab and Muslim world or who were summarily expelled for being Jewish in the 20th century.With references to the history of Islam and to its (questionable)"proud tradition of tolerance",Obama never said anything about those Jews whose ancestors had been living in Arab lands before Islam

Friday, June 12, 2009
Debunking Canadian health care myths
As a Canadian living in the United States for the past 17 years,I am frequently asked by Americans and Canadians alike to declare one health care system as the better one.As America comes to grips with the reality that changes are desperately needed within its health care infrastructure,it might prove useful to first debunk some myths about the Canadian system.

Monday, June 1, 2009
Obama administration sides with Saudis on 9/11 suit
(3 comments) “The Saudis have aggressively lobbied both the Bush and Obama administrations to have the lawsuit dismissed,government officials say.”‘I find this reprehensible,’ said Kristen Breitweiser,a leader of the 9/11 families,whose husband was killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center.‘One would have hoped that the Obama administration would have taken a different stance than the Bush administration,and you wonder what message

Monday, June 1, 2009
Voters are more confident with paper ballots
With a stroke of Gov.Bredesen's pen last year,Tennessee went from being one of the 12 worst states for election security to one of the 18 states with the most secure election systems in our country. We should all be proud of that accomplishment. It took us three years of study,hard work and perseverance to come to the conclusion that our elections are too important,too vital to the survival of our American way of life

Monday, June 1, 2009
George Lakoff: Empathy, Sotomayor, and Democracy: The Conservative Stealth Strategy
Democrats should go on offense.They need to rally behind empathy--real empathy, not empathy reframed as emotion and personal feeling.They need to speak regularly about empathy as being the basis of our democracy. They need to point out that empathy leads one to notice real social and systemic causes of our troubles and to notice when and how judicial decisions and legislation can harm the most vulnerable of our countrymen.

Monday, June 1, 2009
Michael Moore: Goodbye, GM
Please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs.This is not a long-term solution.Yesterday,the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away.She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.

Monday, June 1, 2009
MN Supremes Hear Oral Argument on Coleman Appeal
The Senate has the plenary power to seat its members. If the Minnesota Supreme Court upholds the three-judge panel, it should order Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty and Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie to perform their "ministerial duty" to prepare, countersign and deliver the certificate of election promptly to the secretary of the U.S. Senate. Franken should then be seated, period. The seating should be final,

Thursday, May 28, 2009
Virtually Voting: Bush's U.S. EAC Chair Cashes In to Head Company Running 'All-Digital' Elections
Paul DeGregorio's 'Everyone Counts' was paid to carry out fully unverifiable, unsecure Internet, phone election in Honolulu Voter participation plummets 83% to boot

Wednesday, May 27, 2009
(IL) I'm a reformer... Get me out of here!
Springfield lawmakers led by the real gov,House Speaker Michael Madigan,have set out far tougher survival tests for would-be reformers than shimmying up the Tower of Terror or eating roasted-rodent-on-a-stick.This is a guerrilla war where even your legislative friends are really your enemies because,in the end,they'll never vote against Madigan, who controls the vast Democratic Party war chest that can make or break them in

Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Sibel Edmonds: Announcing Project 'Expose MSM'
(7 comments) Project Expose MSM,created to provide readers with specific mainstream media blackout&/or misinformation cases based on the documented & credible first-hand experiences of legitimate sources & whistleblowers.We invite all members of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition(NSWBC), other active(covert or overt) government whistleblowers,&even reporters themselves,to publish their experiences...We will be naming names.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Bill Moyers: Don't Play Nice with Health Industry
(1 comments) According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, they’ve spent more than $134 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009 alone. And some already are shelling out big bucks for a publicity blitz and ads attacking any health care reform that threatens to reduce the profits from sickness and disease.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Some US Soldiers Forced to Steal Water in Iraq
“If soldiers are saying that they are not getting adequate water,that needs to be taken seriously,”Dr. Fadem said.In the short term,Fadem said you could collapse,and in the long term, “they may end up with kidney injury.”Kidney stones have become such a widespread problem among the troops that the military has set up a medical treatment center in Iraq to treat them.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Franken Replies to Coleman's MN Supremes Appeal
(1 comments) ias announced that Franken has asked the MN Supremes to affirm the district court decision,declare that Franken is entitled to a certificate of election;that judgment be entered immediately and that the Repub Gov Pawlenty & Dem SoS Ritchie be ordered to perform their "ministerial duty" to prepare,countersign and deliver the certificate of election promptly to the sec. of the US Senate. In order to expedite the decision

Sunday, May 10, 2009
The Guardian: Why machines are bad at counting votes
From the British newspaper, The Guardian: Democracy is made difficult by the fact that electronic voting systems are inherently flawed - and susceptible to fraud.

Saturday, May 9, 2009
Siegelman Lobbies DOJ To Intervene As Court Deadline Nears
Prof. Bennett L. Gershman, author of the book,"Prosecutorial Misconduct:"I have never encountered another prosecution in which it appears so clearly that the prosecutors were zealously bent on pursuing an individual,rather than on a crime.As an example of bad faith prosecution, the Siegelman case may be without parallel.There is no better example of the corrosive effect on the reputation of the DoJ...than the prosecution of

Saturday, May 2, 2009
Disclosed: Diebold/Premier's Humboldt County Termination Letters
Those who have ever had questions about the perils to US democracy vis-a-vis the dangerous over-reliance on private corporate vendors for the execution of our public elections, should take note of the troubling truths spelled out in Diebold/Premier's termination letters.A good first step towards any "fresh start" would be for Diebold/Premier to refund all the taxpayer money it took,in exchange for the soon-to-be-useless

Saturday, May 2, 2009
RNC Wants Court Okay for 'Vote Caging' Again
Well, they got the Supreme Court. Now's as good a time as any to get "official" permission to suppress the vote again. Beats winning by actually getting more votes than the other guys, I guess

Friday, May 1, 2009
Swine Flu, Hog Farms, and Piggish Politics
There is a reason that we speak of people “hogging ”everything for themselves,or eating “piggishly.”It is about ignoring the needs of others and seeking to gobble up the world’s abundance for the benefit of a few...So from many standpoints – human health, climate healing, decent treatment of animals, and justice for workers — we should be reducing meat consumption and restoring humane farming.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
In Memoriam: John Gideon, 1947 - 2009
(1 comments) I am awed by the challenge, and mission, that John has left behind for me, and for all of us.Until then,I hope you'll join me in remembering by carrying his torch, his challenge and his mission wherever,and however, you can...as if the future of this nation depended on it.Because I truly believe that it does.Thank you for everything, John. You will be missed, my friend, more than you will ever know...

Friday, April 24, 2009
Paul Krugman: Reclaiming America's Soul
(1 comments) Sorry,but what we really should do for the sake of the country is have investigations both of torture and of the march to war.These investigations should, where appropriate,be followed by prosecutions—not out of vindictiveness,but because this is a nation of laws.We need to do this for the sake of our future. For this isn’t about looking backward, it’s about looking forward — because it’s about reclaiming America’s soul.

Friday, April 24, 2009
Eric Holder, Will You Clean Up DOJ and Oust Tainted Bush Prosecutorgate Attorneys and Immigration Judges?
Holder is left holding a rusted-out old can of wiggly worms all right.The lid is off, too.While trying to prosecute all kinds of crime across the country -- bank fraud,election theft,corruption, would be parts of the job--Holder has lots of cleaning up to do right inside the DoJ.But "The Party of No"isn't making it easy.Just because Bush is out to pasture doesn't mean others in the GOP have rolled over and played dead.

Friday, April 24, 2009
Partisan tactics produce harm for Florida voters
If there ever was a time when citizens should call their legislators,it is now.Tell your senator and representative to kill Senate Bill 956 and House Bill 7149. Perhaps if the public’s voice is loud enough,the legislators who support these shameful bills will begin to worry that they may not be re-elected,and that may be the only thing to pierce the arrogant partisanship and self-interest that are the true motivating factors

Thursday, April 23, 2009
Robert Reich: I give Obama an A, a B and an F
(1 comments) So that's the report card. An A on the budget, B on the stimulus, and F on the bailout. On the whole (given how I weigh grades) that gives Obamanomics a C-plus. Not bad given the magnitude of the problems Obama inherited. But by the same token, not nearly good enough.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Coleman files appeal to Supreme Court
Ignoring opponents' demands that he concede, Norm Coleman told the Minnesota Supreme Court Monday that a lower court got it all wrong when it ruled that Al Franken won the 2008 U.S. Senate election.

Monday, April 20, 2009
Voting Rights for the Elderly, and Much More, Now Under Fire by Florida Republicans
Tampa Mayor writes a short letter to Gov Crist urging him to "veto the bill immediately",should it make it to his desk.She notes her own experience as a 10-yr Sup of Elections and excoriates the way in which the bill was "conceived in secrecy with an aim to further restrict people from being a part of the election process.This current legislative action reflects an arrogance that is offensive to all who care about good gov't"

Saturday, April 18, 2009
Minor denied request to attend wife's funeral
n his appeal to Holder, Eastland wrote, Minor "is a decorated war veteran that loyally served his country in Vietnam. It is also indisputable that Paul Minor has done a huge amount of good in his life and neither he nor his family deserves this cold-hearted, Draconian treatment."

Friday, April 17, 2009
Exclusive: 'Case Dismissed' Against Arrested AZ Election Integrity Advocate
rakey was ecstatic. "We really won big," he said today. "We didn't even have to put up a defense" since the judge simply dismissed the county's case after they'd heard it. He added that Nelson "really made a fool of himself" on the stand, and promised that he'd send us some video from Nelson's testimony, and the judge's admonishments soon.

Friday, April 17, 2009
For Coleman, the End is Near; For Senate Democrats, It's Not Near Enough
(1 comments) Given the expedited manner in which the Minnesota Supreme Court has handled previous appeals, a final state court decision, again declaring Franken the winner, may well issue within a couple months of a Coleman appeal. Pawlenty would then risk a major backlash from Minnesota voters in the next election - and, indeed from national voters, as he's considered a serious contender for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination

Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Court declares Franken winner but Coleman refuses to concede
Whatever Coleman's legal arguments might be, he is still receiving considerable support from his Republican brethren, including Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has said that he wouldn't sign Franken's election certificate until Coleman has had a chance to go through the appeals process.

Monday, April 13, 2009
Ensure Election Integrity (Riverside Co, CA)
e couldn't do worse if we contracted Fischer-Price to run our elections and count our votes.I'd actually trust them more to make sure the square pegs stay square and won't count even if they somehow get through a round hole.We have seen what happens when the private energy &financial corporations become self-regulated.Why on earth do we trust our elections to private companies that have produced hackable equipment rather than

Monday, April 13, 2009
Is Geithner's Game Up? Damning Report Calls BS on His Smoke-and-Mirrors Bank Rescue Plan
Six months and $1 trillion later, and Congress still can't figure out what Geithner is up to.It's a wonder the Treasury chief hasn't been fired yet.The banks have a stranglehold on the political process.Many of their foot soldiers now occupy the highest offices in government. It's up to people like Elizabeth Warren to draw attention to the silent coup that has taken place and do whatever needs to be done to purge the moneylend

Monday, April 13, 2009
MN COURT FINAL RULING: FRANKEN WON; AP REPORTS AS: 'FRANKEN LEADING VOTE-GETTER'
If Coleman wishes to try to overturn Franken's win --- and he's promised an appeal to the MN Supreme Court at the very least --- that's up to him. But Franken won the election. Got that AP? New York Times, et al?! Is that so difficult to report accurately?!

Monday, April 13, 2009
Facts Behind Recent Purported Public Dust-Up Between Feeney's Chief of Staff and Karl Rove
Roe to Rove: 'You guys wouldn't be in White House without Tom' So what did he mean by that?..

Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Breaking: MN SENATE ELECTION JUDGES COUNT FINAL BALLOTS, FIND FRANKEN WINS!
Constitutional democracy cannot allow its future to be placed into the hands of the Court which gave us Bush v.Gore.While there may be some room for reasonable minds to disagree on whether the Senate should wait for a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling,I believe that democracy should not have to wait another day.The US Senate should immediately take up the issue of seating Al Franken as the duly elected Senator from Minnesota.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Paul Minor's Attorneys File Emergency Motion for His Release
Paul Minor's only crime was being the number one donor to Dem candidates in Mississippi,and,as this NYTimes editorial last week correctly highlighted,his case deserves an urgent review by the Obama Justice Department.Minor's wife of 41 years, Sylvia,is dying of terminal brain cancer and her moments of clarity are dwindling.Her oncologist issued a statement over the weekend that "her demise is imminent".

Monday, April 6, 2009
Internet Camera Streams Completely Useless as AZ's Criminal Investigation Ballot Hand-Count Begins
t's difficult to fathom what the point is in even streaming Internet video feeds at all,if the AG-selected "observers" are unable to document anything in any way,those outside the glass are blind to the actual counting...So much for transparency or public oversight in AG Goddard's ballot count,brought about due to the years-long demand for transparency and public oversight of the disputed 2006 special election.

Sunday, April 5, 2009
GOP senators tell Coleman to make a federal case out of it; expert nonplussed
But assuming Coleman comes up empty in state courts, one expert says it’s close to pointless for him to pursue a different result in federal courts. Loyola Law School professor Richard L. Hasen writes that the federal judiciary — whether at the U.S. Supreme Court or in district court — won’t likely buy what Coleman’s got to sell.

Friday, April 3, 2009
Ballots from 'Fixed' Arizona Election Finally to be Counted in Criminal Investigation by State AG
Next week's long-demanded hand-count in Phoenix may confirm long-standing allegations of the electronic manipulation, on Diebold tabulators, of the 2006 Pima County RTA special election And, then again, it may not...

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Holt's Election Reform Bill Edges Away From Disastrousness Prior to Introduction
As it stands for the moment, The BRAD BLOG is neither opposing the bill, nor endorsing it, for the time being, but rather, continuing to educate about the bill, and doing our best to advocate that it be improved, on the premise that it may actually pass and be signed into law.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Holt's Election Reform Bill Edges Away From Disastrousness Prior to Introduction
As it stands for the moment, The BRAD BLOG is neither opposing the bill, nor endorsing it, for the time being, but rather, continuing to educate about the bill, and doing our best to advocate that it be improved, on the premise that it may actually pass and be signed into law.

Monday, March 30, 2009
GOP Sen. Promises 'WWIII' if Franken Legally Seated Before Federal Appeal, New Suit by Coleman
(1 comments) Coleman,supported by the entire Repub infrastructure--from the RNC chair to the NRSC to the RNLA to the random, scattered,wingnut wacko conspiracy theorists of the blogosphere--took the opportunity in 2009 to selfishly deny his state proper U.S. Senate representation,shamelessly blockade the Dems from their rightful number of votes in that chamber at a crucial moment in the history of the country, and allowed himself to be

Friday, March 27, 2009
U.S. EAC Finally Releases Full Transcript of Stunning CIA Cybersecurity Expert Testimony Warning 'E-Voting Not Secure'
(1 comments) Remarks underscore years of reporting at The BRAD BLOG, including dangers of voting machine 'sleepovers', and Sequoia Voting Systems' continuing ties to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez...

Thursday, March 26, 2009
Diebold's Chief Financial Officer, VP Steps Down Under SEC Investigation
couldn't tell you whether the news of Krakora's stepping down today has anything to do with our coverage of the questionable insider trading in August'07.Or whether it stems from other questionable Diebold activities --they've been facing a class-action securities fraud lawsuit from shareholders since 2005;under SEC investigation since 2006;and under DoJ investigation since 2007;and admitted overstating '07 earnings in '08.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Exclusive: Diebold 'Nukes' Humboldt County!
to any Premier public-relations types who may be reading this post and thinking about trying to do some damage control.Call up your corporate lawyers&get them to apologize to Crnich for terminating all the contracts in the middle of an election cycle.Have them politely request that Crnich propose a schedule for discontinuing the use of DIMS at her convenience.It may take a little longer than 90 days,but I am pretty sure...

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Corporate Money and Campaigns
If Citizens United prevails, it would create an enormous loophole in the law and allow corporate money to flood into partisan politics in ways it has not in many decades. It also would seriously erode the disclosure rules for campaign contributions.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Most electronic voting isn't secure, CIA expert says
After reviewing Stigall's remarks, Susannah Goodman, the director of election reform for the citizens' lobby Common Cause, said they showed that "we can no longer ignore the fact that all of these risks are present right here at home . . . and must secure our election system by requiring every voter to have his or her vote recorded on a paper ballot."

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
THE CRIMINALIZATION OF EVERYDAY LIFE
(7 comments) I spent 24 hours in the slammer the other day. My crime? Well, the police couldn’t tell me when they locked me up. The prosecutor and judge couldn’t either, when I was arraigned the following day. I found out for myself when I researched the matter a few days after being released: I had been cited for walking my dog off the leash – once, six years ago.

Monday, March 23, 2009
Black Box Voting: GA bill for voters to match birth certificate and drivers license will disenfranchise many
How many ways can a requirement to compare birth certificate to driver's license go wrong? Married name won't match birth certificate. Driver's license uses nickname.Birth certificate has first name like "Gomer" & driver's license has middle name "Richard",because the individual decided to use their middle name.Typos.& what does comparing a birth certificate with a driver's license do, anyway?(Especially for common names)

Monday, March 23, 2009
The 'Baghdad Bobs' of the E-Voting Industry
Facts,reality,science,and truth are closing in hard on the e-voting "Baghdad Bobs" out there,more and more so each day.But,with their backs against the wall,their willingness to say anything and do anything, in hopes of continuing to dupe the public into not removing their feeding tube,so they may remain on the anti-democracy,government-funded, tax payer-supported gravy train --- the rights of the citizenry to fully

Sunday, March 22, 2009
Diebold Failure: Not Just for E-Voting Anymore
In the letter,Diebold also writes presumably with a straight face:"This latest offense against Diebold ATMs is another example of the growing level of sophistication and aggression involving ATM-related crime. Security is one of Diebold's absolute priorities and our engineers are working constantly to address emerging ATM security threats."Seriously,can't somebody finally put this horrible company out of America's misery?

Friday, March 20, 2009
Free Paul Minor
(1 comments) Putting aside for a moment the reprehensible conduct of the DOJ & BOP deviants who blocked Paul's furlough requests,Minor's case highlights the wounded state of our justice system following eight years of assault by Bush,Cheney & Rove's neocon army.At stake ultimately in Paul Minor's appeal is the preservation of the U S Constitution's guarantee of the right to a fair trial process.Paul& Sylvia Minor pray Obama's DoJ listens.

Thursday, March 19, 2009
Citizens pushing for more access to public records
"It's not what you get so much from the records, it's what you become by actually seeking them out,You're taking a small step to be a sovereign citizen and essentially reining in the government that acts in your name."That says it all.Citizens can make a difference in fighting government secrecy. And citizen activists are doing just that. It's your government.

Thursday, March 19, 2009
State Officials Allege Bush DoJ Involvement in Nevada's Pre-Election ACORN 'Voter Fraud' Raid
The manual governing how federal prosecutors are supposed to act with respect to election crimes says you should do everything in your power to conduct your investigation so that the investigation does not become an issue in the election,” Levitt told Raw Story in a recent interview. “The raid is certainly not that.”

Thursday, March 19, 2009
KY Election Officials Arrested, Charged With 'Changing Votes at E-Voting Machines'
So will the voting machine company representatives out there (and that includes many election officials who have forgotten for whom they work) continue to report that no election has ever been manipulated via an electronic voting system?...

Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Real AIG Scandal
Failure to answer these questions will feed the populist rage that is metastasizing very quickly. And it will raise basic questions about the competence of those who are supposedly guiding this economic policy.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Obama and HCAN Marginalize Single Payer Health Care
(1 comments) “The President once acknowledged that single payer reform was the best option, but now he’s caving in to corporate health care interests and completely shutting out advocates of single payer reform," even though "the majority of Americans favor single payer, and it’s the most popular reform option among doctors and health economists."

Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The US is facing a Weimar Moment
This shift may be inevitable&only a matter of time.It is quite possible that the damage inflicted on the western world's economy by rapacious Republicans is already beyond repair. But it will be tragedy beyond measure if such a shift is consummated by the very wrecking crew that took us down the road to ruin,all the while so unctuously proclaiming "patriotism" as its crowning ideal.They are not patriots and their goal is not

Tuesday, March 17, 2009
LA County board considers $1.1M settlement
The lawsuit filed in February 2007 alleges former county Registrar Conny McCormack discriminated against elderly and nonwhite employees and provided favors impertinent favors for friends. The plaintiffs include Alvarez Lecesne, his wife Desnee, and their co-worker, Kristen Heffron, who all formerly worked for McCormack's office.

Monday, March 16, 2009
What is Jeb Bush's role in the Lehman Brothers meltdown?
(1 comments) So, might it be possible that Jeb has some serious questions to answer about what he did at Lehman Brothers, who his "clients" were, and so forth? After all, setting up a hedge fund to launder or embezzle funds seems to be a family specialty.

Friday, March 13, 2009
Touch-Screen Failure in VA's 'Hotly Contested' Special Election Results in Republican 'Victory'
Due to the failure, the actual results are completely unknown, unreliable, and unverifiable, and yet, one candidate (the Republican, as coincidence would have it) has been named the "winner" by 89-votes out of 12,000 cast in the Fairfax County, VA, Board of Supervisors special election.

Thursday, March 12, 2009
A Tsunami of Excuses
There can be no restoration of confidence in the banking system — and therefore no hope for an economic recovery — until Wall Street comes clean. If the executives responsible for what happened won’t step forward on their own, perhaps a subpoena-wielding panel along the lines of the 9/11 commission can be created to administer a little truth serum.

Thursday, March 12, 2009
AIG's Small London Office May Have Lost $500B
The insurance arm of AIG is believed to be in good shape,but the fallout from AIG's financial products arm is still rippling through the US economy and around the world.In a 21-page memo marked "strictly confidential" and obtained by ABC News,AIG pleaded for an additional $30 billion in federal aid last month by warning the Treasury Department that the "failure of AIG would cause turmoil in the US economy and global markets

Thursday, March 12, 2009
Pay It Backwards: An Act Of Coffee Kindness
Violent crimes and burglaries are up this holiday season.The financial crisis is creating anxiety, depression,desperation&anger.Do your best to control your own feelings before acting rashly.Think twice before doing or saying something you'll regret.Random acts of consciousness are perhaps even more contagious than random acts of kindness.Dig deep for perspective,make this a more peaceful holiday season for everyone.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Exclusive: All Charges Dropped Against FL Election Integrity Advocate Arrested Last November
"The power that we as elected officials have,has to be used very, very, very judiciously,"Sancho said. "I would caution officials over the removal of any observer from the elections process,because only by keeping the process as open as possible can we maintain credibility within the elections process."

Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Top Federal Election Reform Priorities
A draft summary of what I see as the most important,most doable,federal election reform priorities for 2009.I welcome your thoughts, recommended changes,additions,etc. For the moment,this is not meant as a comprehensive list of all needed reforms, particularly at the various local levels.But it's meant as a list of the big ones,as I seem them,and the ones for which I believe we could actually find a consensus in this Congress

Saturday, March 7, 2009
Larisa Alexandrovna on Siegelman Ruling and Update
Before you read the bad news - and it is bad news - remember that none of the evidence that was uncovered after the Siegelman trial was allowed to be part of this appeal...In other words, they considered nothing of what we now know about as the reality of this case. Even still, they struck down 2 of the 7 charges against Siegelman. So that should tell you something.

Friday, March 6, 2009
FAIR Study: Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare
Major newspaper, broadcast and cable stories mentioning healthcare reform in the week leading up to President Barack Obama's March 5 healthcare summit rarely mentioned the idea of a single-payer national health insurance program, according to a new FAIR study. And advocates of such a system--two of whom participated in yesterday's summit--were almost entirely shut out, FAIR found.

Friday, March 6, 2009
Is Obama Aide Trying to Protect Karl Rove?
Siegelman is a shrewd politician,& he's not about to blast this Rove deal&risk offending House Judiciary Comm Chair Conyers&others.It's possible that Siegelman suspects the Rove/Miers testimony will mainly be for show--that other activities will take place behind the scenes to get at the truth.it's possible that Siegelman suspects that someone-Jill Simpson perhaps-will pull the mask off Greg Craig& show that a Rove 'friendly'

Thursday, March 5, 2009
Rove agrees to be deposed under oath after three subpoenas
"The Committee will also receive Bush White House documents relevant to this inquiry. Under the agreement, the landmark ruling by Judge John Bates rejecting key Bush White House claims of executive immunity and privilege will be preserved. If the agreement is breached, the Committee can resume the litigation."

Thursday, March 5, 2009
White House Counsel Greg Craig Asked to 'Step Down'
In what appears to be a clear conflict of interest,Craig represented Rove in his recent book deal. Furthermore,Craig had been in contact with Ms. Simpson on the pretense of possibly representing her in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee legal team a year and a half ago,but declined to represent her only after getting her to reveal her entire case against Mr. Rove.

Thursday, March 5, 2009
No Oath Required for Rove, Miers Testimony, None Needed: House Judiciary Source
NO oath is required for congressional testimony. 18 USC 1001 (copied below) make it a crime to lie to congress, regardless of whether there is an oath. Penalties are the same as traditional perjury, where an oath is given (as in a court of law). There is no difference. When oaths are given in congress, it is generally for the cameras or to remind the witness of his obligations.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009
BREAKING: CONYERS REACHES AGREEMENT WITH ROVE, MIERS FOR SWORN TESTIMONY
Chairman Conyers:"I have long said that I would see this matter through to the end&am encouraged that we have finally broken through the Bush Administration's claims of absolute immunity.This is a victory for the separation of powers&and congressional oversight.It is also a vindication of the search for truth. I am determined to have it known whether US Attorneys in the DoJ were fired for political reasons,and if so,by whom."

Tuesday, March 3, 2009
COLEMAN BUSTED FOR HIDING WITNESS, EMAIL
Just imagine what this case would look like by now, had Franken --- or any Democrat, anywhere, anytime --- been busted doing any of those things in regard to an election or an election contest.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009
GOP Chair Michael Steele: 'Franken Stealing Coleman's Senate Seat'
The democratic process of the majority of voters having apparently selected Franken over Coleman is a "tragic injustice", charges Steele as he begs for money for the GOP before describing the "gutter campaign tactics and shady legal maneuverings of the Left Wing" who "don't fight fair, and [will] stop at nothing to consolidate the power they crave."

Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Bush Administration Weighed Restricting 1st Amendment
(8 comments) The October 2001 memo suggested the president could even suspend press freedoms if he concluded it was necessary to wage the war on terror. This claim was viewed as so extreme that it was essentially (and secretly) revoked—but not until October of last year, seven years after the memo was written and with barely three and a half months left in the Bush administration.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Report: Diebold Voting System Has 'Delete' Button for Erasing Audit Logs
Although Premier/Diebold knew about the problem for years, it didn't notify the federal Election Assistance Commission or the National Association of State Election Directors, which oversaw the testing and certification of voting systems at the time the Premier/Diebold system was certified, so that NASED could notify election officials around the country about the problem.

Monday, March 2, 2009
The EAC Lied, Lever Voting Machines (Almost) Died
The EAC doesn't always ignore letters requesting its cooperation to enforce HAVA. However, it appears only manufacturers of software-based systems get a free ride to ignore HAVA, while transparent mechanical lever voting systems aren't so lucky; even when they are in compliance with the federal law!

Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Ecstasy and the Agony
(1 comments) Handing more public money to the reckless banks that invented this culture and stuck us with the wreckage is the new third rail of American politics. If Obama doesn’t forge a better plan, neither his immense popularity nor even political foes as laughable as Jindal can insulate him from getting burned.

Saturday, February 28, 2009
Power Shift Brings Young People to Washington to Lobby for Climate Action
(2 comments) Today marks the start of Power Shift '09, a weekend that will bring 10,000 young people to Washington to lobby Congress for action on climate change. Those who attend will hear from speakers such as Sen. Nancy Pelosi,and learn the skills necessary to lobby on Capitol Hill.At the end of the weekend,another group,Capitol Climate Action,will be hosting the largest civil disobedience demonstration for climate change yet.

Thursday, February 26, 2009
Norm Coleman: Maybe We Need A Do-Over Election
(1 comments) Coleman also said that he truly believes that he is the one who got the most legally cast votes, but on the other hand, this whole situation shows serious concerns about the process.

Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tough-on-Crime Groups Cut to the Chase
Only in America can elected officials go on TV and confess to felonies (including torture and warrantless spying,not to mention aggressive war) and the resulting debate focus around the question of whether investigating the "possibility" of wrong-doing would be too radical.This week a coalition of human rights groups released a statement,cutting to the chase.We urge AG Holder to appoint a non-partisan special counsel

Thursday, February 26, 2009
BBV: New Holt Election Reform Bill Would Allow 'Surreptitious Dismantling of Self-Government'
The Holt Bill,like the persistent reappearance of Internet Voting proposals,reminds me very much of the process corporations followed in the late 1800s while grabbing "corporate personhood."They kept coming back to the well,year after year,defeat after defeat,until one year,someone fell asleep at the wheel and corporations grabbed the "right" to personhood.What we are seeing in elections today is the surreptitious dismantling

Thursday, February 26, 2009
New Version of Holt's Election Reform Bill Would Institutionalize Touch-Screen Voting, Secret Software
While the bill offers some improvements over previous versions, the major flaws still inherent in the legislation --- as it's currently drafted --- will fail to ensure the security, accuracy, and transparency that American democracy requires and deserves. As a sweeping piece of (much-needed) federal reform, we'd better make sure that we get it right this time, since it'll be years, perhaps decades, before we get another bite a

Monday, February 23, 2009
Shot arms dealer "knew too much"
Bowen told The Sunday Times that Iraq provided ample opportunities for corruption on a vast scale.It was “a cash-only environment,involving the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars –and,as our cases have revealed,the controls were weak”.The lesson of Iraq is that if you don’t carefully implement the process, you will lose the money and not achieve your goals."

