Bust the Corporatist Cabal

The Blue Pages

2010-03-21T19:05:00.009-05:00

Vote with your money.

I was browsing through The Blue Pages and noted that I need to change my shopping behavior a bit.

It's for sale at amazon.com: Click to check it out.

Tainted Teaparty

2010-03-21T16:48:00.003-05:00

Rep. King thinks that the racist and gay-bashing slurs are no big deal.

A few bad apples in the barrel, or is the barrel hopelessly tainted? Here's a screen shot of their website that I took earlier today.

I just looked again, and the slur has been removed.

http://www.teapartyorg.ning.com/

The Real Climate Controversy

2010-02-16T07:16:00.004-06:00

This was an opinion piece first published in the Albuquerque Journal, rescued and republished by Mark Crispin Miller in his blog, News from the Underground. I read the piece and judged it important enough that I think more people need to be aware of the situation, so I am publishing it here today.

Please read this, then ask yourself: WHO has the most to gain by falsifying data?
It is one thing to be ignorant of the facts, or so afraid of change as to resist the facts on the table. These are the flat earthers of our time.

It is quite another character altogether who sets out to falsify data for financial motives. The stakes are high and I fear they have obfuscated the facts and delayed our will to act urgently so that what awaits us is the equivalent of the 2006 tsunami a thousandfold.

God help us.

Read.

---------------

*The Real Climate Controversy*

*By Mark Boslough*
/Albuquerque physicist/
http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/guest_columns/152149149349opinionguestcolumns02-15-10.htm

Global warming is occurring. It is caused by human activities.
Both the theoretical basis (fundamental laws of physics) and
observational evidence for warming are incontrovertible. The first
decade of this century was the warmest ever recorded in human history,
just as the models predicted. The current decade will almost certainly
be warmer.

But it's not just the atmosphere that is heating. Ice is melting
at an accelerating rate, and sea level is rising. Weather patterns are
changing as the atmosphere and oceans adjust their flow in response to
the warming. These phenomena were all predicted. They have been
independently verified many times, using many methods, by researchers
throughout the world. The successful predictions of global warming
theory represent a major scientific achievement.
In 1998, a team of scientists combined thermometer measurements
with preinstrumental temperatures determined from tree rings and other
natural records. The resulting graph demonstrated how exceptional the
recent rapid warming has been, rising so sharply that it looked like the
blade of a hockey stick. The "Hockey Stick" graph became an iconic
symbol of global warming, even though it was only one of many lines of
evidence. The general validity and significance of the Hockey Stick has
since been reproduced by several independent groups of scientists.
Nevertheless, the idea of human-caused global warming has offended the
cherished belief system of some individuals who, for philosophical or
self-interested reasons, are convinced that people cannot possibly
affect the global temperature - regardless of the laws of physics.
Because the Hockey Stick had become a symbol, its authors became the
target of a political smear campaign.
In 2005, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., referred to global warming
as the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." Reps.
Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., sent a letter to the
Hockey Stick scientists, demanding that they immediately provide them
with extensive documentation about what the politicians claimed were
"methodological flaws and data errors" in their work.
Barton and Whitfield held Congressional hearings, and asked for
a review of the Hockey Stick by a panel led by Edward Wegman, a
statistician with no background in or understanding of climate science.
The Wegman panel wrote a report that criticized the statistical methods
used by the scientists. Climate change denialists embraced this
criticism. Ever since they have claimed that the Hockey Stick has been
discredited and, in a leap of logic, that global warming is not real.
To many researchers, the investigation was nothing more than an
anti-science witch-hunt. Scientists play by well-defined rules. They
require peer-reviewed publication, logic and evidence. Science is like a
hockey game that only works if fans understand it and teams play by the
rules. The politicians knew their side could not win against a
world-class "hockey team." They chose instead to create confusion and
sow doubt.
Their tactic was to act like unruly fans and throw hundreds of
decoy hockey pucks onto the ice and then take advantage of the chaos. As
any sports fan knows, when a fight breaks out on the ice or in the
stands - that becomes the story. The idea was simply to delay any
action. They didn't have to win the game. All they needed to do was
disrupt it.
The embattled scientists were understandably angry and were not
always
circumspect in their private messages. They did not expect political
activists - willing to tap phones and break into computers - to steal
their correspondence. They hadn't done anything wrong, but their words
were twisted and taken out of context. E-mails were published by
bloggers and broadcast by media for whom controversy and conflict trumps
accuracy and fair play. This non-scandal became known as "Climategate."

The actual scandal is associated with the Hockey Stick
congressional inquiry. Last month a blogger called "Deep Climate"
demonstrated that, in a cruel irony, the Wegman team actually used
material plagiarized from a textbook written by one of the scientists
under investigation. Even worse, the meaning of the stolen text was
changed. The supposedly unbiased referees seemed to have been in on the
plan to disrupt the game.
New evidence continues to mount. Independent investigator John
Mashey* has released a report in which he meticulously builds the case
for a corrupt and probably criminal conspiracy to mislead Congress in
the Hockey Stick investigation. Members of the mainstream media who have
tried so hard to create a scandal out of Climategate finally have a real
scandal to investigate; one that appears to involve a deliberate
high-level scheme to undermine research, create confusion and impede
progress on science-informed climate policy.

* http://deepclimate.org/2009/12/17/wegman-report-revisited/

Fwd: [MCM] Healthcare giants FREAKED by Scott Brown's win

2010-01-21T10:20:00.001-06:00

From News From the Underground (Jerry Policoff:reporting)

There was a juicy tidbit buried in paragraph 17 of an Associated Press story this morning:

"Nearly as shaken by the Massachusetts vote were health care provider groups that have supported the Democratic effort, such as drug makers, hospitals and doctors.

"While few were making public statements, industry groups that stood to gain millions of newly insured customers were worried that such potential gains were in jeopardy, according to lobbyists speaking on condition of anonymity to describe confidential conversations."

So much for phony industry pretences that they opposed this bill. That was a total ruse. It went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media that the insurance industry poured millions into Martha Coakley's campaign. Why would they do that when she supported the Senate bill and Brown opposed it? Silly question. It is because they supported it too.

Jerry Policoff

www.progressives4pennsylvania.com

www.healthcare4ALLPA.org

Face Book Causes: HealthCare4ALLPA

Pat Robertson - Still Nutty After All These Years

2010-01-13T17:26:00.002-06:00

ACORN V indicated, NY Times artile small, hard to find

2009-12-27T05:12:00.001-06:00

A newreporton the community group Acorn by the
nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has found no evidence of
fraudulent voting or of violations of federal financing rules by the
group in the past five years.

RepresentativeJohn Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and chairman of
the House Judiciary Committee, requested the report along with
RepresentativeBarney
Frank, Democrat of
Massachusetts. Mr. Conyers released the report on Tuesday.

Acorn, which stands for
theAssociation of
Community Organizations for Reform Now, has drawn fire from conservative activists who have
accused it of conducting fraudulent voter registration drives in poor
neighborhoods, adding imaginary voters like Mickey Mouse to the rolls.
The report by the research service, an arm of theLibrary of
Congress, said,
however, that a search using the Nexis news database "did not
identify any reported instances of such individuals attempting to vote
at the polls."

Hans A. von
Spakovsky, a
formerFederal Election
Commissionmember
under PresidentGeorge
W. Bush, said the new
report could not resolve the voting fraud issue, since "no one is
ever going to know it unless somebody takes the voter registration
list and checks each person who is registered to make sure they are a
real person."

The report also stated that
two conservative activists might have broken privacy laws in
California and Maryland by posing as a prostitute and pimp while
secretly videotaping Acorn staff members who gave them advice on
evading taxes and hiding their activities. The two states "appear to
ban" the recording of face-to-face conversations without the consent
of all participants, the report said.

Another part of the new
report suggested that efforts by Congress to cut Acorn's financing
could be unconstitutional bills of attainder, a term referring to
punishments ordered by Congress against specific individuals or
entities.
On Tuesday,
JudgeNina
Gershonof Federal
District Court in Brooklyn issued a one-page order supporting
Acorn's challenge to the legislation on bill-of-attainder grounds.
This month, Judge Gershon ruled that cutting the group's financing
was an illegal bill of attainder. In Tuesday's order, she denied a
motion by the Justice Department to reconsider her previous
ruling.

Get the Word Out! Intimidation of Foreign Workers Now Directed at Americans

2009-12-27T00:02:00.001-06:00

Intimidation of Foreign Workers Now Directed at Americans: Facebook, Yahoo, Comcast Drawn In

All I want for Christmas is a progressive blogger to cover this threat to all American worker web sites.

"Nuisance lawsuits and threats of legal entanglement, long used by Indian H-1b labor contractors to silence Indian tech workers, have now been aimed at an American tech worker website, endh1b.com, for reposting an Indian H-1B worker's testimony of mistreatment by Apex Technology Group.

A New Jersey judge, sided with Apex Tenchnology Group on Wednesday and ordered Facebook, Yahoo, and Comcast and to reveal the identities of three John Does named in the injunction.

If successful, this injunction will squelch every American's security to post their workplace complaints anonymously. It will create a credible threat that, at any time, web hosting and web site companies could be forced to reveal identities of anonymous posters."

More here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/25/133335/82?new=true

PS: We'll get coverage of this on Monday in the press, but we need to get the bloggers on board right away!

