Update January 2012

Things I KNOW at this moment, as we enter this 2012 election year:

1.  I KNOW that the Citizens United Supreme Court decision must be stopped, whether it is by overturning or a Constitutional Amendment.  (See Senator Bernie Sanders site.)

2.  I KNOW that ALEC, the group exposed in 2011 that coordinates the writing of state laws to support business interests over the interests of citizens, must be further revealed constantly for its anti-democratic, anti-American work.

3.  I KNOW that natural gas fracking and its waste-water injecting are directly connected to the rise in earthquakes, especially in areas that have never had serious earthquakes, and that the industry is big and powerful and doesn't want us to realize this.

4.  I KNOW that the Republicans are attacking Barack Obama for the national debt, unemployment, overspending -- the whole economic problem in the U.S. -- and that is NOT HIS DOING.  He was not just stuck with an outrageous mess left by the Bush administration -- he (or whatever Democrat was sure to follow) was SET UP TO FAIL.  The policies of the Bush administration were designed to crash the government -- to destroy revenue, spend trillions on wars that were not included in the budget, defund and dismantle agencies that should have been protecting Americans, replace scientists with lobbyists.

5.  I KNOW that the actual failures of Barack Obama, the ones that have cost him the support of many who believed he would bring progressive change, are based on an election system that is funded by big money, which means ANYONE who gets elected is in debt to corporate interests.   See the movie The Candidate.

6.  I KNOW that electronic voting machines are not accurate and that we must return to paper ballots.

7.  I KNOW that increased protections against "voter fraud" are the result of Republican operatives looking for any way to decrease the number of Democrats voting.

8.  I KNOW that most of those who try to claim moral superiority and push anti-abortion policies repeatedly demonstrate that they are NOT "pro-life" after the children are born, by defunding programs that support the health and education of these children and their parents.

9.  I KNOW that the Neoconservatives who continue to create Republican policies are working with a philosophy that encourages lying to the public, creating ultimate enemies and dire conflicts, building a self-righteousness drenched in religion and patriotism -- all to distract and make money, to keep the masses manageable.

10.  I KNOW that the more we seek to know the truth, and to share it, the more we can create the communities, the country, the world we believe supports humanity.

That's what's on my mind, today.

********


P.S.  Sorry, but I'm not providing links.  Google away.

P.P.S.  I do recommend Brad Friedman, Greg Palast, Seymour Hersh, Mark Crispin Miller, and Bill Moyers, as sources of information, for starters.

Block the Vote by Bobby Kennedy, Jr. & Greg Palast

Questions for The Diane Rehm Show News Roundup, Friday October 17, 2008

Questions for The Diane Rehm Show, News Roundup, October 17, 2008

[Posted, for the first time, at www.opednews.com]

I've begun to post the questions I send, separately, in each Friday morning to the most listened-to NPR talk show. Feel free to offer some version of these same questions/comments to other broadcasters and journalists:

1. Yesterday on your show analyzing the debate, no one seemed to know what NPR's economy reporter, Chris Arnold, had just stated on Morning Edition in a segment called "Double-Checking Candidates' Claims in Last Debate". Mr. Arnold first acknowledged that if Joe the Plumber earned $250,000, ABOVE AND BEYOND his expenses and supplies, then "yes, under Obama's plan his taxes would go up."

Then he continued, "But, again, that implication that that represents middle income people is misleading. MIDDLE INCOME AMERICANS WOULD GET THREE TIMES THE INCOME TAX BREAK UNDER OBAMA THAT THEY WOULD GET UNDER MCCAIN."

These days, with excellent fact-checking websites quick responses, shouldn't analysts be discussing the accuracy of tactical accusations?

2. I am deeply concerned about the national focus on voter registration fraud or voter fraud. It is not a threat. Major studies have shown that deliberate fraud is extremely rare, and when it happens, it is even more rare for it to result in any fraudulent votes being cast.