Monday, February 23, 2009
Your request is being processed... Ira Forman Ira Forman Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council P
What planet does this guy come from? It's astonishing that CBS News would name Ballabon to its senior management. In fact, it is not atypical of Ballabon to use this kind of extreme partisan rhetoric. During the 2008 election, Ballabon said, "Obama is incredibly dangerous."

Sunday, February 22, 2009
Dead In Its Tracks: An Anatomy of Norm Coleman's Failed Effort to Contest MN's U.S. Senate Election
The status of this election contest is deeply troubling. It has become increasingly apparent that the Coleman position is devoid of merit, yet his team plods on, delaying the seating of a U.S. Senator.

Saturday, February 21, 2009
Update on Paul Minor, another victim of the politicized Bush DoJ
Paul Minor is another Don Siegelman. Both men allege that they were politically prosecuted and the evidence thus far supports their version of events.Rove may be playing games with the House Judiciary Committee and wasting time for all involved,but the people who were most affected by abuses of the DOJ do not have the time for these games. His wife is terminally ill,in hospice, and he has been granted only 3 hours with her.

Friday, February 20, 2009
With malice aforethought
A US court ruling threatens to overturn the American legal principle that truth is an absolute defence against libel. If the truth no longer sets us free, then the first amendment will have shrunk beyond recognition. The media will lose, of course. But so will the public they ostensibly serve.

Thursday, February 19, 2009
Coleman Attorney Says Election 'Fatally-Flawed'
Coleman's attorney. "Swiftboat" Ben Ginsberg, has now declared the trial "a legal quagmire that makes ascertaining a final legitimate result to this election even more difficult." See Kleefeld or the Strib for details, but it's becoming clearer by the moment what the Coleman strategy now is. It begins with desperation, but may likely end at the Supreme Court of the United States.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Obama seeks delay in deciding on Rove subpoena
Rove's attorney has indicated that his client would be willing to testify about his role in the prosecution and conviction of former Dem Alabama Gov Siegelman on bribery charges. Democrats want Rove to testify about the matter because they suspect that he instigated the prosecution.Democrats also insist that Rove should be made to testify about the firings of the nine U.S. attorneys.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Way to Rig Elections on Scale Unimagined - Right Here Right Now
As many states in the US get rid of paperless computerized voting, new ways to rig elections are promoted. Don't let this get past you - this is a threat to all of us, and could undo every bit of work we have done over the years. We've made it unprofitable for voting vendors to sell paperless computerized voting systems, so a new hole in the wall has developed. What would be the easiest way to rig elections on the grandest sca

Sunday, February 15, 2009
Frank Rich: They Sure Showed That Obama
Repubs will also be judged by the voters.If they want to obstruct &filibuster while the economy is in free fall,the president should call their bluff & let them go at it.In the first four years after FDR took over from Hoover,the already decimated ranks of Repubs in Congress fell from 36 to 16 in the Senate&from 117 to 88 in the House.The GOP is so insistent that the New Deal was a mirage it may well have convince itself that

Friday, February 13, 2009
An eyewitness account of this week's aggressive intimidation of Jewish students at York University
I believe that if the university does not take action soon,things on campus may get seriously out of controlThere is no reason why anybody,no matter their race,religion,gender,should ever feel threatened on a public university campus.And the actions seen at York today is done so because the administration has turned a blind eye on this conflict for well over 5 years already.It should not take something as serious as

Friday, February 13, 2009
Conyers Subpoenas Rove For Third Time
At the end of today's letter, refusing Luskin's request for further delay, Conyers, rather amusingly, notes:[G]iven Mr. Rove's public statements that he does not intend to comply with the subpoena, I am puzzled as to why Mr. Rove needs a mutually convenient date to fail to appear.

Friday, February 13, 2009
Riverside County, CA Refusing to Bill E-Voting Vendor for Cost of Manual Tally
After another year and a half of continued bungling, failure, and waste, we still wonder how the hell it can be that she's still at the helm of Riverside County's elections. As usual, the voters deserve far better.

Friday, February 13, 2009
Stimulus Bill Bravado
In recent weeks, in his pitches to Congress and the public on the need to pass the economic stimulus bill, Obama has made several claims about what it would do. (Republicans, too, have made stimulus boasts of their own.) But these pronouncements are not a sure thing.

Thursday, February 12, 2009
New York -- Transparency vs. Certification: Fact & Friction
(1 comments) Prof. Pfaffenberger:"one of the most astonishing achievements of American technological genius,a fact that is reflected in their continued competitiveness against recent voting technologies in every accepted performance measure".After thinking it through and weighing the available alternatives,we are forced to agree with Dr. Pfaffenberger's conclusions. Transparency trumps "certification" every time.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Court Awards Votes to Franken in Coleman's U.S. Senate Election Contest in MN
Many of those voters, Franken attorneys made clear, whose ballots were rejected by Coleman before --- due to a dubious MN Supreme Court decision allowing veto power to the campaigns over whether some ballots got counted or not during the hand-count --- are now listed (disingenously) on Coleman's website as being among those whom "the Franken campaign is seeking to disenfranchise." TPMDC has more on that.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009
WA State Seeks to Use Military and Overseas Voters as Internet Voting Guinea Pigs
State decision makers need to value the actual votes of the voters --- and the ability for those voters to have confidence that their votes were accurately counted --- more than the convenience offered by unreliable, unobservable systems. Experimentation in Washington and elsewhere in the country, using live voters during real elections, needs to stop. Our military deserve better, and so does every citizen in our democracy.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Mississippi Republicans Push For Disenfranchising Polling Place Photo ID Restrictions
Velvet Revolution continues to insist that photo ID requirements for voting are sinister methods of disenfranchising the elderly, minority, and low-income voters, people who very often vote for Democratic candidates. We believe it's no surprise that those who are in favor of photo ID requirements are almost invariably Republicans.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Don Siegelman Disagrees With Obama On Investigating Bush
(2 comments) For the country to safely move forward we must repair the damage done to the foundations of our democracy. That starts with digging until we get the truth as Chairman John Conyers has been doing and as Senator Leahy is now proposing and holding accountable those who have abused their power. Restoring justice and preserving our democracy requires nothing less and that would in itself be a great legacy for our new President.

Monday, February 9, 2009
Is Howard Dean Getting Screwed Over?
(5 comments) If one motif runs through Dean's meteoric rise from the governor of a tiny state, to a dark horse populist candidate who inspired millions with his "You Have the Power!" message, to being the campaign and fundraising face of the ruling political party, it's that Dean has been willing to take his cause into every corner of every state.

Monday, February 9, 2009
No End In Sight, And No Gum, At Minn. Senate Tria
With last week's ruling that Coleman's attorneys can present evidence on as many as 4,800 rejected absentee ballots, the answer is weeks -- a mind-numbing prospect even for the judges, who can sometimes be glimpsed eyeing the clock in the back of the courtroom as 4:30 p.m. approaches. And no matter what time of day, their exchanges with attorneys can be snappish.

Monday, February 9, 2009
EXCLUSIVE: The New Voter Fraud Complaint Filed in CT Against the GOP's Ann Coulter

Monday, February 9, 2009
Another Right-Wing Conspiracy in Washington?
That experiment has failed. There is no free market in talk radio today, only an exclusive, tightly held, conservative media conspiracy. The few holders of broadcast licenses have made it clear they will not, on their own, serve the general public. Maybe it's time to bring back the Fairness Doctrine -- and bring competition back to talk radio in Washington and elsewhere.

Sunday, February 8, 2009
KBR wins contract despite criminal probe of deaths
"This is hardly the time to award KBR a new contract for work they've already failed to perform adequately, and which put U.S. soldiers at even greater risk," Dorgan said in a statement. "Ultimately, contractors must be held accountable, and so should those who continue to award these contracts."

Sunday, February 8, 2009
'The Ballot Universe': Where We Are as Week 2 Ends at the U.S. Senate Election Contest in MN
While many of the GOP tactics here have been reprehensible, their strategy, of fighting for every single vote, is to be commended. The Democrats should --- but probably won't --- learn from it.

Saturday, February 7, 2009
Paul Krugman: What the Centrists Have Wrought
(2 comments) My first cut says that the changes to the Senate bill will ensure that we have at least 600,000 fewer Americans employed over the next two years. The real question now is whether Obama will be able to come back for more once it’s clear that the plan is way inadequate. My guess is no. This is really, really bad.

Saturday, February 7, 2009
AP CEO: Bush Turned Military Into Propaganda Machine
"But does America need to resort to al-Qaida tactics?" Curley said. "Should the U.S. government be running Web sites that appear to be independent news organizations?" Should the military be planting stories in foreign newspapers? Should the United States be trying to influence public opinion through subterfuge, both here and abroad?"

Friday, February 6, 2009
Feeney Catches a Break: Appellate Court Limits Allowable Evidence in Federal Investigation
Experts: Unpublished finding may impede grand jury probe into Abramoff-ties by corrupt former FL lawmaker, alleged vote-rigging conspirator, and other members of Congress ALSO: Feeney now being represented by Karl Rove's(!) attorney...

Friday, February 6, 2009
Judge Rules Against Saving Ballots from Contested Pima County, AZ, Election
It’s too late for the actual results of the election to be changed,but knowing whether the election was tampered with is critical to guaranteeing the integrity of future elections,according to local Election Integrity advocates who won a landmark lawsuit,resulting in the unprecedented release of terrabytes of Diebold databases, found by the judge in the suit to be public records.

Friday, February 6, 2009
Filibuster Math: Dems Should Not Seat Gregg's Replacement (Until Franken is Seated First)
Yeah, it's hardball politics, but unless someone is aware of some Constitutional information that I'm not, its also both perfectly legal and Constitutional. And do you think the GOP would pause for a second to do the same thing if they were in a similar position? If you have any doubts about about that, just keep your eyes on what they're doing in Minnesota.

Thursday, February 5, 2009
Seat Al Franken Already
Eventually, the Senate could require the Durkin-style compromise of a new election, but even that could require 60 votes. So far, the Republicans have placed their power to filibuster above the constitutional right of the people of Minnesota to have two senators.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
John Conyers: Our Responsibility - to get the facts
(7 comments) If we move on now without fully documenting what occurred,without acknowledging the betrayal of our values,and without determining whether or not any laws have been broken, we cannot help but validate all that has gone on before.If we look at the Bush record and conclude that the book should simply be closed,we will be tacitly approving both the documented abuses and the addtitional misdeeds we choose to leave uncovered.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Risking the Future
We’re rushing to bail out the banking industry for what? What kind of country will we have once the bankers are fat and happy again? The U.S. will still be a nation with a pathetic mid-20th-century infrastructure struggling to make it in a dynamic 21st-century world. It’s a blueprint for sustained national decline.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
The Travails of Tom Daschle
Mr. Daschle is another in a long line of politicians who move cozily between government and industry. We don’t know that his industry ties would influence his judgments on health issues, but they could potentially throw a cloud over health care reform. Mr. Daschle could clear the atmosphere by withdrawing his name.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Did Israel Bomb a UN School? The Truth Exposed
n war,the saying goes,"the first victim is the truth."An in-depth investigative report by the Canadian Globe&Mail's Middle East correspondent,Patrick Martin proved to be the exception to the rule.We are often asked if media reports such as the G&M's or even our own can have an impact.The answer is an unequivocal yes.Already,a European Member of Parliament has submitted a parliamentary question based on the G&M investigation.

Monday, February 2, 2009
Four Less-Reported Pieces Of Hugely Good News
I'd say the significance of these three pieces of news are in the proper order in terms of importance. They are certainly all significant, but if Obama is really serious about getting the defense budget under control,that would be monumentally huge, because it would provide the federal government the additional revenues needed to fund almost every other major priority in front of our country.Good,Barack-more like this please.

Monday, February 2, 2009
Physicians for Human Rights - Senator Whitehouse Supports Call for Investigation into Use of Torture by U.S.
(1 comments) "We need to follow this thing into those dense weeds and shine a bright light into what was done," said the state's junior senator. "We can paper it over if we choose, but the blueprint is still lying there for others to do it all over again. ... It's important that we not let this moment pass."

Sunday, February 1, 2009
Herbert Hoover Lives
If the country wasn’t suffering, the Republicans’ behavior would be a laugh riot. The House minority leader, John Boehner, from the economic wasteland of Ohio, declared on “Meet the Press” last Sunday that the G.O.P. didn’t want to be “the party of ‘No’ ” but “the party of better ideas, better solutions.” And what are those ideas, exactly? He said he’ll get back to us “over the coming months.”

Saturday, January 31, 2009
VIDEO - Nadler: 'Rove Will Testify or Go to Jail'
Nadler contended, in his MSNBC interview, that Rove has no basis for asserting Executive Privilege in this matter, since the White House has previously claimed they know nothing about the unprecedented firings of U.S. Attorneys, and the other related matters.

Friday, January 30, 2009
Expert in NJ Court Case: Voting Machines Easily Altered
The case began nearly 5 years ago, when Mercer County resident Stephanie Harris voted in a presidential primary.Her machine appeared to malfunction,and she was not certain whether her ballot was correctly counted.Harris and fellow activists sued, asking that the machines be banned.The activists want the electronic equipment replaced with optical scanners.That technology relies on paper ballots,which voters fill in with pencil

Thursday, January 29, 2009
The Progressive National Security Era
hile President Obama's interview with Al Arabiya -- his first interview since taking office on Jan. 20 -- signaled a new rhetorical posture toward the world, his initial appointments and directives have shown that, unlike the previous administration, this president intends to put policy weight behind that rhetoric and effect a significant change in U.S. foreign policy.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Coleman's Supposedly Friendly Witnesses Backfire
More on the Minnesota Senate race recount and court case.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Our Melamine: There's Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup, and the FDA Has Known for Years
What makes this news truly shocking is not just that the manufacturers of high fructose corn syrup would put consumers' health at risk, but that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) knew about the mercury in the syrup, and has been sitting on this information since 2005.

Monday, January 26, 2009
Invoking Pres. Obama, House Judiciary Chairman Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove!
(14 comments) "I have said many times that I will carry this investigation forward to its conclusion, whether in Congress or in court, and today's action is an important step along the way," Conyers said in a release. "Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it. After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk."

Monday, January 26, 2009
Kristol Bawl: An 'Appreciation' As Column Ends at 'NYT'
(1 comments) So, for the laughs and all the rest, a tip of our cap to you, Mr. Kristol! And don't let the door hit you on the way out. We'll see you soon at The Washington Post, where Opinion editor Fred Haitt, amazingly but not surprisingly, comments of Kristol's work at the Times: "I thought he wrote a good column."

Monday, January 26, 2009
Conyers To Introduce Universal Healthcare Bill Today
The bill - known last session as H.R. 676 - is a favorite of healthcare reformers who back a single-payer system. The bill, which will again be H.R. 676, is one of the more elegant to be introduced in the House, clocking in at just a few pages. The plan is simple: everyone is eligible for a version of Medicare under a new U.S. National Health Insurance Program.

Monday, January 26, 2009
'Doctored Evidence' Tossed on First Day of Coleman/Franken Election Contest
By the end of the day today, the first official day of the trial, the 3-judge panel threw out the tainted evidence --- photocopies of rejected absentee ballots where the Coleman camp had either removed written comments from election officials as to why they were rejected, or left in text added by the campaign itself --- and allowed Coleman's team to subpoena and then re-submit the actual ballot envelopes.

Sunday, January 25, 2009
Uphold the Voting Rights Act
(1 comments) Some people claim that Barack Obama’s election has ushered in a “postracial” America, but the truth is that race, and racial discrimination, are still very much with us. The Supreme Court should keep this reality in mind when it considers a challenge to an important part of the Voting Rights Act that it recently agreed to hear. The act is constitutional — and clearly still needed.

Sunday, January 25, 2009
Jon Kyl: On Notice
(1 comments) I respect Kyl and his colleagues for sticking to their increasingly unpopular guns on issues like this; really, I do. It is important that all sides are heard -- something that hasn't been the rule in D.C. for a while. Having said that, it's not always important that both sides are happy, particularly when they are wrong, as Kyl is in his "they don't pay taxes" assertion, and particularly when they've just faced massive reject

Saturday, January 24, 2009
Franken Attorney: Coleman Team Doctoring Evidence in Election Contest Lawsuit
(2 comments) As an example, Hamilton showed two photocopies of a rejected absentee ballot envelope, one of which he said was the unaltered original, and the other taken from Coleman's legal filings in his attempts to get more of the rejected ballots opened. The Coleman copy was missing the section in which a local election official explained why it was rejected.

Saturday, January 24, 2009
Anthrax is Delicious! Or, Bush Kept Us Safe Unless You Count the Thousands of Dead Americans
As to Bush having kept us safe beyond the 15 killed and 20 injured in the dozens of terror attacks on American soil since 9/11 as mentioned above, to date 4,230 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. Additionally, 172 American civilian contractors were also killed in the unnecessary, optional war on a country which had nothing to do with 9/11. Moreover, tens of thousands of U.S. troops were permanently injured in the conflict.

Saturday, January 24, 2009
t's time to set record straight on the results of Ohio vote
• Obama received more votes in Ohio than any other presidential candidate in history.• The number of Ohioans who voted in the 2008 general election was a record, too.These facts contradict earlier reporting by this newspaper and other local, state and national media. All were dealing with incomplete information and erroneous speculation about preliminary results — both on Election Night and in the weeks that followed...

Friday, January 23, 2009
Whistleblower: NSA Targeted Journalists, Snooped on All U.S. Communications
Just one day after George W. Bush left office, an NSA whistleblower has revealed that the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program targeted U.S. journalists, and vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic.

Thursday, January 22, 2009
Buzzflash's MediaPutz.com Honoring Reporters Who Just Can't Handle the Truth
The corporate press: For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America.

Thursday, January 22, 2009
Obama to Bush: I Can Release Your Records. Don't Like It? Sue.
"[Obama]'s putting former presidents on notice that if you want to continue a claim of executive privilege that [Obama] doesn't think is well-placed, you're going to have to go to court," says Anne Weismann, the chief counsel for Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW).During the campaign, Obama promised to "nullify attempts to make the imely release of presidential records more difficult."

Thursday, January 22, 2009
John Thain's $87,000 Rug
In a Daily Beast/CNBC exclusive, Charlie Gasparino reveals how Merrill Lynch’s CEO spent over $1 million and hired the Obamas' decorator to redecorate his office last year—even as the firm faced a financial crisis.UPDATE: Bank of America has just announced that Thain will leave the firm, less than a month after its merger with Merrill.

Thursday, January 22, 2009
Woodstock without the Mud
The big difference was in the national reaction. The only people who felt unified during Woodstock were those who were there — everybody else was horrified or jealous. But the inauguration left the whole country glued together emotionally, one big American ball of hope.

Thursday, January 22, 2009
Coleman Takes New Job, Looking Beyond Senate
The move is the clearest indication to date that the St. Paul Republican is prepared to lose his legal challenges for the state's still vacant Senate seat. The position at the RJC is salaried -- something he could not hold if he were still in office. And, according to officials with the organization, Coleman is not going to take the new responsibilities lightly.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Optical-scan voting extremely accurate in Minnesota
The recount of the 2008 Minnesota Senate race gives us an opportunity to evaluate the accuracy of precinct-count optical-scan voting. Though there have been contentious disputes over which absentee ballot envelopes to open, the core technology for scanning ballots has proved to be extremely accurate.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Obama freezes salaries of some White House aides
"these historic measures do mark the beginning of a new era of openness in our country," Obama said. "And I will, I hope, do something to make government trustworthy in the eyes of the American people, in the days and weeks, months and years to come."

Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Interview with Cliff Arnebeck on Karl Rove and Mike Connell
t becomes a Republican enterprise when Rove gets control of the presidency in 2000.And then, as inside the White House,functioning in a policy role, multiple policy roles engaging in corrupt practices, and basically turning foreign policy and domestic policy into an adjunct of his corrupt sense of partisan political activity,which is really not anything that's part of any American tradition that any of us are familiar with.

Monday, January 19, 2009
Ceasefire in Gaza
This is the only fighting force in history to boast that they have made human shields of their own people. There are films of "brave" Hamas gunmen dragging screaming children along to serve as shields, and of civilians sent onto the roofs of rocket launching sites, where, ironically, they know the Israelis will not fire on them. It is a mockery of military ethics, yet it goes barely noticed in the Western media.

Monday, January 19, 2009
Krugman: Obama's Oath Will Require Him to Bring Accountability for Bush Administration Crimes
(2 comments) To protect and defend the Constitution, a president must do more than obey the Constitution himself; he must hold those who violate the Constitution accountable. So Mr. Obama should reconsider his apparent decision to let the previous administration get away with crime. Consequences aside, that's not a decision he has the right to make.

Sunday, January 18, 2009
Obama Inauguration Imminent: How About a Shout Out for the Election Protectors?
The lesson of the last3elections is that we must not take for granted that the electoral process will work,that the winner will gain office. We must continue to work for a voting system in which votes can be verified.Federal and state initiatives to criminalize deceptive practices need to be enacted.We must apply vigilance to every aspect of future elections.Obama was helped by the fact that he won by a large margin.

Thursday, January 15, 2009
White House Finds 14 Million Missing Emails, DOJ Lawyer Says
The belated delivery of documents calls into question the integrity of Fitzgerald’s probe, suggesting that he may not have obtained all the evidence related to White House officials’ role in the leak in a timely fashion.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009
New York Times OpEd: Why Israel Can't Make Peace with Hamas
(2 comments) The only small chance for peace today is the same chance that existed before the Gaza invasion: The moderate Arab states, Europe, the United States and, mainly, Israel, must help Hamas’s enemy, Fatah, prepare the West Bank for real freedom, and then hope that the people of Gaza, vast numbers of whom are unsympathetic to Hamas, see the West Bank as an alternative to the squalid vision of Hassan Nasrallah and Nizar Rayyan.

Saturday, January 10, 2009
The Times, UK: In defence of Israel
No one can condone the civilian suffering in Gaza of the past two weeks. Nor should anyone doubt who is, in the end, responsible.

Saturday, January 10, 2009
Alan Dershowitz: The Hamas War Crime Strategy
(4 comments) The best outcome for purposes of producing peace would be the destruction or substantial weakening of Hamas, which rejects the two-state solution. Israel and the Palestinian Authority could then agree on a peace that would end both the Israeli occupation and the rocketing of Israeli civilians.

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Hamas to Blame for Current Crisis
(1 comments) No nation in the world would stand for its citizens being rocketed from across its borders.Critics argue Israel cannot achieve its aims– stopping the rocket fire altogether,perhaps toppling Hamas– militarily.But,as the Israeli Middle East analyst Barry Rubin notes,there’s also no diplomatic solution when your adversary rejects your right to ever exist in peace.In that case, says Rubin,you must still do something.

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Israel Acts Because the World Won't Defend It
(3 comments) I am telling you this story because I want you to understand Israel. Not to agree with all it does, not to keep quiet when you want to protest against its actions, not to side with it always, merely to understand Israel.

Thursday, January 8, 2009
House renews probe of US attorney firings
“A very fine U.S. attorney from the state of a Nevada was unceremoniously removed for no reason–I would like to know why,I would like it top be made public and I would like those responsible punished,” Berkley said. “By passing this rule we have assured this will be done.”The move by the Dem-controlled House is an assertion of congressional authority after several years of executive branch overreach by the Bush administration.

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Hackers take down ring of key progressive blogs
"Never mind the nature of the views being expressed on these sites -this attack was a naked broadside aimed at the very infrastructure of public speech and discourse in America,just as surely as if vandals had destroyed the presses used by the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine back in the 1700s.As long as the United States professes to be in the free speech business,actions like these cannot be allowed to stand."

Thursday, January 8, 2009
New York Times Letter to the Editor Regarding Election Solution
Harvey Wasserman writes: Paper ballots are used with great success in Canada, Japan and Germany. Given the problems in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, ballots printed on recycled paper, counted in public for all to see, are the best way to restore public confidence in an electoral system that has been badly damaged by electronic devices.

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Coleman's Lawsuit: This Whole Election Stinks -- And I Won
The complaint ignores the existence of counter-evidence, employs one maneuver when it is self-benefiting and opposes the same maneuver when it goes against them, attacks not just the recount but votes that were counted for Franken all along, and overall throws everything against the wall to see what sticks.

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Hamas executes collaborators and restricts Fatah movement
(2 comments) Since the aerial attack on Gaza began,Hamas has sought to suppress individuals it believes endanger the group's fight against Israel and its hold on power in the Strip,as well as public morale.Prime targets include Fatah members,people convicted or suspected of collaborating with Israel,and "common" criminals."Hamas rules with an iron fist even now," said one resident.

Thursday, January 8, 2009
War is terrible, but the alternative in Gaza was worse
But the only reason more Israelis haven’t been killed by them is that in the south, the population has been all but living in bomb shelters. And there is nothing ‘homemade’ about the Russian-designed Katyushas and Iranian Grad rockets now putting around one-tenth of Israel’s population within their range.

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Lots and lots of lawyers: Legal teams preparing for Franken-Coleman election contest

Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The Gaza rules
Watching both this week's war and the world's predictable reaction to it, we can recall the Gaza rules.Most are reflections of our postmodern age,and completely at odds with the past protocols of war.By now,these Gaza asymmetrical rules are old hat.We know why they persist-worldwide fear of Islamic terrorism,easy anti-Westernism,the old anti-Semitism,and global strategic calculations about MEoil-but it doesn't make them right.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009
The suffering that Hamas causes
Israeli author Amos Oz, whose call for peace with the Palestinians is shared by a majority of Israelis, succinctly described the brutalization of Israeli civilians in terms that cannot fairly be disputed.Oz is correct. But it isn't only Israelis whose fundamental human rights Hamas is violating. It is those of the Palestinian population about whose welfare Hamas professes to care.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009
The Palestinian tilt toward self-destruction
(1 comments) It is true that the Palestinian rockets are relatively weak and more nearly flung than aimed, but what country, really, would ask a good swath of its people to live under constant bombardment on the basis that it wasn't very effective? Actually, Israel did that during the supposed ceasefire until the frequent violations became constant.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Wartime in Gaza: The worst anti-Israel charges you'll hear
(1 comments) Herewith the first in a two-part guide to the 10 most gratuitous, least productive, most resolutely ingenuous claims likely to be hurled in an effort to attack Israel.The first five are arguments of the anti-Israel left, claims which are, curiously, as tired as they are unflagging.

Sunday, January 4, 2009
On Gaza, Sense and Centrism
(3 comments) It is not easy for me to write these words. I welcomed the founding of J Street and know many of those involved in its leadership. Furthermore, I am a dove myself. I support a two-state solution, believe that military action by Israel should be a last resort and welcome an active American role in promoting peace between Israel and her neighbors. But I know a mistake when I see one, and this time J Street got it very wrong.

Friday, January 2, 2009
Gaza: What victimology does not account for
(1 comments) I have been a very outspoken critic of Israeli policies for many years. Nevertheless, those who, like Nir Rosen here, go into endless diatribes to ascribe sole responsibility to Israel for the current situation are hypocritical at worst and ignorant at best. In this age of political correctness it is always sexy to support the underdog. But political correctness does not always yield wise political judgment.

Friday, January 2, 2009
Obama Faces Legacy of Lawlessness at Justice
(2 comments) Advocates are pushing for prosecutions of Cheney,Addington, Rumsfeld&others,insisting that only by prosecuting such abuses can the new DoJ prevent their recurrence. Obama has not said whether he will initiate a criminal investigation, although he hasn’t ruled it out.There are also actions a new administration can take short of prosecution that could go a long way toward restoring respect for the rule of law,say legal scholars.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008
JEWISH WORLD / Pro-Israel camp would be wise to heed Muslim cries for peace
(1 comments) The Muslim Canadian Congress, for example, has issued a statement holding Hamas responsible for precipitating the recent conflict in Gaza.The statement begins by condemning the recent Israeli attacks in Gaza as "disproportionate," but quickly turns its attention to censuring Hamas. According to the congress, Hamas is responsible for using the Palestinian people as "human bait," in an effort to kindle an all-out war in Gaza.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008
It's Overtime for Hamas' Leaders and Time for Them to Go
(1 comments) The only way out of this mess is to separate Hamas' entire military& political leadership from the oppressed citizenry of Gaza(and yes,it is absolutely a mischaracterization of fact to assert that Hamas is the legitimate ruler of Gaza).Easier said than done you say.But as long as Hamas rules Gaza,no amount of cajoling is going to end the vicious cycle of terror that Hamas is inflicting first and foremost on its own beaten-down

Tuesday, December 30, 2008
NPR: Dan Rather Hopes To Tell His Bush Story In Court
Rather and his team were also exonerated of any political agenda. But the report was nonetheless severe on the network for its failings."This was arguably the greatest embarrassment in the history of CBS News' otherwise wonderful journalistic tradition," says Andrew Heyward, who was president of CBS News at the time. He was originally a defendant in the Rather lawsuit but was dropped by the judge in the case.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008
UK Financial Times: Bush shoe-thrower tells of ordeal
The judge handling his case, Dhia al-Kinani, said last week that Muntadar al-Zaidi appeared to have been tortured while in custody. The judge has opened an investigation into his treatment.He had a bruised eye, was missing an upper canine tooth and had cigarette burn marks on the back of his ears. "I didn't recognise him when I first saw him," Oday al-Zaidi said.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008
A recount to count on
A manual recount is required not because we distrust the election system,but because we care enough about this important process to be as certain as possible of the outcome. What we learn will help improve our protocols,increase the accuracy of our elections,improve voter confidence and strengthen our democracy.A guiding principle of our organization from day one is that every vote that is properly cast must be counted.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008
So, will it be Senator Franken?
(3 comments) The most important thing about this recount is that all votes in Minnesota are cast on paper—mainly on op scan forms,that get read by computer.When the votes have to be recounted,there are paper ballots that can be inspected.In states that have paperless electronic voting,this cannot be done.The deliberate way the state is reviewing the ballots is not a weakness in the state’s democracy, but a sign of health...

Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Federal agencies examining deadly Lake Township plane crash
So far the investigation shows that the plane had no issues with flight control and there was no icing, Serchak said. The plane’s propeller had damage that indicates the engine was operating when the crash occurred...[His] site boasts that Connell provided technical expertise to John McCain’s presidential campaign this year, and Internet strategies to the Bush-Cheney campaigns of 2000 and 2004.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008
CBS Breaks Media Blackout: Republican IT Guru Dies In Plane Crash
Spoonamore, a Republican IT fraud detection expert has testified that the OH election returns indicated a "KingPin Attack", in which a computer is inserted into the communications flow of an IT system, with the intent to change data. SOS Blackwell's office may have routed data traffic from county election offices through the same TN servers that housed the websites of both the Bush and the Swift Boat campaigns.

Monday, December 22, 2008
From the NY TImes: Bush Insider Who Planned To Tell All Killed In Plane Crash: Non-Profit Demands Full Federal Investig
Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane.Both GovTech and SmartTech have been implicated in the rigging of the 2000 and 2004 elections and the White House email scandal. Our [Velvet Revolution] prior request to have Mr. Connell protected went unheeded and now he is dead.

Monday, December 22, 2008
Ohio Channel 19 News: Michael Connell Cancelled Two Flights on Suspicion his Plane may be SABOTAGED !!!.
Amazingly, Ohio's Channel 19 Action News actually is willing to raise questions about the possible connection between what Connell might have had to say about Ohio 2004 and his fatal plane crash a few days ago.

Monday, December 22, 2008
Democracy NOW interview with Mark Crispin Miller: Republican IT Specialist Dies in Plane Crash
A top Repub internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 04 in OH has died in a plane crash.Michael Connell was the chief IT consultant to Rove and created websites for the Bush &McCain electoral campaigns.Connell was deposed one day before the election this year by attorneys Arnebeck & Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count in OH and his access to Rove’s email files

Monday, December 22, 2008
EXCLUSIVE: OH Election Fraud Attorney Reacts to the Death of Mike Connell
Despite the bad news, Arnebeck remains undeterred and seems encouraged by President-elect Barack Obama's nomination of Eric Holder to be the next U.S. Attorney General. "The fact that Rove is leading the effort to derail Obama's AG appointment, suggests that we may be getting the right man to proceed with the necessary work [and] that Justice has already begun to hold Rove accountable."

Sunday, December 21, 2008
‘Bush Shoe’ Gives Firm a Footing in the Market
When a pair of black leather oxfords hurled at President Bush in Baghdad produced a gasp heard around the world, a Turkish cobbler had a different reaction: They were his shoes.

Sunday, December 21, 2008
BREAKING: MIKE CONNELL, GOP 'IT GURU', KILLED IN SOLO PLANE CRASH
The following clip (appx 6:45 mins) from the documentary film, FREE FOR ALL!, released just prior to the motion to lift the stay on the King-Lincoln case in order to compel the testimony of Connell and others, including possibly Rove, offers some background on how Connell and his companies fit into the bigger picture of the investigation into potential crimes masterminded Rove, the GOP and the White House...

Sunday, December 21, 2008
The Dirty Dozen of 2008
Not surprisingly, Broward and Palm Beach counties had more than their share of backroom deals, slimy alliances, ego trips, and moral shilly-shallying this year. So many scoundrels, so many liars, so many wimps and turncoats. So many bums stalking our backyards in 2008, in fact, that New Times considered expanding its annual Dirty Dozen list.

Sunday, December 21, 2008
Rove Threat to Blackmail GOP IT Mastermind Triggers Immunity Request to Ohio AG by Election Lawyers
(2 comments) The little story about how the GOP cyber-gamed the OH presidential election in 2004 is growing by the day,spurred on to greater heights Thursday when an OH election attorney asked the OH AG to provide immunity protection to Mike Connell,the GOP IT mastermind who built various computer systems they say not only won OH for the President in 2004 but led to many other wins for Republicans over the years of the Bush Administration.

Saturday, December 20, 2008
Destroying What the UAW Built
(2 comments) What the Repubs are proposing would gut the benefits of roughly a million retirees.In a broad sense,they want to destroy the institution that did more than any other to raise American living standards,and they want to do it by using the power of government to lower American living standards-- in the middle of the most severe recession since the 30s.The auto workers deserve better,and so does the nation they did much to build.

Friday, December 19, 2008
Going, Going, Gone! Bush Auctions Off Wilderness Land in Utah
Robert Redford joined members of Congress--lead by Congressmen Baird (D-WA),Hinchey (D-NY),and Holt (D-NJ)--and a coalition of environmental,preservation and business groups to stop the auctions.Friday’s sale would include lands that were recently made available to industry through hastily approved resource management plans that will have serious ramifications for public lands.

Friday, December 19, 2008
Obama's Great Pick for Labor Secretary -- Hilda Solis
"Appointing Solis, Obama has made clear his commitment to creating green jobs to lift the nation out of its current economic crisis." This high praise comes from someone who should know: Van Jones, who envisions green collar jobs for Urban America and is the executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California.

Friday, December 19, 2008
Bush's Parting Shot Undermines Health Care
This"take the drapes on your way out" approach is the final chapter of an administration that has prized political ideology over health care for their entire 8 years-&the rule issued yesterday,with little more than 30 days left in office,is the ultimate holiday gift to the extreme right.Just watch the high-fives among the far right."This is a huge victory for religious freedom&the 1stAmendment,"said Tony Perkins,prez of FRC

Thursday, December 18, 2008
Franken The Likely Winner As Minnesota Recount Heads To Finish Line
The canvassing board has said they hope to certify the election&declare a winner by tomorrow.Doesn't seem likely they can pull it off,but it might happen.No matter when they certify it--& no matter who they certify it for--the state fully expects the other candidate to file a legal challenge of some kind.&those challenges could potentially go all the way to the final authority on the legitimacy of Senate elections-the Senate

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
George Bush's Nightmare Before Christmas - video
When given the opportunity to be "naughty or nice" this holiday season,W has clearly opted to go down as one of the naughtiest,most sinister presidents in our nation's history.We've created a satirical spin on the famous poem,'Twas the Night Before Christmas,in order to show W crafting his last-minute agenda for health care, environment,civil liberties,&labor practices--rules that will affect everyone & be hard to overturn.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Revealed: Unpublished Fed Document Highlights Costly Rebuilding Blunders in Iraq
The only thing surprising about it is that the Pentagon allowed the Inspector Gen. for Iraq Reconstruction,Stuart Bowen,to write it up at all.The blinding incompetence and ignorance,the sustained money funnel into the hands of contractors,and the ideological warfare that led to over $100 billion in waste and fraud,all to simply replicate what we spent even more billions destroying without improving the basic lives of Iraqis is

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
9 Christmas Gifts You Can Give to Your Mother ... Earth
"Green" gifts guides abound, but if you really want to do something good this holiday season, put Mother Earth at the top of your list.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008
When foreclosure hits close to home
The family doesn't know where it will be this holiday season."We'll have to play it by ear," Julie said.Eviction rules vary state-by-state,&Julie is quickly becoming an expert on such minutia.She said that in their home state of Hawaii,the new owner has 45 days to get the property title,&she thinks they only have 5-10 days once the eviction process starts.So depending upon how quickly things happen,the three of them could be

Monday, December 15, 2008
Domestic Militarization Comes to San Bernadino County (CA)
(1 comments) It’s little encroachments like this that undermine the Constitution. Then one day you wake up, and it gone. [See Franklin quote, infra-]. I can see numerous scenarios during those DUI check stops. To name a few: The Military Police go to the aid of the CHP to take down a civilian bad guy. A drunken teen. Unruly tweakers. Will the Military Police be armed? Do they have any sort orders of engagements?

Monday, December 15, 2008
Domestic Militarization Comes to San Bernadino County (CA)
(3 comments) It’s little encroachments like this that undermine the Constitution. Then one day you wake up, and it gone. [See Franklin quote, infra-]. I can see numerous scenarios during those DUI check stops. To name a few: The Military Police go to the aid of the CHP to take down a civilian bad guy. A drunken teen. Unruly tweakers. Will the Military Police be armed? Do they have any sort orders of engagements?

Sunday, December 14, 2008
Franken vs. Coleman: Still Counting in Minnesota
On 12/16,the state canvassing board will review each of the remaining several 1000s confusing ballots with an overhead projector for the public,decide which count and declare a winner before Christmas.Dem. SoS Ritchie not only watched HBO's movie about the FL recount but he watched it in a particularly Minnesotan way.reviewing the wacky ballots— available to the public as PDF files —is by far the most popular activity...

Saturday, December 13, 2008
Big, Good News for Al Franken in the MN Senate Race Today
Two Important Decisions by the State Canvassing Board Go His Way... LATE UPDATE: Coleman Camp 'Desperate,' Headed to Court for FL 2000-style Attempt to Stop Ballot Counting, Says Franken Camp [Ed Note: Now updated at bottom, with Coleman's attempts to have the state Supreme Court stop the counting, ala Bush/GOP's FL 2000 playbook.]

Saturday, December 13, 2008
More Details on Diebold's Lost Ballots in CA
This entire sorry affair reveals yet again the enormous scam behind the entire federal e-voting legislation contained in the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, allocating some $3.9 billion for states to hand over to private voting machine corporations like Diebold for their proprietary trade secret-protected voting systems which don't work.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Who Will Go Down with Blagojevich?
(1 comments) The bottom line: No one should mourn for Blagojevich. Rather, we should be interested in answering all the questions about corruption in Illinois and about when and if Quinn will be in a position now merely to send a new senator to Washington -- or to arrange a special election -- and to begin cleaning up the mess in Springfield.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Van Jones: One of the Most Visionary Progressive Leaders
The green jobs advocate has just received the prestigious Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Here's a look at the best of his 2008 work.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
No End in Sight in Minnesota Senate Recount
Depending on how the canvassing board proceeds,the election could end up in state court.Neither Franken nor Coleman attorneys have ruled out that option if these canvassing issues are not resolved to their liking.The U.S. Senate could also end up weighing in — it has the constitutional authority to rule on how its members get elected to the chamber. The matter would go through the Senate Rules Committee.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Lessons from the MN recount: Officials look for silver lining
Minnesota sets the gold standard for the nation in its administration of elections,said Edward Foley,who directs an election law program for Moritz College of Law at Ohio State U.Even so,"Minnesota might have done some things differently," Foley said.Overall, Foley said, the state should look for ways to minimize mistakes that lead to lost ballots and rejected absentee ballots.5% of absentee ballots rejected is pretty high.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008
VIDEO: Outrageous Arrest of FL Election Integrity Advocate, Candidate Caught on Tape
As you'll see in the video,the fact that she was arrested at all,much less for "disorderly conduct" is absolutely incredible and clearly without merit.a Number of both EI advocates and a state election official from a different county who have all worked with her all,almost uniformly described the turn of events at the time as "outrageous" and an "abuse of power". Here's the video. You decide...

Monday, December 8, 2008
'Humboldt Transparency Project' Reveals Diebold, U.S. Federal E-Voting Scam
(1 comments) 100s of Lost Ballots,Illegal Voting System,& the Boondoggle Behind Billions of Federal Dollars Spent on Voting Machines That Don't Work All Illustrated by Simple Citizen Oversight,Free Open-Source Voting System in One CA Co."The recent discovery,thanks to the Humboldt Co Election Transparency Project,of a discrepancy in election results due to flawed software reveals that these activists were right to make noise,to complain

Friday, December 5, 2008
Lost Votes on Diebold System Discovered by New 'Transparency Project' in CA
You just can't trust a secret program to count this stuff because programers [sic] make mistakes,” Trachtenberg said. “People have been complaining about secret machine counts and the companies have said these folks are nuts. But, the first time (the transparency project) is done in a general election, it comes up with a problem --- a problem (Premier Elections Solutions) has known about for four years.”

Friday, December 5, 2008
EAC Seeking Public Input on '08 Election
Here's your chance to offer helpful thoughts, advice and concerns to the federal commission tasked with overseeing U.S. election administration, testing and certification of voting machines and (theoretically) serving as a national "clearinghouse" for problems with such machines.

Friday, December 5, 2008
The EAC and HAVA
Why can’t they just tell the vendors and the states that the law is clear and, if they fail to follow that law, violations will be referred to the DoJ? The fact that the vendors misrepresent their products as being accessible is a clear violation of the law. It is time they are held responsible and it doesn’t take two years of studying Title III of HAVA to make that clear....

Friday, December 5, 2008
India in Mourning: My Week in Mumbai and Goa
Deborah and I have returned to Mumbai to speak at a film school and visit Film City, the largest Bollywood Studio. We considered not returning, bombs were found and defused at the Chhatrapati Shivaji railway station yesterday afternoon, but we are certain we made the correct decision. Otherwise, the terrorists win.

Friday, December 5, 2008
A Bitter Brew for Kerry
SENATOR John Kerry's fate illustrates the new political order under President-elect Barack Obama: Reward your enemies, not necessarily your friends.It may turn out to be the right recipe for Obama and the country. But it's a bitter brew for friends left out.

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Untold Story of Election 2008: The Death of the NRA
(5 comments) the NRA will continue to believe it speaks for America's gun owners, threatening its lobbying wrath on any politician who tries to restrict the right to buy and sell whatever guns they like,in secrecy and without a paper trail.As the new gun laws go into effect,the group can be expected to increase the pitch of its warnings about impending fascism & the dark shadow of the UN.The question is whether anybody will be listening.

Monday, December 1, 2008
The ongoing disgrace of NBC News and Brian Williams
(1 comments) The active suppression of this story by the networks-their decision to conceal from their own viewers the fact that,for years,they presented as "independent" analysts individuals who were working in tandem on "message amplification" with the Pentagon&who had significant business interests in their analysis-was so severe,so remarkable,even establishment defenders such as Howie Kurtz emphatically protested the networks' silence

Monday, December 1, 2008
The kindest cut: How circumcision is the secret weapon in the battle against HIV/Aids
In Zambia, an experiment in the battle with HIV/Aids is producing staggering results. If this were a vaccine trial, the medical world would be hailing it as a miracle. But instead of a wonder drug, the secret weapon is circumcision.

Monday, December 1, 2008
MN recount: For Franken, a math problem
While a tiny margin separates the candidates in the Minnesota U.S. Senate race, it is wide enough that Democrat Al Franken faces a daunting task in challenging votes to erase Sen. Norm Coleman's lead.

Sunday, November 30, 2008
Treated like a terrorist by the DMV
The author tries to renew his drivers license and runs afoul of the catch-a-terrorist system in the DMV.Kafka again. We are at the mercy of lunatics.

Thursday, November 27, 2008
Banana Republic: America downscales
maybe the embattled activist should be cut some slack,considering the frustration she&others have experienced in trying to ensure an election count that voters can believe in.Maybe the obvious passion that Brodsky&others feel for voting rights should be rewarded by including them in much-needed citizens advisory board.Snipes:her language is"outside the lines of decency."Maybe.But so is an election process no one believes in.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The Raw Story: Franken camp finds 6,400 uncounted absentee ballots
The state canvassing board will convene next month to rule whether to count the disputed ballots. Its verdicts on the 3,000-plus ballots at issue likely will decide the election.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Send Bill Clinton to the Senate!
Why shouldn't former presidents continue their political lives in Congress?The British have long benefited from a tradition whereby former p.m.s acquire a seat and voice in the House of Lords.In today's unusual circumstances, surely beyond the imagination of any novelist,SoS Hillary would not have to fret about suitable protocol for dealing with her spouse on foreign trips were he occupied,full time, with senatorial duties.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008
MN U.S. Senate Hand-Count: A Vote for McCain Must be a Vote for Coleman, Says Coleman Camp
And then, there's the Coleman campaign's attempts to challenge ballots simply because the voter had voted for John McCain, and thus, as they argue, a vote for Al Franken, or for no Senate candidate at all must have been a mistake, and the ballot should be counted instead for Norm Coleman.No, seriously, this is what they are arguing. Here's The Uptake's video report:

Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Every Vote Matters in MN's U.S. Senate Hand-Count. Every. Single. One.
Receiving the most votes is beside the point for the GOP,however.They have proven themselves willing to do anything to win.If you have any question about that,go see their shameful,official "Minnesota Recount" website where they have been claiming for weeks that Franken and the Dems are "stealing the election".The official website of the Natl Repub Senatorial Committee has been unabashedly make that case,for weeks, without

Monday, November 24, 2008
COBB COUNTY: Unsigned absentee forms thwart Republicans in GA
A Republican-generated effort to get out the vote for the Dec. 2 runoff election has hit a snag as thousands of requests for absentee ballots have been denied because the applications were not signed.

Monday, November 24, 2008
Ohio Attorney Requests Handel Hold E-voting Docs, Equipment
Ground zero for this activity in '00 was FL,in '04 was OH,and in '02 was GA.In each case exit polling,the international gold standard for detection of vote count fraud, indicated fraud in the officially recorded vote for President or for the US Senate,in the case of GA 2002.Furthermore,the direct recording electronic voting machines,that have been used in GA since 2002,are the election burglary tool of choice because of the

Saturday, November 22, 2008
Allegations about 2002 Georgia election raise doubts on current voting
Hood has now repeated his doubts about the 2002 Georgia election, as well as about voting problems in Maryland in 2004, in an interview with former ABC News producer Rebecca Abrahams. "I have come to believe that these errors are now permanently embedded into the system," Hood told Abrahams.

Friday, November 21, 2008
Wall St. Journal: Diebold Vote Company Whistleblower and GOP Cyber Security Expert Both Say That 2002 Chambliss Senate
VR has been working with whistleblowers who have stated that the GOP, under the direction of Karl Rove, has been using computers to change election results. In order to protect the runoff election from such manipulations, a federal RICO lawsuit is being pursued in Ohio to take depositions from those who have been implicated in this illegal strategy.

Thursday, November 20, 2008
Blackwater Busted? Six Guards May Be Charged in Iraq Massacre
(1 comments) Bush will continue enthusiastically to use armed private forces until the W leaves office.This means that the future of Blackwater and the hundreds of for-profit war corporations servicing the Iraq occupation will lay with President-elect Obama.This includes Blackwater &at least 300 other companies,which have been hired by the US government for privatized armed services in Iraq to the tune of about $6 billion in taxpayer money

Thursday, November 20, 2008
The Invisible Election
These problems occurred even though more voters than ever before cast their ballots before Election Day,even though everyone knew that turnout would be extremely high,even though at least one of the campaigns --recognizing that victory depended on an election system capable of processing 100,000s of new voters--had done an extraordinary amount of work helping election administrators get ready for the turnout tsunami that was

Thursday, November 20, 2008
VideoTheVote Releases Footage of Major Problems on Election Day
The election protection group releases a series of video reports showing the major problems faced by voters in 2008.While the meltdowns that marred 2000 and 2004 did not occur this year, these reports illustrate that significant changes still need to be made to the electoral process.

Thursday, November 20, 2008
Make That Former Senator Ted Stevens
Democrat Mark Begich unseats Stevens in Alaska, bringing Dems one step closer to a filibuster-proof Senate.

Thursday, November 20, 2008
VIDEO: Ashton Kutcher On a Wednesday Election Holiday
[M]aking Election Day a holiday would ease the crush of voters turning out at once (at poll opening before work, during work lunch hour, or after the work day). Though I'd recommend changing Election Day to a Wednesday when making it a holiday, so that a Tuesday holiday doesn't simply turn into a long out of town 4-day holiday weekend for many.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Snopes says Fake UPS (or FedEx) Delivery Failure Notice Virus is Real
The newest virus circulating is the UPS Delivery Failure.You will receive an email from UPS Packet Service along with a packet number. NOTE: The word packet is misspelled on this line. It will say that they were unable to deliver a package sent to you on such and such a date. It then asks you to print out the invoice copy attached.DON'T TRY TO PRINT THIS.IT LAUNCHES THE VIRUS!Pass this warning on!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Sacrament of Democracy
Anyone who thinks we don't need a more transparent election process because their candidate is in the lead is a pathetic partisan hack. Anyone who believes election integrity is a "fringe" issue mocks those who have died to either earn the right to vote or protect it.To want to count only votes cast for my party of choice is vulgar.Not watching the referee calls when your team is winning is to invalidate the game.

Monday, November 17, 2008
Rather’s Lawsuit Shows Role of G.O.P. in Inquiry
(3 comments) Other documents, meanwhile, suggest that Ms. Mason, who reported to Mr. Heyward, was getting updates from panel investigators on some of their findings, at a point when CBS News was telling outsiders that the network was staying out of the investigation.

Monday, November 17, 2008
GOP not playing "Minnesota nice" with Franken
Republicans have flooded the airwaves with baseless propaganda to discredit the Coleman-Franken recount in advance.

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Watching Them Squirm: Is Fox News Abandoning the Mob It Created?
A huge schism develops between Fox's post-election attempts at "civility" and its pitchfork-wielding audience.

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Put an end to election messes
1 simple change would solve several problems that have bedeviled recent national elections:universal voter registration.Under this plan,promoted by the Brennan Center for Justice&others,government would be responsible for automatically registering citizens when they turn 18.State election officials& Repubs resist the idea,for different reasons:election officals fear another unfunded federal mandate&Rep fear a Democratic tilt

Saturday, November 15, 2008
Media Matters: The media's Minnesota debacle
The news media's tendency to compare any recount to the "butterfly ballots and hanging chads" made famous during Florida's 2000 recount, and to breathlessly report the merest rumor of impropriety, is not merely lazy and absurd and sensationalist. It is also dangerous. It causes people to be frightened and concerned about all recounts -- to be wary of the very concept of recounts.

Saturday, November 15, 2008
Rolling Stone: How Obama Won
Two leading political experts on the historic election – and how it could usher in "a brand-new nation"

Friday, November 14, 2008
How I Spent Election Night in a Baltimore Jail
(1 comments) On a night of historic celebration, Baltimore city police arrested revelers without cause or provocation.

Friday, November 14, 2008
Time: More Allegations of Misconduct in Alabama Governor Case
Next month,a federal court will hear the high-profile appeal of former AL gov Siegelman,whose conviction on corruption charges in '06 became one of the most publicly debated cases to emerge from 8 years of controversy at the Bush DOJ.Now new documents highlight alleged misconduct by the Bush-appointed US attorney&other prosecutors in the case,including what appears to be extensive and unusual contact between prosecution &jury

Friday, November 14, 2008
No joke: Minnesota race is soooo ugly ...
(1 comments) “These guys have spent $40 million combined on the Senate race. I don’t think either side is going to be going gently in that good night,” said Sarah Janecek, a former GOP strategist and publisher of Politics in Minnesota. “I think there’s a very good chance that the Senate will have to decide who’s seated. At this point everyone’s so entrenched I can’t imagine whoever loses the recount will just take the defeat.”

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
BREAKING: BEGICH TAKES 3 VOTE LEAD OVER STEVENS IN ALASKA'S U.S. SENATE RACE!
As the counting continued of the 90,000 previously uncounted votes in Alaska today (a full third of the total votes cast had remained untabulated), Democratic Anchorage mayor Mark Begich has now taken a three vote lead over the convicted Republican felon Sen. Ted Stevens who had previously led by some 3,200 votes.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Clint Curtis/Tom Feeney 'Vote-Rigging' Film Named 'Best Documentary' by NJ Film Festival!
MSVL has received some great press of late, even as I haven't had time to cover it. Most recently, Epoch Times called it "a great entertaining thriller," and said it was "alarming" and "outrageous". And Meet the Bloggers reviewed the film as "truly one of the scariest movies I've seen in a very long time" and called it "gripping." (Other recent reviews here and here.)

Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Carper wants vote machines replaced over Election Day jams
When the machines were counting ballots from Kanawha Cty's precincts,ES&S technicians tries to lessen the jamming &occasionally gave the machines"a little tap on the side" to stop the jams.I am not sure if it is an issue of defective equipment,inferior technology,or all of the above.The technicians provided on Nov. 4,2008,had little,if any,knowledge of how to service the M650s&no more than 30 days experience working with ES&S.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are
Satire from the Onion.

Monday, November 10, 2008
Alaska Stinks & Minnesota's on Edge, So Here's What Parties and Citizens Can Do to Try and Ensure Election Results with
I've come to learn that's a nutty idea that only crazy people would advocate,but for all of you crazy people out there,here's what can be done to try and find out who really won or lost any particular race...Counting the actual ballots is a swell way to begin.But counting ballots can have only limited meaning without proper reconciliation of the entire election,including unvoted as well as voted ballots,&other materials

Monday, November 10, 2008
Election Reform Can't Wait
While not disastrous, the problems with the nation's voting system exposed this year are tenacious, and federal and state officials can no longer afford to ignore them.

Monday, November 10, 2008
Finland's flawed e-voting scheme - blame the voters?
Not all was bad news: there were also plenty of nominations for the positive Winston Smith Award. In the end, this went to hacker Harri Hursti for his defence of democracy and free elections by studying and exposing various flaws and problems in electronic voting machines.

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Perspective from the Phillipines: Fraud in computerized elections
the US General Accountability Office (GAO), an independent, nonpartisan agency that investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars, came out with a report in late 2005 with very disturbing findings...In other words, not only could wholesale fraud of the “dagdag-bawas” [vote-padding and vote-shaving] type be perpetrated, there would be no way to detect it!

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Can Obama Stop the Bush Administration's Final Economic Heist?
Stopping the bailout profiteers is about more than money. It is about democracy. Specifically, it is about whether Americans will be able to afford the change they have just voted for so conclusively.

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Mississippi students told not to say Obama's name
(3 comments) The incidents became public when outraged parents called the studios of WAPT news in Pearl, Miss. Some said their children were threatened by a bus driver with being written up and taken to the principal's office, others that their children were told by a girls' basketball coach they would be suspended.

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Most Minn. Senate 'undervotes' are from Obama turf
The finding could have implications for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken, who are headed for a recount separated by the thinnest of margins — a couple of hundred votes, or about 0.01 percent.A recount due to begin Nov. 19 will use manual inspection to detect such ballots.

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Electronic Voting Machines Still in Limbo
Voter’s advocacy groups pushed for stronger standards and managed to stop the use of touch screen voting booths that have proved troublesome in other states.This regulation comes out of a fear that electronic voting booths can be hacked, and the record of the votes modified. The NYVV maintains that the lever system, while not without its problems,would be far safer and more reliable than electronic methods.

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Voting Machines Elect One Of Their Own As President
A spoof with more truth than we might like from the Onion.

Saturday, November 8, 2008
Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama
(4 comments) Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

Thursday, November 6, 2008
Al Franken's Razor-Thin MN Senate Race Counted on Flawed Optical-Scan Systems
The majority of counties use the ES&S M-100,precinct-based optical scanner. The M-100,according to Michigan county officials,“reported inconsistent vote totals",such that “The same ballots run through the same machines, yielded different results each time.”Two of Minnesota's three largest counties (Anoka and Dakota) use the same one seen being hacked in the HBO documentary "Hacking Democracy". Watch it here (link provided)

Thursday, November 6, 2008
FLORIDA'S FEENEY FINALLY FLAMES OUT
Of course, Kosmas is a corporate blue dog Dem with ethics issues of here own, as we've discussed here previously, but at this point we'll take the lesser of two evils and happily discharge Mr. Feeney. Here are your walking papers, sir. Job poorly done. Now Go Away. Hopefully to jail. Until then, we're sure he'll land in a cush lobbyist gig within a week.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The OTHER Election Night Story in Georgia: No Early Votes Included in Reported Results
echnology has greatly speeded up the reporting of election results. The old manpower intensive deadline process has now been reduced to looking at a Web site or watching a slow rollboard on Chatham County's public access channel on Comcast. But that speed can be deceptive, since it is acknowledged throughout that the results are unofficial. That's how election results can literally change overnight.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Here's What Vote Fraud Really Looks Like By Paul Lehto, AlterNet. Posted November 3, 2008.
The opposite is the case with YPM, whose problems,both reported and unreported, continue to impact our elections.As Abraham Lincoln said, "What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself." We can let the media know, election officials know, and our fellow citizens know that we can, together, give this skunk the publicity it deserves, without giving them the over-reaction it seems they want.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Is the Election About to Be Stolen in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Elsewhere?
The failure of the Bush administration to permit systematic reform of this nation's elections infrastructure so as to make it impossible for these manipulations to occur is bad enough. Even worse would be to refuse to take seriously the possibility that these abuses could alter or adulterate the results of what may well be the most important presidential election of our lifetimes.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Brad Friedman, Champion of Fair Elections and Challenger of Election Theft: An Election Day Wake Up Call
HAVA (Help America Vote Act) has been the single,solitary most destructive event in terms of Election Integrity that I can think of.It was a disaster of a bill and has made our system far worse than it was in '00.After the dust has cleared, start holding everyone accountable to ensure this nation never faces these horrors again.We can either begin on Wednesday,or on Jan 21, 2009 if we're still fighting for results we can belie

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Rove suggests landscape favors Obama
Karl Rove, the man widely credited with engineering President Bush's two successful White House bids, is out with a new map showing the Illinois senator will take the White House in an Electoral College landslide, winning 338 votes to John McCain's 200. That would be the largest Electoral College victory since 1996, when Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole in a 379-159 rout.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Emergency Ballots in Los Angeles Could Lead to Calculated Chaos
HEADLINES: LOS ANGELES, HOME OF TOM BRADLEY, ITSELF SHOWS A “BRADLEY EFFECT” The election results the day after the election will artificially appear to support the headline above, this headline/concept will be said to excuse implausible results or racist attitudes across the nation, all because of Logan’s mismanagement. And the whole debate will be a crock.