Donna Conroy, Director
www.brightfuturejobs.com

Fwd: [MCM] Gun owner nabbed near Obama was Bush WH employee

2009-12-23T22:35:00.001-06:00

Gun Owner Nabbed Near Obama Was Bush Employee
- By Nick Baumann| Wed Dec. 23, 2009 3:25 AM PST

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/12/joshua-bowman-gun-charges-bush-white-house-employee

The man who was arrested with two guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition near the Capitol

during President Barack Obama's health care speech in September had been an employee of the George

W. Bush White House. The arrest of the man, Joshua Bowman, was widely reported at the time, but the news stories made no mention of his previous employment: For several years he worked in the Executive Office of the President, dealing with tech issues, including White House emails, his lawyer, George Braun, tells Mother Jones.

On the night of September 9, Bowman was on his way to meet Braun, a Bush administration political appointee, at the National Republican Club on First Street, SE when he was stopped by Capitol Police around 7:45 p.m.-minutes before Obama was scheduled to deliver a major address to Congress pushing his health care initiative. Bowman had driven up to a security checkpoint and told officers he wanted to park, but his lack of a permit for the area aroused their suspicions, and they asked to search his car.

Bowman had a bumper sticker like this one on his car, according to court records. (Patriot Depot).

The previous weekend, Bowman and Braun had gone duck-hunting, according to Braun. But Bowman forgot that he still had the guns in his car when he consented to a search of his vehicle, a Honda Civic

with a bumper sticker proclaiming, "I'll keep my guns, freedom, and money.... you keep the change."

The officers found a Beretta 12 gauge semi-automatic* shotgun, a .22 caliber long rifle, and over 400 rounds of ammunition in Bowman's trunk. The guns were unloaded and in their cases, according to court records. Braun says they were disassembled. The Capitol Police took Bowman into custody and charged him with two counts of possession of an unregistered firearm and one count of unlawful possession of ammunition. He faced up to $3,000 in fines and as much as three years in jail. (The case is still pending.)

When Braun-who was at the National Republican Club, hanging out with congressmen including Iowa's Tom Latham and Nebraska's Lee Terry-finally heard from Bowman, it was around 10 p.m. Bowman told Braun he needed Braun to get him out of jail, explaining that he had been stopped with guns in his car. "Don't you know that's illegal?" Braun asked. Both men were surprised when they heard the story on

the radio as they left jail the next day. Braun thought the coverage was excessive. "They were making

him sound like a terrorist," Braun said. "Does [Bowman] look like a terrorist? He has the élan to walk around with a bowtie."

Braun suggested that Bowman was only caught with the guns because he was used to having a White House security pass and expected to be able to park near the Capitol. He probably wouldn't have been stopped and searched by Capitol Police if he had still had the pass. He had left government employ just

a few weeks earlier, having landed a high-paying job at Northrop Grumman. "He hung out for a long

time. He worked for a Republican administration and he was pretty much the last person in the

Democratic administration. It's not that he thought the new administration was right or wrong-it's

called 'a year and a day,' and Josh was there for six," Braun said, referring to the Washington tradition

of working a government job for long enough to put it on your resume and then leaving for a higher-paid private sector gig.

It seems pretty clear that Bowman wasn't planning anyone any harm when he drove to Capitol Hill in September. Braun claims the Secret Service was unconcerned about the incident (no federal charges

were filed) because they knew Bowman from his years in the White House. But having unregistered

guns in the District of Columbia is illegal (although perhaps not for much longer if gun rights advocates continue to win court challenges), and Bowman certainly made a big mistake. Even his girlfriend thought so. "His girlfriend called me up and asked, 'Is my boyfriend the stupidest guy in the world or what?'"

Braun said. For the moment, it's unclear whether that mistake will land Bowman in jail.

*An earlier version of this article described the shotgun as automatic.

The 2009 P.U.-Litzer Awards

2009-12-23T07:04:00.001-06:00

Media Advisory

The 2009 P.U.-Litzer Awards

12/22/09

For 17 years our colleagues Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon have worked with FAIR to present the P.U.-Litzers, a year-end review of some of the stinkiest examples of corporate media malfeasance, spin and just plain outrageousness.

Starting this year, FAIR has the somewhat dubious honor of reviewing the nominees and selecting the winners. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. So, without further ado, we present the 2009 P.U.-Litzers.

--The Remembering Reagan Award
WINNER: Joe Klein, Time

Time columnist Joe Klein (12/3/09), not altogether impressed by Obama's announcement of a troop escalation in Afghanistan, wrote that a president "must lead the charge--passionately and, yes, with a touch of anger."

He described the better way to do this:

Ronald Reagan would have done it differently. He would have told a story. It might not have been a true story, but it would have had resonance. He might have found, or created, a grieving spouse--a young investment banker whose wife had died in the World Trade Center--who enlisted immediately after the attacks...and then gave his life, heroically, defending a school for girls in Kandahar. Reagan would have inspired tears, outrage, passion, a rush to recruiting centers across the nation.

Ah, Reagan--now there was a president who could inspire people to fight and die based on lies.

--The Cheney 2012 Award
WINNER: Jon Meacham, Newsweek

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham declared (12/7/09) that Dick Cheney running for president in 2012 would be "good for the Republicans and good for the country." He explained that "Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people.... A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way."

While the 2008 election might have seemed a sufficient judgment of the Bush years, it's worth pointing out that at beginning of the year (1/19/09), Meacham was adamantly opposed to re-hashing Cheney's record, calling it "the rough equivalent of pornography--briefly engaging, perhaps, but utterly predictable and finally repetitive." The difference? That was in response to the idea that Cheney should be held accountable for lawbreaking. Apparently a few months later, the same record is grounds for a White House run.

--The Them Not Us Award
WINNER: Martin Fackler, New York Times

The New York Times (11/21/09) describes the severe problems with Japan's elite media--a horror show where "reporters from major news media outlets are stationed inside government offices and enjoy close, constant access to officials. The system has long been criticized as antidemocratic by both foreign and Japanese analysts, who charge that it has produced a relatively spineless press that feels more accountable to its official sources than to the public. In their apparent reluctance to criticize the government, the critics say, the news media fail to serve as an effective check on authority."

The mind reels.

--The Thin-Skinned Pundits Award
WINNER: Dana Milbank, Washington Post

Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Chris Cilizza got into trouble when, in an episode of their "Mouthpiece Theater" web video series, they suggested brands of beer that would be appropriate for various politicians. What would Hillary Clinton drink? Apparently something called "Mad Bitch." The video, unsurprisingly, was roundly criticized, and was pulled from the Post site. So what lesson was learned? Milbank complained (8/6/09) that "it's a brutal world out there in the blogosphere.... I'm often surprised by the ferocity out there, but I probably shouldn't be."

Yes, the problem with calling someone a "bitch" is the "ferocity" of your critics.

--The Sheer O'Reillyness Award
WINNER: Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Channel--TWICE!

1) Asked by a Canadian viewer, "Has anyone noticed that life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA?," Fox's O'Reilly (7/27/09) responded: "Well, that's to be expected, Peter, because we have 10 times as many people as you do. That translates to 10 times as many accidents, crimes, down the line."

2) Drumming up fear of Democrats' tax plans: "Nancy Pelosi and her far-left crew want to raise the top federal tax rate to 45 percent. That's not capitalism. That's Fidel Castro stuff, confiscating wages that people honestly earn."

Perhaps Castro was president of the United States in 1982-86, when the top rate was 50 percent. Or maybe all of the 1970s, when it was 70 percent. Or from 1950-63, when it was 91 percent.

--The Less Talk, More Bombs Award
WINNER: David Broder, Washington Post

Post columnist Broder expressed the conventional wisdom on Barack Obama's deliberations on the Afghanistan War, writing under the headline "Enough Afghan Debate" (11/15/09):

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision--whether or not it is right.

--The Racism Is Dead Award
WINNER: Richard Cohen, Washington Post

Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote (5/5/09): "The justification for affirmative action gets weaker and weaker. Maybe once it was possible to argue that some innocent people had to suffer in the name of progress, but a glance at the White House strongly suggests that things have changed. For most Americans, race has become supremely irrelevant. Everyone knows this. Every poll shows this."

For the record, "every poll" does not actually show this; the vast majority of Americans continues to recognize that racism is still a problem. Cohen went on to write months later--still presumably living in his racism-free world--that he did not believe Iran's claims about its nuclear program, because "these Persians lie like a rug."

--The When in Doubt, Talk to the Boss Award
WINNER: Matt Lauer, NBC News

Today show host Lauer announced a special guest on April 15: "If you really want to know how the economy is affecting the average American, he's the guy to talk to." Who was Lauer talking about? Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke. The ensuing interview touched on the Employee Free Choice Act, which Lauer noted was supported by many unions but opposed by some large corporations--leading him to ask Duke, "What's the truth?" Yes, look for "the truth" about a proposed pro-labor bill from the new CEO of an adamantly anti-labor corporation.

--The Socialist Menace Award
WINNER: Michael Freedman, Newsweek

Newsweek's "We Are All Socialists Now" cover (2/16/09) certainly turned heads, but one of the stories inside explained in more detail the real threat. As senior editor Michael Freedman asked: "Have you noticed that Barack Obama sounds more like the president of France every day?"

The real problem, though, is what that's going to do to us Americans, says Freedman: "If job numbers continue to look dismal, or get even worse, an ever-greater number of people will start looking to the government for support.... It's very easy to imagine a chorus of former American individualists demanding cushy French-style pensions and free British-style healthcare if their private stock funds fail to recover and unemployment inches upward toward 10 percent and remains there."

