Winter Blue

Happy Valentine's Day: 3-Part Motet: Black is 2/4, Red 3/4

A Clearing

"As Bad As the Nazi's?"-WSJ circa 2005

About six years ago in 2005, the WSJ was jokingly defending itself against the charge that their opinion page was "as bad as the Nazis." And it was incredibly odd to see this super-intelligent and extremely ELITE paper try to defend eight years of Bush the 43rd.

Kudos to Cheney though for espousing gun control. He's never been afraid to say anything unpopular and "if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need." I will
stop singing, "Cheney's got a gun," when I hear Aerosmith's prescient, "Janie's Got a Gun."
...Or will I? Amazing tales from CPAC last week.

But I wrote in 2005 that "Nazis" was setting the bar pretty low. Neatly edited down, too!

Blogger told me I was out of space, so I erased that early post. But I regret it, now.

Daily Show 1/24/11, Wyatt Cenac: Life in Mississippi Better As a Bird

Al Sharpton is featured in this segment, where Turkey Creek, MS would've been wiped off the map, had it not been for the Audubon Society swooping in to preserve it for birds. Founded by freed slaves, this city had a cemetery paved over for buildings, a driveway and a parking lot.
Last but not least: A ton of pollution had already dumped here, including Agent Orange.
Please click on the title to see the link to the segment. You may also see links to other segments from that day, equally hard-hitting, yet with good humor.

Sun low in sky after a snow storm

A Look at Which Party Increased the Debt Most Between 1975 and 2006

The photo below is a little small(sorry) so you'll have to go by red vs. blue, unless you can enlarge the graph. Passed on to me by an environmentalist. Please click on photo to enlarge!

Tell Me That It Isn't True! Krugman on Things to Come

Everybody please click on the title for Paul Krugman's New Year's Eve predictions.
Have a Happy!

End of Year 2010 Tax Bill

I'm sorry I haven't commented on this yet. Probably the least obvious issue I've seen in a while. While some could be forgiven for thinking I might be a Krugman or Dean
ditto-head, I find myself confused as I'm no longer sure I can agree.

Here's what we think: Yes this bill is a bad compromise, but the Democrats
in Congress should not have waited to let things get to this point, where the GOP
can let the clock run out(year's almost over), and apparently couldn't care less
whether some folks die without their unemployment assistance. Bloomberg Businessweek even wrote that unemployment benefits are good for the economy.

So yes, Paul, this is kick the can, but we are in a national crisis with
unemployment benefits running out. So we're for passing the bill.

Another Rant opposing someone or something in the WSJ

Readers, It's true that the WSJ has some facts that are important, as long as you avoid
the editorial page. Nevertheless, I sometimes come across it. I know. Why do I keep
letting them pull me in, like this?

1:53 pm September 16, 2010

Wow! How do Republicans like Hirschman keep a straight face when they say hypocritical things like this, i.e., that Elizabeth Warren's appointment, to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, lacked transparency?

By which I mean that the value of transparency he appeals to is precisely what he wishes to stamp out, in opposing her. Obviously Obama thought she was best qualified and knows that the GOP will not allow it. Please excuse the Preident for presiding. Too bad he didn’t he didn’t figure this stuff out sooner or he might have ended the Recession sooner than later, or if the Tea Party wins, never.

Bev Harris Found Fraud in Tennessee vote

Please click on the title for some of Bev Harris' latest findings.
She os the tireless researching grandmother and hero.

A county actually admitted that they installed an invalid voting list into a computer.
Then a lot of people couldn't have their votes counted because the machine said
they already voted.

Good work, Ms. Harris!

The Question is will he?

Washington Wire(wsj) today said some negative things about Obama, as part of a post, "Obama rushes in to save the Democrats".
While I no longer wish to react to wsj daily any more, here it is:

"Maturity is in short supply these days and things are bad. But Obama has been trying to ameliorate them and has had resounding successes he needs to play up more. If you are not ultra-wealthy, the GOP is not on your side. Period. They have more money and will buy TV ads telling you what to think; but if you believe it, then things could get worse than if there actually were an acpocalypse. I'm not sure why the GOP thinks you can have this much inome disparity without serious unrest in the greater population. Look at that riot over housing in Atlanta. Don't you think there are more in the offing?"

-The Long view, big picture, etc.

The latest on ES&S and Premier, the election division unloaded by Diebold

Hello!

From the intrepid Bev Harris at BlackBoxVoting.org:

http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/8/80916.html

DOJ Trust-Bust Blocked

It gets ever more complicated and it's a mess.