Monday, November 3, 2008
What to do Before and (If Necessary) After the Election is Stolen
Viewed from the historical perspective running from 2000 to the present - the view of Bertha Barrios’ generation - this election may, indeed, actually fit that clichéd slogan about this being the “most important election of our lives” not because we may elect Barack Obama, but because we must restore some semblance of integrity to our political process- and to ourselves.

Monday, November 3, 2008
EXCLUSIVE: Obama/DNC Incident Report Database Reveals Startling, Wide-Spread Voting Machine Problems Across Nevada Durin
Presidential Race Missing on Ballots; Machines Go Down; Votes Not Recorded; Printers Jam Attorneys Decline to Take Action to Remove Machines From Service, Ensure Paper Ballots for Voters...

Monday, November 3, 2008
ES&S Op-Scans 'Yielding Different Results Each Time Same Ballots Run Through Machines' in MI County
The EAC received this letter a week ago, and we're trying to learn when it was finally posted to their website. But, more importantly, as they have a mandate via the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 to serve as a "clearinghouse" for such voting system problems, has the EAC sent a warning about this issue to any other jurisdictions where the same equipment or company is used?

Sunday, November 2, 2008
Data Volunteers Needed for Election Forensics Project
One of the few remaining means of assessing the integrity of the voting process in America is to gather and analyze detailed, precinct-level voting records. By building a single database of detailed election data from all over the country, we should be able to identify,through statistics, places where there may be problems -- accidental or deliberate -- in accurately tallying votes. We need your help.

Sunday, November 2, 2008
Democrats Continue to Defend Their Indefensible Election Protection Efforts
As an Election Integrity advocate recently noted rather eloquently, the front-end voter suppression issues and the back-end voting machine failures are two sides of the same coin. You can't worry about one without worrying about the other. The Dems, unfortunately, are still worried about only one side of the coin, as Kaplan's report demonstrates all too clearly (yet again) today...

Sunday, November 2, 2008
What's the Matter with Voting in Philadelphia? Answer: Marge Tartaglione (D)
Not only for her indefensible statements against the distribution of paper ballots to the effect of "long lines are not a problem.Long lines are no justification for any thing but waiting...people wait in long lines overnight for baseball tickets... people wait in line all night for a new Ipod."Though I'm not aware of any 80 year olds who do either of those things,or anybody who does that in the middle of a work day.

Sunday, November 2, 2008
I Didn't Vote For Obama
(2 comments) I'm a middle-class white guy living in Jacksonville, Florida. I've got a wife and two kids. Because the kids had no school today, I took a vacation day from work, and took the kids downtown to vote early. Fifty-nine minutes later, two smiling children and I proudly sported "I Voted" stickers. But I didn't vote for Obama.

Sunday, November 2, 2008
'Tis the season for tricking voters
In the hours before Election Day,as inevitable as winter,comes an onslaught of dirty tricks—confusing e-mails,disturbing phone calls and insinuating fliers left on doorsteps during the night.The intent,almost always,is to keep folks from voting or to confuse them,usually through intimidation or misinformation.But in this presidential race,in which a black man leads most polls,some of the deceit has a decidedly racist bent.

Saturday, November 1, 2008
Oprah's Vote Lost & How You Can Fight to Assure It Doesn't Happen to You!
(4 comments) But I promise, it wasn't her fault, as she suggests in the video, so I hope she'll stop blaming herself and will educate herself and her viewers, instead. Here's a fine place to start, with links to information that will help educate her and her millions of viewers, so we can finally begin restoring transparent, verifiable democracy in America.

Friday, October 31, 2008
WaPo editorial: "An Idiot Wind"
WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down,McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Obama:a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi.In the past couple of days,McCain and his running mate,Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Kalidi,the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis;called him "a PLO spokesman" and

Friday, October 31, 2008
PA Counties Said Unprepared to Serve Voters, Meet Court Order for Emergency Paper Ballots
even though the law already says paper ballots may be given out if even one machine breaks down,and even though the machines have broken down historically,and even though there is likely record turnout and not nearly enough machines to serve voters as is,this county has not previously--prior to the new directive from the SoS,or even in response to the old one,issued over a month ago--made plans to ensure that voters

Thursday, October 30, 2008
American Stories
But Americans seem to be trusting what their eyes tell them: temperament trumps experience and every instinct of this man, whose very identity represents an act of reconciliation, hones toward building change from the center.Earlier this year,at the end of a road of reddish earth in western Kenya,I found Obama’s half-sister Auma.“He can be trusted,” she said, “to be in dialogue with the world.”

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The Endorsement From Hell: Why Al Qaeda Prefers McCain
The core reason why Al Qaeda militants prefer a McCain presidency: four more years of blindness to nuance in the Muslim world would be a tragedy for Americans and virtually everyone else, but a boon for radical groups trying to recruit suicide bombers.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
What's the Matter with Indiana? Answer: Todd Rokita
The State's Republican SoS Helped Shut Down FL 2000 Recount, Imposed Disenfranchising Photo ID Restrictions at Polling Places, and Is Now Pushing RICO Prosecution of ACORN...What's the matter with Indiana? Nothing. Unless you want to vote. And happen to fall onto anti-democracy champion, Republican Sec. of State Todd Rokita's hit list...

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
More Vote-Flipping in TX by Machines Other Than Those Made by ES&S
Unfortunately, it's not just the error-prone, hackable, wholly unverifiable iVotronics from ES&S which are failing. Error-prone, hackable and wholly unverifiable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE, usually touch-screen) voting systems made by Hart InterCivic, Diebold and Sequoia Voting Systems are also having the same problems across the country. And the Democrats, who have the most to lose, continue to do nothing about it...

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
SPECIAL COVERAGE: Touch-Screen Vote-Flipping 2008
And What to do if it happens to you:* Call poll supervisors to observe the problem*Fill out a problem report.* Refuse to vote on that machine.* Request that the machine be taken out of service.#Get a serial number of the machine if possible.# Tell other voters in line which machine it was and that they should NOT vote on that machine!#Report it to county/town election office,SoS,local reporters,voter hotlines,raise holy hell

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
What To Do If You See Voting Machines Flipping Votes
Early voting has begun.We strongly recommend using paper ballots whenever possible.But in some states and counties,voters are required to use the electronic voting machines. And there are a growing number of reports about electronic voting machines flipping some votes from one candidate to another.Here are suggestions from election integrity experts at TrueVote, Emily Levy of Velvet Revolution & Ellen Theisen of Voters Unite

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
BREAKING: Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Plaintiff Demand for Emergency Paper Ballots in PA
Ballots Must Given Out if 50% or More Voting Machines in Any Precinct Breaks Down:SoS Will Not Appeal Decision,But Statement from His Office Includes a Troubling Note; Plaintiff Attorney Responds to The BRAD BLOG."If this is consciously an effort on behalf of the Secretary to rewrite the discretionary statute,he would effectively be in violation of the existing statute,it's very problematic if that language ends up in the

Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Did Sarah Palin con conservatives? You betcha!
In 2007,several conservative journalists got off their cruise ships and met Sarah Palin.They [the likes of William Kristol, Fred Barnes, Michael Gerson, Rich Lowry and Dick Morris] saw the present and she was a babe.They mistook personal magnetism for presidential qualities while Palin, clear-eyed in a manner depicted in countless movies, undoubtedly saw in them just what she wanted: a way out of Alaska.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008
From FactCheck.org: A License to Kill
It's not uncommon for the final weeks of the presidential campaign to bring out some of the most deceptive ads of the cycle. We thought it would be tough to top the whoppers we've seen already, but it looks as if some of the third-party ads are out to prove us wrong. If this gem from the National Republican Trust PAC is any indication, we'd best brace for a blizzard of balderdash.

Monday, October 27, 2008
Palin pushes McCain staff aside as blame game begins
And further,if she is was as ill-prepared as some McCain staffers are saying, then it would suggest that she was never properly vetted...But they can’t have it both ways. Either she was properly vetted or not.If she was properly vetted,then they knew what they were getting into.If she was not properly vetted, then they can only blame themselves for the selection.

Monday, October 27, 2008
Less than confident our votes really count
Repub cyber-security expert Spoonamore contends that "the 2004 elections were electronically stolen" & believes that's why Diebold stonewalled his repeated requests."This is not a Democrat-Republican issue.This is not a partisan issue.This is a democracy issue.If you actually care about a constitutional democracy in which each person votes,that vote is validated & the people who end up in office reflect the way people voted,

Monday, October 27, 2008
Confusing North Carolina Ballot Leaves off Votes for President
On Election Day 2008, there will probably be more voters than there were in 2004, and many of them will be first-time voters. "I believe as many as 100,000 votes for president could be lost this time around," Norden told OffTheBus.

Sunday, October 26, 2008
Anchorage Daily News: Obama for president
Few who have worked closely with the gov would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important,powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown,two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range.Like picking McCain for prez,putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.

Sunday, October 26, 2008
A Makeover With an Ugly Gloss
The conservative big shots who have not deserted Palin and still think she can be Reagan in a Valentino skirt are furious at those who have mishandled the governor and dimmed her star power.They mourn that she may have to wait now until 2016 to get rid of the phony stench of designer populism.Makeovers are every woman’s dream. But this makeover has simply pushed back Palin’s dream of being president.

Saturday, October 25, 2008
ES&S Touch-Screen Votes Now Flipping in TX Too! Obama/DNC Attorneys Still AWOL!
(1 comments) State After State, ES&S iVotronics Are Flipping Democratic Votes to Republican! What You Can Do About It, And Where the Hell Are Those 'Thousands' of Obama/DNC Attorneys?...

Saturday, October 25, 2008
Colorado's Katherine Harris threatens the '08 Election
what we're seeing here is a very public attempt to use Republican-controlled offices to potentially disenfranchise thousands and rig the election.Indeed,the Denver Post now reports that Coffman has asked his fellow Repub crony,state Atty Gen Suthers to validate his moves with an official legal opinion so as to trip up potential pre- and post-election legal challenges to the disenfranchisement.This is happening out in the open

Friday, October 24, 2008
FactCheck.org: Right Change Is Wrong
A conservative group misleads voters mightily on Obama's tax plans for small businesses.

Friday, October 24, 2008
Bloomberg.com: McCain's Warning on Voter Fraud Gets Details Wrong
Consider Nathan Sproul, former Republican Party chief for Arizona, who ran a multistate voter drive in 2004. Some of his former employees have told reporters that his group destroyed registration forms filled out by Democrats, fired canvassers who turned them in and submitted to state authorities only the registrations of those who said they were Republicans. Sproul denied the allegations.

Friday, October 24, 2008
LA Times: Battle brewing in Ohio over voting-record discrepancies
Activists worry that people who moved and failed to update their records -- may of them young and minorities -- could be disenfranchised Nov. 4. The issue could loom large in battleground states.

Friday, October 24, 2008
Obama Endorsement from an Unlikely Source
I say this as a white,former life-long Republican,the proud father of a Marine,just another American watching his pension evaporate along with the stock market!I speak as someone who knows it's time to forget party loyalty,ideology & pride & put the country first.I say this as someone happy to be called a fool for going out on a limb & declaring that,1) Obama will win,&2) he is going to be amongst the greatest of American prez

Thursday, October 23, 2008
NATIONAL - "Protect the Count" to launch in the coming week
Watch for, and plan to join actions for public citizens, election workers, and credentialled observers. "Protect the Count" actions have been developed for all variations of vote-counting in America. Watch for each easy to learn short video, and make it your mission to DO IT and spread information to others!

Thursday, October 23, 2008
No More Stolen Elections
We can debate about how to define the change in which we believe.But no change is possible if our democracy is broken.That’s what happened in 2000 and again in 2004.Just mention the names of two states–“Florida” and “Ohio”–and you have summed up one of the most dangerous barriers to change,and democracy,in America.When the promise of a fair vote and fair count is denied, elections become meaningless exercises.Our proposal:

Thursday, October 23, 2008
Olbermann: GOP REAL GOP election fraud v. PHONY voter fraud
McCain himself has funded not one,but two Republican owners of voter registration firms,both of whom are embroiled in very real charges of very real and concerted efforts to disenfranchise real voters.Jacoby of YPM;Steve Poisner,CA cochair of McCain for Prez offered Jacoby $5 per new Republican registered. And Nathan Spruill of Lincoln Strategies Group, to whom the McCain campaign paid $175,000-accused of tearing up Dem reg

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Election Integrity Filmmaker Sees Own Vote Flipped on ESS Touch-Screens in TN
The first reports of vote-flipping on touch-screen machines(we expect many more, as we saw in both '04 &especially in'06)came in from two counties last week in WV,which also uses ES&S touch screens across the entire state.The machines in both TN & WV need to be taken out of use and impounded immediately.So far,it's been Dems,again,who are being affected by these problems,while votes are flipping from Dem candidates to Rep

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Colbert Video: GOP's ACORN 'Voter Fraud' Hoax Now Officially a National Joke...
Now that it's officially made its way into the national joke lexicon, it seems to us this may signal the beginning of the end of the GOP's once-useful "voter fraud" scam. Not that common sense and becoming a national joke has ever succeeded in shaming, or stopping, them before. But still. Enjoy...(and thank you, Stephen!)...

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Long Lines, Machine Failures Greet Early Voters, CNN Reporter, in Florida
If you think that's bad, just wait for the Election Day meltdown.Why the Obama campaign & DNC are not raising holy hell--and demanding paper ballots for every voter,in every precinct,in every state,along with back-up paper plans for the e-registration computers--I still cannot tell you.They have the most to lose,but still seem to be in a complete state of denial about these problems.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Straight Party Voting Leads to Lost Votes
VotersUnite has logged more problems that can be directly attributed to straight-party voting than to any other issue so far this election season.In the above instance when the voter deselected two judicial races those races should have stayed blank. He has a right to not vote in any race he wants.It is clear that in the 15 states that allow straight-party voting voters need to skip the option; vote for each race separately.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
White House Emails: The Missing Link?
According to SourceWatch,Connell also developed websites for the House Intelligence,Judiciary,Financial Services,Ways&Means,& Administration Committees.For obvious reasons,this would appear to be a conflict of interest since Connell has a history of building partisan websites including RNC.org,anti-Kerry website and former OH SoS Blackwell's election websites,to name a few.Connell currently heads up IT for the McCain campaign

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
McCain campaign paid Republican operative accused of voter fraud
In May this year, both ACORN and Mr Sproul were discussed at a hearing of the House subcommittee on commercial and administrative law. One Republican member, Congressman Chris Cannon, concluded: "The difference between ACORN and Sproul is that ACORN doesn't throw away or change registration documents after they have been filled out."

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
GOP Charges of ACORN 'Voter Fraud' in NM Fall Apart
But now, as it turns out, even those claims of illegal votes in NM are apparently false as well, though the RNC seems to be having trouble admitting it, even in the press conference they'd called to tout the phony claims yesterday, before being undermined by the truth accidentally leaking out first. Zachary Roth at TPMMuck has the shameful story...

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Concern That Overseas Military Votes Will Not Be Counted
The Defense Department should stop stonewalling and release these documents so the American people can know with confidence that the voting rights of the American Armed Forces are protected. It is the least we can do for those who pay the price for our freedoms, which includes the right to vote. What a scandal it will be if large numbers of our overseas military do not have their votes counted this Election Day.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
McCain Tells Imus that Palin is the 'Most Qualified' for VP in Recent History
(1 comments) I'm not kidding: here's the transcript. Does this give anyone out there pause? The key phrase here is "most qualified".

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Personal About Politics: Voter Fraud - Where and By Whom?
(1 comments) In state after state, Republican operatives—the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics— are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats.So while McCain is yelling “Fraud” and “ACORN” as a distraction, Republicans are engaging in strong-arm tactics to put up barriers and disenfranchise as many voters as possible. Confusion is their friend.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Making sure every vote ISN'T counted
(1 comments) Despite all of the interest in the '08 campaign, despite the new voter registrations,on 11/4 the number of votes cast may be considerably less than 120 million votes counted for Bush and Kerry in 2004.Maybe as much as 10% fewer.Why?Start with the fact that 39 states already have purged 13 million voters off the voters' rolls since 2004.10% of 120million votes cast in '04 and twice as many voters than have just been added

Monday, October 20, 2008
The 10 Dirtiest Election Tricks the Republicans Have Tried So Far
(1 comments) The McCain plan will be to give up on the national popular vote and re-run the Bush campaign of 2000.By voter intimidation & robo-calls &litigation & outrageous allegations,it will aim for victory in the states that can provide an Electoral College victory.In this case, that means McCain will focus his diminished but vigorous efforts on Florida,Ohio,Colorado & Virginia.In each state we need hardly ask what they hope to evoke.

Monday, October 20, 2008
Will Republicans Use Contested Voter Registration Lists to Scare New Voters?
(1 comments) The GOP push for lists of voters whose registrations don't match state and federal databases may be prelude to a big intimidation campaign.There are precedents for this tactic from the 2008 campaign as well as from Ohio in 2004.

Sunday, October 19, 2008
Break the Achilles Heel of the Electoral-Industrial Complex
The goal, the real goal, should be to expose what's wrong with the current election oversight process. The National Assoc. of Election Directors (NASED) and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) --- the Federal-level bureaucracies that have allegedly "managed" voting system testing and certification in succession, with largely the same staff overseeing the process in each body --- have been a grotesque failures.

Sunday, October 19, 2008
WaPo: Thousands of Voters 'Incorrectly' Purged From Voter Rolls Across Nation
From the Washington Post: Records of 4 of 6 Wisconsin State Election Board Members Rejected Due to Database 'Mismatches'!

Sunday, October 19, 2008
Frank Rich: He Just Can’t Quit W
At least McCain had half a point on Wednesday night when he said,“I am not President Bush.”What he has offered his country this year is an older,crankier,more unsteady version of Bush.Tragically,he can no sooner escape our despised president than he can escape himself.

Sunday, October 19, 2008
And It Begins Again: Touch-Screen Votes Flipping From Dem to Rep in WV
(1 comments)

Sunday, October 19, 2008
Just in Case McCain Wins A Survival Guide for Reporters Who Wrote Him Off
We've now heard plenty about the so-called Bradley effect, which holds that voters lie to pre-election pollsters about their intentions to vote for African American candidates. Here are some other angles for indemnification-minded journalists to pursue:

Sunday, October 19, 2008
Maureen Dowd: After W., Le Deluge
(2 comments) Just when we thought executives of A.I.G., the insurance giant bailed out by taxpayers for $123 billion, had been shamed into stopping their post-bailout Marie Antoinette spa treatments, luxury sports suites, Vegas and California posh resort retreats, we were dumbfounded to learn that some A.I.G. execs were cavorting at a lavish shooting party at a British country manor.

Sunday, October 19, 2008
Halperin: How the Powell Endorsement Boosts Obama
(1 comments) His crossover endorsement is Obama's biggest yet from a Republican and fuels many of the Democrat's regular themes: Obama is the future and McCain the past; Obama — and his party — can be trusted on national security, Bush mishandled the Iraq conflict; and other Republicans (and independents) should be comfortable supporting the man from Illinois.

Saturday, October 18, 2008
Breaking: Obama Demands Special Prosecutor Investigate GOP Voter Fraud Activities
To advance the effort, the Obama campaign convened a conference call with national reporters, though Friday afternoon is not a time that campaigns usually push priority messages.

Saturday, October 18, 2008
Voters say they were duped into registering as Republicans
YPM, a group hired by the GOP, allegedly deceived Californians who thought they were signing a petition. YPM denies any wrongdoing. Similar accusations have been leveled against the company elsewhere.

Friday, October 17, 2008
NYTimes Editorial: The Acorn Story
Much of the blame for this lies with overly restrictive registration rules. Earlier this year, the League of Women Voters halted its registration drive in Florida after the state imposed onerous new requirements.The answer is for government to a better job of registering people to vote.The real threats to the fabric of democracy are the unreasonable barriers that stand in the way of eligible voters casting ballots.

Friday, October 17, 2008
Obama's Moment
In this interview for Rolling Stone, the Democratic nominee for president talks about how George W. Bush screwed up, why John McCain turned ugly and what he's learned from Bill Clinton.

Friday, October 17, 2008
Press Cracks Up When Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) Claims 'We'd Never, Ever Engage in Voter Suppression'
Here's the 1 minute video. See for yourself. On the other hand, despite the media's understanding of how ridiculous Davis' statement was, they consistently refuse to cover the issue, to the detriment of us all.

Friday, October 17, 2008
Accidentally Accurate McCain Campaign Quote of the Moment...
"If left uncorrected, these numerous investigations and accusations of voter fraud with ACORN could produce a nightmare scenario on Election Day." Yup. So please put country first, for a change, and knock it off, Rick. Thanks!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Former Supporter Accuses McCain of “Deliberately Feeding the Most Unhinged Elements of Our Society the Red Meat of Hat
He is the son of the late evangelist Francis Schaeffer and considered himself a lifelong Republican. He voted for John McCain in 2000, and McCain even endorsed one of Schaeffer’s earlier books on military service. But on Friday, Schaeffer published an open letter to McCain excoriating the Arizona senator.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Sarah Palin's Corruption in Wasilla
As mayor, Sarah Palin blocked an effort to require the filing of building permits in the wide-open city, and there is no public record of who the "buddies" were. The house was built very near the complex, on a site whose city purchase led to years of unsuccessful litigation and, now, $1.3 million in additional costs, with a law firm that's also donated to Palin collecting costly fees from the city.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Breaking: GOP Attempts to Disenfranchise 600,000 Voters In Ohio
With millions of new voters registering nationwide, the GOP has gone on the offensive to prevent as many of these new voters from making it to the polls as possible. And as of today, they've scored a massive victory in Ohio... More below the fold...

Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Broward County (FL) Absentee Ballots Carry Party Affiliation
Call it the election equivalent of a “Kick Me” sign that some mischievous kid tapes to your back. The office of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections sent out more than 60,000 absentee ballots last week with return envelopes that identify voters’ party affiliations.The system invites fraud, critics say,because mailed ballots go through many handlers who are not certified as poll watchers.

Monday, October 13, 2008
Fox News Opinion: Smear Campaigning Should Be Beneath John McCain
McCain has worked long and hard to build a reputation as a man of honor, a man who puts country first.He’s in danger of losing all that in the process of losing this election.It’s too bad,not for Democrats,but for a decent man.And it’s a waste, given that McCain’s best shot, his only shot,is to prove that he is up to the challenges America faces right now.Just when he needs to be big,he has never seemed smaller.

Sunday, October 12, 2008
D.C. Report Finds E-Vote Company Added Thousands of 'Phantom Votes' in Last Month's Primary
(1 comments) Shafer [Michelle Shafer,official mouthpiece for both Sequoia Voting Systems and the election industry's PR outfit,Election Technology Council (ETC)] had originally claimed (as usual) human error and static electricity were to blame.When the incident was first discovered in September,Shafer told the Washington Post: "There's absolutely no problem with the machines in the polling places.No. No."Turns out, Shafer lied.Again.

Sunday, October 12, 2008
1.3 Million Reasons the GOP Propaganda Dept. Created the ACORN 'Voter Fraud' Lie
Fact:ACORN flags in writing incomplete,problem,or suspicious cards when we turn them in. Unfortunately,some of these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.Fact:Our canvassers are paid by the hour,not by the card.ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations,&in the cases where our internal quality controls have identified this

Saturday, October 11, 2008
Report: McCain Exploded With Rage During Gambling Outing
'DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO?'McCain continued,his voice rising and his hands now raised in the 'bring it on' position.He was red-faced.By this time all the action at the table had stopped.I was completely shocked. McCain had totally lost it,and in the space of about ten seconds.'Sir, you must be courteous to the other players at the table,'the pit boss said to McCain."DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"

Saturday, October 11, 2008
Without a Trace: The Smokeless Gun of Flagrant Election Fixing
The point is that millions of the poorest,most marginalized Americans are being denied their right to vote for whomever they please.This is,as even the New York Times acknowledges, a federal crime.But it is not,however much the Times tries to obsfuscate the issue,a perpetratorless one.

Saturday, October 11, 2008
David Iglesias: Dangerous New Turn in Justice Department Investigation
No longer just a civil matter to blithely ignore, this ominous development could result in current and high level officials being indicted for crimes. I suspect the special counsel will "follow the emails" in the way that "follow the money" brought down Nixon's men during Watergate.

Saturday, October 11, 2008
Former McCain Strategist Warns Against "Angry Mob"
You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.

Friday, October 10, 2008
GOP OCTOBER 'SURPRISE' SPREADS TO OHIO: Coordinated Plan to Wreak Havoc, Bring Bogus 'Voter Fraud' Allegations Hits Buck
(1 comments) In an update of the AP report,it's noted that Sheriff Fisher is "a Repub,"that Green County is "rich with Dem-leaning college students,"&that Fisher requested the voter information after "he had been inundated with phone calls from people concerned about possible fraud."In other words,no actual evidence of anything,just angry Repubs,fired up by chasing their own tails after Fox/RNC told them too.Smelling the rats here yet?

Friday, October 10, 2008
Rise of the machines As election technology blazes ahead, will voters get left behind?
Given this pervasive cultural paranoia,it’s ironic that electronic voting machines have enjoyed pretty much a free pass.At least one group of Maui voters isn’t taking this lying down.They’ve filed suit,seeking to clarify the rules governing electronic voting and to ensure transparency&accuracy.you don’t experiment with elections;you have to be certain the technology works before you implement it.There’s no margin for error.

Friday, October 10, 2008
The Return of Rove
(2 comments) Rove is not a genius, or even very clever: He's totally and completely immoral. It doesn't take genius to claim, as Rove ludicrously did last fall, that it was the Democrats in Congress and not George W. Bush who pushed the Iraq War resolution in 2002. It doesn't take brains to compare a triple-amputee war veteran to Osama bin Laden; you just have to be a mean, rotten c**ksucker.

Friday, October 10, 2008
Your request is being processed... David Brooks: Sarah Palin "Represents A Fatal Cancer To The Republican Party"
Brooks praised Palin's natural political talent, but said she is "absolutely not" ready to be president or vice president. He explained, "The more I follow politicians, the more I think experience matters, the ability to have a template of things in your mind that you can refer to on the spot, because believe me, once in office there's no time to think or make decisions."

Friday, October 10, 2008
Barack 'Osama' on Ballots Sent to Voters in NY
From AP...Who is running for president? In an upstate New York county, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they could vote for "Barack Osama."The absentee ballots sent to voters in Rensselaer County identified the two presidential candidates as "Barack Osama" and "John McCain."

Thursday, October 9, 2008
NYT Editorial: That’s a Pretty Big Glitch
Election officials have one more thing to worry about:Diebold electronic voting machines that drop votes.OH’s SoS raised the alarm after local officials reported problems with the March primary count.Diebold has since notified more than 30 states to be on the lookout for missing votes.In the early days of electronic voting,critics who warned that it was unreliable were dismissed as alarmist.Now it seems that hardly an election

Thursday, October 9, 2008
I've Got a Little List -- (With Apologies to W.S. Gilbert)
Not everyone agreed,but I thought the debate was boring because the real questions were,as usual,unasked.Here are the ones I'd like to hear next time...And finally,what is the role of the mainstream media in keeping the truth from us?Can media owned by Rupert Murdoch,GE & other war-mongers,tell us the truth about the war profiteers who are getting rich while we are getting poor?Will Cheney turn in Halliburton?I rest my case.

Thursday, October 9, 2008
Your request is being processed... Bruce Wilson Bruce Wilson Posted October 7, 2008 | 10:50 PM (EST) BIO Become a Fan Ge
Very disturbing. For more information on other links between Sarah Palin and the New Apostolic Reformation, see Palin and the Apostles and the entire ongoing series of articles, Palin's Churches and the Third Wave.

Thursday, October 9, 2008
Montana GOP Spanked by Judge for Bogus, Illegal Voter Challenges
One can imagine the mischief an immature political operative could inject into an election cycle were he to use the statutes,not for their intended purpose of protecting the integrity of the people's democracy, but rather to execute a tawdry political ploy.The timing of these challenges is so transparent that it defies common sense to believe the purpose is anything but political chicanery.-Fed. Dist. Court Judge Donald Molloy

Thursday, October 9, 2008
GOP's ACORN 'Voter Fraud' Scam Rolls Out in MO...Right on Schedule...
"It's par for the course,"[Ordower] said."When you're doing more registrations than anyone else in the country,some don't want low-income people being empowered to vote.There are pretty targeted attacks on us, but we're proud to be out there doing the patriotic thing getting people registered to vote."Repubs are among ACORN's loudest critics.At a campaign stop in PA,supporters interrupted McCain's speech with "No more ACORN"

Thursday, October 9, 2008
County officials seeking Ohio voters' records
Law enforcers in a southwest Ohio county rich with Democrat-leaning college students are seeking information on hundreds of people who registered to vote and cast ballots during the state's weeklong same-day voting window.The window was the subject of an unsuccessful legal challenge by the Ohio Republican Party...Haller said the records request was not politically motivated.