Pensions and healthcare for all--this is worse than we thought!

--The Iraq All Over Again Award
WINNER: Too Many to Name

After the invasion of Iraq, countless journalists who had treated allegations about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as facts were embarrassed when there were no such weapons to be found. So you'd think they'd be more careful about thinly sourced claims that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. But in 2009, many journalists are still willing to treat such allegations as facts.

-NBC's Chris Matthews (10/4/09): "As if Afghanistan were not enough, now there's Iran's move to get nuclear weapons."

-NBC's David Gregory (10/4/09). "Iran--will talks push that country to give up its nuclear weapons program?"

-Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (9/25/09): "All hell breaking loose as a new nuclear weapons facility is discovered in Iran, proving the mullahs have been lying for years.... Iran's nuclear weapons program has now reached critical mass. And worldwide conflict is very possible. Friday, President Obama, British Prime Minister Brown and French President Sarkozy revealed a secret nuclear weapons facility located inside Iran."

Some even went further, turning allegations of a nuclear weapons program into the discovery of actual nuclear weapons:

-ABC's Good Morning America host Bill Weir (9/26/09): "President Obama and a united front of world leaders charge Iran with secretly building nuclear weapons."

--The Talking Like a Terrorist Award
WINNER: Thomas Friedman, New York Times

In a January 14 column, New York Times superstar pundit Tom Friedman explained Israel's war on Lebanon as an attempt to "educate" the enemy by killing civilians: The Israeli strategy was to "inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical." Friedman added, "The only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians--the families and employers of the militants--to restrain Hezbollah in the future." That strategy of targeting civilians to advance a political agenda is usually known as terrorism; Osama bin Laden couldn't have explained it much better.

--The It Only Bothers Us Now Award
WINNER: Wall Street Journal editorial page

When Barack Obama only called on journalists from a list during a press conference, the Wall Street Journal did not like the new protocol (2/12/09):"We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors."

Actually, Bush was famous for calling only on reporters on an approved list; as he joked at a press conference on the eve of the Iraq War (3/6/03), "This is scripted."

--The No Comment Award
WINNERS: MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski and Rush Limbaugh

When asked by Politico (10/16/09) to name her favorite guest, MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski named arch-conservative Pat Buchanan "because he says what we are all thinking."

Rush Limbaugh on Obama (Fox News Channel, 1/21/09): "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles...because his father was black."

To read this advisory online, please visit: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=fNVySxoRfsWfrItRUTIlbJ%2BewMkBtveX

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Fwd: 28th Amendment!

2009-12-01T13:48:00.001-06:00

Proposed Amendment 28 to the US Constitution!

Congress shall make no law that applies to any citizen of the United States that does not apply equally to all US Senators and Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to any US Senator or Representative that does not apply equally to all citizens of the United States . All existing laws and regulations that do not meet these criteria shall be declared null and void!

Pass it on!

Quote of the Day

2009-10-22T10:08:00.001-05:00

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

~Groucho Marx

Elected officials side with corporations over rape victims

2009-10-11T10:46:00.004-05:00

These are the Senators who favor corporate protection over rape victims' right to sue:

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/07/meet-the-senators-who-vot_n_312976.html

Bush Invoked Biblical Prophesy as Reason to Invade Iraq

2009-10-04T09:27:00.008-05:00

I could only find this story in a few places--in the Columbia Daily Tribune, I read that it was in GQ magazine but didn't find it upon searching--Jonathon Turley blogged about it, and so did one person in the Daily Kos.

Jonathon Turley's analysis May 25, 2009

Daily Kos fact check. May 27,2009

The story in Columbia Daily Tribune August 2009

Now, this leaves one to wonder why the major media outlets didn't pick up the story. I am not a fundamentalist Christian myself, and I find it dizzying that the leader of our country believed that going to war with Iraq was some kind of Biblical mandate.

I find this deeply disturbing. Why don't the editors of the major newspapers find this worthy of reporting? Is it too hot to touch? Is it being censored? If so, what is the reasoning behind suppressing the story?

9/11 Families Seek a Fresh Investigation of 9/11 Events

2009-09-28T21:23:00.005-05:00

Mark Crispin Miller Reports:

9/11 Families March on City Hall As City Seeks to Stop Fresh Probe of Attacks from Going on November Ballot;

NY Supreme Court Hearing 9:30AM Tuesday Will Determine Fate of Referendum

New York City - Yesterday, The New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN), a group comprising 9/11 family members, first responders and survivors, led 300 New Yorkers from Battery Park to City Hall in protest of the City's attempt to block the referendum for a fresh probe of the 9/11 attacks from going on the November ballot.

The grassroots organization calling for the investigation, NYCCAN, has complete coverage of the movement and the march, yesterday.

For more information about and from Mark Crispin Miller, see his excellent coverage at his website, http://markcrispinmiller.com

You Do Not (Really) Have Health Insurance

2009-08-07T11:05:00.001-05:00

t r u t h o u t | You Do Not Have Health Insurance

Shared via AddThis

Important: read about the opposition to health care reform

2009-08-05T22:54:00.001-05:00

http://www.pleasecutthecrap.typepad.com/

Texas' surveillance program out of money, only 11 arrests

2009-07-14T02:35:00.003-05:00

From Raw Story:

The state of Texas spent a $2 million federal grant to install 14 Webcams along its border with Mexico. After its first year, the crowd-sourced surveillance program is out of money and has only yielded 11 arrests, according to published reports.

$2,000,000

By my calculation, that works out to $181,818.18 per person.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/13/texas-webcam-border-watch-a-failure-after-first-year/

It's Official: No U.S. Prosecution of Bush Officials

2009-04-20T17:13:00.001-05:00

THIS IS A MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT. I THOUGHT WE ARE A NATION OF LAWS. ??Emanuel said that the president believes Bush officials "should not be prosecuted either and that's not the place that we go." Not that that should surprise anyone: Obama said as much from almost his first day in office, when he told reporters he wasn't interested in a proposed Capitol Hill "truth commission."

read more | digg story

Susan Wilk sent you an article from startribune.com

2009-04-07T10:23:00.000-05:00

Susan Wilk wrote these comments: Al Franken made a net gain today in a count of formerly rejected absentee ballots that pushed his advantage to more than 300 votes in the U.S. Senate race.

This Article from StarTribune.com has been sent to you by SusanWilk.
*Please note, the sender's identity has not been verified.

The full Article, with any associated images and links can be viewed here.

Franken extends lead over Coleman
KEVIN DUCHSCHERE, Star Tribune

Democrat Al Franken today extended his lead over Republican Norm Coleman in Minnesota's U.S. Senate election, after the counting of about 350 formerly rejected absentee ballots this morning.

Franken captured 198 of the ballots, while Coleman took 111. The ballots added 87 votes to Franken’s recount lead, enlarging his margin over Coleman to 312.

The result makes it even more likely that, barring an unforeseen circumstance, Franken will prevail in the election lawsuit that Coleman filed in January to contest the Democrat's 225-vote recount lead. The three-judge panel presiding over the case has not said when it will issue a final decision.

Coleman will appeal the case to the Minnesota Supreme Court, his lawyer Ben Ginsberg said after today's proceedings. One of the grounds for the appeal will be unequal treatment of the ballots, Ginsberg said.

This morning, officials sat down at four tables in the St. Paul courtroom with staffers and campaign officials, separating the ballots from their envelopes so that they can be counted without identifying the voter.

Then, one by one, state elections director Gary Poser counted ballots that were accepted by the judges as having been legally cast. The process was much like that with 933 other formerly rejected ballots that were counted before final recount numbers were certified in early January.

On Monday, the three-judge panel had reviewed nearly 400 to determine which ones would be opened and counted today.

Before the start of today’s action, Coleman lawyer Tony Trimble asked for a 15-minute recess to examine the judges’ list of ballots to be counted. Judge Elizabeth Hayden turned him down, saying that they were ready to proceed.

Security was unusually tight for the court session. State troopers and security guards watched the entrance to the courtroom at the Minnesota Judicial Center, and people wishing to enter the courtroom were asked to empty their pockets and walk through a magnetometer.

Ice Bridge Is Gone. Overnight

2009-04-05T11:39:00.002-05:00

The ice bridge is a stable structure, one that takes centuries to form.

COMERICA BANK

2009-03-20T17:06:00.001-05:00

Dallas Bank Takes Your Money, Keeps Corporate Jet

http://cbs11tv.com/video/?id=38551@ktvt.dayport.com

How Did This Happen?

2009-03-15T08:52:00.003-05:00

Quote of the day

2009-03-11T12:22:00.001-05:00

"Remember, the Republican Party right now is in the shadow of the Bush administration. We're in the last stage of digesting the tummy ache of having bad Congressional leadership; the worst Treasury Secretary in history; a bad economy. The Republican Party got fired for good reason; it deserved it."

-- Newt Gingrich, in an interview with Essence magazine.

Correcting the Bush Years Series: Breaking News!

2009-03-06T15:28:00.001-06:00

Sources tell the Associated Press President Obama will reverse
restrictions on federal funding of stem cell research Monday.

Isn't it nice to have a President who believes in science?

Fwd: [MCM] Leahy proposes "Truth Commission"

2009-02-09T17:55:00.001-06:00

Leahy Proposes 'Truth Commission' to Probe Bush Abuses

By Jason Leopold
The Public Record

Monday, 09 February 2009 12:07

http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/673-leahy-proposes-truth-commission-to-probe-bush-era-abuses.html

Senator Patrick Leahy Monday proposed the creation of a "truth and reconciliation commission" to investigate Bush administration abuses such as its use of torture and domestic surveillance.