Mysterious Death of a Whistle Blower

Google just decided to remind me I have this blog.
Hello! I already have two blogs but the new features here at Blogger look great!
Be that all as it may, I would at least like to update the "latest" post.

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman wrote this article
(please copy click on the link below) on December 20, 2008.

The Suspicious, Disturbing Death of Election Rigger Michael Connell


This is a fascinating and surprising tale of a whistle blower
who had participated in vote-fraud with the Bush-Cheney campaign of 2004.

It's the kind of thing that gives me chills,
because much as I disapprove of that administration,
I really don't want to believe such things could have happened in this country.

Nevertheless, Fitrakis and Wasserman suspect this plane crash might have
resulted from foul play.

This article is a year and a half old but still grabs me.

Ohio planning thorough battery of vote-fraud again

And by the way NY State doesn't look to be in great shape either, despite Bo Lipari's constant vigil.

Click on the title to see the article by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman on FreePress.org

Sept. 9, '08

Bo Lipari's New Blog on Vote-Fraud

Go Lipari!

NYS Supreme Court Overrules Board of Elections to Force in DRE's!

This blog of Bo Lipari's is new to me. I would definitely watch his blog on nyvv.org!
The comments are helpful, too!

Bo Lipari Fights for Fair Voting in NY State

I have left this blog kind of dormant, but Bo Lipari, also on blogger.com,
carries on with the breaking news here.

Emails Detail RNC Voter Suppression in Five States

Emails Detail RNC Voter Suppression in Five States
By Jason Leopold and Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 26 July 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072607A.shtml


Truthout has obtained previously undisclosed GOP campaign emails from the 2004 presidential race that reveal and detail strategies to disenfranchise voters in crucial swing states.
(Photo: Truthout)