Thursday, October 9, 2008
The Really Busy Person's Guide to Political Activism
he campaigns will tell you every bit helps, and they're right. But some tactics help more than others. A lot of it depends where you live and how much money you make.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Hack-a-vote: Students Learn How Vulnerable Electronic Voting Really Is
Wallach hopes that by making students aware of this problem, they will be motivated to advocate changes in America's voting system to ensure the integrity of everyone's vote.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Voter Suppression Battle In Northwest Indiana
Democrats want to open satellite voting centers,while Republicans favor voting only at county seats.It's important to remember the critical moment in this whole process: when the two Republican members of the board voted against the additional voting centers, each located in heavily-populated, minority-rich areas. That tells you all you need to know about their motivations.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008
GOP Withdraws 6,000 Bogus Voter Challenges in Montana
Yesterday,we're happy to announce, faced with a party actually willing to push back by taking them to court, the MT GOP "waved the white flag of surrender"and backed off their phony challenges,according to AP.We'll hope the Dems do not drop their lawsuit, however, since much of the damage has been done already,whether the democracy-hating Republicans withdraw their challenges or not.Either way, this one has a happy-ish ending

Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Exclusive: OH's SoS Brunner Looks Beyond Todays E-Voting Nightmares
Previously Unpublished Q&A Exchanges on Ohio's Diebold Lawsuit, E-Voting Nightmares, and the Possibility of Hand-Counting Ballots in the Future...

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
State Attorneys General to the Rescue
This settlement by itself seems to do more to help homeowners than the whole ballyhooed federal bailout. Bravo to the AGs, who should continue using the power of crusading litigation to go after all the culprits in the crisis.And what was it conservatives were saying about curbing “frivolous” lawsuits?

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Farewell, Election Day
While George Will skips the part about early voting messing up any chance for a solid chain of custody of the ballots,or an ability to see them counted, this is a good analysis, nevertheless.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
AUDIO: Head-to-Head with the GOP's Hans Von Spakovsky, Vote-Suppressor, Liar
Just one of the lies he was called on was his claim that a recent Michigan Messenger article,detailing Macomb County,MI's GOP party chair's claim that they plan to use home foreclosure lists to challenge voters at the polls,was retracted by the paper.I checked yesterday with Michigan Messenger's national editor Jefferson Morley who confirmed via email:"We did not retract anything in the article.We stand by the reporting 100%"

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Voter Database Glitches Could Disenfranchise Thousands
To address some of the issues that may arise at polls in November, voting groups are advising voters to double-check their registration status before their state's registration deadline (.pdf),to bring ID to the polls in case questions arise about their eligibility, and call 866.MYVOTE1 to report problems.

Monday, October 6, 2008
British commander says war with Taliban cannot be won
"We're not going to win this war. It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army," he said.NATO commanders and diplomats have been saying for some time that the Taliban insurgency cannot be defeated by military means alone and that negotiations with the militants will ultimately be needed to bring an end to the conflict.

Monday, October 6, 2008
Canvassers Use Palin as "Magic Bullet" in Swaying N.J. and Pa. Undecideds
I have not talked to a single person who has a favorable opinion of her, not even among McCain supporters.In going door-to-door in PA(my weekend activity),bringing up Palin is always met with a furrowed brow and a troubled look.The typical comment I hear is,"How could he have picked her?She really worries me!"There is no better way to directly help influence a campaign than canvassing door to door or phone banking.

Monday, October 6, 2008
Ken Burns: This is Not the John McCain New Hampshire Once Loved
Surrounded and programmed by the lobbyists he once despised,the man who once effortlessly straddled the aisle and spoke from the heart now carefully hews to a prompter-read, soulless far-right agenda.The real maverick turns out to be Barack Obama, who bucked his party's establishment & whose once-lonely positions have been adopted by nearly everyone including even the Bush administration.Nearly everyone,that is,except McCain

Monday, October 6, 2008
Gotcha? You Betcha!
When they say "gotcha journalism," what they're really trying to do is to demonize journalism itself-to de-legitimize asking tough questions,& following up with more tough questions when the answers are mealy-mouth evasions,& holding politicians accountable when they inadvertently emit a truth.We certainly could have used more gotcha journalism during the decade leading to the worst economic debacle since the Great Depression

Monday, October 6, 2008
GOP Challenges 6,000 Montana Voters...Because They Moved Last Year
One of those challenged voters who may lose their right to vote is a former MT State Rep,& an Army Reservist,currently in NJ because he's about to leave for Iraq.Again.He won't be able to go to Montana to confirm his authenticity, unfortunately.1st Lt Kevin Furey released this statement:It is ironic that while I am about to return to Iraq to help build a democracy & my own right to vote is being challenged at home

Monday, October 6, 2008
False Flier Warns of Election Day Arrests in PA African-American Neighborhoods
This is an old,and venerable trick meant to scare Democrats,usually African-Americans,away from the the voting booth.We'll likely see much more of it---and the variation of it,fliers that "inform" voters that Democrats are supposed to vote on Wednesday--between now and November 4th.A few similar dirty tricks fliers that were circulated in 2004, in Wisconsin and Ohio, are reposted below as a reminder...

Monday, October 6, 2008
Cynthia Tucker: GOP Pinning Hopes on Keeping Democrats Away from the Polls
The GOP’s brand is in tatters, dragged down by an incompetent president,an unpopular war and a sickly economy.So the party seems to be pinning its hopes on keeping likely Democrats — people of color, the poor,college students — away from the polls....The stench of corruption and cynicism emanating from the effort to disenfranchise voters is finally too heavy to ignore. The GOP is just ensuring that the tarnish on its bran

Monday, October 6, 2008
OpEdNews: 'Murder, Spies & Voting Lies' is 'Most Explosive Documentary Produced in Recent Memory'
Rady Ananda at OpEdNews opens her review of Murder, Spies & Voting Lies: The Clint Curtis Story by declaring it "the most explosive documentary produced in recent memory, involving murder, espionage, cover-up, electoral cyber fraud and a United States Member of Congress with ties to the Bush Administration."

Monday, October 6, 2008
Hannity's Witness: "Exterminate Jew Power"
Martin "ran for the Republican nomination for governor of Florida against the incumbent,Bob Martinez, in 1990. The Florida Republican Party disavowed him because he previously ran for office as a Democrat and because of his anti-Semitic statements."This is Sean Hannity's idea of a source.Does Bill Kristol care? David Brooks?Abe Foxman?John McCain? Sarah Palin?

Monday, October 6, 2008
Exclusive: 2nd Mac-Style 'Paper Ballot v. Voting Machine' Campaign Ad Released by Jason Osgood
By the way,since we ran our initial article on Osgood,he has signed the StandingForVoters dot org pledge to not concede his election unless and until all votes are counted,counted accurately,and all serious election challenges have been adequately resolved.The BRAD BLOG,which is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution,the initial sponsor of the SFV campaign, thanks Osgood for his commitment to the voters.

Monday, October 6, 2008
Why the Debates Won't Matter (Hint: It's a Felony)
This election won't be won or lost at the debates nor determined by the two campaigns'"ground games" --their get-out-the-vote efforts.Nor, unfortunately,will its outcome even depend on how many Americans wake up on Election Day intending to vote for one candidate or the other.Instead,my fear is that the Electoral College results will hang on the swing state voting systems' vulnerability to sabotage.It's already happening.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Announcing the Election Verification Exit Poll
(1 comments) Election Verification Exit Polls hold perhaps the greatest promise for impact of any technique.The Bush administration has testified that they helped fund exit polls abroad because it is one of the only ways to expose large-scale fraud. Indeed,discrepancies between exit polls and the official results have been used to successfully overturn election results in Serbia,Peru,the Republic of Georgia &,in November 2004,Ukraine.

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Exclusive Interview With Former Diebold Contractor
VR has an interview with former Diebold contractor Chris Hood that talks about many disturbing actions by Diebold during prior elections,including illegal, uncertified and unreported patches, and improper feeding of tabulation results by Diebold Chief Bob Urosevitch.This interview was prepared for a major news program special that was supposed to air two weeks before the 2006 midterm election.It was pulled at the last minute.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Pitbull Palin Mauls McCain
But the debate reminded Republicans once again that it’s Palin, not McCain, who is their last hope for victory. You have to wonder how long it will be before they plead with him to think of his health, get out of the way and pull the ultimate stunt of flipping the ticket. Palin, we can be certain, wouldn’t even blink.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
The dumbing down of the GOP
The ultimate irony of Palin's rise is that it has occurred at a moment when Americans may finally have grown weary of pseudo-populism--when intelligence,judgment,diligence and seriousness are once again valued, simply because we are in such deep trouble.We got into this mess because we elected a man who professed to despise elitism,which he detected in everyone whose opinions differed from his prejudices.That was W,of course.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Why These Guys from Hollywood Want YOU to Vote
A four-minute video full of Hollywood stars urging fellow Americans to register to vote and pass this on. Pass it on!

Friday, October 3, 2008
Hockey Mom on Thin Ice
McCain found himself in a political hole and threw the dice with Palin. At the time of her selection, voters were often compared with "American Idol" watchers who put personality and stage presence above everything else. But it turns out that Americans take the presidency very seriously. And surviving 90 minutes on a stage with Biden did not transform Palin into a plausible president.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Edge of the Abyss
And while the election is only 32 days away, it will be almost four months until the next administration takes office. A lot can — and probably will — go wrong in those four months. One thing’s for sure: The next administration’s economic team had better be ready to hit the ground running, because from day one it will find itself dealing with the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Friday, October 3, 2008
The Vice-Presidential Debate
Palin’s primary tactic was simply to repeat the same thing over and over:John McCain is a maverick.So is she.To stay on that course,she had to indulge in some wildly circular logic.In the end,the debate did not change the essential truth of Palin’s candidacy:McCain made a wildly irresponsible choice that shattered the image he created for himself as the honest,seasoned,experienced man of principle and judgment.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt, and Risk
In loosening the capital rules,which are supposed to provide a buffer in turbulent times,the agency also decided to rely on the firms’ own computer models for determining the riskiness of investments,essentially outsourcing the job of monitoring risk to the banks themselves.Over the following months & years,each of the firms would take advantage of the looser rules.At Bear Stearns,the leverage ratio rose sharply to 33 to 1.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Judge Suppresses Report on Voting Machine Security
The plaintiffs are deeply troubled by the Court's issuance of what is essentially a temporary restraining order restricting speech,without any motion or briefing whatsoever.Issuing such an order is an extreme measure, which should be done only in rare circumstances,& only if the moving party has satisfied its high burden of showing both imminent harm/ likelihood of success on the merits. Those 2 requirements have not been met.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
Homer Simpson tries to Vote for Obama (Video)
(1 comments) This is a video about the trustworthiness of electronic voting machines. Certainly reminiscent of one that was circulating in 2004 and is in STEALING AMERICA: Vote By Vote and some of the other films.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008
CBS News: New Study Details Massive Voter Roll Purges Underway in At Least 19 States
he CBS story,(appx 2 mins) starts with an elderly New Jersey voter who was suddenly removed from the voting rolls after thirty years,for apparently no reason,before launching into findings from a new non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice study on "Voter Purges"notes 10,000 voters purged in Mississippi,21,000 in Louisiana and "to top it off,another new study discovered 19 states are ignoring federal law

Monday, September 29, 2008
Has Sarah Palin Been Picked as the Titular Head of the Coming Police State?
I am not telling you this because it's about my life. I am telling you this because it is about your life -- whoever you are, Conservative or Liberal, independent or evangelical. Your politics will not protect you in a police state. History shows that nothing protects you in a police state. This is not about my fear and anxiety: it is about what awaits you and everyone you love unless you see this for what it is:

Monday, September 29, 2008
Muslim Children Gassed at Dayton Mosque After "Obsession" DVD Hits Ohio
A "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton,where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service.The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers.This,apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of McCain's supporters has led to--perpetrating a terrorist attack vs.

Monday, September 29, 2008
Anne Lamott: A call to arms
Figure out one thing you can do every single day to be a part of the solution,concentrating on swing states.Money,walking precincts, registering voters,whatever.This is the only way miracles ever happen--left foot,right foot,left foot, breathe.EL Doctorow once said that writing a novel is like driving at night with the headlights on:You can only see a little ways in front of you,but you can make the whole journey this way. I

Monday, September 29, 2008
Trickle-Up: What a Progressive Bailout Would Look Like
Those would be longer-term projects for after the election. But for now, having the government spend those hundreds of billions of dollars buying up properties rather than dubious securities would be a bailout that keeps families in their homes and loosens the credit markets but doesn't reward Wall Street's wheeler-dealers for their recklessness.

Monday, September 29, 2008
The debates won’t matter
Joseph Stalin is reputed to have said,"Those who cast the votes decide nothing.Those who count the votes decide everything."I think he had it half right.Those who decide who cast the votes also decide everything.

Monday, September 29, 2008
Counting Every Vote
There are other ways that technology can complicate the election system. One big worry isn't the voting machines being used but the databases in which voter registration information is stored. A number of states recently introduced a requirement that names on drivers' licenses and voter registration records match exactly.This could unfairly disqualify some voters, because the software used often cannot account for typos.

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Newsweek: A Freddie Mac Money Trail Catches Up With McCain
One senior McCain adviser said the entire flap could have been avoided if the campaign had resisted attacking Barack Obama for his ties to two former Fannie Mae executives, which prompted the media to take a second look at Davis. "It was stupid," the adviser said. "A serious miscalculation and an amateurish move." Still, this adviser said, McCain's faith in his campaign manager remains unswerving.

Sunday, September 28, 2008
McCain’s Suspension Bridge to Nowhere
The man who puts his “country 1st” will take the country down with him if that’s what it takes to get to the WH.W has so little credibility he can govern only through surrogates(Paulson is the new Petraeus).That utter power vacuum gave McC the opening to pull his potentially catastrophic display of economic “leadership” last week.He may be the 1st prez candidate in our history to risk wrecking the country before

Sunday, September 28, 2008
White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election
White privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with Bush 90% of the time,even as unemployment is skyrocketing,people are losing their homes,inflation is rising,and the US is increasingly isolated from world opinion,just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole "change" thing.Ya know,it’s just too vague and ill-defined unlike,say,four more years of the same

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Exclusive: Washington SoS Candidate Unveils Mac-style 'Paper Ballot v. Touch-Screen' Ad Campaign
The Democratic candidate for Secretary of State in Washington state has released what he says will be the first of a series of campaign spots, satirizing the well-known "Mac v. PC" commercials, to highlight the differences between touch-screen voting machines and paper ballots.

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Laura Bush: Palin Lacks Foreign Policy Experience
If a similarly striking comment had been made by a powerful Democrat (or their spouse) about Barrack Obama or Joe Biden do you supposed it would have received a bit more coverage?

Sunday, September 28, 2008
Exclusive: Fox 'News' Spikes Story on Conservatives 'Questioning Palin Heft'
AP Article Detailing a Number of Criticisms of the Republican Veep Nominee Was 'Top Story' at FNC Website, Only to be Suddenly Disappeared; Copy of the Story, as Killed by the 'Fair and Balanced' Propagandists, Reposted as BRAD BLOG Courtesy, in Full, Below...

Friday, September 26, 2008
Election officials telling college students they can't vote
(1 comments) Kudos once again to McClatchy Newspapers for this coverage: Colorado Democrats accused a Republican county clerk Wednesday of falsely informing Colorado College that students from outside the state could not register to vote if their parents claimed them as a dependent on their tax returns.

Friday, September 26, 2008
McCain resurrects an old stunt
But as many Great Men come to learn, there is a colossal downside built into running a campaign on outsized personal virtue. The line between stoic, honorable service and showy moral vanity is oftentimes difficult to maintain.And when a candidate confuses his own political ambitions with the fortunes of his country, that's when Great Men turn into self- parodies...Don't say he didn't warn us.

Friday, September 26, 2008
Palin Problem
(7 comments) No one hates saying that more than I do.Like so many women,I’ve been pulling for Palin,wishing her the best,hoping she will perform brilliantly.I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent,my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful.Unfortunately,it often does.Only Palin can save McCain,her party,and the country she loves.She can bow out for personal reasons.

Thursday, September 25, 2008
One-On-One With Sarah Palin
(CBS) When CBS News anchor Katie Couric sat down for an exclusive interview with vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin Wednesday, she focused on the economy - but also addressed reports that the lobbying firm of Sen. John McCain's campaign manager received payments from the controversial mortgage giant Freddie Mac until last month. Couric asked for her reaction to that.

Thursday, September 25, 2008
Paulson cannot be allowed a blank cheque - by George Soros
Paulson’s $700bn rescue package has run into difficulty on Capitol Hill. Rightly so:it was ill-conceived. Congress would be abdicating its responsibility if it gave Paulson a blank cheque.The bill submitted to Congress even had language in it that would exempt the secretary’s decisions from review by any court/administrative agency–the ultimate fulfillment of the Bush administration’s dream of a unitary executive.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Let's Stop the Greatest Theft in the History of Humankind
America will give between US$700-$800 billion to the Treasury to buy any bank assets it wants,on any terms, with no possible legal recourse.It is an invitation to abuse of power unparalleled in American history,in which ill-paid civil servants will set prices on the portfolios of the banking system with no oversight and no threat of legal penalty.We can't let them get away with it.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers
This letter from Gov. Spitzer appeared in the Washington Post just three weeks before Bush/Cheney took him down.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
House GOP rises up against Cheney
(1 comments) There was a time when Dick Cheney could turn back a Republican revolt on Capitol Hill.That time is gone.The VP traveled to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to silence a chorus of GOP complaints about Treasury Secy Henry Paulson’s $700 billion plan.But House Republicans who walked into a closed-door meeting with Cheney steaming over the plan walked out just as angry,& they described what happened in between as a "bloodbath"& disaster.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Diebold Keeps on Truckin' in Ohio for McCain
Diebold's former CEO O'Dell was a major Bush backer who,in a 2003 Repub fundraising letter wrote that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."Some time after that mission was accomplished,O'Dell was jettisoned amidst several ongoing fraud investigations,the new regime claimed they would implement new regulations barring public support for political candidates.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Report: 'Army Unit to be Deployed for Domestic Operations'
(2 comments) The report from Army Times is certainly troubling,given the timing and the Constitution-hating evil-doers still allowed by Congress to continue holding the reins of our military.Back in 2005,an AP report headlined:"Bush: Boost military role in domestic emergencies" discussed the Constitutional issues that would block such domestic deployments of the U.S. military.Guess they got that all worked out?Or Bush just decided that

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A Second Opinion?
Lobbyists,bankers and Wall St types are already hopping up and down like over-excited children,ready to burst into the government’s $700 billion piñata.This widespread eagerness is itself an indication that there is something too sweet about the Paulson plan.Paulson himself was telling us during the summer that the economy was sound,that its long-term fundamentals were “strong,”that growth would rebound by the end of the year

Monday, September 22, 2008
What Wall Street Should Be Required to Do, to Get A Blank Check From Taxpayers
And so the public is asking: Why should Wall Street get bailed out by me when I’m getting screwed? So if you are a member of Congress, you just might be in a position to demand from Wall Street certain conditions in return for the blank check.

Monday, September 22, 2008
Spitzer whacked for warning taxpayers of financial crisis
When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners,the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.The tale is still unfolding,but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits.So willing,in fact,that it used the power of the federal government to

Monday, September 22, 2008
A Closer Look at the NY Times/CBS News Poll
From now until the election, whenever desperate McCain surrogates and GOP water-carrying members of the media trot out this demonstrably false and racially coded talking point against Obama --- and they will --- responsible members of the media no longer have any excuse to entertain this wholly fabricated smear.

Monday, September 22, 2008
Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner: "We Will Be Ready."
Ohio's top election official describes how she is planning for a fair presidential election in an exclusive interview with Brad Friedman.

Sunday, September 21, 2008
Republican Mailing Leaves Florida Voters Confused by Pam Fessler
And indeed, Florida election officials have reported dozens of worried calls from voters. A copy of the mailing obtained by NPR shows that it includes an official-looking card, listing the recipient's name, address, congressional district, party affiliation and something called a voter ID number. In an attached letter, McCain asks recipients to update the enclosed card — and to contribute to his campaign.

Friday, September 19, 2008
The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind
Ross Perot,who paid her medical bills all those years ago,now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick & cruel–even by the standards of modern politics.‘McCain is the classic opportunist.He’s always reaching for attention & glory,’he said.‘After he came home,Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona.

Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Politics of Lying, by Michael A Cohen (NYTimes blog)
(1 comments) For better or for worse, being seen as dishonest or lying is the one line that no politician ever wants to cross. Until now, it seems. For the first time in modern political history, a presidential campaign, its candidate and running mate have engaged in a repeated pattern of lies and misstatements and seemingly done so without pause. The greatest surprise in all of this is that Mr. McCain is the one responsible.

Thursday, September 18, 2008
Hagel doubts Palin's ready
(1 comments) Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is the nation's most prominent Republican officeholder to publicly question whether Sarah Palin has the experience to serve as president. "She doesn't have any foreign policy credentials," Hagel said Wednesday in an interview. "You get a passport for the first time in your life last year?

Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Jewish Florida voters targeted by Republican fake polls
She was then asked if her opinion of Barack Obama would change if she knew that Obama had given lots and lots of money to the PLO. Joelna told me the caller admitted that the calls were meant for Jews only. And the firm sending the calls, Research Strategies, has a history of working for Republican candidates. This is just the beginning, and it will only get worse.

Sunday, September 14, 2008
Palin Met By Over A Thousand Protesters In Anchorage (VIDEO)
(1 comments) Despite overcast skies and a forecast for rain, there was a rally here today. Oh man, was there! In fact, it was by most accounts the largest protest rally in the history of Alaska. The Anchorage Daily News wrote that the rally drew an "estimated" 1500 people. Let me be clear: the organizers used a hand-clicker and counted at least 1,483 Alaskans, mostly women, who showed up to say that Sarah Palin does not speak for them.

Sunday, September 14, 2008
YouTube censors documentary on Palin's churches
If Sarah Palin holds apocalyptic end-time beliefs or believes that she has a divine mandate to initiate an end-time conflict,American voters have the right to know about the doctrines taught in Palin's Alaska churches.These churches are closely associated with a movement,called the Third Wave or New Apostolic Reformation,which holds views that are highly controversial,particularly among other conservative Christians.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Ten Ways the GOP Is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote
(1 comments) Freepress.org's conference on election protection 9/26-28 will reinforce the positive steps Brunner has taken,& will help train poll workers & judges to safeguard the vote in Ohio & around the nation.But much of the electoral apparatus remains beyond public control.Serious questions remain about how reliable the final vote count will be,& how much of it the Repubs will cage,confuse & steal in crusade to put McC/Palin in the WH

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Poll Madness: McCain Takes Lead Even As Democrats Out-Register Republicans?
(2 comments) Gallup's tracking poll, USA Today and CBS News all show the Republicans with some kind of lead over the Democratic ticket. But, interestingly, all three polls were also conducted using a higher sampling of Republican voters than in July, raising a question of methodology.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
UC Computer Scientists Release Video on How to Hack a Sequoia Touch-Screen Voting Machine in 3 seconds for $10
CA 'Top-to-Bottom Review' of E-Voting Systems Demonstrate How to Insert Virus,Access Machines Without Disturbing'Security Seals'in Hack Which Would Not Be Discovered Even in 100% Audit of 'Paper Trails.In the UCSB video,the hack of Sequoia voting system being prepared for use in an entire county,is done in approx 3 seconds,by a single person with simple insider access&$10 USB thumb drive.Every machine used in county affected.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Lose your house, lose your vote (Michigan disenfranchisement)
“You would think they would think, ‘This is going to look too heartless,’” said Lagstein, whose group has registered 200,000 new voters statewide this year and also runs a foreclosure avoidance program. “The Republican-led state Senate has not moved on the anti-predatory lending bill for over a year and yet [Republicans] have time to prey on those who have fallen victim to foreclosure to suppress the vote.”

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Dionne: Don’t dare question Princess Sarah
Nonetheless, what matters is not Palin's personal life, but whether she is prepared to assume the presidency if called upon. The actions of McCain's lieutenants suggest that they know the answer. And they are doing everything they can to keep the media from finding it.

Monday, September 8, 2008
Women Against Sarah Palin
(2 comments) On Wednesday, September 3, we sent out an email to 40 friends and colleagues asking them to respond to Sarah Palin’s candidacy as Vice President of the United States. They forwarded the letter to their friends across America. By Sunday, we had received more than 6,000 responses from women of all ages and backgrounds. Below are their voices.

Friday, August 29, 2008
Proposed Mitigation for GEMS (and other EMS) Vote Deletion
Updated August 29, 2008, to emphasize the point that this is NOT just about "electronic voting machines", undisclosed software or paper ballots, as some have suggested. It's about Election Management Systems, software bugs (disclosed or otherwise), checks and balances, and good old common sense.

Friday, August 22, 2008
He's Baaaack: Civil Rights Commission Hires Spakovsky to Work on Voting Rights
Among Spakovsky's duties will be overseeing the USCCR's report on the DOJ's monitoring of the 2008 presidential elections,a source inside the USCCR told TPMmuckraker.And it seems that Gaziano may not have been exactly excited to make his selection of Spakovsky public knowledge.At a 7/28 meeting where the commissioners approved the hiring of the "special assistants," the new hires identities were kept confidential.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Why I will not vote for McCain, by Phillip Butler
(5 comments) As some of you might know, John McCain is a long-time acquaintance of mine that goes way back to our time together at the U.S. Naval Academy and as Prisoners of War in Vietnam. He is a man I respect and admire in some ways. But there are a number of reasons why I will not vote for him for President of the United States.

Monday, August 18, 2008
Did Washington waste millions on faulty voting machines?
(2 comments) Meantime, computer scientists at several universities, some of whom had been hired to test voting machines for the states of California, Ohio, Connecticut and New York, reported finding security and performance flaws in virtually every system, spurring the push for a paper audit trail.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Blackwell, Von Spakovsky Set to Testify in House on 'Lessons Learned from 2004 Election'
Matthew Segal,Exec Dir of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment(SAVE),told BRADBLOG that he was disappointed that nobody [was]invited to this perhaps final hearing prior to the '08 election to speak on either e-voting or youth voting issues."There is no one on electronic voting,no one on student voter access,and,basically,no one from any groups or organizations that really represent any grass roots constituencies."

Tuesday, July 22, 2008
GOP Tech Guru Mike Connell 'High IQ Forrest Gump...At Scene of Every Single Crime' Say Ohio Attorneys
(1 comments) 'Whether He's Pulling the Gun or Not..He's the Guy Who Made the Gun,' Allege OH Lawyers About Man Said to Have Been Behind Florida '00,Ohio '04,RNC Emails,Congressional Computer Networks & More..Then you put him in charge of building the security and firewall for the US Congress?Dealing with the most sensitive matters?All of the emails and communications of the party that he hates?How can you do that?It's an invitation to spy.

Monday, July 14, 2008
Can you hear me now? Obama's missing 2 percent
(1 comments) By failing to survey cellphone-only voters, pollsters could be undercounting Barack Obama's support by millions of voters.

Thursday, July 10, 2008
Study: Electronic Voting Increased Counting Errors in France
Polling stations using electronic voting systems suffered more voting discrepancies than polling stations using traditional paper votes in four recent French elections, according to a study sponsored by two groups campaigning for free and transparent elections.

Monday, July 7, 2008
The political establishment and telecom immunity -- why it matters
Our Congress, with the political and media elite cheering, is about to violate every one of these principles. They are taking away from the judiciary the power to adjudicate allegations of lawbreaking. They are creating a two-tiered system of justice in which our most powerful corporations can break the law with impunity and government officials remain immune from consequences.

Sunday, July 6, 2008
Foreclosed-on voters using old addresses could snag election
If there's Election Day disorder brewing for 2008, it might well be rooted in the nation's mortgage-foreclosure crisis. In Columbus, across Ohio and in other key presidential battlegrounds, more people losing their homes means more registered to vote from addresses where they no longer live.

Thursday, July 3, 2008
In Pledging to Work to Remove Retroactive Immunity for FISA Violations, What Kind of Action Is Obama Contemplating?
What better way for Obama to make clear that he will do what he said to protect the rights & liberties of all Americans,& to keep government officials & those who assist them fully accountable,than by making clear that those who violate the criminal laws that protect Americans’ freedoms will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.What better time than this issue, as well,to learn if Barack Obama is a standup leader or...

Wednesday, July 2, 2008
A Backlog Of Cases Alleging Fraud - Whistleblower Suits Languish at Justice
The issue is drawing renewed interest among lawmakers&nonprofit groups because many of the cases involve war,rising health-care payouts,& privatization of government functions --all of which offer rich new opportunities to swindle taxpayers.Even when older cases are pushed into the open,the passage of time can present courtroom challenges.The delays meant "loss of evidence,fading memories,disappearance of documents."

Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Would the White House be Able to Eavesdrop on Obama Under the FISA Bill Barack Supports? You Bet.
Electronic voting is essentially tied to the phone lines because all votes cast in individual precincts must pass through the phone lines on their way to be tabulated at the main tabulation center.This makes it possible to electronically reconfigure votes before they even arrive at a central tabulation point by embedding the appropriate software in the lines, thereby destroying the prospect of a fair election outcome.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008
G.I. Bill hypocrisy reaches new depths
(1 comments) Indeed, Bush praised five senators this morning for their leadership. One (McCain) fought against the bill and then didn't bother to vote on it. Two (Graham and Burr) fought against the bill and voted against it. Chuck Hagel was an original sponsor of the bill, but the president ignored him altogether. (Talk about a slap in the face ...)

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Justice Antonin Scalia: Al Gore to blame for 2000 US election mess
(4 comments) The 2000 presidential election debacle was the fault of Al Gore, who should have followed Richard Nixon's 1960 example and conceded without legal action, according to the Supreme Court's leading conservative judge.