Leahy, the chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, made the announcement during a speech at Georgetown University's Law Center.

His announcement will likely be followed in the days ahead with a proposed bill to create an investigative panel "to get to the bottom of what happened, and why, so we make sure it never happens again."

"One path to that goal would be a reconciliation process and truth commission," Leahy said. "We could develop and authorize a person or group of people universally recognized as fair minded, and without axes to grind. Their straightforward mission would be to find the truth. People would be invited to come forward and share their knowledge and experiences, not for purposes of constructing criminal indictments, but to assemble the facts. If needed, such a process could involve subpoena powers, and even the authority to obtain immunity from prosecutions in order to get to the whole truth."

President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney both admitted publicly last year they had personally authorized the waterboarding of at least three suspected terrorists and allowed interrogators to use harsh methods against 33 other suspects. However, Bush and Cheney denied that these actions violated anti-torture laws.

Waterboarding is a technique that makes the victim believe he is drowning and has been regarded as torture at least since the Spanish Inquisition. The U.S. government has treated its use in battlefield interrogations as a war crime, and the Justice Department prosecuted a Texas sheriff in the 1980s for using waterboarding to extract confessions from suspects.

Last month, Leahy's counterpart in the House, Rep. John Conyers, introduced legislation to create a blue-ribbon panel of outside experts to probe the "broad range" of policies pursued by the Bush administration "under claims of unreviewable war powers," including torture of detainees and warrantless wiretaps.

In a column published Jan. 31 on the Huffington Post, Conyers said an examination of what the Bush administration has done requires a comprehensive overview of how these abusive policies evolved.

"While disparate investigations by committees of Congress, private organizations and the press have uncovered many important facts, no single investigation has had access to the full range of information regarding the Bush administration's interrelated programs on surveillance, detention, interrogation and rendition," Conyers wrote.

"The existence of a substantially developed factual record will simplify the work to come, but cannot replace it. Furthermore, much of this information, such as the Central Intelligence Agency's 2004 Inspector General report on interrogation, remains highly classified and hidden from the American people. An independent review is needed to determine the maximum information that can be publicly released."

While Conyers has also called for the appointment of an independent counsel to launch a criminal probe into the Bush administration's policies, Leahy said his proposal would be designed to appease public demands for accountability and not recommend prosecutions of any sort.

"We need to come to a shared understanding of the mistakes of the past," said Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. "Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuing of what happened....I don't want to embarrass anybody. I don't want to punish anybody. I just want the truth to come out so this never happens again."

Leahy said the commission, whose membership could either be congressional or presidential appointees, would have subpoena power and could grant witnesses immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony--except in cases of perjury--about how some of the Bush administration's most controversial policies were formed.

Leahy is one of a handful of Democratic leaders who has come out in support of investigating the Bush administration's policies since Barack Obama's inauguration last month.

Last month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would support funding and staff for additional fact-finding by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which last month released a report tracing abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to Bush's Feb. 7, 2002, decision to exclude terror suspects from Geneva Convention protections.

Additionally, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, a former federal prosecutor and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said during a conference two weeks ago that, "we need to follow this thing into those dense weeds and shine a bright light into what was done."

Whitehouse's made those comments at a two-day medical conference sponsored by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), which has called for an investigation into the Bush administration's use of interrogation techniques that have been widely regarded as torture.

"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," he told the 400 or so attendees.

Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters: "Looking at what has been done is necessary." And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed support for House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers's plan to create a blue-ribbon panel of outside experts to probe the "broad range" of policies pursued by the Bush administration "under claims of unreviewable war powers."

Attorney General Eric Holder said during his confirmation hearing earlier this month that "waterboarding is torture," but the Obama administration has hesitated to launch new investigations of the Bush administration's crimes partly out of fear that would infuriate Republicans who might retaliate by obstructing Democratic economic plans during a deepening recession.

On Monday, some Republicans dismissed Leahy's remarks as "politics as usual."

"No good purpose is served by continuing to persecute those who served in the previous administration," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas. "President Obama promised to usher in an era of "change" and bipartisan harmony. Unfortunately, the continued effort by some Democrats to unjustly malign former Bush Administration officials is politics as usual."

Incoming CIA Director Leon Panetta said during his confirmation hearing last week that the Obama administration would not seek to prosecute CIA interrogators who performed brutal techniques, such as waterboarding, against suspected terrorist detainees.

Panetta told The Associated Press in an interview after his confirmation hearing that "we just can't operate if people feel even if they are following the legal opinions of the Justice Department they could be in danger of prosecution."

The authors of those legal memos, however, are under scrutiny by a Justice Department watchdog.

Sen. Whitehouse and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, wrote a letter to the agency last year requesting an investigation into the role "Justice Department officials [played] in authorizing and/or overseeing the use of waterboarding by the Central Intelligence Agency... and whether those who authorized it violated the law."

The senators' Feb. 12, 2008, letter to Inspector General Glenn Fine and H. Marshall Jarrett, head of the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), asked them to examine whether the legal advice met professional standards and whether the lawyers were "insulated from outside pressure to reach a particular conclusion?"

Whitehouse and Durbin also asked what role was played by Bush's White House and the CIA in possibly influencing "deliberations about the lawfulness of waterboarding?"

Less than a week later, Jarrett responded by saying the senators' concerns were already part of a pending investigation that OPR was conducting into the genesis of the Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion widely known as the "torture memo."

The memo, which gave a legal stamp of approval for the Bush administration's torture policies, was written by Deputy Attorney General John Yoo, who worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), and was signed by his boss, Jay Bybee, who is now a federal appeals court judge. Yoo is a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

The OPR inquiry is expected to be completed by early March.

Franken-Coleman Update, 01/20/09: He Wants Us To Do WHAT?!

2009-01-24T08:06:00.001-06:00

Okay, at this point I think Norm and his Hundred-Lawyer Horde must be doing this just to see how far we can spit our beverages across the room. His people now say that they want the three-judge panel to review all 12,000 rejected absentee ballots -- ballots that have already been reviewed and rejected not once but twice: "Norm Coleman’s

read more | digg story

Quote

2009-01-23T20:46:00.002-06:00

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield. " -George Orwell In front of your nose 3/22/1946

Healthcare, Guaranteed: A Simple Secure Solution for America

2009-01-22T16:25:00.001-06:00

Healthcare, Guaranteed: A Simple Secure Solution for America
Author: Ezekiel Emanuel
http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=10145&SectionName=Politics

About the Program

Ezekiel Emanuel, Chair of the Department of Bioethics at the Clinical
Center of the National Institutes of Health presents his plan to
re-imagine the nation's healthcare system. According to Dr. Ezekiel,
the United States spent 2.1 trillion dollars on healthcare in 2007 yet
47 million Americans were uninsured. His proposal includes eliminating
employer-healthcare and creating a independent program that grades
insurance companies and healthcare plans. This event was hosted by the
Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco.

Upcoming Schedule
Saturday, January 24, at 8:15 PM
Sunday, January 25, at 3:00 PM

Bush says waterboarding still necessary

2009-01-12T00:32:00.001-06:00

digg user susanswilk would like to share this story with you:
http://digg.com/politics/Bush_says_waterboarding_still_necessary?OTC-em-st1
---
"Bush says waterboarding still necessary"
With days left in office and an abysmal approval rating, President Bush is still defending the use of torture.
+27 people dugg this story

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Up next in Senate recount: Which ballots to count

2008-12-27T21:10:00.002-06:00

The Minnsota Star-Tribune reports:

All must agree on absentee votes; result could tip scales.

Beginning a critical new stage in Minnesota's U.S. Senate recount, the campaigns of Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken are expected to spend today and Sunday identifying absentee ballots that they believe were improperly rejected and should now be counted.

Click to read more

John Lennon Has an Important Message For You

2008-12-27T19:31:00.000-06:00

Ohio TV Station: Was GOP "IT Guru" Crash Accident Or Murder?

2008-12-24T11:32:00.002-06:00

"Ohio TV Station: Was GOP "IT Guru" Crash Accident Or Murder?"
The story of whistleblower, key witness about to testify that 04 election was stolen, GOP IT guru, threatened by Rove, warned of his safety thru sabotage & feared for his life Connell who died in a fiery plane crash has finally been picked up by TV's MSM.

http://digg.com/politics/Ohio_TV_Station_Was_GOP_IT_Guru_Crash_Accident_Or_Murder?OTC-em-st1

DN!: Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) Calls for Independent Counsel to Investigate Cheney and Rumsfeld for Violating Torture Laws

2008-12-23T19:00:00.001-06:00

Susan Wilk has sent you a story from Democracy Now!, a daily independent radio and TV news program:

Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York has urged Attorney General Michael Mukasey to appoint an independent counsel to investigate Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and other senior Bush administration officials for violations of the law relating to the torture of prisoners in US custody. Nadler is the chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. [includes rush transcript]

To read, listen to, or watch the whole story:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/23/rep_jerrold_nadler_d_ny_calls

This email has been sent at the request of a visitor to our website. If you wish to ensure that you do not receive any future messages from Democracy Now!, please accept our apologies and visit http://www.democracynow.org/optout

Video: Steven Spoonamore Named Connell

2008-12-22T16:09:00.000-06:00

Rove Threatened Blackmail - Background

2008-12-22T16:06:00.001-06:00

More Background
http://thejournal.epluribusmedia.net/index.php/state-news/ohio-news/34-ohio-news/127-rove-threat-to-blackmail-gop-it-mastermind-triggers-immunity-request-to-ohio-ag-by-election-lawyers

Thrown Under the Bus

2008-12-22T15:59:00.001-06:00

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 PRNewswire-USNewswire

Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush's 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport. Velvet Revolution ("VR"), a non-profit that has been investigating Mr. Connell's activities for the past two years, can now reveal that a person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how he can tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that George Bush and Dick Cheney would "throw [him] under the bus."