In response to the insignificant nuisance of voter fraud, the Republican Congress passed a law ordering states to verify their voter registration lists. Now we find that in key battleground states, the Republican party is particularly aggressive about widespread purging of the lists and challenging new voters, which is highly intimidating and will be enormously time-consuming and labor-intensive on election day.

Have we already forgotten that the ugly reason behind the U.S. Attorney firings was often Republican anger at their failure to prosecute voter fraud cases just prior to the 2006 election?

Are Americans going to be fooled again by Rovian trickery?

3. Isn't purging voter registration lists to prevent voter fraud akin to treating a cold with chemotherapy?

4. To set the record straight, ACORN is a very legitimate organization, a decades-old advocate for the generally disenfranchised low-to-middle income often-minority population. Its work is irritating the McCain campaign because it is so successful in registering low and middle income voters, and these people are less likely to vote Republican. They have a very large workforce and some employees have been problems, but they are fully cooperative with election officials in finding bad apples and reporting problems. When they are accused of turning in fraudulent registrations, it should be noted that they are required by law to turn in all the registrations they collect, and in most cases, they are already flagged as fraudulent.

What good would it possibly do for ACORN to destroy their own voter registration drive?

Busting the Fraud of Voter Fraud

When we see or hear reporting on the non-issue of Voter Fraud, we must call it what it is -- AN EXCUSE FOR VOTE SUPPRESSION



In response to the September 21 NPR Morning Edition Sunday's Report on Voter Fraud in Wisconsin:

YOU NEED TO KNOW:

There is a major difference between Election Fraud and Voter Fraud.

Election Fraud is a broad term for the manipulation of election results--away from the choice of the majority of eligible voters.

Voter Fraud is the term for voting and/or registering to vote by people ineligible to vote, such as non-citizens, non-residents, those with fictional identification, and, in some states, felons.

Election Fraud can alter the vote tally by tens of thousands of votes, and when carefully targeted, can alter the results of the Presidential Election and the control of Congress.

Voter Fraud is extremely rare, and has little or no effect on results.

Election Fraud is accomplished by:

1. Altering votes

2. Not counting votes

3. Limiting votes

Voter Fraud has been an excuse to enact election laws and encourage policies which accomplish #3 on the previous list, "limiting votes", particularly in low-income and urban areas, which tend to vote Democratic.

Voter Fraud was only raised as an issue after the 2004 election to distract from the multiple instances of Election Fraud investigated and documented in the January 6, 2005 report based on the Field Hearings held by the Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee during December 2004 in Ohio, entitled "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio". This report became part of the Congressional Record that same day in January when the late Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, backed by Senator Barbara Boxer, stood up to Vice President Cheney during the certification of the election and challenged the Ohio results.

The following March, as the soon-to-be imprisoned Congressman Bob Ney, Chair of the House Administration Committee (and author of the Diebold/Jack Abramoff- influenced Help Amerca Vote Act) finally prepared to hold a hearing on the irregularities of the 2004 election, suddenly, out of the blue came a self-proclaimed expert on "voter fraud", Mark "Thor" Hearne of the brand new "American Center For Voting Rights" to testify at the hearing and at the Carter Baker Election Reform Panel the following week.

Watching the insignificant issue of voter fraud take focus away from what really happened, Brad Friedman, investigative blogger for wwwbradblog.com, dug a little into this new expert and his organization, and was able to quickly reveal that Mr. Thor Hearne turned out to be the General Counsel for the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign.

A later report on Voter Fraud for the Election Assistance Commission was withheld from the public because it found voter fraud was widely-understood to be a non-issue. It was only released after the language was altered to suggest that voter fraud's significance was still in dispute.

It should also be noted that the U.S. Attorney firing scandal showed that U.S. Attorneys were fired for not prosecuting voter fraud cases prior to the 2006 election.

And now the Wisconsin Attorney General, J. B. Van Hollen, who is also the co-chair of the Wisconson McCain campaign, is using faulty parameters to challenge names on the Wisconsin Voter Registration lists just weeks before the election, which will incorrectly purge thousands of voters -- under the phony guise of stopping one or two invalid votes.