Friday, June 27, 2008
No more whistleblowing? Federal Fraud Suit Against Voting Machine Company Withdrawn
(3 comments) The whistleblower lawsuit against voting machine company Hart InterCivic,filed in federal court on behalf of former employee William Singer,has been withdrawn following a decision by the Supreme Court that makes pursuing the case nearly impossible,according to the law firm who originally filed the complaint.Unfortunately,given the recent decision,Singer's scores of detailed allegations may never be examined by a court of law.

Friday, June 27, 2008
VIDEO: BUSHED! Rigging The Election-Gate
Keith Olbermann and how the Supreme Court made yet another democracy-denying ruling regarding elections.

Friday, June 27, 2008
Report: 'GOP Prepares To Scale Back Aggressive Anti-Voter Fraud Campaigns'
And if you believe the GOP has any intention of scaling back any such thing in 2008,we've got a swell bridge,beautifully located near Manhattan,to sell ya.But just to drive home the point that we're equal opportunity disbelievers,there's this old standby from the Obama camp,later in the article.Of course, this item was originally supposed to about the Republicans' bullshit.Don't blame us if there's just too much bullshit to go

Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Report Sees Illegal Hiring Practices at Justice Department
The blistering report,prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008
“One of the Greatest Intrusions, Potentially, on the Rights of Americans Protected Under the 4th Amendment”–Sen. F
Described as the most significant revision of the nation’s surveillance law in three decades,the Senate is preparing to vote on rewriting the nation’s FISA and giving immunity to phone companies involved in Pres Bush’s secret domestic spy program.We speak with Sen.Feingold(D–WI),who has been the leading congressional voice against the Bush administration’s warrantless spy program for 3 years.

Thursday, June 19, 2008
Stunning photos of Iowa floods
The rising Mississippi has broken high-water records up and down the Iowa and Illinois shore,cresting as high as 12'above flood stage in some places.Estimates place the cost of the damage at over $1 billion dollars,and concerns are rising over crop damage,toxic remnants washed into neighborhoods,future mosquito invasions,and maintaining supplies of clean drinking water.Communities further downstream brace for possible flooding

Thursday, June 12, 2008
FEMA gives away $85 million of supplies for Katrina victims
(2 comments) The material,from basic kitchen goods to sleeping necessities,sat in warehouses for 2 years before FEMA's giveaway to federal & state agencies this year."An honest person like me didn't get nothing,"said Reed,54,who recently moved from a tent beneath a New Orleans bridge to a home with the help of Kegel's group."I fought to get my money but they wouldn't give it to me.So I ended up going under the bridge."

Thursday, May 29, 2008
Arkansas County to investigate latest election snafu
(1 comments) "Let me tell you,those are very, very complex machines,"he said.He is puzzled as to why cheaper,more complex electronic devices such as cell phones seem more reliable and user-friendly than voting machines.Lisa Burks of Conway,an advocate for election accuracy and long-time critic of electronic voting machines,said the error represents the 2nd time that an electronic voting machine has recorded votes cast in one race as having

Thursday, May 29, 2008
McClellan: Bush Admitted He Authorized Betrayal of Secret CIA Terror Weapons Program
(2 comments) This has never been about[the Wilsons].It is about a power-crazed cabal in the White House who abused their power to go after their political enemies without giving a thought to the potentially catastrophic results of their actions.We’ll never know whether the next terror attack could have been prevented if Plame’s program had not been exposed.If there ever was an act by a pres. that was prima fascie impeachable,this is it.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Politico's John Harris admits now what he denied last year
The real harm inflicted by this behavior isn't that we're all subjected to an endless stream of worthless gossip from our political journalists.It's that the trashy gossip completely crowds out any discussion of anything that actually matters, allowing our government and political class generally to get away with the most extreme acts of corruption,lawbreaking and destruction ...

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Corrections: In Which the New York Times Perpetuates the Myth It Created -- That Bush Won Florida in 2000
(1 comments) The largest,most prestigious news organizations in the US discovered a great and exciting story--the wrong guy was president of the United States.Also,that the Supreme Court had interfered in an election to frustrate the actual will of the voters.(Justice Scalia wants us to get over it.)Why did they so distort the story with misleading headlines,by burying the lead,by blowing so much fog around it, that almost everybody who

Friday, May 23, 2008
Massive (And Wholly Predictable) ES&S Touch-screen Failures in Arkansas and West Virginia
prepare to be amazed by the end,as we wend through the massive failures in Arkansas last Tuesday,through mind-blowing new (disastrous) federal "Electronic Voting Reform" legislation just announced by Sen.Feinstein(D-CA) with Sen. Bennett (R-UT),before landing in WVA, where a candidate on last week's ballot assures us everything is just fine because the guy spotted by voters opening up the voting machine was him.

Friday, May 23, 2008
Recounting the Recount and Counting the Uncounted
HBO's Retelling of the 2000 Florida Election Debacle on Sunday Raises Interesting Questions about 2008 Certain to be Ignored as Quickly as Possible by the American Corporate Mainstream Media...

Friday, May 23, 2008
What is McCain hiding in his medical records?
(1 comments) I just read that there are 1,173 pages of documents.In the 3 hours alloted,that's a whopping 10 seconds a page the reporters can spend.Yes,for three straight hours,imagine flipping a page every ten seconds,non-stop. Assuming they're taking notes,the time would double,conservatively,so they'd have 5 seconds/page.Yeah,real full disclosure.Who the hell does he think he is?It's Bush&Cheney all again.The arrogance is astonishing.

Thursday, May 22, 2008
KARL ROVE SUBPOENAED BY HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE IN SIEGELMAN CASE
ALSO: DoJ Office of Professional Responsibility Opens Investigation into 'Selective Prosecution' of Siegelman 'and Others', According to Announcement from John Conyers

Thursday, May 22, 2008
A Pretend “Milestone”: More Creative Spin from Obama’s Campaign
It’s all about creating vague impressions,which is why(I suspect) that the email doesn’t talk about winning a "majority of pledged delegates"—but instead talks about winning a "majority of all the delegates chosen by the people."This gives the impression that the will of the majority of voters is to name Obama as the nominee.Actually,the popular vote is the best indicator of the "will of the people,"& we won’t know until 6/3.

Thursday, May 22, 2008
RNC Hiring Rove Protege To Dig Oppo Research On Obama
"Griffin is basically going to consult for the Republican National Committee on working out Obama's vulnerabilities,"the senior Republican said,somewhat euphemistically."The hope is to do to Obama what folks successfully did with John Kerry."Griffin tends to describe his own work in fairly bellicose terms. "We think of ourselves as the creators of ammunition in a war," Griffin once said. "We make the bullets."

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Why 'Vote-by-Mail' Elections are a Terrible Idea for Democracy
Voters believe such systems offer a "paper trail" not available to voters using touch-screen systems at the polling place.Many are unaware that their mailed-in ballots will be scanned by the same error-prone, easily manipulated optical-scan machines which handle paper ballots for precinct-based voting.But even worse, ballots mailed in,if they arrive safely,and are counted at all, are usually counted "in the dark" or

Monday, May 19, 2008
Not now, not ever – A repudiation of Obama and the New Bolsheviks and an Interesting Possibility
(2 comments) His is a true pathology,much like that of W.,remarkably similar in fact.Obama and GWB also have much in common with other historical tyrants:complete and adamantine belief in their ability to surmount any obstacle,appease any enemy,attain any objective without the slightest knowledge of the subject & in the absence of a plan of any kind.This is magical thinking of the worst sort & always,always ends in catastrophe for anyone

Monday, May 19, 2008
The GOP War on (Democrats) Voting
Two years ago TX' Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott declared war on what he claimed was rampant vote fraud in TX.He set up a special vote fraud unit and got a $1.4 million grant from the feds for the work.Now,two years on,courtesy of the Dallas Morning News,we have a run-down of what Abbot came up with -- 26 cases.The details tell the story: All 26 cases involved Democrats, and almost all were either blacks or Hispanics.

Sunday, May 18, 2008
SEVERAL BIG VOTING RIGHTS VICTORIES ON FRIDAY!
'We the People' Win, as Thor Hearne's MO Voter Suppression Attempt Fails; von Spakovsky Withdraws FEC Nomination; TN to Require Paper Ballots; AZ Agrees to Follow Law, Perform Voter Registration at Public Facilities...

Sunday, May 18, 2008
Q&A with Don Siegelman: I think this will make Watergate look like child's play!
(1 comments) This will make Watergate look like child's play when it's fully investigated,not so much this case because certainly it's not about me. It's about restoring justice & protecting our democracy &,because this case shows the lengths to which those who are obsessed with power will go in order to gain power or retain power,it has attracted the attention of the national press,the only case that has led Congress directly to the WH.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Rove refuses call to testify under oath
In his latest offer to settle the matter, Rove sent the panel a letter offering to respond to questions in writing, according to his attorney. But he reiterated that he would not testify publicly and under oath.The White House has balked at requests for staff testimony, arguing that the administration has no obligation to respond to congressional demands for the details of internal deliberations.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
TAKE ACTION: Thor Hearne and MO GOP Attempt to Rewrite Constitution to Allow Voter Disenfranchisement
(1 comments) For the record,MO already has a Voter ID requirement,so this new restriction is meant to do nothing more than keep Democratic-leaning voters from being able to vote.Period.An urgent call has been put out for MO residents to call their Senators immediately to vote against HJR 48,Thor's latest move,the Constitutional amendment to require incredibly draconian proof of citizenship and state residency with Photo ID before voting

Tuesday, May 13, 2008
'Hello,' They Lied: NH, TX Sec. of State Officials Continue to Deceive Voters
Despite a few small-ish errors, Rosenfeld succeeds where so many before him have been unable: Properly quoting both the scientists and Election Integrity experts who know what they're talking about, while giving fair opportunity to respond from voting machine company and elected officials who are either in denial, uninformed, or simply willing to lie.

Monday, May 12, 2008
New Front in Republican War on Voting: Disabled American Veterans
(1 comments) An attorney who has been taking on the VA points out that the Administration got caught allowing paid campaign workers from the Rep. Party to register voters at their facilities while they disallowed nonpartisan groups from the same places."They've been forced to admit under oath that they told the League of Women Voters that if they took a position on Iraq,they'd lose their access.The court told them they can't do that...

Monday, May 12, 2008
Faulty Machines Ready to Count Your Vote
Based on scientific research, we have a clearer picture of just how vulnerable our American voting system really is."The main issue is turning over the counting of our elections to corporations and government insiders," Harris said. "It's actually a transfer of power that was never designed in our democracy. These machines are quite literally having big brother count our votes."

Monday, May 12, 2008
GOP Vote-Suppressor-in-Chief Thor Hearne Deserves a Raise, Gets a Boost from the NYTimes and Continues His Unapologetic
"The state is a presidential battleground state where recent gubernatorial and Senate races have been decided by margins as little as 21,000 votes," writes Levine before quoting Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition's John Hickey who says, "If you exclude 240,000 people from the

Sunday, May 11, 2008
Memo Shows Frustration With Special Counsel
(1 comments) The career investigators also wrote of their long-standing desire to open a probe into allegations that certain DoJ officials considered political affiliation in their hiring & promotion decisions."This document is just the most amazing thing I've ever seen,"said Beverley Lumpkin,an investigator for POGO."He creates a special task force to deal with these high-profile & complicated investigations,& then he doesn't listen to...

Friday, May 9, 2008
What John McCain Told Me, and What it Says About How Far He's Fallen
The McCain the media fell in love with in 2000 isn't on the ballot in 2008. And the proof has all but jumped up and grabbed the media by the throat: the ring-kiss of "agents of intolerance" Falwell and Robertson;the decision to make permanent tax cuts he twice voted against,saying he could not "in good conscience support" them..What will it take for the Swift Boat Media to realize that John McCain jumped the shark long ago?

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Howard Dean speaks of voter suppression on CNN today..anchor squirms.
Howard Dean, looking and sounding good, speaks about McCain's major shortcomings and the voter suppression upheld in the recent Supreme Court decision One minute YouTube. Go, Howard!

Thursday, May 8, 2008
FL SoS Browning, Sarasota County's Dent Fight Against Election Integrity in Sunshine State
"Why in the world would either the Legislature or the secretary of state or anybody object to local elections officials trying to ensure that their system operates as intended and that they get it right?," asked FL Supreme Court Justice Harry Lee Anstead as he crawled out of his cave to officiate at a hearing yesterday in Tallahassee.

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Brad Friedman Hosting 'Election Year Special Coverage' Today on KPFK with Special Guest: MO SoS Robin Carnahan
And, once again, we'll be looking less at the election "horse race" and much more at the "track conditions," with a special eye on the Supreme Court's unconstitutional support of polling place Photo ID restrictions such as the one that disenfranchised a bunch of 80 & 90 year-old nuns (along with many others) yesterday in Indiana.

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Special Counsel shut down probe of Siegelman case last year
(1 comments) The investigation was being conducted by a task force formed at the agency a year ago to pursue high-profile political investigations in Washington,most notably whether the White House played politics in firing U.S. attorneys.It began gathering information on the Siegelman case in September and was planning to request documents from the Justice Department in October before Special Counsel Scott Bloch ordered the case closed.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Students, Nuns, Denied RIGHT to Vote in Indiana Today Following Supreme Court Approval of State Photo ID Restrictions, S
Remember, the law was upheld by the Supremes just last week, despite Indiana's inability to point to a single instance of in-person, polling place, voter impersonation fraud (the type of "voter fraud" the law was purportedly meant to deter) in the entire history of the state.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Report: 12 of First 15 Voters at NC Precinct Not Found in Pollbooks
Anectodal for the moment.But a sign of a larger problem?We're doing our best to keep an eye on this,and related incidents today,as you may suspect.I was just contacted by a good friend in Granville County about what is turning into, at best a problem, but most likely IMO, a concerted effort to supress Democrats from voting in Granville County [North Carolina].

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Austin Plans 'Point-by-Point' Review of Hart InterCivic E-Vote System in Light of Federal Fraud Lawsuit
Hart technician William Singer's lawsuit alleges that Hart stretched reports of the performance of the eSlate in Ohio in order to secure its share of the $4 billion set aside in the Help America Vote Act.Singer's futile July 2004 efforts, attempting to notify the Secretaries of State in both Texas and Ohio, were originally reported in exclusive detail by The BRAD BLOG in March of 2006.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Democratic Congress to Voters: What Election Problems?
Unfortunately, without meaningful reforms from Congress, the national picture is almost as grim. As Robert Fitrakis observes, "The system is still broken and instead of voting being a universally guaranteed federal right, it lingers under the shadow of Jim Crow and states' rights."

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
How many Joses can you see? A lot.
Jose A. Reyes moved to Portage from IL about three years ago.With his IL driver's license about to expire,Reyes went to the Portage License Branch the first week of January to get an Indiana license.He provided all the necessary IDs,passed all the tests and waited while they made sure his license photo made him look as deranged as possible,as is required by law.That's when things entered the bureaucratic twilight zone...

Monday, May 5, 2008
GOP Polling Place Photo ID Restrictions: Keeping Vets (and So Many More) From Voting in America
(1 comments) All of this,despite IN's own admission during the SCOTUS hearing,that there has never been,in the state's entire history,a single known instance of polling place voter impersonation fraud of the type this law is supposedly meant to keep from happening.Please join me in helping folks understand what's going on here.This is not about "voter fraud,"this is about nothing more than voter suppression.Period.It's gonna get worse...

Sunday, May 4, 2008
San Diego GOP chairman co-founded international piracy ring
(3 comments) Any job applicant knows that background checks are routine – especially for jobs involving authority or oversight of money. So why didn’t the San Diego Republican Party do a simple Google search before naming Tony Krvaric as its chairman?

Sunday, May 4, 2008
RAW STORY: San Diego GOP Chair Revealed as Infamous International Software Hacker
That skill set should come in very handy down there in, of all places, San Diego,where the far-right Republican Board of Supes,and the far-right Republican Registrar of Voters office,have never met a hackable Diebold electronic voting system they didn't love.He,and the other incredibly competitive pirate crews,could crack anything,anytime, usually within minutes after a new piece of software hit the market (and often before!)

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
How to Cast a Ballot in Indiana if You Don't Have State-Issued Photo ID...
(1 comments) It doesn't matter if you've voted in every single election for the last 40 or 50 years at the same polling place. Nor does it matter, as Justice Souter pointed out his dissent yesterday, "that the State has not come across a single instance of in-person voter impersonation fraud in all of Indiana’s history." You'll still need to do the following if you don't happen to have an IN drivers license!

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
After Records Reveal E-Voting Glitches, Election Official Jokes She'll Stop Keeping Records
Documents that Wired.com obtained through a records request last year showed that voters in 19 precincts reported problems with the machines on Election Day,complaining that they had to press the ES&S screens repeatedly to cast their vote or that even after a machine registered their vote for Jennings on the ballot page,the vote had disappeared by the time they reached the review screen at the end of the ballot.

Monday, April 28, 2008
Voter Advocate Rush Limbaugh Applauds Supreme Court's 'Huge, Huge, Huge Move to Undercut Democrat Voter Fraud'
(1 comments) Polling Place Photo ID Restrictions in Indiana Upheld by SCOTUS in Courageous and Historic Dredd Scott-like Decision By Why Stop at Keeping Black and Elderly Fraudsters from Stealing Elections?...

Monday, April 28, 2008
Election Day in Florida May Look Familiar
Three laws in particular are at issue, including a “no match, no vote” measure; the provision managing voter registration drives conducted by third parties, like the League of Women Voters; and a law that would keep a voter from correcting mistakes or omissions on a registration form in the final month before an election and would bar that person from having his or her vote counted.

Friday, April 25, 2008
Exclusive: PA's Primary Results Website Listed Obama Three Times, With Three Differing Totals on Election Night
With mountains of documented "problems with voting machines and inaccurate voter registration rolls" which occurred across the state on Tuesday, resulting in "countless eligible voters...needlessly refused the right to vote," as a local consortium of watchdog groups reported [WORD], Hillary Clinton was named the winner over Barack Obama by 9.2 points in the fully faith-based election.

Friday, April 25, 2008
Brad Friedman Statement for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission's 'Voter Advocate' Roundtable...
In eight simple words,we defined the heart of the mission I challenge all Americans–whether public servant, advocate,vendor or elected official – to join.The mission,officially adopted as “The Creekside Declaration” on March 22,2008,as reported by both Robert Koehler in his syndicated Tribune Media Services column,and by myself at BRAD BLOG,is simply: “To encourage citizen ownership of transparent,participatory democracy."

Friday, April 25, 2008
BREAKING: NJ Judge Gives Go Ahead to Independent Review of Sequoia's Failed Touch-Screen Voting Machines
UPDATED WITH EXCLUSIVE NEW DETAILS: Sequoia CEO Jack Blaine Admits Company Does Not Control the Intellectual Property Rights for Sequoia's Voting Machines!

Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Pennsylvania Primary: Polling Place, E-Voting Problem Wire...
Problem reports from polling places in PA, including voting machine malfunctions and long lines, began coming in early this morning. That could be an ominous sign, given that on most Election Days, the real extent of problems, at least with voting systems, aren't full revealed until later, and often in the days after the election.

Friday, April 18, 2008
'Why Tuesday?' Video: 'No Trouble with Touch-screens' Say Your Clueless Democratic Public Officials in PA
The above video --- including Nutter's comments that there have been "no problems" with the machines, since, after all, they got him elected, and Rendell's admission that he "knows nothing about them", but that they are "all HAVA approved machines" --- underscores how unbelievably difficult this fight is, and how clueless the very folks needed to help make a change actually are, in this entire fine mess.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Paul Minor, the Don Siegelman of Mississippi
(1 comments) His wife has brain cancer,apparently deteriorating & she has not been able to visit her husband.Her husband,a Miss.trial lawyer,former judge on the state Supreme Court,& former prez of the Miss. Trial Lawyers Association,is in prison,convicted in September last year of ‘honest services mail fraud’ and given an eleven-year sentence.He argued the government“singled him out for prosecution for political reasons."

Monday, April 14, 2008
New voters flood upcoming primaries
Andrew Reynolds, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina, said he wonders whether all these new voters will stay engaged in politics after 2008. "Let's say the outcome of the presidential election is not what they expect or hope for," he said. "Are they just going to be alienated and drip away again?"

Monday, April 14, 2008
What’s Easier to Rig—the U.S. Presidential Elections or a Slot Machine?
(1 comments) Steve Freeman, a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, compared the vulnerabilities of the two in his book, with some pretty alarming results.

Sunday, April 13, 2008
Former AL Gov. Don Siegelman Says Media Ignoring Details of His 'Electronically Stolen' 2002 Election
So,um,yeah...what's the holdup these media outlets have in reporting on this? This is a state Governor, for crying out loud, making these allegations,about his own 2002 election.Isn't that newsworthy enough? Particularly given all the evidence to suggest he was later seriously railroaded,framed and sent to prison in AL by his opponents?

Sunday, April 13, 2008
Former Ala. Governor Turns Tables on Justice Department
In the two weeks since his release from prison pending an appeal, Siegelman has sharply increased the volume of his assertions that he was railroaded. He says that Karl Rove, who was a White House adviser, targeted him for prosecution to ensure he did not win reelection to the governor's office and displace a Republican there.

Saturday, April 12, 2008
Computer Scientists: '2008 U.S. Presidential Election Can Be Hacked'
Systems Made by Diebold,Sequoia and Hart InterCivic Are 'Still Going to Have Same Viral Vulnerabilities Found' During California's 2007 Study...A bunch of world-class computer scientists testified publicly this week that "U.S. Presidential Election Can Be Hacked".As stunning as that sounds,there's nothing new here necessarily to readers of The BRAD BLOG, other than the fact that outlets like the IDG News Service and PCWorld

Thursday, April 10, 2008
Vote Counting Failures in Ohio and New Jersey Violate Federal Law, Accuracy Mandates
While it's important for every citizen, disabled or not, to be able to vote privately, a private vote is meaningless if that vote is not counted accurately. Despite the equal weight HAVA gave to both important mandates, the federal requirement for accurate vote-counting is being wholly ignored by the states, and even the federal government.

Thursday, April 10, 2008
Report: E-voting firms in hostile-takeover tussle
A flurry of attempts by Sequoia Voting Systems Inc. to avoid a hostile takeover by electronic-voting competitor Hart InterCivic Inc. has not only failed to stave off the acquisition, according to reports, but also led to a series of legal maneuvers that a Delaware judge has described in terms such as "too outlandish to survive summary judgment."

Tuesday, April 8, 2008
BREAKING: Sequoia Touch-Screen Voting Machines Subpoenaed in NJ
Please note: The same failed Sequoia AVC Advantage touch-screens are scheduled for use in Pennsylvania in the important upcoming Democratic Primary!...Activists trying to persuade Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg that electronic voting machines should be discarded succeeded in convincing her that examining these counties' machines is critical to their case.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Failed Again: Widely-Used Diebold Touch-Screens Systems Dropped Votes in Recent Ohio Primary
(2 comments) So with just a few months left before what is likely to be the largest election in the history of the United States, in addition to the possibility of memory card totals showing as having been uploaded --- when they haven't been --- we learn that there is also a size limit that could effect the proper tabulation of election results on Diebold's widely used GEMS central tabulator. Not good.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Spitzer v. Schwarzman: NYC and the fleeting nature of fame
Both men made their name on Wall Street: Schwarzman rose from his first job in investment banking at Lehman Brothers to run the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm, that has allowed him to stash away an estimated $4 billion today, while Spitzer got corporations from Samsung to investment bankers like Lehman Brothers to return almost the same amount to the public trust.

Sunday, March 23, 2008
New York Times Editorial: Unreliable Voting in New Jersey
(2 comments) Voters nationwide have seen that electronic voting cannot be trusted, and NJ is the latest to learn this unfortunate lesson.Rather than working to put doubts to rest,the machines’ manufacturer is resisting a proper inquiry.NJ needs to quickly get to the bottom of the problem to ensure voters that in November their ballots will be counted accurately.If she is unwilling to order an impartial investigation, Gov. Corzine should

Sunday, March 23, 2008
GOPer who shut down FL recount leaked news that led to Spitzer's downfall
Almost four months before Gov. Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal,a lawyer for R. political operative Roger Stone sent a letter to the FBI alleging that Spitzer ''used the services of high-priced call girls'' while in FL.After allegations were leveled at Stone that he had left a threatening phone message at the office of Bernard Spitzer,the ex-gov's father,regarding ''phony'' campaign loans during his 1994 bid for NY AG.

Friday, March 21, 2008
Sequoia Voting Systems Website Hacked
A section of Sequoia's Website was hacked overnight, and when the company realized what had happened,it took the site down and removed the "intrusive content."n the wake of this latest PR nightmare for the company, as John Gideon pointed out last night,they've decided to mount a Campaign of Lies instead of simply allowing their "tamperproof" e-voting systems to be examined by a third party.Brilliant strategy guys, as usual.

Friday, March 21, 2008
Sequoia Voting Systems’ Claims About Third Party Reviews and Testing of Its Election Equipment – Their Misleading Half-T
(1 comments) After a state association of NJ county election officials voted unanimously to ask the state AG to commission an independent study of the Sequoia AVC Advantage touch-screens that failed in their recent primary,Sequoia threatened legal action against two Princeton professors likely to lead such a technical review.One county backed down earlier this week from plans to independently test the systems due to the strong arm tactics

Friday, March 21, 2008
Pennsylvania's Online Voter Registration Data Found Vulnerable
In the '06 summer when citizen Election Integrity advocates from the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project discovered that Chicago's voter registration system was hackable,& allowed for access to voters' private information,such as Social Security number etc?Looks like similar has now been discovered in PA,where online voter registration system has now been taken offline after it was found that anyone has access others'info.

Friday, March 21, 2008
State GOP/Rep. Heather Wilson 'Vote-Buying' Scandal Finally Covered by New Mexico's Largest Newspaper...Two Weeks After
Article Vindicates Radio Journalist Whose Stories Were Spiked,But Front Page Albuquerque Journal Coverage Otherwise Fails Miserably Key Legal Point,Reported by Blog Long Ago, Entirely Ignored by Paper..Real coverage-far more in-depth & accurate & useful & timely than anything offered by the Journal--has been appearing for weeks both at The BRAD BLOG & at f-brilliant.And,unlike "coverage"at the Journal,you won't even have to

Thursday, March 20, 2008
Veterans Administration Won't Help Soldiers Register to Vote
(1 comments) For at least four years,since the '04 presidential election when a veteran, Sen.Kerry,was the Dem Party nominee,the Department of Veterans Affairs has blocked efforts to help U.S. soldiers register to vote at its facilities in all 50 states.the VA-whose public affairs office did not answer telephone calls nor return requests to comment Monday-apparently has also stonewalled requests by US senators for an explanation.

Thursday, March 20, 2008
Bear Stearns in Bankruptcy: Can You Feel Their Pain?
(2 comments) Why is the Fed, an agency of the government,using our tax dollars to keep Bear Stearns and its rich managers & shareholders above water? After all,the government supposedly doesn't have enough money to provide kids with health care and childcare, to guarantee families decent housing or to meet a long list of other needs. Why do we have the money to lend tens of billions of dollars to Bear Stearns at below market interest rates

Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Voting Machine Company Strong-Arm Tactics Succeed in Blocking New Jersey Investigation (So Far)
(1 comments) Legal Threats from Sequoia Voting Systems Force County to Cancel Plans for Independent Analysis of the State's Own Voting System Livermore Labs Scientist Urges Readers to Contact NJ AG to Ask for Technical Review of Same Flawed Machines Set to be Used Next Month in PA...

Tuesday, March 18, 2008
U. of Conn. Study Reveals Still More Vulnerabilities in Diebold Optical Scan Voting System
(1 comments) Voting Technology Research Center Warns Votes can be Switched Without Detection Vermont Election Officials Pay No Attention...

Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Ex-US Attorney Cites GOP Voter Abuse
The Justice Department issued a directive to every U.S. Attorney in the country to find and prosecute cases of voter fraud in their states during the height of hotly contested elections in 2002, 2004, and 2006, even though evidence of such abuses was extremely thin or non-existent, a former federal prosecutor says in a new book.

Friday, March 14, 2008
Colorado: Paper Ballots Way to Go
(2 comments) Colorado county clerks do not know best. Their job has changed.Election system activists do not know everything about election law, but they do know some. And they know a great deal about computers, software and systems.It is time for Colorado's clerks to acknowledge their limitations and to work toward a transparent and verifiable election system.People should trust their clerk,but independently verify their elections.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Some Questions About the Spitzer Incident
(1 comments) There are all kinds of things about this that just don't pass the smell test.How did Spitzer's name get leaked to the media,and who did it?Didn't happen to Dave Vitter.Why did Bloomberg suddenly start talking about running for gov recently?And why did he give $500,000 to Joe Bruno?He's good buddies with Mike Mukasey. What did he know and how did he know it?The Mann Act? Are you kidding?Spitzer's been in the GOP line of fire...

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
'Very Odd': NM Sec. of State Investigates, Questions Rep. Heather Wilson/NM GOP 'Vote-Buying' Allegations
In Exclusive Interview, SoS Mary Harrera, Says She's Never Heard of Campaigns Paying People to Show up to Vote Former Republican Governor Vindicated as Checks Made out by Wilson Campaign Scrutinized by State Attorney General, as Confirmed by Local GOP Chair...

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
NM GOP 'Vote-Buying' Scandal: Unapologetic Republican Operative Pat Rogers Caught in Two Lies
there have been a number of notable developements over the last several days as the state Republican party tries to deflect from the allegations made by a number of elected Republican officials...

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
New Mexico's Corporate Media Covers Up the Coverage of GOP/Heather Wilson 'Vote Buying' Scandal
A Week After it Broke, the Albuquerque Journal Reports and Buries the Laura MacCallum Story, Demonstrating Again Why the Blogosphere is so Crucial..