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayRel...

Connell Had Cancelled Previous Flights

2008-12-22T15:40:00.001-06:00

Connell had canceled at least two previous flights on fear of sabotage.

The man who knew too much

2008-12-22T15:36:00.001-06:00

An article in the Telegraph (UK):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3885913/George-Bush-aide-dies-in-plane-crash.html

Scott Horton's take:

A Troubling Black Box Death
By Scott Horton

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/12/hbc-90004069

Michael Connell was well-known to those who follow the "black box" voting drama. A voting technology expert from Akron, Ohio, Connell faithfully served the Republican Party, and in particular its chief electoral guru, Karl Rove-faithfully, that is, up until a few months ago. Under subpoena and court order, Connell was compelled to testify about his role in managing the 2004 election tabulations in Ohio. In that race, Connell both served as information technology consultant to the Bush-Cheney campaign and, under contract with the state of Ohio, managed the vote tabulation from servers he maintained in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He emerged as the focal witness in the current controversy over voting machine manipulation in Ohio. In 2004 exit polls put Kerry on top, but official results in black box districts, strongly at variance with the exit polls, gave the state, and the race, to Bush. After Connell was reportedly threatened by Karl Rove, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the litigation appealed to Attorney General Mukasey for protection late last summer. Now Connell is dead, the victim of a crash on the approach of his plane to the Akron airport on Friday. The Akron Beacon Journal reports:

Mr. Connell, founder and chief executive of New Media Communications in Richfield, died instantly when the single-prop airplane he was piloting crashed into a vacant house about three miles short of the Akron-Canton Airport. State Highway Patrol Lt. Eric Sheppard said Mr. Connell's plane was in communication with the airport control tower just before the crash, but he could not detail whether the radio transmissions were calls for help. "We have no reason to believe at this point it was anything other than an unfortunate crash," Sheppard said.

Connell had recently come into public view in connection with a lawsuit raising allegations of vote fraud in 2004:

Šthe lawsuit alleges that by 9 p.m. on Election Night 2004, the results were switched from the state server to one set up by Connell's, in the former Pioneer Bank Building in Chattanooga, Tenn. It is alleged the same server was used to bundle and remove White House e-mails regarding the 2005 federal prosecutor firing scandal. Mr. Connell tried to fight the subpoena, but a judge ruled against it and he gave a deposition on Nov. 3. It was through the fight over the subpoena that attorneys who brought the case learned that Mr. Connell and his wife had allegedly been threatened with federal prosecution by Rove.

Bob Fitrakis, one of the Columbus attorneys who filed the lawsuit, a former Green Party candidate for president and a political blogger known for his conspiracy theories on election stealing in Ohio, said word of Mr. Connell's death ''sent a chill down my spine."

Larisa Alexandrovna also links Connell to another important technology controversy: the "disappearance" of millions of emails connected with Karl Rove from the White House servers. The emails had been repeatedly subpoenaed and the White House had claimed they were "lost," a response which few are buying.

Mike Connell set-up the alternate email and communications system for the White House. He was responsible for creating the system that hosted the infamous GWB43.com accounts that Karl Rove and others used. When asked by Congress to provide these emails, the White House said that they were destroyed. But in reality, what Connell is alleged to have done is move these files to other servers after having allegedly scrubbed the files from all "known" Karl Rove accounts.

Connell may very well have died as a result of an innocent accident, but the circumstances are such that some observers will never believe that. He will be viewed as "the man who knew too much."

NYU professor and Harper's Magazine contributor Mark Crispin Miller discusses the case on today's Democracy Now.

Connell was warned not to fly

2008-12-22T12:38:00.001-06:00

This detailed piece by Wayne Madsen is based on information from reliable sources.

MCM

Mike Connell was warned not to fly before plane crash

Mike Connell was warned not to fly before plane crash
By Wayne Madsen

Online Journal Contributing Writer

Dec 22, 2008, 00:27

(WMR) -- WMR has learned from knowledgeable sources in Ohio that Republican Party computer networking guru Mike Connell was warned not to fly in anonymous warnings conveyed to principals in the ongoing federal civil lawsuit of King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell, stemming from GOP-engineered vote fraud in the 2004 Ohio presidential election, as well as a potential Ohio racketeer-influenced criminal organization (RICO) criminal proceeding against former Bush White House aide Karl Rove and Blackwell, in the conspiracy to illegally steer Ohio's 20 electoral votes to the Bush column in 2004.

Connell's Piper Saratoga single-engine plane crashed during the evening of December 19 in Uniontown, Ohio, as it was preparing to land at Akron-Canton airport. There were no other passengers and Connell was killed in the crash. Connell had flown to College Park, Maryland, the previous day. Connell, who lived in Akron with his wife Heather and four children, often flew to Washington for activities related to his IT businesses.

Connell's name surfaced as a key player in Rove's election fraud conspiracy after this year's July 17 Columbus news conference hosted by Cliff Arnebeck, the Ohio attorney who has been representing plaintiffs in the federal civil suit against former Republican Secretay of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. On the phone at the conference was John McCain campaign adviser and computer security specialist Stephen Spoonamore who identified Connell as a key player, as well as potential trial witness, in the GOP's conspiracy to flip Ohio votes in the 2004 election.

Spoonamore and Connell had reportedly worked together on foreign elections in programs sponsored by the International Republican Institute (ISI) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Both had traveled abroad together on special election projects to ensure "fair voting" procedures.

For the first time, WMR has learned that the GOP vote flipping conspiracy was in place earlier than the November 2004 general election and was used to deny votes to Democratic candidates John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich in the March 2, 2004, Democratic primary. John Kerry won the primary with 52 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Edwards and 9 percent for Kucinich.

After Connell was identified as a potential witness in the civil case against Blackwell and a possible criminal Ohio RICO case against Rove, Blackwell, and perhaps others, the plaintiff attorneys received a tip from a high-level source in the McCain presidential campaign that Rove had issued a threat against Connell. Connell had worked for the 2008 McCain presidential campaign on the development of its web pages.

WMR has learned from our Ohio sources that five threats against Connell were conveyed to the election fraud plaintiff attorneys with the last tip being "Connell is in danger." One of the threats reportedly made by Rove to Connell was that Connell could forget about a pardon from President George W. Bush if he did not "take the fall" in the event criminal charges were brought and that his wife Heather, who was used as a majority stockholder for one of Connell's web design companies, GovTech Solutions, would be prosecuted for illegal lobbying. Connell's other company is New Media Communications, Inc.

We have also learned that one additional tip was relayed to Connell's wife and it was to the effect that Connell "was in danger and he should not fly his plane."

Connell's firms received contracts to place its servers behind the House of Representatives firewall courtesy of then-House Administration Committee Chairman Bob Ney (R-OH), later jailed for his role in the Jack Abramoff lobbying-influence peddling scandal. Connell also designed and ran the web sites for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Judiciary Committee. WMR has learned that through effective GOP control of these web sites, the Bush White House was able to monitor all committee e-mails and documents, including planning documents for House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

We have also learned that Connell's IT firm did classified web site development work for the CIA.

Based on the threats against Connell, the federal judge hearing the civil suit King Lincoln v. Blackwell,conveyed to Connell that the court would protect him if he came forward. On October 17, 2008, Connell's attorneys attempted to quash an October 8, 2008, plaintiff subpoena for his court appearance. On October 31, U.S. Judge Solomon Oliver denied the motion to quash the subpoena and ordered Connell's deposition to proceed on November 3, the day before Election Day. WMR has learned that on Friday, October 31, Connell was nervous and "beet red" during the hearing to quash the subpoena. On Monday, November 3, Connell was composed and it is believed that his top shelf law firm had been selected by Rove to represent Connell for the deposition. Rove's intent was to ensure that there would be no deposition from Connell before the November 4 election.

WMR has also learned that Connell was prepared to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the election fraud in Ohio and other states but that the offer of testimony was not acted upon senior staffers for House Judiciary Committee Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). A source in Columbus told us that some of Conyers' senior staffers on his committee and in is office are not to be trusted on issues related to election fraud.

In addition, Rove and the Bush White House attempted to forestall testimony by election officials in Mahoning County and Youngstown, Ohio, on election fraud in 2004 by promising to have former Rep. James Traficant (D-OH), who is currently imprisoned after being convicted of corruption, released early in return for their silence. Traficant is not scheduled for release from federal prison until Sept, 2, 2009.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).

MIKE CONNELL DEAD

2008-12-21T01:25:00.003-06:00

Stark Co. plane crash: Who was Michael Connell?

http://www.wkyc.com/print.aspx?storyid=103520

Michael Connell was killed when the Piper Supercub he was piloting crashed three miles short of an Akron-Canton Airport runway. He leaves behind a wife and four children.