Previously undisclosed documents detail how Republican operatives, with the knowledge of several White House officials, engaged in an illegal, racially-motivated effort to suppress tens of thousands of votes during the 2004 presidential campaign in a state where George W. Bush was trailing his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry.
The documents also contain details describing how Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign officials, and at least one individual who worked for White House political adviser Karl Rove, planned to stop minorities residing in Cuyahoga County from voting on election day.
The efforts to purge voters from registration rolls was spearheaded by Tim Griffin, a former Republican National Committee opposition researcher. Griffin recently resigned from his post as interim US attorney for Little Rock Arkansas. His predecessor, Bud Cummins, was forced out to make way for Griffin.
Another set of documents, 43 pages of emails, provided to Truthout by the PBS news program "NOW," contains blueprints for a massive effort undertaken by RNC operatives in 2004, to challenge the eligibility of voters expected to support Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in states such as Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and Pennsylvania.
One email, dated September 30, 2004, and sent to a dozen or so staffers on the Bush-Cheney campaign and the RNC, under the subject line "voter fraud strategy conference call," describes how campaign staffers planned to challenge the veracity of votes in a handful of battleground states in the event of a Democratic victory.
Furthermore, the emails show the Bush-Cheney campaign and RNC staffers compiled voter-challenge lists that targeted probable Democratic voters in at least five states: New Mexico, Ohio, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Voting rights lawyers have made allegations of so called "vote caging," against Republicans previously. These emails provide more evidence. One Republican operative involved in the planning wrote "we can do this in NV, FL, PA and NM because we have a list to run against the Absentee Ballot requests, and should."
Vote caging is an illegal tactic to suppress minorities from voting by having their names purged from voter rolls when they fail to respond to registered mail sent to their homes. The Republican National Committee signed a consent decree in 1986 stating they would not engage in the practice after they were caught suppressing votes in 1981 and 1986.
In a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) said "[c]aging is a reprehensible voter suppression tactic, and it may also violate federal law and the terms of applicable judicially enforceable consent decrees." Senators Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) and Whitehouse have called for a Justice Department probe into the practice.
One of the individuals connected to the White House who was the recipient of dozens of emails discussing the strategy to suppress votes was Coddy Johnson, the national field director of Bush's 2004 campaign and former associate director of political affairs, working under Karl Rove. Johnson's father was Bush's college roommate at Yale. Another person who was asked to participate in the so-called "voter fraud strategy" conference call was Jennifer Millerwise, a former deputy communications director for the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election campaign and a former spokesperson for Vice President Cheney. Millerwise was interviewed by Patrick Fitzgerald during the federal investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.
Other participants for the conference call included Mark "Thor" Hearne. Hearne is closely aligned with Karl Rove and the RNC and has been accused of pushing for the firings of some US attorneys by at least one of the fired attorneys. Some of the attorneys believe they were fired based on their refusal to prosecute alleged cases of voter fraud.
Emails among Ohio Republican Party official Michael Magan, Coddy Johnson, then national field director of the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, and Timothy Griffin, reveal the men were given documents that could be used as evidence to justify widespread voter challenges if the Bush campaign needed to contest the election results. Johnson referred to the documents as a "goldmine".
The valuable documents were lists of registered voters who did not return address confirmation forms to the Ohio Board of Elections. The Republican operatives compared this list with lists of voters who requested absentee ballots. In the opinion of one of the strategists, the fact that many names appeared on both lists was evidence of voter fraud. "A bad registration card can be an accident or fraud. A bad card AND an Absentee Ballot request is a clear case of fraud," according to former Bush-Cheney campaign staffer Robert Paduchik.
Another Republican operative saw the value of the Ohio list from a media strategy perspective. According to the emails, Christopher McInerney, a RNC researcher said "... I have already tasked our IT [information technology] person with creating a match list between the Board of Elections return mail list and the Absentee Ballot request list. Jack [Christopher] thought this would be a good idea to have - to reference as part of the larger DenHerder press strategy." It is not known what the "DenHerder press strategy" refers to, but Dave DenHerder served as regional political director for the 2004 Bush campaign.
McInerney's email continues, "I can't speak to other states, but if they don't have flagged voter rolls, we run the risk of having GOP fingerprints."
Strategist Christopher Guith responded by saying "I would think we are less worried about "fingerprints" if we have decent evidence that fraudulent ballots are being cast. I think the intent is to take the Board of Elections' list and challenge absentee ballots? At that point, isn't it more important to stop absentee ballots that we have a high certainty of fraud than avoid the hit?"
McInerney's and Guith's emails have been previously disclosed.
Griffin responded, "I guess we have to make sure we have bodies. It seems like it always comes down to bodies. Why don't you ask your peeps in each state at issue if they have the resources to do this. Then, I might/can put some resources in the states that are lacking."
The emails seem to show the Republican operatives were preparing for a confrontation reminiscent of the Florida recount affair that followed the 2000 Presidential election. This exchange took place less than one month prior to the November 2004 election.
The list of questionable voters that was compiled by the Ohio Board of Elections was quite similar to the vote caging lists used by the Republican campaigners. The Board of Elections sent out voter confirmation letters to targeted registered voters. The letters required the voter to return a confirmation request or have their name removed from the voter rolls. Because the confirmation letter gave the voter 60 days to respond, a voter who failed to respond to the confirmation request would still be on the voter rolls for the primary election, but would be purged prior to the general election.
The list was apparently checked by two people identified only as "Ted" and "Evan who" made handwritten notes in one of the columns. According to their notes, they described certain parts of Cleveland where low-income and minority voters were targeted as containing "mixed use buildings" and "single family apartments." Another section said, "looks like a parking lot ... doesn't look residential."
In an interview with Truthout in May, David Iglesias, the former US attorney for New Mexico, said Pat Rogers, one of Hearne's colleagues, alleged there was widespread voter fraud in New Mexico and pressured Iglesias to bring criminal charges against some individuals. Iglesias said he had investigated those allegations tirelessly and found zero evidence to back it up. He added that, based on evidence that had surfaced thus far and "Karl Rove's obsession with voter fraud issues throughout the country," he now believes GOP operatives had wanted him to go after Democratic-funded organizations in an attempt to swing the 2006 midterm elections to Republicans.


Jason Leopold is a former Los Angeles bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswire. He has written over 2,000 stories on the California energy crisis and received the Dow Jones Journalist of the Year Award in 2001 for his coverage on the issue as well as a Project Censored award in 2004. Leopold also reported extensively on Enron's downfall and was the first journalist to land an interview with former Enron president Jeffrey Skilling following Enron's bankruptcy filing in December 2001. Leopold has appeared on CNBC and National Public Radio as an expert on energy policy and has also been the keynote speaker at more than two dozen energy industry conferences around the country.

Matt Renner is a reporter for Truthout.
--

First two convictions in vote-fraud!

Ohio poll workers convicted
From the Associated Press

January 25, 2007

CLEVELAND ? Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio's most populous county.

Jacqueline Maiden, elections coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct by an elections employee. They also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure to perform their duty as elections employees.

Prosecutors accused Maiden and Dreamer of secretly reviewing preselected ballots before a public recount on Dec. 16, 2004. They worked behind closed doors for three days to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand, prosecutors said.

Ohio gave President Bush the electoral votes he needed to defeat Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry in the close election and hold on to the White House in 2004.
Maiden and Dreamer will be sentenced Feb. 26.

--