This is rotten, anti-democratic Rovian trickery, and your segment on September 21st only served to legitimize this tool of Election Fraud.

You owe your listeners another segment in which you speak to one of the very knowledgeable experts on Election Protection, such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller, blogger Brad Friedman, BBC reporter Greg Palast, or Congressman John Conyers, Jr.

Finally, I love NPR, have listened to it for 30+ years, and have been greatly saddened to see it succumb to this administration's pressure (i.e. Kenneth Tomlinson and the CPB). When NPR failed to report accurately on those December 2004 Ohio hearings and the outrage of Ohio voters, and the January 6, 2005 challenge to the election certification -- when so many people trust NPR -- it was a huge setback for Truth and Democracy in our country.

Please, take another look at this issue.

Thank you.

P.S.

To learn more about Election Protection, Vote Suppression, and other election issues:

http://www.freepress.org/econf/ Sponsoring a free online Election Protection Conference, September 26-28th. Also go to www.freepress.org for more articles and books on Election problems and excellent coverage of what happened in 2004.

www.stealbackyourvote.org Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. investigate current efforts by the RNC. An illustrated voter guide should be available for free distribution within the next two weeks, as well as a documentary film.

www.novoterleftbehind.net Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Democrats for America's Future join to EXPOSE, SPOT & REPORT Election Theft. Also has a Candidate Pledge: "I pledge that I will make sure that every vote is counted and that I will contest any evidence of theft or other voter suppression."

www.Bradblog.com The most determined, dedicated and effective blogger, a hero to many working on election protection, Brad Friedman, is the best single source for information on voting issues. Brad is also the co-founder of http://www.velvetrevolution.com http://www.velvetrevolution.us/electionstrikeforce/ and http://www.standingforvoters.org/ , where candidates on all levels can sign on to this pledge: "I, , pledge to use my candidacy, whenever feasible, to advance the preservation of democracy I will officially challenge the results of the election as provided by law if the combination of election conditions, incident reports, and announced election results calls into question the reliability of the vote count. I will wait until all valid votes are counted and all serious challenges resolved before declaring victory or conceding defeat."

Brad can also now be seen in the outstanding new documentary Murder, Spies & Voting Lies (the Clint Curtis Story) as well as Dale Earnhardt's documentary Uncounted, The New Math of American Elections.

Finally, www.markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com is the site of NYU Professor Mark Crispin Miller, author of Fooled Again about the 2004 election and, most recently, Loser Take All. He is an excellent speaker and a diligent advocate for voters, with a great email news group.

Election Protection: The Dark Side and the Light

The Dark Side:

First, you need to know...

There is a major difference between Election Fraud and Voter Fraud.

Election Fraud is a broad term for the manipulation of election results – away from the choice of the majority of eligible voters.

Voter Fraud is the term for voting and/or registering to vote by people ineligible to vote, such as non-citizens, non-residents, those with fictional identification, and, in some states, felons.

Election Fraud can alter the vote tally by tens of thousands of votes, and when carefully targeted, can alter the results of the Presidential Election and the control of Congress.

Voter Fraud is extremely rare, and has little or no effect on results.

Election Fraud is accomplished by
1. Altering votes
2. Not counting votes
3. Limiting votes

Voter Fraud has been an excuse to enact election laws and encourage policies which accomplish #3 on the previous list, “limiting votes”, particularly in low-income and urban areas.

Voter Fraud was only raised as an issue after the 2004 election, to distract from the multiple instances of Election Fraud reported in Ohio. Voter Fraud is continually highlighted since March 2005 by the self-proclaimed expert, Thor Hearne of the brand new “American Center For Voting Rights”, who turned out to be the General Counsel for Bush/Cheney 2004 (Google Thor Hearne +bradblog to open your eyes).