Monday, March 10, 2008
"Myth" of Voter Fraud Focus of Senate Hearing
There is no concrete evidence of voter fraud in the US.Many election integrity experts believe voter fraud is a ploy by Repubs to suppress minorities and poor people from voting.Historically,those groups tend to vote for Dem candidates.Raising red flags about the integrity of the ballots,experts believe,is an attempt by GOP operatives to swing elections to their candidates as well as an attempt to use the fear of criminal

Monday, March 10, 2008
'Mashed Into Bits': Florida Touch-Screen Voting Machines - 28,000 of them - to be Crushed, Recycled, Repurposed...
Hillsborough County's Supervisor of Elections,Buddy Johnson,offers the best use of the machines--he says in the article that "he wanted to donate one to the county's history museum" --but beware, while some are to be scrapped, some of these bad machines may show up at an election near you... The first step for the recycling company is to try selling the machines to states that still allow touch-screen voting.Then...

Sunday, March 9, 2008
A Picture Worth a Thousand Words
(1 comments) This picture speaks for itself. It's the marquee of the Grand Lake Theatre in San Francisco.

Saturday, March 8, 2008
'Double Bubble' Hearing: Logan Runs and Conny Gets Called on the Carpet
(1 comments) An independent investigation needs to be launched, Kim Alexander said, specifically into the fact that McCormack knew full well that thousands would be disenfranchised by her ridiculous ballot design,since it had happened in several previous elections,as she did nothing about it prior to her quitting her job just one month before the largest primary in recent history, in the country's largest voting jurisdiction.

Saturday, March 8, 2008
Reporter Issues Full Statement Blasting New Mexico's KKOB for Ethical Violations in Spiking Republican Vote-Buying Stori
As I wrote in my letter of resignation to KKOB-AM last week after my pieces on alleged delegate-buying were canned by News Dir.Pat Allen:This is not journalism.It is extortion.Honesty and guts in journalism, print or broadcast, is becoming a thing of the past.Here in Albuquerque,the city's now-only newspaper has refused to cover this story.I must wonder why.My conscience is clear.

Saturday, March 8, 2008
'Vote-Buying' Congresswoman's Campaign Rep Worked for Blogger Who Mercilessly Slammed Story
But that you do not seem to understand that such a conflict of interest should be fully and transparently disclosed, so readers can be fully informed in order to form their own opinions, is simply astounding --- particularly for a blogger indignantly claiming to be "a journalist...working hard to try to bring some integrity to the blogosphere."To quote your own article, sir: "This is why blogging doesn’t get any respect."

Friday, March 7, 2008
Bamboozling the American electorate again
(1 comments) Evidence of a covert campaign to undermine the presidential primaries is rife,so it's curious that the Dem Party and even some within the G.O.P. have ignored the actual elephant in the room this year.That would be Karl Rove.Long accused of rigging the two previous presidential elections, this master of deceit would have us believe that he's gone off to sit in a corner and write op-eds.Not so.According to an article in Time

Thursday, March 6, 2008
xclusive: Former Repub. Guv Says NM State Officials Investigating Rep. Heather Wilson Vote-Buying Charges; Says Repub. U
Moreover, during our exclusive interview with NM's former Gov. Cargo, he added a number of details to his allegations of felony vote-buying, and says they are now under investigation by both the Secretary of State and the state Attorney General.Further, he told us of his confrontation with Wilson about the allegations some weeks ago. Her response to the charges left the former Governor "stunned"...

Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Don Siegelman for Wings of Justice Award
Termed,rightly,by Scott Horton of Harper's Magazine as 'the Man in the Iron Mask,'Siegelman deserves this special recognition,not only for his long ordeal,which he has suffered bravely,but for his consistent openness in speaking publicly about his treatment by the Bush machine.It is also to be hoped that this honor will,in however small a way,help focus national attention on his plight,&thereby help to bring it to an end...

Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Rep. Heather Wilson Accused of Felony Vote-Buying in New Mexico; Reporter Quits After News Director Scrubs Story
You'll also recall that both Wilson & Domenici both have a standing record of inappropriately applying pressure.They each are alleged to have done the same in the case of NM's former Republ US Atty David Iglesias who was fired as part of the US Attorney Purge Scandal,after refusing to bring phony "voter fraud" indictments just prior to the 2006 Election, despite inappropriate phone calls calls from both Wilson & Domenici.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008
L.A. County Registrar Chooses to Disenfranchise 12,000 Voters in Final 'Double Bubble' Ballot Tally
In American elections it seems that final horse race results-whatever officials decide they are allowed to be-are far more important than ensuring that every voice in an allegedly democratic system, has actually been heard.Former Registrar McCormack,who quit her job just one month before the election, then claimed disingenuously after the election that this was all "an unfortunate,unanticipated result," which "noone could have

Tuesday, March 4, 2008
A Wave of the Watch List, and Speech Disappears
Marshall’s case does not appear to be one of mistaken identity.The government quite specifically intended to interfere with his business.That, Professor Crawford said, is a scandal. “The way we communicate these days is through domain names, and the Treasury Department should not be interfering with domain names just as it does not interfere with telecommunications lines.”

Monday, March 3, 2008
Clinton trails in Texas, deadlocked in Ohio
Clinton faces heavy pressure to win in both big states on Tuesday and halt the Illinois senator's momentum after his 11 consecutive victories in their battle to become the Democratic nominee in November's presidential election

Monday, March 3, 2008
Noam Chomsky: Why Isn't Iraq in the 2008 Election?
(1 comments) The public is massively against the war, and the Dems are debating over tactics in Iraq -- here's why.

Monday, March 3, 2008
Diebold Stock Soars After $3 Billion Takeover Bid by Defense Contractor Conglomerate United Technologies
Mark Crispin Miller, author of FOOLED AGAIN, which chronicles an alleged Rightwing takeover of America's electoral system, wrote: "Considering the Framers powerful aversion to the notion of a 'standing army' in the new Republic, and Eisenhower's last speech warning us against the toxic influence of 'the military-industrial complex,' this disastrous bid should [be] forbidden by an Act of Congress."

Monday, March 3, 2008
'Perceived' Problems Part of Reason for National Move to Paper Ballots Says USA TODAY
(1 comments) So I'm just curious.Which of the myriad,scientifically demonstrated problems with the security and transparency of electronic voting are the "perceived" ones,versus the "real" ones? Or are there some other "perceived" problems which have prompted the trend?If your own personal house has never been robbed, yet you turn on an alarm system and/or lock the doors when you leave it,is that due to a perceived concern or a real one?

Monday, March 3, 2008
Diebold Rejects $2.63B Buyout Bid
(Editor's note: Lest you were worried that the deal might fall through due to some sort of moral grounds, think again. We still could end up with a military contractor controlling our voting machines...) ATM and ballot machine maker Diebold rejected on Monday a $2.63 billion takeover bid from United Technologies, saying the offer was inadequate.

Monday, March 3, 2008
FCC official wants probe of "60 Minutes" Alabama Black-out
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said on Monday the FCC should move quickly to "determine the facts" surrounding the incident."If the decision was intentional, who made the decision and why? The FCC needs to get to the bottom of this," Copps said.

Sunday, March 2, 2008
Electronic Elections Mashup: Vote Fraud In The 21st Century
(1 comments) A nine-minute video on why you should be focusing on something beyond the candidates and their platforms -the electronic voting machines which secretly count your vote, without your ability to confirm their 'official' results.How confident are you that the declared winner in this election will actually be chosen by a majority of the voters?What do you base that confidence on?See what experts in the field have to say on this.

Sunday, March 2, 2008
GOP frets over Democratic fundraising
(1 comments) "Since the midterm election of 2006, Democrats have had an enthusiasm gap with Republicans," said GOP strategist Scott Reed. "They have big crowds, raise more money and appear to have more excitement on the campaign trail. Couple this with turnout numbers, which are off the charts, and Republicans are going to have a big challenge in the fall."

Sunday, March 2, 2008
Why we sued the phone company
(1 comments) Congress is supposed to act to protect the rights of American citizens, not sacrifice those rights to large corporate entities. The House and Senate should resist the bullying tactics of the Bush White House and ensure that we have our day in court to vindicate our rights and reveal any illegality engaged in by the telecoms. We need to know about the Bush White House's secret program.

Friday, February 29, 2008
Karl Rove's attack dogs continue...(Siegelman, continued)
It is as though every major and minor publication in Alabama is running to declare itself a propaganda outlet for the Alabama GOP.So far,only the Tuscaloosa News is showing itself to be actual journalism.The latest propaganda piece comes by way of the The Press Register,& their editorial attacking 60 Minutes & defending corruption by way of disinformation & dishonesty.Below are some examples from this latest hit piece...

Friday, February 29, 2008
VIDEO: MSNBC's Abrams Re-Iterates Call for Release, Pending Appeal, of Siegelman; Details Chief Concerns About Case
In this rarely seen,2004 video interview with Siegelman,he alleges:"Somebody electronically manipulated the election results…This election was stolen…There is no other kind, or sugar-coated way to say it.""I hope everybody, Republican or Democrat,will just rally around the principle that we gotta do the right thing in this country,and not allow this thing to happen."-AZ former Attorney General Grant Woods.

Thursday, February 28, 2008
The changing of the guards: Bay Minette, election night, 2002 Alabama
This article sheds a little light on the circumstances that led to Siegelman's narrow defeat and the Catch-22 set by Rep. Attorney Gen. Pryor to make sure that the votes were not counted. And, in fact, they remain uncounted to this day. That's democracy for ya!

Thursday, February 28, 2008
CBS bosses hiding truth - Dan Rather
Dan Rather slammed CBS Tuesday for trying to keep his court fight with the network out of the public eye.The newsman - who has filed a $70 million lawsuit against the Tiffany network, where he anchored the "CBS Evening News" for 24 years-said "corporate overlords" are conspiring to withhold several key documents.The documents that Rather wants to see include a CBS-commissioned P.I.'s report on W's national guard stint.

Thursday, February 28, 2008
Video: Comcast Pays to Push Public out of Internet Debate
SavetheInternet.com caught cable giant stacking a FCC hearing with paid (and apparently sleepy) seat fillers.The hearing was set up to investigate Comcast's recent blocking of the Internet.But the cable giant filled the room with paid sitters so that the public couldn't get in to voice their support for a free-flowing Internet.Check out the video for yourself!

Thursday, February 28, 2008
NY board approves voting machine panned by disability advocates
These are the machines, made in the Netherlands, that were banned in Europe because they could be programmed to play chess and do other manipulations not geared to engendering confidence in their use. Those considerations, apparently, were not serious enough for the NY State Board of Elections to disqualify the machines.

Thursday, February 28, 2008
1 in 100 Americans in prison: study
(4 comments) The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

Thursday, February 28, 2008
Chairman Conyers Releases Jill Simpson Transcript on the Prosecution of former Alabama Governor Siegelman
Today,Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers released the transcript from the sworn testimony of Dana Jill Simpson, the Alabama attorney who earlier this year executed an affadavit that has stirred renewed interest in the prosecution and subsequent conviction of former Alabama Gov.Siegelman.In the affadavit and the closed-door interview with committee staff,she cites conversations that allege Karl Rove’s involvement in the

Thursday, February 28, 2008
VIDEO: 'Bush League Justice' Series Continues On MSNBC With Dan Abrams Now Calling For Gov. Don Siegelman's Release From
Siegelman's Daughter States That Her Father Knows Karl Rove Is Behind His Prosecution. Says Judge 'Trying To Keep Her Dad Hushed As Long As He Possibly Can.'Dan Abrams once again tackles the Don Siegelman case in his stellar "Bush League Justice" series on MSNBC. Tonight's guests included Scott Horton of Harper's, former Alabama GOP operative Dana Jill Simpson,and Governor Siegelman's daughter,Dana Siegelman.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
L.A. County Registrar Prepares to NOT Count Thousands of 'Double Bubble' Ballots from Super Tuesday's Democratic Primary
In addition to still disenfranchising thousands of voters,and inaccurately offering an undeserved margin of victory to some candidates in various precincts through his planned scheme, he is also setting a horrible precedent for counting ballots---or in this case, not counting them--in the state in the future.That,even though there is a perfectly accurate and simple way to count almost every single ballot cast in the election

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
WHNT’s Technical Glitches
In 1969,the FCC revoked the license of WLBT in Jackson after the commission established a systematic effort by the broadcaster to suppress information about the civil rights movement.In this case,if the blackout was intentional,it may also have been counterproductive.Rather than take attention away from allegations that Mr. Siegelman was the victim of a partisan campaign,WHNT’s technical glitch seems to lend support to charge

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
FactCheck.org: Cleveland Clinkers:Clinton and Obama hit sour notes in the Cleveland debate
The Clinton-Obama showdown debate in Cleveland produced several false, twisted or dubious claims, most of which we’ve heard and debunked before.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
AP Centerpiece: Voters, poll workers question accuracy of lists
uran said she contacted ES&S,which contracts with the state to manage the software, but was unable to get a guarantee that the problem would not crop up again."They couldn't answer me or they didn't want to,"shesaid.Kass,a retired district judge/regular party volunteer,said nearly half those who voted by provisional ballot at the Albuquerque polling place where she worked were regular Democratic voters, carrying voter IDs..

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Siegelman bribed inmates with mackerel to see TV show
Siegelman's brother,Birmingham businessman Les Siegelman,said the former governor told him the initial vote on what to watch Sunday evening in his LA. prison cell didn't go in his favor.With the promise of canned fish, the majority of the 70 inmates bunking together voted to watch the CBS news show."He thought the producers did a great job of putting it together.In less than 15 minutes they explained the complicated story &

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Karl Rove Holds 'Free Don Siegelman' Banner with BRAD BLOG Contributor; Says Republican Operative 'Lied
(1 comments) Rove Denies Allegations Made by Dana Jill Simpson Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes, Claims 'I Don't Think I Ever Met the Woman'

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early
(1 comments) Darkly hilarious. This just in - a special report on the 2008 election results from the Onion.

Monday, February 25, 2008
VIDEO: '60 Minutes' Exposé on the Malicious Prosecution of Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman
(4 comments) UPDATE: Incredibly, Larisa Alexandrovna is reporting that the broadcast of the Siegelman segment --- and only the Siegelman segment --- got blacked out in Alabama. "Transmission Difficulties"...

Monday, February 25, 2008
Elections 2008: Ohio Back in the Spotlight
Truthout's Scott Galindez writes:"In 2004,SoS Blackwell,long lines and accusations of problems with voting machines dominated the headlines.OH and FL were the battleground states everyone pointed to as the bellwethers in the race between Kerry and Bush.In 2008,both states are back in the spotlight.FL would rather not be;they broke the rules and had their delegates stripped,but OH is in the position every state wants."

Monday, February 25, 2008
Siegelman attorney calls for special prosecutor
(1 comments) Kilborn said the evidence would warrant a new trial&that he planned to make the request for a special prosecutor directly to US Attorney Gen. Michael Mukasey or President Bush.Art Leach,Scrushy's attorney, said that if the "60 Minutes" account about Bailey is true,it warrants an investigation."That one witness turned the entire prosecution.Nick Bailey ought to be placed under oath and he ought to produce those records."

Monday, February 25, 2008
CBS News: Did Ex-Alabama Governor Get A Raw Deal?
Now, many Democrats and Republicans have become suspicious of the Justice Department’s motivations. As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, 52 former state attorneys-general have asked Congress to investigate whether the prosecution of Siegelman was pursued not because of a crime but because of politics.

Sunday, February 24, 2008
Click to Prevent Breast Cancer!
(1 comments) With more than half of breast cancer cases remaining unexplained by traditional risk factors,scientists increasingly indicate that these cases have environmental links.Every day that you click on the "Prevent Breast Cancer" button,an advertising sponsor donates approximately $.005 to the Breast Cancer Fund's environmental health legislative & outreach work. This work helps ensure that you & your family are safe from radiation&

Sunday, February 24, 2008
NJ: Machines get vote of no confidence after errors in primary
"Initially, when I called Sequoia they said it was an anomaly.And I said,'Excuse me.It's not.It's an error.'"The Union Cty. Clerk said the discrepancies between the numbers were small and would not have changed the outcome of the Feb. 5 primary,but a few votes could mean the difference in future elections if the problem isn't found and corrected."Every year there's at least one election that's decided by one or two votes..."

Saturday, February 23, 2008
GOP CONGRESSMAN AND KEY MCCAIN ALLY INDICTED...
Renzi, a three-time representative from Arizona's First Congressional District who announced his retirement in August, also happens to be a close ally of Senator John McCain. Renzi is a co-chair of McCain's campaign in Arizona. The Arizona Republic describes the two men as "close." In June 2006, McCain sent out a fundraising letter on Renzi's behalf.

Saturday, February 23, 2008
American Gangsters
Two stories breaking today each serve as fresh reminders of how much is at stake, and how much is being hidden by the WH stonewalling of the scandal's full investigation.Each of them--the indictment today of AZ's Repub Rep. Rick Renzi on charges of extortion, wire fraud,and money laundering,and this Sunday's long-awaited 60 Minutes expos� on the Rove/DoJ/WH gang-bang frame-up of Alabama's now-imprisoned Democratic former gov..

Friday, February 22, 2008
Net Neutrality Is a Civil Rights Issue
FCC’s investigation of Comcast& passage of the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act”HR5353,bipartisan legislation now pending in Congress to protect Net Neutrality-will go a long way toward determining whether the Internet will protect the 1stAmendment rights of all net users & whether people of color will finally have unfettered access to a equitable media system.Make your voices heard.The stakes couldn't be higher.

Friday, February 22, 2008
Inside the world of war profiteers
Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand.The graft continued well beyond the 2004 congressional hearings that first called attention to it. And the massive fraud endangered the health of American soldiers even as it lined contractors' pockets, records show.

Friday, February 22, 2008
A WORD ABOUT OBAMA
Many have asked me why I did not sign on to the letter by some of the Guantanamo attorneys who are supporting Obama so I would like to take a moment to explain why I could not put my name on that document.When I got to the DTA I said to him“I can’t believe that you,as a civil rights attorney yourself,would vote to take away the writ of habeascorpus”and his unfortunate response was“it was going to pass anyway”…

Friday, February 22, 2008
Politics By Ordeal
(2 comments) What is this foolishness? Obama is pure and not a politician and Hillary is "tainted"? Does anyone get to be a presidential candidate in our country without being a politician?Come on. Get real. You and I could never endure the punishment of debates, of columnists who don't fact-check, of swift-boaters, of dumb pundits and corrupt colleagues, without the lust for power being the overriding emotion in your life.

Friday, February 22, 2008
McCain Torture Endorsement Lost Amid Media Sex Scandal Frenzy
Mere hours before The NYT broke its story on Wednesday,McCain made a totally unrelated--and apparently un-newsworthy--statement to reporters, in which he called for Bush to veto the Senate's anti-torture bill.He talked in support of "additional techniques" for interrogation, sounding ever more in line with the White House's official stance. McCain,the "war hero" who has been an outspoken opponent of torture voted vs. the bill

Thursday, February 21, 2008
BREAKING: Ohio SoS Fires Another GOP County Election Official, GOP State Senator Applauds
30-Year Summit County Republican Boss Alex Arshinkoff Latest in Series of Ohio Election Officials to Face Reprimand, Criminal Charges 'Ran Local GOP Machine Out of Election Board Office,' Says Democrat SoS Brunner; 'Abused Power, Position, Employees,' Says Republican State Senator Vying for Party Chair...

Thursday, February 21, 2008
Election Madness by Howard Zinn
(6 comments) Historically,government,whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals,has failed its responsibilities,until forced to by direct action:sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes&boycotts for the rights of workers,mutinies&desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war.Voting is easy&marginally useful,but it is a poor substitute for democracy,which requires direct action by...

Thursday, February 21, 2008
Texas: Thousands of Prairie View Students March 7.3 Miles to Vote
Under pressure from the federal government,Waller County on Tuesday added three temporary polling places for early voting,ditching plans to open only one voting site in advance of the March 4 primary.The Justice Department questioned the county's January decision to cut early-voting sites from a half dozen throughout the county to just one in Hempstead.The county's about-face came on the same day that vocal critics announce

Tuesday, February 19, 2008
NM: Vote 2008: Party to study caucus woes
The party got its list of registered Democrats in the state from the Secretary of State's Office. The secretary of state has a contract with a Nebraska-based company called Election Systems & Software to compile state voting rolls. The company also sold the state the paper-ballot tabulators used in state- and county-run elections.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Texas Election Official Pushed Out of Job After Warning of Concerns With County E-Voting System
As Early Voting starts today in the crucial TX Primaries,it looks like we've got yet another new martyr-- from the rare ranks of Election Officials--who has reportedly been taken out by "the powers that be" during a fight for the ideas of Election Integrity, which he even went so far as to mention on a Houston television news report, if you can imagine such a thing.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Wikileaks Under Attack: California Court Wipes Wikileaks.org Out of Existence
(2 comments) If this injunction stands, it will set an incredible precedent for all of us who use the web to unveil misbehavior by the rich and powerful. Fortunately, Wikileaks is fighting this unconstitutional attack on press freedom, aided by six pro bono attorneys in San Francisco. While Wikileaks has so far not issued any particular call for support, all who value freedom should stand ready to offer whatever support they need.

Monday, February 18, 2008
Former L.A. County Registrar Blames Everyone But Herself for 'Double Bubble' Failure Which Went 'Unheeded' for Six Years
'No One Could Have Predicted This,' Conny McCormack Tells LA Times in Her Best Condoleese, About Her Ballot Design That Disenfranchsed 40% of Voters in At Least Two Previous Elections...

Monday, February 18, 2008
Bowen to the Rescue: CA's SoS Calls on L.A. County Registrar to Count Thousands of Still-Uncounted Super Tuesday Ballots
Article II of CA's state constitution has a new provision added overwhelmingly by the voters via Proposition 43,on March 5,2002,in response to the Presidential Election debacle in FL.The line added to the constitution by voters states clearly: "A voter who casts a vote in an election in accordance with the laws of this State shall have that vote counted."Enough excuses.It's time to count the damned votes already.

Saturday, February 16, 2008
LA County 'Double Bubble' Disenfranchisement Happened Before, Registrar Conny McCormack Did Nothing About It
44% of Non-Partisan Cross-Over Ballots Went Uncounted in March '04, 42% Uncounted in June '06, Before Same Ballot Design Used Again for the February 2008 Super Tuesday Primary. As LA Times Gets Religion on Election Integrity Issues, But Doesn't Bother Apologizing For Their Failures to do so up to Now...

Saturday, February 16, 2008
NYTimes: 0-bama at as Many as 80 'Heavily Black' New York City Precincts
The conspiracy theorists at the New York Times today tell us something is amiss, but proceed to ultimately tell us nothing about why it happened, suggesting that all is just fine...and that it'd be even better if the city "upgraded" to new electronic voting machines...

Saturday, February 16, 2008
BAE: secret papers reveal threats from Saudi prince
Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted,according to court documents revealed yesterday. Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" & the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries & the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intel

Friday, February 15, 2008
Battle-Tested by Joseph C. Wilson
Hillary Clinton has been in that arena for a generation.She is one of the few to have defeated the attack machine that is today's Republican Party and to have emerged stronger.She is deeply knowledgeable about governing; she made herself into a power in the Senate;she is respected by our military;and she never flinches.She has never been intimidated,not by any Republican--not even John McCain. Barack Obama claims...

Thursday, February 14, 2008
How to Count L.A. County's 'Double Bubble' Fiasco Ballots Accurately and Immediately
As the Clock Ticks Towards Final Certification, and the County's Registrar Makes Excuses, Hundreds of Thousands of Voters Stand to be Disenfranchised for No Reason at All... Every Vote Counted REDUCES the Current Error Rate! The Registrar Must Act NOW!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
L.A. County Registrar Says It's 'Impossible' to Count Nearly 100,000 Ballots from Super Tuesday Primary
It's outrageous for clowns who support unverifiable electronic voting machines to use this incident to claim voters are being "disenfranchised by paper ballots" here.No,they are not being disenfranchised by paper ballots,they are being disenfranchised by horrible election administration by horrible election directors like LA County's former Registrar McCormack,LA County's current acting Registrar Logan who was acting like ...

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
L.A. County Registrar Says It's 'Impossible' to Count Nearly 100,000 Ballots from Super Tuesday Primary
Dean Logan is lying.Almost every currently miscounted ballot can likely have the voter intent discerned precisely,if someone bothers to count them.It's absolutely outrageous for him to try and blame voters & poll-workers for this problem,& suggest that the problem was bad education for them;outrageous for clowns who support unverifiable electronic voting machines to use this incident to claim voters are being disenfranchised

Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Voters Say Diebold E-Pollbooks Crashed During Primary; Official Says They Didn't
“The general feeling in the line was that it was an atrocity,” she said. “In the state where Jimmy Carter is from and is known for election monitoring around the world, we can’t seem to get it right. I found that kind of ironic."

Monday, February 11, 2008
What Dems Need to Know About John McCain
A former GOP operative gives the background on what it will take to compete with the likely GOP nominee.

Monday, February 11, 2008
WA GOP Chair, Esser the Suppressor: 'To win the election, we have to keep as many of these loudmouth leftists and shiftl
Your average leftist loudmouth is a committed individual and can almost never be persuaded to ignore his constitutional rights.The deadbeats, however,are a different matter entirely.Years of interminable welfare checks and free government services have made these modern-day sloths even more lazy.They will vote on election day,if it isn’t a bother.But even the slightest inconvenience can keep them from the polling place.

Monday, February 11, 2008
Diebold Admits Overstating '07 Election Revenue by 300%; Announces 5% Workforce Layoff as Feds Continue Investigations a
Company Forced to Restate Revenue as Shares Devalued More than 50% Since Insider Sell-Off Last Summer, Renaming of Election Division to 'Premier'...

Monday, February 11, 2008
'Inconsistencies' Reported in Results from Snohomish County, WA's GOP Caucus
The strange situation with WA state's Repub Caucus over the weekend keeps deteriorating by the hour,the more we learn about it.It all underscores,of course,why full transparency is useful when it comes to elections.Where is the honorable McCain in all of this? He is the man who served as a war hero on behalf of this country in the hopes of defending democracy around the globe.Shouldn't he be joining Huck's call for transparent

Sunday, February 10, 2008
Chicago polls go well -- despite punches, broken machines, wrong ballots and 'invisible ink'
Apparently, the poll workers at 1723 W. Greenleaf Ave. told incredulous voters -- including one spouse of an election judge -- that the touch-screen stylus was actually an invisible-ink pen to fill out paper ballots, city elections spokesman James Allen said."You spend months trying to prepare for every contingency," Allen said."Trying to anticipate every possible way people might be confused ...Then this? Incredible."

Sunday, February 10, 2008
WA: A Little Weird
With 87% of the returns counted, the WA state GOP,which runs the caucuses stopped releasing results.That left us and a lot of other news organizations in a bit of a quandary last night since it looked like McCain was going to pull it off.But as late as 1:30 AM on the east coast promised new results kept failing to materialize.Then over night the Washington state GOP put out a press release announcing McCain the winner based on

Sunday, February 10, 2008
PA: Everybody Vote
We're here to help nonprofit and grassroots organizations learn to better help their members,staff, constituents and service recipients into the voting process.Everybody VOTE is a non-partisan voter registration & mobilization campaign with the goal of increasing voter participation in SW PA.We provide training,materials and other resources designed to help nonprofits integrate voter registration,education,and mobilization

Sunday, February 10, 2008
Obama Camp Sends 'Urgent Request for Assistance' to Louisiana SoS as Voters Find Party Registration Switched
Ellen Theisen,managing editor of VotersUnite,told Alternet she feels the NM problem reveals again the danger of jobbing out what should be transparent,public functions,to private companies."[It]underscores that all election functions need to be run by the public sector.Voter lists need to be maintained from the local level up–not the other way around, where officials in the state capital or working for out of state companies

Sunday, February 10, 2008
Huckabee 'Not Ready to Concede', 'Looking at Some Legal Issues' in 'Dubious' Washington State GOP Caucus
At the same time, the results of the GOP Louisiana Primary, as announced by the state, are even closer than those so far released in Washington. Though because the election was held on wholly unverifiable electronic voting machines, everyone will simply have to settle for whatever numbers the faith-based systems reported to them, no matter how close the margin..

Saturday, February 9, 2008
Privatization of New Mexico Voting Rolls May Have Played Major Role in Super Tuesday's Democratic Caucus Mess
Rosenfeld aptly notes"the ongoing story is a cautionary tale for what not to do in Nov’s presidential election,"before pointing out the bigger question than who won or lost the Dem Caucus,is more likely:"'Was the state using a bad voter list provided by a private vendor–instead of using data compiled by public officials?'"In CO,WI&WY,Accenture either missed deadlines,paid fines or was fired,according to electionline.org

Saturday, February 9, 2008
The mess at MSNBC
(1 comments) What steps has NBC taken to ensure that this [doesn't] happen again?Have executives given their reporters & pundits guidance about what kinds of things are not appropriate to say?Have they talked to Matthews & Scarborough & Carlson & Shuster & the rest about their lengthy history of objectionable comments to and about women?Three weeks ago,I wrote:"A week ago,MSNBC had a Chris Matthews problem."Maybe this time they'll listen.

Friday, February 8, 2008
Task force votes to dismiss Jennings’s challenge
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report this week that declared, with 99 percent certainty, that the electronic voting machines used in the election did not cause a massive under-vote in the race.

Friday, February 8, 2008
Tell the Los Angeles County Registrar to count all "Decline-to-State" votes
In what the media is now calling "Double Bubble Trouble," 94,000 "Decline-to-State" votes in Los Angeles County -- 50% of the total DTS ballots cast -- are being rejected due to a ballot design flaw, despite the Courage Campaign's discovery of the "double bubble" problem and official notification to the Registrar prior to Election Day.