Connell, 45, of Bath Township, is considered to be one of the Republican Party's top computer experts. He led the companies that designed websites for the GOP and a virtual who's-who list of republican political leaders including President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, as well as national organizations. Connell developed a host of federal government software and data management systems. Connell is also said to be a close confidant of the Bush family.

Earlier this year Connell was subpoenaed to testify in an Ohio federal court regarding voter fraud just days before the November presidential election. His alleged intimate knowledge of White House and Capitol Hill email systems has been a hot topic of conversation for Washington insiders regarding the Karl Rove/White House email scandal.

Connell founded New Media Communications, based in Cleveland, is the CEO of GovTech Solutions, based in Akron, and is associated with several other successful IT, marketing and advertising enterprises. His companies have won numerous awards for the development of political websites, marketing campaigns, and use of technology. New Media Communications placed third on the prestigious Weatherhead 100, a list compiled by Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management that recognizes Northeast Ohio's fastest growing companies.

© 2008 WKYC-TV

courtesy: www.connelldonatelli.com

Karl Rove and Death

2008-12-21T01:22:00.002-06:00

This message from Mark Crispin Miller is so disturbing, I am posting it without comment, in its entirety:

Back in the Nineties, the right compiled a "Clinton death list," and kept it circulating as a part of their long propaganda drive against that president. They also spread a lot of rumors of a coming federal crackdown, muttering of black helicopters in the skies, and "jack-booted thugs" preparing to drag all good patriots away.

All that stuff was paranoid mythology, based loosely on some actual events (the FBI's assault at Ruby Ridge, which took place under Bush the Elder, and the massacre of the Branch
Davidians in Waco) and lots of heated fantasy (such as the notion that the Clintons whacked
Vince Foster).

Whereas Clinton's enemies made much of his imaginary homicides and fascist plans, they've
mostly been stone-silent on the subject of Bush/Cheney's overt strikes against US democracy
(e.g., the Patriot Act, etc.)--and on the many unexplained and/or suspicious deaths that have occurred throughout the dark years of this presidency.

The list is long. There's Ray Lemme, the Florida investigator who, just after he told Clint Curtis that he'd nailed the truth about the Bush Republicans' election fraud, "committed suicide" in Georgia; Deborah Palfrey, the "DC madam," who threatened to go public with her client list, then suddenly "committed suicide"; Athan Gibbs, whose company, TruVote, which specialized in non-computerized vote-counting, was starting to compete with Diebold and ES&S et al.--and who died young on a highway when his car was crushed by a big truck; Don C. Wiley, the Harvard biologist who also suddenly, and wholly inexplicably, "committed suicide" (a terminus apparently related to the Bush regime's own work with lethal germs).

There are a lot of others, too. Instead of trying to name them all, let's concentrate for now
on those with clear links to Karl Rove.

From Velvet Revolution:

Karl Rove was working with Phil Gramm when a witness died:

In 1985, Gramm was linked to a campaign contribution shakedown run out of a Small Business Administration (SBA) office in El Paso. He was never subjected to a complete investigation or negative press coverage, however, because on February 19, 1988, a leased Rockwell Aero Commander 680 crashed and exploded shortly after taking off from El Paso International Airport. All aboard, the pilot, his wife and son, were killed. The pilot was local businessman Don McCoy who, a day earlier, had agreed to give testimony in an FBI investigation that had threatened both Senator Gramm's protégé at the SBA, and some of the city's most prominent business leaders.

Karl Rove was one of Enron's biggest shareholders. Questions surround the "suicide" of Enron's Cliff Baxter.

Rove was working on John Ashcroft's Senate campaign when his opponent, Mel Carnahan, was killed in a plane crash. Ashcroft lost the race.

Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash after speaking out loudly and publicly against starting the Iraq War. Rove was the political strategist in the White House.

[For an overview of the abundant evidence of foul play in Wellstone's case, see
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0975276301/qid=1146178680/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-8142988-0768628?s=books&v=glance&n=283155--MCM.]

And now Mike Connell. Quite the pile of bodies following Rove around.

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~

For more News From Underground, visit http://markcrispinmiller.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

MN Recount Numbers

2008-12-19T18:56:00.001-06:00

See the numbers at the Minneapolis Star Tribune's sit: http://senaterecount.startribune.com/ballots

Chris Matthews Takes Neocon Apologist to Task

2008-12-19T18:42:00.003-06:00

Minnesota Recount Updates Dec 17th - Video

2008-12-17T18:29:00.005-06:00

Coleman Adds Challenges As Board Asks For Them To Be Reduced

230+ Franken challenges left to count as board reconvenes 9am

MN Supreme Court to hear recount case

Franken campaign spokesperson believes that the recount will be completed on Friday.

Watch it all live on The UpTake! (provided here for your convenience)

Shoes for Bush

2008-12-15T17:25:00.001-06:00

Nobel Economist: Bail Out Homeowners, Not Banks

2008-12-13T21:05:00.001-06:00

"We should be helping at the bottom end, not at the top," he says.

read more | digg story

New GOP Memo- actual Union Busting MEMO

2008-12-13T20:01:00.001-06:00

1. This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.More at link

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Judicial Ruling Brings Franken Closer to Senate Win

2008-12-13T08:19:00.001-06:00

Al Franken received a lot of good news in his attempt to wrest, from Stormin' Norm Coleman, the Senate seat once held by Paul Wellstone. Franken's odds of winning improved a great deal after a judicial ruling and one from the Minnesota SoS.

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Election News from Mark Crispin Miller

2008-12-09T02:44:00.000-06:00

CA: Humboldt County - Local elections office commended

http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_11161383

CA: Humboldt County - Editorial - A glitch that should never have been
http://www.times-standard.com/editorials/ci_11161384

CA: Humboldt County - Our Votes are Too Important...

http://www.mitchtrachtenberg.com/ourvotes.html

CA: Humboldt County - Diebold Voting Software Lost Ballots in California County
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/12/unique-election.html

MN Senate Race:The Latest News

2008-12-07T08:29:00.002-06:00

LA Times sez: Either Coleman or Franken has won. Gee thanks.

Best News Headlines of the Week

2008-12-07T08:22:00.002-06:00

Best Headline of the Week:

George W. Bush Attends His Own Hanging

Thank you, LA Times

Franken Ahead 22 Votes Now, Campaign Says

2008-12-05T06:53:00.001-06:00

"If true (the official state and newspaper numbers show a margin more favorable to Coleman, owing to the many challenges each campaign has logged), the tally underscores just how incredibly close the Minnesota race has become."Regardless of the outcome, he should challenge the rejection of the absentee ballots in court.

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The Republican Noise Machine's Rumor

2008-11-30T22:59:00.005-06:00

They are trying so hard to promote a rumor that has been circulating for about 6 months now, that Obama has something to hide on his birth certificate.

Reason Magazine took a look at it here: Read About It

Snopes has also taken a look at it: Read the Snopes Analysis

Analyst: Senate may decide Minn. election

2008-11-30T20:57:00.001-06:00

ST. PAUL, Minn., Nov. 29 (UPI) -- A statement by US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., makes it more likely the Senate could intervene in a . . .

Read More

Minnesota Recount Frequently Asked Questions

2008-11-30T20:37:00.003-06:00

Recount Frequently Asked Questions by the Star Tribune

Read More

White House Lobbies Against Fed Global Warming Regulations

2008-11-30T08:20:00.003-06:00

The Bush White House continues to subvert the rule of law and impede action on global warming. To avoid action on global warming despite a direct order from the Supreme Court, Bush’s people have brazenly flouted their Constitutional obligation to faithfully execute the law, ignoring science, ignoring Congressional subpoenas, even ignoring the EPA.

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Digg Story: Squirrel Completes Insane Obstacle Course

2008-11-29T11:29:00.003-06:00

Squirrel obstacle courses

Lightening up.
http://digg.com/educational/Squirrel_Completes_Insane_Obstacle_Course?OTC-em-st1
---
"Squirrel Completes Insane Obstacle Course"

Franken-Coleman Recount, 11/27/08: MSM Gets It Wrong Again

2008-11-28T14:29:00.003-06:00

TThe MSM would have you believe that the Board's decision on the rejected absentee ballots is that it was A Serious, Perhaps Fatal Blow To Franken's Campaign. But, if you watched the coverage of the board meeting over at The UpTake, Minnesota's groundbreaking citizen-journalism video site, you saw something completely different.

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NASA scientist cites 'global-warming emergency'

2008-11-27T22:17:00.001-06:00

NASA physicist says public awareness lags about the 'hundreds of millions' of people worldwide will sufffer from lack of water, rising seas. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is already at 385 parts per million, well over the 350 parts per million, or less, that is considered "safe," Hansen said. And more warming is already in the pipeline because of iner

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Howard Dean for Education Secretary

2008-11-27T18:59:00.001-06:00

But no one can dispute that Howard Dean was right about the 50 state strategy, and this undoubtedly helped Barack Obama and a lot of Democratic congressmen and senators get elected. He's also been exactly right on the policy issues. Shouldn't the Obama administration reward competence?

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Al-Zawahiri Has a New Rant

2008-11-27T18:48:00.006-06:00

He got one thing right: The American economy is corrupt and usurious.
Here is the summary of his new commentary that I read. By the way, to save you some trouble: he makes no mention of the Mumbai attacks.
http://bnonews.com/news/22.html
Pres.-elect Obama, this is the guy that needs to get gotten, more so than bin Laden.