* * * * * * *

The Light:

To learn more about Election Protection, Vote Suppression, and other election issues:

http://www.freepress.org/econf/ Sponsoring a free online Election Protection Conference, September 26-28th. Also go to www.freepress.org for more articles and books on election problems and excellent coverage of what happened in 2004.

www.stealbackyourvote.org Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. investigate current efforts by the RNC. An illustrated voter guide should be available for free distribution within the next two weeks, as well as a documentary film.

www.novoterleftbehind.net Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Democrats for America’s Future join to EXPOSE, SPOT & REPORT Election Theft. Also has a Candidate Pledge: “I pledge that I will make sure that every vote is counted and that I will contest any evidence of theft or other voter suppression.”

www.Bradblog.com The most determined, dedicated and effective blogger, a hero to many working on election protection, Brad Friedman, is the best single source for information on voting issues. Brad is also the co-founder of http://www.velvetrevolution.us/electionstrikeforce/ and
http://www.standingforvoters.org/, where candidates on all levels can sign on to this pledge:

“I,_____________ , pledge to use my candidacy, whenever feasible, to advance the preservation of democracy. I will officially challenge the results of the election as provided by law if the combination of election conditions, incident reports, and announced election results calls into question the reliability of the vote count. I will wait until all valid votes are counted and all serious challenges resolved before declaring victory or conceding defeat.”

Finally, www.markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com is the site of NYU Professor Mark Crispin Miller, author of Fooled Again about the 2004 election and, most recently, Loser Take All. He is an excellent speaker and a diligent advocate for voters.

Whatever Spitzer's testosterone was doing, it wasn't for prostitution he was targeted. . .

After spending a couple of early morning hours Googling the likes of John Fund, Michael Garcia, and Roger Smith, I went to my email and there was an email from Greg Palast, entitled "Eliot's Mess and the $200 Million Bailout" -- now available on his website here -- with that cutting edge of brightly lit clarity. Others got close but he nailed it. Uh-gain.

Greg found Spitzer's greatest crime: daring to point the finger at the greatest culprit of our times, Mr. Bush, and his own part in protecting the predatory bank thieves while ignoring the ambushed victims.

If you read nothing else, read Palast's story.

Meanwhile, back in the shooting gallery, I also found an angle that probably carries some weight as well -- though I'm sure Greg's revelation is at the very core.

In fact, the mystery of who would have targetted Spitzer reminds me of Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express" -- where it turns out that all the suspects murdered the victim that night. They each had strong reasons, and each did the deed.

By Tuesday morning I'd submitted the following to OpEdNews, where it was posted on Wednesday:

*****

Spitzer and the Giuliani Shell Game

March 12, 2008

Is there a connection?

Shell Energy Company, in partnership with TransCanada Corporation, has a proposal awaiting approval by Elliot Spitzer that would allow the companies, working as Broadwater Energy, to build and operate a floating liquified natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound.

The terminal, a 1215 foot barge, could provide Connecticut and New York with a billion cubic feet of the liquified natural gas per day, but, as the Government Accountability Office reported in February of 2007, could also become a firebomb of huge proportions.

This year, Broadwater Energy launched an intense media campaign designed to sway public opinion about both the project and the company, with large publicized donations to Long Island United Way, and a blitz of commercials citing questionable studies and claiming customers will see huge economic savings.

However, the ads have also drawn a backlash, with both local activists and public officials calling for the New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate the dangerous “false advertising”.

Worth noting is that the campaign was created by none other than Rudy Giuliani’s own Giuliani Partners LLC – hired on to provide security and strategic planning services less than a week after the 2004 presidential election. According to Eric Hatzimemos, a managing director of the firm, “Security, safety, & reliability have been top priorities for Broadwater from the outset.”

This comes from the same law firm that lobbies for the Indian Point Nuclear facility (“as safe as a facility can be”) to be relicensed despite multiple security and safety problems, and for respiratory gas mask manufacturers to be immune from lawsuits for failure to provide protection.

After years of battles between environmentalists and industry, in February all eyes were on New York Governor Elliot Spitzer.