Friday, February 8, 2008
The Super Delegate Wiki-Watchdog: Find Out What's Really Happening in '08 Race
that unless either Clinton or Obama drop out of the nomination race, it's pretty much a given that super-delegates are going to pick our Democratic nominee.

Thursday, February 7, 2008
California Vote Fraud
(1 comments) One minute video of a voter being kept from voting for the candidate of his choice, except for with a provisional ballot.

Thursday, February 7, 2008
Sequoia central count scanner breakdown and service call mid-election
CALIFORNIA - Of the 6 machines purchased by the County less than 6 months ago, one is already out of service, and two others were having frequent problems. Photos from one polling place of what your ballot may look like after being fed through these Sequoia scanners. New York voters watch out! Sequoia is on the A list for future purchase.

Thursday, February 7, 2008
Say What? - Party Official Kept Uncounted Ballox Boxes at Home Overnight as 200 Vote Margin Currently Seen in New Mexico
The huge turnout in yesterday's Dem Primary led to long lines,voters who found they were no longer on the registration rolls for some still-unexplained reason,17,000 votes had to be cast on provisional ballots which remain uncounted today,and now it's being reported-incredibly-that at least three ballot boxes were kept overnight last night,uncounted,at the homes of 3 polling place managers.All ballots will now be recounted.

Thursday, February 7, 2008
Filling in the Ovals on LA County's Super Tuesday 'Double Bubble' Debacle
"If you think about the dimensions of this," the founder of California's Courage Campaign,Rick Jacobs,told the Daily News,"three-quarters of a million people in LA County alone are Decline-to-State voters.I think this could be the difference between one candidate and another getting delegates and potentially getting the nomination.""LA's non-partisan voters must not be disenfranchised because of a confusing ballot design."

Thursday, February 7, 2008
PA the next Ohio? Team 4 Investigates Voting Machine Security Issues
(1 comments) The way things are shaping up, Pennsylvania's presidential primary could be a deciding contest. But before you go to the polls, there's something you should know about the personal safety and security of your vote.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Problems (and Confusion) at L.A. County Polls Today
the LA Times surprisingly good coverage of election integrity issues this afternoon(overlook the fact that "Glitches"is the first word in the headline,of course.)The story covers polls where voters couldn't vote,and voters who had to pay for parking before even getting a shot at it.LA County is the largest county in the nation,larger than some 2/3s of the states in the country.There are more than enough votes in this county to

Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Super Tuesday. And Wednesday, and Thursday - by Tova Andrea Wang
While much of the media today is already and will focus on the inevitable myriad voting machine malfunctions and the like, the press and those who care about our voting system as a whole should remain mindful that the problems of the election may prove more elusive than our demand for instant information can fulfill.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008
More Details on 'Double Bubble Trouble' in Los Angeles County
Hundreds of Thousands of Non-Partisan Voter Ballots May Not be Counted in California's Open Democratic Primary Election.City Attorney Calls for Review by CA SoS, County Registrar of Voters...It really shouldn't be this hard to vote, to have your vote counted, and to know your vote was counted accurately (an additional problem which we haven't even managed to get to yet on this issue!)

Wednesday, February 6, 2008
FL: Tally Against the Machine
Project Vote Count originated with Mark Adams,a Tampa-area lawyer who established a website to record citizen findings and called on volunteers from other states to participate."Stay tuned," Brodsky says. "It's just the start."Maybe it's the start of a movement to abandon high-priced,glitch-prone electronic hardware in favor of the old reliable way of counting votes:citizens sitting around a table with stacks of paper ballots

Tuesday, February 5, 2008
California: I Know, Let's Make Voting Harder
in LA County,if a DTS voter requests their Democratic ballot and casts their vote,but does NOT mark "Dem" in the appropriate space,the vote will indeed not be counted.The ballot will go through the scan-tron machine,not register as a counted vote,AND will not spit back out for the voter to fix.In LA County,they feed the ballot through the tabulator right in front of the voter, but this error doesn't get caught in all the tests

Tuesday, February 5, 2008
60 Minutes Caves to Pressure from White House on Siegelman Story...
The excuse for this lapse in ethics is that the network needs more time to vet the whistle-blower,Dana Jill Simpson.The reason the network suddenly needs more time to vet Simpson is that the White House has launched a direct campaign inside CBS to discredit her &just to make sure the dirt sticks,they have called in some favors too.I am told that Sen. Jeff Sessions has been instructed to help the White House discredit Simpson

Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Myth that Touch-Screen Voting Machines Mean Faster Election Results Debunked
(1 comments) She reviewed past status reports that were posted to the CA SoS's website on election nights to see how prompt counties were in delivering results after polls closed.The only pattern she found among counties that produced late results was the size of the jurisdiction.Larger counties tended to be slower in producing results.Election officials who claim that results were delivered faster in the past:engaged in revisionism.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008
NJ Governor Delayed Casting Vote as Voting Machines Inoperable in Hoboken
One Unverifiable Touch-Screen Machine Finally Fixed, No Provisional Ballots Available at Polling Place, Voters Turned Away UPDATE: Right on Schedule, Officials Blame Pollworkers for Error | FURTHER UPDATE: Vote Flips from Obama to Clinton Reported in NJ as Well...

Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Voters Face Long Lines in Georgia as Photo ID Laws and Diebold's Crashing E-Pollbook System Slow Process
In Georgia, the combination of the new photo ID restrictions and non-transparent, unverifiable electronic voting systems used --- on which it is physically and scientifically impossible to assure that even a single vote is counted as cast --- guarantees only one thing: that Georgia voters have absolutely no basis for confidence in the election results.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Voter: Paper beats computers
I voted in MA this morning,and can confirm that despite a heavy turnout, paper check-in was quick,lines were short,and I was in and out in less than 15 minutes.I also marked my ballot on paper,to be read by an optical scanner,and I'm quite happy about that.I know that scanners can make mistakes,too.But at least if there's a concern about inaccuracies, a recount is possible.How do you recount on an electronic machine with no

Tuesday, February 5, 2008
U.S. Troops Asked If They Would Shoot American Citizens
(27 comments) Iraq vet exposes how he was trained to round up Americans in martial law exercise, asked if he would kill his own friends and family

Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Yes We Can!
(1 comments) Video of Obama speech intercut with The Yes We Can Song.

Monday, February 4, 2008
CBS Evening News Features the Shameless Rep. Rush Holt, Continuing His Shameless Campaign in Support of Touch-Screen Vot
What he fails to mention is that, should either of his own two federal Election Reform bills be passed into law as currently written, there will still be states around the country where the election results will be in question, and there will still be no way to resolve the question, because he still refuses to include a ban on touch-screen voting machines in either of his two bills.

Monday, February 4, 2008
Your Daily Dose of Daily Kos Diarists in Dangerous Denial...
(3 comments) Clearly the major dKos Denial Diarists don't understand it yet, but someday it will dawn on them that the far better way to ensure voters cease having worries about vote counting, is by removing the reasons for the worries, as opposed to attempting to dismiss and/or vanish the worriers. How do it? By transparency. Not by apology.

Monday, February 4, 2008
SUPER TUESDAY
Lots of charts, graphs and data on Super Tuesday. One factoid: Democrats will choose 12 times as many delegates on that one day as have been chosen thus far. Republicans, 4 times as many.

Monday, February 4, 2008
Ohio: Absentee voting glitch found on county Web site
If you think you applied for a Democratic absentee ballot for the March 4 primary using the Montgomery County Board of Elections online application, look again. An apparent computer glitch causes the box marked "Democrat" to go blank on the application that needs to be printed out and signed to receive an absentee ballot. Applications for Republican ballots are unaffected.

Monday, February 4, 2008
Harry & Louise Again?
Obama mailer on Clinton health care plan lacks context.

Sunday, February 3, 2008
A Vote of No Confidence
Then again, vote-reform advocates respond, consider the stakes. “We’ve reached a point where everyone involved in the process agrees we need change,” says Bernie Ellis. “But at a time we should be celebrating, we’re wondering why anyone would risk another unsecured election in this state. Nobody wants Tennessee in 2008 to be Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004. Our country won’t survive on a bed of cynicism.”

Saturday, February 2, 2008
Republican NH Primary Candidate Demands Secretary of State Allow Unvoted Ballots to be Counted in Ongoing Election Conte
Albert Howard Hand Delivers Letter to SoS Gardner, Reiterates Demand For Reconciliation of All Uncast Ballots ALSO: Diebold Machine Errors Reported in 21 Towns, Democrat John Conyers Calls Howard, Expresses Support...

Saturday, February 2, 2008
Former OH SoS Snubs Congressional Invitation, May be Subpoenaed by U.S. House Judiciary Committee
The snub,according to the following report from Jon Craig at the Cincinnati Enquirer,may lead to an escalation of the longtime standoff between Conyers and Blackwell.A congressional subpoena requiring an appearance by the controversial former SoS,who presided over one of the worst-run Presidential Elections in American history, may well be in the offing.

Saturday, February 2, 2008
GA: ID Law Leaves Some Votes Uncounted
Fewer than half of the ballots cast in November by voters who lacked photo identification were ultimately counted, according to data provided to The Associated Press by the Georgia Secretary of State. That's because most of those who lacked the ID never returned within the allotted time with a valid photo identification, something critics of the law have feared.

Friday, February 1, 2008
Democrats Ask Coffman to Resign
The Colorado Democratic Party on Monday requested Secretary of State Mike Coffman, a Republican, to step down from his office because of an ongoing controversy over the decertification of voting machines and possible conflicts of interest.

Thursday, January 31, 2008
MAYHEM EXPECTED IN CALIFORNIA ON SUPER TUESDAY, ACCORDING TO MEDIA REPORTS!
As we urged in that previous report: For god's sake, please, people, send blankets, water. and other emergency disaster supplies to the people of San Bernardino, and the other residents certain to be affected in these disaster areas, ASAP! 17 hours without instant election results?! Oh, the humanity...

Thursday, January 31, 2008
Battle for Election Integrity 'Fought and Won by Activists' Says LATimes in 2,800-Word, 2-Part Series Which Doesn't Both
After virtually ignoring the issue for some six straight years, our hometown newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, has run a two-part, 2,800-word "series" on concerns about voting machines, right on schedule, just in time to do absolutely no good at all before next week's upcoming Tsunami Tuesday election in the state. Waytago, LATimes!

Thursday, January 31, 2008
Broward County Voters Give 110% in Florida Primary!
Broward used paperless ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting machines last Tuesday.The same machines which apparently lost some 18,000 votes in the razor thin,369-vote margin race between Repub Buchanan and Dem Jennings for the Congressional seat previously occupied by former FL SoS Katherine Harris.In that Nov'06 election,Buchanan was announced the winner in that race,despite the fact, more than a full year later no explanation

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
In Too Many Elections, Voters Remain 'Uncounted,' Miscounted or Denied the Right to Vote, As Filmmaker David Earnhardt S
BuzzFlash wants to commend all those Americans who are working to ensure that every citizen can vote--and that every vote is properly counted.Since the debacle of the FL vote in 2000,there has been a growing movement to ensure voting rights.It involves the unacceptable role of proprietary electronic voting machines (owned in large part by Republican affiliated corporations);the suppression of voting rights (think "Jim Crow")

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Connecticut: Bysiewicz Prepared To Eliminate Manual Recounts
Last spring,advocates pointed out many flaws in the proposed election law. Among those were the lack of an independent auditor,the exemption from the audit of districts where any race is contested or is recounted, and the lack of a requirement in the law for manual recounts.We were assured by the SoS’s Office that such a law was unnecessary because they would use regulations and procedures to make those recounts manual.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
RUSH LIMBAUGH ENCOUNTERS TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING FAILURE IN PALM BEACH, FL
Though FL's Repub gov. and legislature have voted to finally trash the touch-screens,and move to all paper ballots,today's Primary still uses the old touch-screens in many counties. Elsewhere,problems are occurring--yet again--with the paper-based Diebold op-scan systems in the Sunshine State. The same machines used in NH,and the same ones seen being hacked in HBO's Hacking Democracy are reportedly failing in several locations

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
BuzzFlash Interview with 'Uncounted' Filmmaker, David Earnhardt
PLUS: Why Machine-Printed Ballots and So-Called 'Paper Trails' are ALWAYS a No-Go if You Wish to Have Verifiable Elections...

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas Attacks Election Integrity, Irresponsibly, Yet Again
With "friends" like Daily Kos,Dems may not need Republicans to help them lose this year.Once again,the namesake of the largest supposedly-Progressive blogsite in the world,misleads his readers,confuses issues of Election Integrity with unmade allegations of "conspiracy theories",and otherwise makes all-new extraordinary claims which are wholly unsupported by any evidence,extraordinary or otherwise.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Diebold Issues 'Product Advisory' in Florida About Malfunctions with Optical-Scan Voting Systems
Same Model Used in New Hampshire and Hacked in HBO Documentary, as Other Reported Voting System Problems Crop Up Around the Sunshine State During Today's Primary Election...

Monday, January 28, 2008
Republican Candidate Calls for 'Tightening Up' of New Hampshire Election Contest Hand Count Procedures
Republican New Hampshire primary candidate, Albert Howard, whose election contest hand count is currently ongoing in Concord, once again demonstrates how to call for a legitimate and reconcilable "recount".

Monday, January 28, 2008
Senators say White House plans to eliminate special FOIA office
(2 comments) Less than a month after Bush signed legislation overhauling the Freedom of Information Act,the measure's main Senate backers are accusing the White House of planning to scuttle a special FOIA office in violation of the law."Such a move is not only contrary to the express intent of the Congress,but it is also contrary to the very purpose of this legislation,to ensure the timely and fair resolution of Americans' FOIA requests."

Sunday, January 27, 2008
Going Old School
And it’s not that electronic voting is going to go away, but what’s wrong with giving voters a choice of how they want to vote — by paper, by machine or by mail-in. If it gets people involved in the process, it doesn’t matter which method they prefer.

Sunday, January 27, 2008
COLLATERAL TV: New Hampshire & E-Voting 101
By way of happy coincidence, we had mocked up the above item on Friday night for prep to run later, and then showed up to speak Saturday morning at the independent media conference here in Santa Cruz where a guy who looked very similar to the video above was making a few announcements from the podium. Turns out it was the same guy, Bryan Sacks of Philadelphia, and he was one of the organizers of the conference. Small world.

Sunday, January 27, 2008
ES&S Misleads Its Customers In Massachusetts
It's amazing that ES&S is clearly misstating the facts and accusing the federal Election Assistance Commission of making mandates that will cost these Massachusetts communities hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sunday, January 27, 2008
At Florida Polls, Touch Screens and Crossed Fingers
(1 comments) Florida legislators voted essentially to ban them earlier this year, after confusion in a 2006 congressional contest in Sarasota wound up in court. But the next set of machines will not be ready until the general election in November, forcing election officials to press the controversial machines back into use one more time.

Sunday, January 27, 2008
Dramatic Voices of Dissent: Celebrities Film Zinn's 'The People Speak'
The four sessions garnered a momentum that culminated in a prolonged, celebratory standing ovation at the end of the last shoot,audience and cast alike savoring the rare experience of being in a theater full of like-minded progressives.

Friday, January 25, 2008
NH Secretary of State Calls For Temporary Halt in Republican Hand Count, Candidate Albert Howard Objects
Albert Howard's letter to NH SoS Gardner: The nation is in the early stages of the 2008 Presidential electoral process. The performance of the machines used in New Hampshire is of vital importance. The sooner the results are known and available to the People and to other units of government charged with conducting Primaries and General Elections, the better for the nation.

Friday, January 25, 2008
NH VIDEO: 'Shame of Custody' - Breakdown in Ballot Storage Procedures in New Hampshire Primary 'Recount'
SoS Refuses to Given Reason for Failing to Secure Ballots in Vault; Counting Room With Ballots Sealed Only by Removable 'Post-It Note' as 'Security Seal'...

Thursday, January 24, 2008
EXCLUSIVE: Kucinich Letter Cites Miscounts in NH, Requests State Carry Out 'Complete and Accurate Recount of All Ballots
Democratic Presidential Candidate Details 'Significant Percentage Variances,' from 4 to 10%, Discovered So Far During Hand Counts as Paid for by His Campaign. SoS Downplays Mistallies After One County Counted: No Changes 'As Far as Where the Candidates Finished'...

Thursday, January 24, 2008
LOU DOBBS VIDEO: SC Set to Use Bad Voting Machines Again Saturday, CO Finally Getting a Clue...
References to"paperless voting machines",implies that machines with "paper trails" are somehow a solution. They are not.Only paper ballots are a solution.This is something that even Holt's latest "Emergency Bill" doesn't seem to understand,incredibly enough.That bill would give money to move to jurisdictions to move to paper ballots,but only if they use "paperless" DREs.Let's be careful what we wish for and/or report on,guys!

Thursday, January 24, 2008
New Hampshire Sec. of State Appears to Lie to Media About Kucinich Hand Count
(1 comments) The people of NH deserve an explanation for this kind of dishonest,deceptive behavior from their Sec. of State.As if the previous spin from his office--sucked up and repeated by the majority of the corporate mainstream media,too lazy, apparently,to examine the evidence for themselves -that "all is well" and no problems were found during the hand counts,hasn't already been outrageous enough.

Thursday, January 24, 2008
Democrat Kucinich quits White House race
(14 comments) During his time in Congress,Kucinich has been one of the most outspoken liberals, opposing international trade agreements like the North America Free Trade Agreement and marching with protesters in Seattle during a meeting of the World Trade Organization.As a presidential candidate,he has proposed a Department of Peace,backed universal health care and supported gay marriage.He also pushed for impeachment of VP Cheney.

Thursday, January 24, 2008
New Hampshire: Primary vote recount and impeachment
(1 comments) Betty Hall is a 14-term New Hampshire state representative for Hillsborough District 05. She had introduced an impeachment resolution in the NH state legislature in June 2007 and has now introduced it, again, in the NH state legislature January 2008. Betty was also involved in the NH Democratic Primary vote recount (as requested by Dennis Kucinich). Betty is 93 years old.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
LA Republican Caucus: Other Candidates Gang Up to Defeat Frontrunner Ron Paul
(2 comments) It appears that Ron Paul supporters outnumbered the supporters of any of his opponents. But since this was predicted, the supporters of Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, cooperated to set up a “fusion” slate of unpledged candidates for Delegate. The “fusion” slate, labeled the “Pro-Life/Pro-Family” slate, beat the Ron Paul slate in each of the 7 U.S. House districts.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
'Funds Ran Out': Kucinich Hand Count Stops in NH; Republican Albert Howard's NH Hand Count Set to Begin Thursday
(2 comments) after only a single county,and not even fully at that.Given the many miscounts being discovered,the horrendous shape of NH's "chain of custody",the refusal of the SoS to allow for the counting/reconciliation of unvoted (blank)ballots,the Diebold memory cards which seem to be misplaced and/or destroyed since the election(in violation of federal law),it would be disappointing,at best,if DK failed to finish what he began.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
(Butch & Hoppy) + Post-It Notes = NH's Chain of Custody
"I was talking about what was going on inside of the four square walls of the counting room,"Krasner told us,before detailing Gardner's refusal to allow for the counting of unvoted ballots. "We requested that unvoted ballots be counted,but they're not being counted," he said. He reports that SoS Gardner's explanation for disallowing the proper reconciliation of ballots during the hand count was ...

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Forget About Privacy with Absentee/Vote-by-Mail Ballots in Riverside County, CA
Riverside Co.,CA-under the continuingly incompetent direction of Registrar of Voters Barbara Dunmore, and the extraordinary delinquency of its County Board of Supervisors- continues its never-ending fight to be named top dog as the Worst Place to Vote in US.There's a lot of competition out there for that title,but the county performed above and beyond the call of duty over the past several years in that race,and in its quest..

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
NH Recount Uncovers Discrepancies -- Result of Human Error Officials Say
we're able to get to the bottom of NH's tallies only because the state uses machines that provide a paper trail that can be hand counted to determine the voter's intent and that serve as an auditing mechanism by which to check the accuracy of the machine totals.This is why voting activists want all voting machines to provide paper trails and why they want states to be forced to conduct mandatory manual recounts of a certain %

Sunday, January 20, 2008
From the frying pan into the fire? Kenya to adopt electronic voting?
Apparently, Kenya is considering switching to electronic voting. Besides mischaracterizing the 2000 election (not unusual if writer based piece on info from our MSM),the piece does not indicate the train wreck we have seen unfolding here from same DREs and their troubled cousins,the optical scan machines.Santayana's remark about those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it is echoing in my head about now.

Sunday, January 20, 2008
Nashville laptop theft may cost $1 million
"It is a very bad information-handling practice to keep sensitive information about individuals including their Social Security numbers on an unencrypted laptop or any other device that is removable," said Paul Stephens director of policy and advocacy with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a privacy advocacy group that hastrackedthe exposure of 217 million records in the U.S. over the past three year

Sunday, January 20, 2008
McCain wins South Carolina; Clinton, Romney take Nevada
But Huckabee's poor statewide showing with non-evangelicals — he got only 12 percent — raised the question of whether his quest for the nomination is in trouble, since to succeed nationally he must show greater strength than merely his evangelical base.

Sunday, January 20, 2008
Sour Grapes Voting Machine Conspiracy Theories in South Carolina...
Oh,wait,the complainant was a Republican,not a Democrat.& he,John McCain,didn't lose,he won,in SC where,CNN reported yesterday,the touch-screen voting machines in 100% of the precincts in Horry County failed to boot up and weren't available for voters to use until noon.Other than that,everything is going very well,& anybody who says otherwise is unnecessarily crying wolf & causing a dangerous lack of confidence in our election

Saturday, January 19, 2008
E-Voting Train Wreck 2008: The Horry County, SC Disaster
While county officials are minimizing the impact of the meltdown by telling the media that no one was sent home without voting and there were paper ballots available,the voters were telling a different story:In an email to News13,Steve Rabe wrote,“This is not true.Everyone is being turned away. There are no paper ballots.We were just turned away along with many of our neighbors.We were told the only place we could vote was..

Thursday, January 17, 2008
PBS NEWSHOUR VIDEO: California Voting Machine Security Concerns
Some Election Officials Voice Concern That Recent Changes Restricting Use Of Some Voting Machines Jeopardizes Integrity Of Elections But Secretary Of State Debra Bowen Defends Actions By Calling Voting Machines 'A Major Threat To Democracy'

Thursday, January 17, 2008
GOP Figure Contracted to Deliver E-Voting Machines in Maryland
(1 comments) "What concerns us the most is that there is a chain-of-custody issue here. 20,000 voting units leave the custody of Board of Elections officials,and they are placed in the hands of a third-party private company responsible,not to the state Board of Elections, but to the vendor,"Mary Kiraly says."How was this company chosen, and who vetted the employees who handle and deliver these vulnerable voting units?"

Thursday, January 17, 2008
Kos Readers Reject Daily Kos Founder, Front-Page Diarists, According to Online Reader Poll
(2 comments) You'll recall that previously,with no "extraordinary evidence"for the "extraordinary claim"that Hillary Clinton won the NH Primary(maybe she did, maybe she didn't, 80% of the ballots were never counted or verified by anybody, so who knows?),Kos and his designated lead authors threatened readers with permanent banishment for discussing the serious concerns about "faith-based" elections,like the one in NH last week.

Thursday, January 17, 2008
'No Problems' in NH Hand Count Says Local Media (Who Apparently Didn't Bother to Check First with Anybody but the SoS)
(1 comments) Check the numbers for yourself.Yeah, it's technical true that"a lot of the votes were exactly the same,"as Gardner says.But many more vote counts were not at all the same,ranging anywhere from 5-8 votes off in regular cases,across almost all candidates.we'll remind you that in 2004, had just 6 votes per precinct been registered in Ohio for Kerry instead of Bush,we'd have a different person sitting in the White House right now.

Thursday, January 17, 2008
Huge New Diebold Disparities Found in Manchester, Ward 5 During NH Hand Counts
Scores of Votes Mistallied for Every Democratic Candidate...As mentioned last night, in this disturbing article, the early results of the hand counts of the Diebold precinct in Dennis Kucinich's election contest in New Hampshire are now being posted, as they come in, at this New Hampshire SoS page.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008
NH CONTEST: DIEBOLD MISCOUNTS REPORTED ACROSS MANY CANDIDATES, WARDS, IN FIRST DAY OF ELECTION CONTEST HAND COUNTS
(4 comments) The sensitive memory cards containing the programming and tabulation from the Diebold optical-scanners are apparently "missing in action" for the moment.Those cards,as viewers of HBO's Hacking Democracy know by now, may be used to hack an election,such that only a proper hand-count of the paper ballots afterwards will reveal the hack.The same exact machine being hacked in NH in last week's primary.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Exit Polls
Why should we care about exit poll results?When properly conducted,exit polls should predict election results with a high degree of reliability. The United States has funded exit polls in Eastern Europe to detect fraud. Discrepancies between exit polls and the official vote count have been used to successfully overturn election results in Ukraine, Serbia, and Georgia.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Paypal Freezes New Hampshire Recount Funds
"The problem was not with the SoS for NH,it was with PayPal.I understand that the matter may remain unresolved and a recount may still be possible.I am hoping for additional information early Wednesday,January 16th."However, The strict 3pm deadline for funds to be transferred imposed by SoS Gardner doesn't seem to be in accordance with the law,as Dennis Kucinich's Attorney Manny Krasner pointed out,only a written guarantee...

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
'Send Lawyers, Peace and Money': New Hampshire Election Contests Get Technical, Testy Before They Even Begin
"Having been at the Hursti Hack"-(Finnish computer security expert,Harri Hursti who devised the successful scheme to flip the votes, and is also seen in the film)-"and having witnessed first hand the vulnerability of the Diebold memory cards and machines,it's very disturbing to me that these systems are still in use and that in NH,there have been,apparently,no precautions taken to even try to mitigate those vulnerabilities."

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Save the National Mall: Government attempting to restrict use of National Mall
(2 comments) It is urgent that people around the country take action to stop the plan of the Bush Administration's Interior Department to obstruct free speech rights for mass assembly protest in Washington, D.C. The Bush White House plans to complete this process and deliver a knockout punch to free speech rights by January 20, 2009, the very last day that Bush will remain office.

Monday, January 14, 2008
European press: It wasn't a miracle - Hillary won via a rigged vote
(1 comments) The mainstream Italian media are reporting both the rigging of the New Hampshire primary for Senator Hillary Clinton and the official demands for a swift, accurate and impartial recount. In an article written by Marcello Foa, one of Europe's most respected journalists, it appears that vote tallies for all Democratic candidates as well as Republicans were reduced by Diebold vote-counting machines.

Sunday, January 13, 2008
The REAL Question (for now) About New Hampshire
I believe we all deserve to know if the results, as reported, were accurate beyond a shadow of a doubt. That is the sensible and responsible question for the moment. And anybody who offers you reasons for why Clinton won (perhaps she did, we cannot know for sure at this time) or why Obama lost (perhaps he did, we cannot know for sure at this time) is doing nothing but irresponsibly speculating.

Saturday, January 12, 2008
YouTube: REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER: Election Fraud Roundtable
(1 comments) Roundtable with former White House spokesperson Tony Snow, former judge Catherine Crier, Mark Cuban of HDNet and Bill Maher discuss election fraud. Worth four minutes of your time.

Friday, January 11, 2008
The Voter ID Fraud
The more restrictive the law,the greater the likelihood that it will tip a close election by turning away legal voters-mostly the poor, minorities & the elderly.It's not a coincidence that these voters tend to vote Democratic.In fact,the State of IN,in its filings with Supreme Court,admits that the litigation represents "politics by other means."This flippant attitude toward the right to vote permeates the state's argument

Friday, January 11, 2008
Rules finalized for national ID
Homeland Security has spent years crafting regulations for the Real ID Act,a law designed to make it harder for terrorists,illegal immigrants & con artists to get government-issued identification.Even with more time and technical advances, Real ID still faces stiff opposition from civil liberties groups.To address some of those concerns,the government now plans to phase in a secure-ID initiative that Congress passed into law..

Thursday, January 10, 2008
7 Point Swing for Clinton Over Obama in NH's Diebold Precincts
Analaysis Shows Candidates 'Positions Swapped' Where Ballots Counted by Hand Versus 'Counted' by Machine...

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Chris Matthews: Raw EXIT POLL Data 'Indicated Significant Victory' for Obama in NH
(2 comments) Even the Exit Polls showed that Obama should have won,according to Matthews on Hardball today:the raw,unadjusted Exit Poll data,which only corporate mainstream media folks, not mere mortals,are allowed to see.But until we realize we need to actually count ballots-openly & transparently-in our American elections,we expect these same questions & nightmares to continue over and over and over, for a very long time to come...

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Bloggers form theory that New Hampshire vote was rigged
The buzz grew all day Wednesday as bloggers across the nation keyed into the fact that 81 percent of New Hampshire votes were being counted on machines that an HBO documentary alleged are easily hacked. It also didn't hurt that New Hampshire was the site of a recount after allegations of fraud in 2004, spotlighted in the much-praised documentary.

Thursday, January 10, 2008
KUCINICH CALLS FOR A HAND COUNT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE BALLOTS
“Ever since the 2000 election – and even before – the American people have been losing faith in the belief that their votes were actually counted. This recount isn’t about who won 39% of 36% or even 1%. It’s about establishing whether 100% of the voters had 100% of their votes counted exactly the way they cast them.”

Wednesday, January 9, 2008
NH Primary: Pre-Election Polls Wildly Different Than Results Announced for Clinton/Obama
(2 comments) As we know,the presumption is always that the polls were wrong.Never the results.Despite how much less transparent the system used to count votes is than the system used to collect polling data.With that in mind,Mat