DA reveals evidence against Cheney, says 'don't let it die'

2008-11-27T16:15:00.001-06:00

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra spoke to two Texas television stations Wednesday night regarding his investigation of injustice within the prison systems which led to the indictment by a Texas grand jury of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, along with other officials.

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Minnesota Recount Likely to End Up in Court, Regardless of Winner

2008-11-27T11:13:00.009-06:00

This analysis comes from a post on Digg by ThoughtLover (love the name):

After browsing around trying to figure this out, it appears that Minnesota state law does not allow rejected absentee ballots to be included in a recount, of which there are estimated to be about 6-12k. Many estimations expect Franken to gain votes in the 3000+ contested ballots (currently Coleman has ~100 more contentions). Even with Franken's expected gains, generally people seem to think Franken will lose the recount by about 50 votes. At this point, everything is within the margin of error.

As Minnesota's Canvassing Board doesn't feel they have the authority to make a ruling, this will go to the courts, no matter who wins the recount, to see if the rejected absentee votes can be counted. According to arguments made before Minnesota's Canvassing Board, according to an article in the Wall Stree Journal by John Fund...

Read the WSJ article here

... the court case will likely revolve around:
1) A Minnesota law requiring "complete voting activity be reported."
- Sounds weak to me. Ballots that are legally disqualified and legally denied recount could be reported as "discarded".
2) Equal Protection argument from Bush v Gore (I'm no expert on this ruling)
- This infamous Supreme Court ruling that decided that the different standards of counting ballots across Florida violated the equal protection clause. Similarly, Minnesota's rejected absentee ballots (vs other rejected ballots) are being treated differently. However, similar cases since Bush v Gore have failed because of Bush v Gore's controversial “limited to the present circumstances” ruling that has limited it as being a precedent.
3) Washington State's disputed 2004 governor's race
- A controversial ruling which released names and led to a scramble to obtain written oaths from people declaring how they had intended to vote. The Democrats won because they started their efforts sooner.

All very confusing... my brain hurts.

Howard Dean for Education Secretary

2008-11-26T19:59:00.001-06:00

I love this idea! But no one can dispute that Howard Dean was right about the 50 state strategy, and this undoubtedly helped Barack Obama and a lot of Democratic congressmen and senators get elected. He's also been exactly right on the policy issues. Shouldn't the Obama administration reward competence?

read more | digg story

Canvassing Board rules against Franken in MN Senate recount

2008-11-26T18:56:00.001-06:00

Minnesota's Canvassing Board voted unanimously Wednesday to reject a request from Democrat Al Franken to count thousands of rejected absentee ballots in the recount of votes in his Senate race against Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

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Minnesota Recount Updates Nov 25

2008-11-25T22:24:00.008-06:00

From RawStory: Franken Finds 6,400 Uncounted Absentee Ballots

With the recount in the razor-thin Minnesota U.S. Senate race continuing into its second week, Democratic candidate Al Franken's campaign says it has uncovered 6,400 rejected absentee ballots and will ask a state board to count at least some of those votes.

Read More

From CQ: Norm Coleman Gains Votes in Today's Recount

But with about a fifth of the total votes still to be re-tallied after six days of hand-counting — and each side poised to challenge close to 2,000 ballots when the state canvassing board reconvenes in mid-December — a decision in the year’s closest Senate contest still is likely weeks away.

Richard Clark for Head of CIA

2008-11-25T08:50:00.006-06:00

This article lays out the case for making Richard CLark the head of the CIA.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/richard-clarke-for-cia-di_b_146043.html

Nate Silver Is Predicting a Franken Win

2008-11-24T00:00:00.004-06:00

Not buying the prediction, but hoping for it anyway. From the article on fivethirtyeight.com:

"An analysis of precinct-by-precinct returns available on the Secretary of State's website, however, suggests that Franken's position is somewhat stronger than it appears, and that he may in fact be the favorite to prevail in the recount process."

Here's the whole story.

Challenged Ballots in Minnesota Recount

2008-11-22T16:44:00.004-06:00

This site shows a few of the challenged ballots and lets you vote on who gets the vote for each example.

It is worth your time. Check it out.

Mike Connell: Key Player in White House Email Funny Business

2008-11-22T16:23:00.007-06:00

An interesting article about Mike Connell, Bush/Rove's "IT" guy (technology adviser).

Connell met with cyber security expert Stephen Spoonamore:

"to learn how to destroy data on White House computer hard drives. This was during the height of the United States Attorney scandal and during the tenure of Connell's former employee, David Almacy, as director of the White House Internet and E-Communications Director."

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/prosecute_rove/

Two Whistleblowers Say 2002 Senate Race Was Rigged

2008-11-22T14:12:00.006-06:00

Diebold Vote Company Whistleblower and GOP Cyber Security Expert Both Say That 2002 Chambliss Senate Race Was Rigged

Reported by Velvet Revolution:

A former Diebold vote machine contractor who was in charge of preparing the 2002 election between Saxby Chambliss and Max Cleland has stated that the software patches placed on the voting machines in the weeks prior to the election could have rigged the election in favor of Republican Chambliss.

Read all about it

Watch the interview with the Diebold whistleblower:

Watch the cyber sleuth interview:

Video: Humorous Take on the Minnesota Recount

2008-11-22T13:49:00.005-06:00

Minnesota Recount: Friday Nov 21st

2008-11-22T13:33:00.003-06:00

Recount details: Friday's results

UPDATED: Hearing on Cheney indictment turns chaotic

2008-11-21T14:33:00.005-06:00

RAYMONDVILLE, Texas (AP) — A county prosecutor who brought indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday about special treatment for high-profile defendants as a routine motions hearing descended into chaos.

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UPDATED WITH VIDEO:

For People Who Want to Follow the Recount Moment to Moment

2008-11-21T08:53:00.002-06:00

Recount Blog

Franken Gains on Coleman in 2nd Day of Recount

2008-11-21T08:39:00.003-06:00

Vote margin shrinks to 129, but it's not all good news. The number of challenged ballots is mounting.

Read Brad Friedman's report

Go to Minnesota's Recount Page

Cheney, Gonzales, Indicted

2008-11-18T21:30:00.006-06:00

The first of many times that Cheney and friends will be indicted.

"Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been named in a South Texas grand jury indictment on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners being detained in Willacy County federal detention centers, The Associated Press said."

It's been a weird month. This kind of weird, I can handle.

Alaska recount update: Saturday 11/15

2008-11-14T19:39:00.006-06:00

The Alaskan U.S. Senate recount trend favors Begich, who is now ahead by 1022. The state will count about 40 percent of remaining ballots today and the rest early next week.

http://www.adn.com/elections/senate/story/588675.html

Mike Malloy - I Will Never Forgive--MUST HEAR

2008-11-13T07:49:00.001-06:00

Mike Malloy lays the case out for why the American People should never forgive the Republicans for what they have done to America. Check out www.novamradio.com! This is a MUST HEAR for every American.

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Blackwater likely to be fined millions in Iraq weapons case

2008-11-13T07:01:00.001-06:00

Charged with illicit arms trafficking with some of the weapons are believed to have ended up on the country's black market, but no criminal charges have been filed in the case.No charges, no arrests, no contracts canceled and any fines will be added to the next contract amount, no doubt. War is a racket!

read more | digg story

Dem Pulls Ahead in Alaska Senate Race by 814

2008-11-13T06:11:00.001-06:00

Begich, who was losing after election night, now leads Stevens by 814 votes -- 132,196 to 131,382 -- with the state still to count roughly 40,000 more ballots over the next week.

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TED STEVENS BEHIND BY 3 VOTES

2008-11-13T01:56:00.001-06:00

Mark Begich just took the lead in Alaska's senatorial race this evening announced the Alaska Division of Elections

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How to tell if your position on something is wrong

2008-11-10T03:09:00.001-06:00

Of course this doesn't apply to the users of Digg.

read more | digg story

Simple Device Invented in 1833 May Lead to Cheap Hydrogen

2008-11-10T02:12:00.001-06:00

A modern team of Italian researchers has uncovered a device invented by fellow Italian G.D. Botto in 1833 that can be used to generate hydrogen with inexpensive, everyday parts. By reflecting sunlight from two parabolic mirrors onto a hollow tube wrapped in metal and filled with water, the device generates enough electricity to produce hydrogen

read more | digg story

Barack Obama: His policies

2008-11-10T02:11:00.003-06:00

The Obama in-tray will be full to bursting when he settles down in the Oval Office. But where does he stand on the major issues facing America?

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Palin Blamed for Death Threats Against Obama

2008-11-10T02:10:00.002-06:00

Sarah Palin's rhetoric produced a spike in death threats to the Obama family.

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They Call it Obama Backlash

2008-11-09T21:31:00.002-06:00

I call it KKK.

R Reich: The Mini Depression and the Maximum-Strength Remedy

2008-11-09T21:19:00.001-06:00

Robert Reich on shoring up the demand side of the economy. Government spending is the key, because none of the other components of demand - Consumers, Investments and Exports - can do the job right now.

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Bushies’ Final Crime Spree Targets Our Public Lands!

2008-11-09T17:59:00.001-06:00

In their final weeks of misrule, the loyal corporate servants who are the Bushies' Federal appointees are using our Federal govenment to shovel our national wealth over to their private masters. While the Fed and Treasury Bushies get most of the attention, other Bushies beaver away to deliver two great prizes: Federal regulations & Federal lands."

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Alask-anomalies!