He, in turn, claimed to be waiting for the New York State Department to provide its review of the vast information presented from both sides, due on February 12th. But on February 7th, the State Department announced it had made an agreement with Broadwater which granted a 60 day extension of the deadline to allow for “further discussion of what is a very complex proposal”.

The next day, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation issued its second Notice of Incomplete Application letter to Broadwater Energy, noting that Broadwater’s response to the first Notice was entirely inadequate. Documentation on emissions calculation was lacking, and even with design changes, the barge was projected to destroy 274 million aquatic organisms annually.

Less than a week later, Spitzer was customer number 9.

On March 5, though they did not yet have the required approval of Spitzer and New York State, Shell announced it was ready to begin setting up contracts for purchasing the liquid natural gas that would be brought to New York and Connecticut.

Did they already know they’d won?

*****

Then, at work yesterday, I listened to NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, and her hour on Spitzer. One of her guests was John Fund, from The Wall Street Journal, who uses as a noteworthy credential his authoring the book, of "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy." So already I know this is one of THOSE guys, the guys pushing the phony crime that is supposed to distract from the real method of election theft and provide fodder for Bush's "good" U.S. Attorneys.

Coming back from a break, Diane turned to Fund with a question. This is how it went:

DR: John Fund, is there any indication whatsoever that because of Eliot Spitzer’s behavior and his pursuit of Wall Street ne’er-do-wells that somehow he was targeted?

JF: I think the real targeting came from his personality and his style. THERE IS NOT A SINGLE PERSON IN NEW YORK STATE GOVERNMENT OR IN MANY BUSINESS CIRCLES WHO DIDN'T THINK ELLIOT SPITZER WAS A JERK -- and I’m being very specific here. He would yell and intimidate, threaten people. I mean he told one person I’m going to drive a stake through your heart. He basically said get out of my way to ano– to an assemblyman, saying I’m an f’ing steamroller. He managed to alienate people in his own party, people who would normally have ideological affinity for him. He had anger management issues. So I think that If you end up with 3 enemies in your life you’ve got, you know, an irritant; if you have 30 enemies you have a problem; and if you have 300 enemies eventually people are just going to try to remove you from the stage. I don’t think he was targeted; I think he took himself out because his behavior was so extreme and so far out of the bounds. And I think– I hope we get to some discussion of his civil liberties record here because he did go after some bad guys on Wall Street, he did do some good, but he went to more and more marginal targets, less and less substantial targets, and I think really rode roughshod over due process laws.

****

Okay, I know I just pointed out how many enemies he had, but Fund was so absolute and clearly wanted the public to understand that Spitzer deserved to be hated by reasonable people.

Once a pathetic propagandist. . .

****

So I wrote to Diane's show, in time, I hoped, to have the email read during today's Friday 2-hour review of the week's news:

Let's see, who would want Spitzer gone? Maybe Shell Oil and Giuliani, who are together fighting to get New York to approve an incredibly dangerous liquified natural gas barge in Long Island Sound.

Or maybe even Mr. Bush, who -- as the BBC investigative journalist Greg Palast pointed out -- Spitzer called the "Predator Lenders Partner in Crime" just THIS WEEK in The Washington Post, just before Bernanke provided $200 billion to rescue bankers.

Whatever Spitzer's testosterone was doing, it wasn't for prostitution he was targeted.

****

Meanwhile, on another of the many fronts, on Monday night we heard about Spitzer and prostitution, instead of hearing Congressman John Conyers, Jr. demanding that former White House aides Harriet Myers and Joshua Bolten obey the law and respond to Congress -- announcing the law suit against the two:

"We will not allow the administration to steamroll Congress. Under our system of checks and balances, Congress provides oversight of the executive branch to make sure that government power is not abused. The administration’s extreme claims to be immune from the oversight process are at odds with our constitutional principles on which this country was founded, and I am confident the federal courts will agree."

Phew. There's still hope.