2008-11-09T17:58:00.001-06:00

From Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground"

"...In Alaska, more people voted for George W. Bush in 2004 than for Sarah Palin on Tuesday despite an identical 61-36 margin of victory. Yes. Only four years ago 54,304 Alaskans got off their sofas and voted for Bush, but decided to sit home and not vote for Palin in 2008. In turn, I have to ignore the 30,520 Alaskans who felt progressive enough in 2004 to vote for John Kerry, but weren't inspired to vote for Barack Obama. I would have to glance past the 1,700% increase in the Democratic caucus in February, the 20,991 newly registered voters, and the three largest political rallies in Alaska's history. I would also have to forget the people I stood in a long line with to early vote. It would be helpful not to know every other presidential election since Alaska began keeping records has had a larger turn out than the one we just had with our own Governor on the ticket. Try not to remember 12.4% more Alaskans showed up for the August primary as compared to four years ago, before the Palin nomination. Don't think about the Lower 49's record voter turn out this year either. Try to delete the memory file, though difficult, that 80% of us approved of Sarah Palin just two months ago.

...In the balance hangs the fate of Alaska's Senate and House seats. We still don't know if we have elected the now convicted felon Ted Stevens, or Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. We still don't know if Don Young and his million dollar legal problems will defeat former State Representative Ethan Berkowitz and his dreams of Washington DC. Alaska hasn't had Democrat representation in Congress since Mike Gravel lost his senate seat in 1980.

Four years ago, 313,592 out of 474,740 registered voters in Alaska participated in the election-a 66% turnout. Taking into account 49,000 outstanding ballots, on Tuesday 272,633 out of 495,731 registered Alaskans showed up at the polls; a turnout of 54.9%. That's a decrease of more than 11% in voter turnout even though passions ran high for and against Barack Obama, as well as for and against Sarah Palin! This year, early voters set a new record. As of last Thursday, with 4 days left to vote early, 15,000 Alaskans showed up-shattering the old record set in 2004 by 28%! Consider the most popular governor in history-and now the most polarizing-was on the Republican ticket. Consider the historic nature of this race; the first African American presidential candidate EVER! The second woman to ever make a presidential ticket; and she's one of our own. Despite that, we're supposed to believe that overall participation DECREASED by 11%. Not only that, but this historic election both nationally and for Alaska HAD THE LOWEST ALASKA TURNOUT FOR A PRESIDENTIAL RACE EVER!!!

...Pre election polls had both Mark Begich-D and Ethan Berkowitz-D solidly beating incumbents Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young by at least 6-10 points. Stevens is currently ahead by 3,353 votes with 49,000 ballots left to count. Berkowitz, however, is behind by 16,887 votes; a 51-43 margin.

Are we to believe Don Young came from an 8 point average polling deficit to win by 8 points-a whopping 16 point turnaround??? Remember how historic the pundits thought Hillary Clinton's come from behind New Hampshire Primary victory was? She trailed Barack Obama by 9% in the pre primary polls and ended up winning by 2 points. It was called the most "stunning comeback in political history." On Election Night, Don Young topped Hillary Clinton's startling and unprecedented comeback.

Furthermore, there were nearly three thousand Alaskans, (2,783) that voted yet left the hotly contested congressional race blank. In the highly publicized senate race, complete with a nationally covered trial that ended with seven felony convictions for the incumbent, 1,392 Alaskans submitted a ballot and failed to register a vote in the senate race. I'm not sure statistically what that means, but it strikes me as odd that well over a thousand Alaskans would wait in long lines and not cast a vote in either the senate race or the congressional race-especially since there was only one ballot measure. In addition, this particular election had an extra high degree of local interest with Governor Palin on the national stage.

McCain-Palin was ahead in Alaska pre election polling by as much as 55-40. The Haysresearch Poll that came out Sunday indicated that gap had closed to 2.7 points! That poll was certainly consistent with Palin's reverse meteoric fall in popularity within the state of Alaska. In that same Haysresearch Poll released on November 2, Question 2 addressed Governor Palin's positive-negative rating. 11% of Alaskans surveyed said their opinion of Palin had become more positive while 37% indicated they were more negative towards Palin. Yesterday's vote contradicts those polls. McCain-Palin won Alaska 61 -36! A 25 POINT SPREAD!!! An identical point spread as the 2004 Election.

Alaska has certainly had our share of election hanky panky. Check out this link to our 2004 election results. There are 40 districts in Alaska. The Anchorage area districts run from District 17-District 32. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and pick any district from 17-32. Pay particular attention to the 3rd column labeled % turnout. Hit the back arrow and select another district. There are more precincts with voter turnout over 100% than under 100%. In other words, many more people voted in Anchorage area precincts than there were registered voters. Clearly, this is not possible.

In 2006, the Democrats filed a lawsuit against the Alaska Division of Elections to release public records needed to verify the 2004 election results. The Democrats also sought to have the Alaska Division of Elections release the raw data for the 2006 election. The State requested several deadline extensions and eventually refused to release the "central tabulator data file" taken from the Diebold-supplied computer used to run the "GEMS" (Global Election Management Software) application. A lawsuit was filed in Superior Court seeking release of the records. The Court eventually forced the State to release the 2004 database. The software was found to contain hundreds of edits after the 2004 election, including as late as July of 2006, prior to the release of the data."

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Most Minn. Senate 'undervotes' are from Obama turf

2008-11-08T21:18:00.007-06:00

By BRIAN BAKST – Associated Press
21 hours ago

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — An Associated Press analysis of votes in the tight, still-to-be decided race for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota shows that most ballots lacking a recorded choice in the election were cast in counties won by Democrat Barack Obama.

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.

About 25,000 ballots statewide carried votes for president but not for the Senate race. Although some voters might have intentionally bypassed the race, others might have mismarked their ballot, or optical scanning machines might have misread them.

A recount due to begin Nov. 19 will use manual inspection to detect such ballots.

Meanwhile, Coleman is using the state's open records law to ask Minnesota and all 87 counties for access to voting data and other records, questioning gains Franken has made since Election Day.

Coleman campaign manager Cullen Sheehan complained of "statistically dubious and improbable shifts that are overwhelmingly accruing to the benefit of Al Franken."

The Coleman campaign cited a 100-vote gain that Franken picked up from Mountain Iron, in St. Louis County, on Thursday night.

The rest of the story

Coleman Fails in Attempt to Block Counting of Absentee Votes

2008-11-08T15:51:00.008-06:00

Coleman Tried to Block Some Votes from Senate Race Recount
Sen. Norm Coleman has failed in an attempt to block some absentee ballots from being counted in his close race with Democrat Al Franken. Franken was at last count trailing by about 220 votes.

An Associated Press analysis of votes in the tight, still-to-be decided race for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota shows that most ballots lacking a recorded choice in the election were cast in counties won by Democrat Barack Obama.

The recount is scheduled to begin on Nov 19.

Palin's Dog?

2008-11-08T09:08:00.004-06:00

Pakistan Declares Death Penalty for 'Cyber Terror'

2008-11-08T00:09:00.002-06:00

Oh NO. American officials can have some pretty over-the-top reactions to hackers and so-called cyber terrorists, but the death penalty? C'mon, Pakistan.

read more | digg story

Vote Counting Funny Business in Texas?

2008-11-06T07:53:00.011-06:00

I wanted to know the final percentages in Dallas County for the presidential election so that I could brag that Dallas went blue, only to notice some funny business in Ft Worth's total.

Bump!

2008-11-06T07:48:00.003-06:00

Al Franken's Razor-Thin MN Senate Race Counted on Flawed Opt

2008-11-06T07:32:00.005-06:00

UPDATE: A typo brings the race closer. The race is only 221 votes apart, triggering an automatic recount.

PLUS: Details on 'What in the Hell Happened in Alaska' and Georgia and Oregon...

read more digg story

Fired Up? Ready to GO!!

2008-11-04T14:18:00.002-06:00

Obama: "Fired Up? Ready to Go!": Great video from last night. http://tinyurl.com/57xpjb Thanks for Tweeting it, Americablog!

http://tinyurl.com/57xpjb

Mercenary Firm Offers to 'Detain Troublemakers' on Election

2008-11-04T09:30:00.003-06:00

CIA-linked private military contractor Evergreen Defense & Security Services offered to post sentries at Oregon polling stations on election day, "detaining troublemakers" and making sure voters "do not get out of control."

read more | digg story

New Footage of WTC7 and WTC1 Collapses

2008-11-03T21:19:00.007-06:00

This footage was posted November 1, 2008 by "GldBr," a user who signed up the same day the new footage was posted and has no other videos on the account. The videos contain no soundtrack but show clear views of both the WTC1 and WTC7 collapses, apparently from the roof of a nearby building. It is unclear at this time who shot the footage or why it is just making its first appearance on the Internet at this time.

The new footage of the WTC7 collapse starts with an extreme close-up and zooms out just before the collapse: the photographer knows the collapses are imminent.

The image zooms out to show the pyroclastic flows of dust from the demolition engulfing the streets below. Just as the building begins to collapse, a series of explosions can be seen shattering a line of windows along the side of the building on the right side of the frame, consistent with blast squibs.

The unreleased footage of the North Tower collapse starts with an extreme close-up of the building showing a squib well below the area of collapse before jump-cutting to a zoomed-out view of the building as the collapse is already taking place. It is not evident whether these two shots are from the same camera or why they were edited together in this way. The collapse footage shows red-hot areas within the still standing "spire" of core columns not toppled in the collapse and then pans down for a moment. When the camera pans back up, the spire is gone.