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Election Fun In Iran: Unrest of Citizens, Arrest of Loser & Oppression of Media


by ThePete 4:40 pm 2009-06-13
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I reeeally wish I had more time to cover this. Basically, Iran had a huge election and the main challenger, a dude called Mousavi lost. Protests have erupted as claims of election fraud have, as well. ABCNews has said that their footage of the scene of protests in Tehran has been confiscated and that the pictures/video coming out of the capital city of Iran were shot with cell phones (ironically, I watched this report on my iPhone).  Meanwhile, rumors are swirling that Mousavi has been arrested and, according to @SashaKane in a Twitter post he may have also been charged with: “…high crimes
and treason against then Country of Iran???”

The reason this is all worth following is because Iran is already on our “Would Like to Invade” list–I think it’s in the number one spot, if I’m not mistaken–Ahmadinejad claiming a victory when there are reports that almost no Ahmadinejad voters could be found in Tehran, followed by
oppression of the media, protests and rumors of his competitor’s arrest don’t exactly make Iran a less irresistible target for invasion by the USG.

In fact, as we all know, weaker justifications for invasion have been used in the past.  Iran becoming unstable might almost be seen as a good reason to invade.

Either way, stuff to be concerned with for sure…

Screencap source: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/mor…

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by ThePete 4:40 pm 2009-06-13 Categories Politricks, TheHELL?, thepete.com | Tags , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »

The Next Time Dick Cheney Opens His Fat Mouth Remember This


by ThePete 2:02 am 2009-06-02
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This is semi-old news, but with Cheney making the rounds again recently I felt this story would be good to conjure up–it’s from 2004 but important to think about when Dick Cheney goes on and on about "protecting America."

In an October 12, 2004 article on CommonDreams.org, Jason Leopold wrote about how Dick Cheney was helping Iraq break international law:

The report on Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, prepared by Charles Duelfer, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of the Iraqi Survey Group, said Saddam Hussein used revenue from the oil-for-food program and “created a web of front companies and used shadowy deals with foreign governments, corporations, and officials to amass $11 billion in illicit revenue in the decade before the US-led invasion last year," reports The New York Times.

Sure, $11 billion is chump change compared to what we’ve actually spent on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, but that was, to use the old cliche, a lot of money back then. Leopold goes on, however, later in the article, to say:

But the one company that helped Saddam exploit the oil-for-food program in the mid-1990s that wasn’t identified in Duelfer’s report was Halliburton, and the person at the helm of Halliburton at the time of the scheme was Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton and its subsidiaries were one of several American and foreign oil supply companies that helped Iraq increase its crude exports from $4 billion in 1997 to nearly $18 billion in 2000 by skirting U.S. laws and selling Iraq spare parts so it could repair its oil fields and pump more oil.

Leopold cites UN documents in the article as his source for this story. While he doesn’t link to the docs themselves in his article, in the face of evidence like this, if true, it’s hard to give any credibility to Cheney at all and I find it very frustrating that the media gives a man like this, who is no longer in power, a voice on TV and on the radio. Frankly, it makes me question the entirety of mainstream media.

As if there wasn’t already enough reasons to mistrust the mainstream media.

One other thing about Cheney: this is more proof that our leaders are just corrupt businessmen who couldn’t care less about human life and just want to make money. If he really thought that Saddam was a bad guy, why did the company he was CEO of do business with him? Because he doesn’t care who is bad or not. It’s all about the green.

Democracy? Republic? Free country?

Nah, it’s called a Corruptocracy.

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by ThePete 2:02 am 2009-06-02 Categories Politricks, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »

Think Specter’s Switch to the Democrats Means Anything? You Need to Understand Our One-Party/Two-Head System


by ThePete 1:49 pm 2009-04-28
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Think about it: our system allows for legalized bribery. Every politician is pro-corporate because that’s where the overwhelming majority of their campaign contributions come from. To keep those contributions flowing (which allows them to keep getting re-elected) politicians will do anything these corporate donors ask. Does it really matter if one of them takes money from Coke instead of Pepsi? Or barters favors with agribusinesses instead of the oil industry? What happened to government for the people, by the people?

What’s worse is that some companies and industries will give to both parties to make sure that whomever wins, they’ll have influence.

Back on April 13, 2009 Noam Chomsky was on Democracy Now and he addressed this issue this way:

You can learn a lot from campaign contributions. In fact, one of the best predictors of policy around is Thomas Ferguson’s investment theory of politics, as he calls it—very outstanding political economist—which essentially—I mean, to say it in a sentence, he describes elections as occasions in which groups of investors coalesce and invest to control the state. And he takes a look at the formation of campaign contributors, and it gives you a surprisingly good prediction of what policies are going to be. It goes back a century, New Deal and so on. So, yeah, it can predict pretty well what Obama is going to do. There’s nothing surprising about this. It’s the norm in what’s called political democracy.

I know I’m quoting the infamous Noam Chomsky, but he’s quoting Thomas Ferguson and who cares as long as what they’re both saying is accurate?

Sure, there may be some slight ripples, but ultimately, the problems with our system will still be there no matter which side of the aisle Specter iss sitting on. Our system is built on corruption. Is it any less corrupt because companies you like get their way?

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by ThePete 1:49 pm 2009-04-28 Categories In TheNews, Politricks, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »

Dems Debate Whether to Investigate Crimes of Bush Admin or: Why I Refuse Party Affiliation


by ThePete 11:06 am 2009-04-24
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Geh… This is just sad beyond words. WashingtonPost.com is reporting that the Democrats in Washington are torn as to whether or not to go after Bush Admin officials for approving torture.

So, FOR YEARS there have been loads of evidence that the Bush Administration committed crimes. The GAO actually found that they had violated federal law (go to the GAO website and do a search for "covert propaganda"). We all know that acts of torture were committed in Iraq, we know the Bush Admin misled us into war in Iraq and mismanaged our war in Afghanistan.

Yet, no investigation let alone impeachment hearings for any Bushites.

The excuse while Bush was in office was "We can’t impeach him now, there just aren’t enough votes."

Then, once the Democrats took the majority in Congress, the excuse became "Well, there’s not enough time left before Bush steps down."

For anyone who thinks the law should be enforced the last eight years have been very hard.

But it’s not getting any easier now. If EVERYTHING ELSE wasn’t enough for you, Obama just released memos PROVING Bush officials were down with torture–those of us with morals would THINK we’d finally see some criminal charges.

Maybe we still will–but not before the Democrats debate about WHETHER TO ENFORCE THE LAW.

This is why I refuse to be in either political party. The Democrats are wondering if international and US law needs to be enforced and the Republicans feel the law can go to hell if the cause is just.

The most depressing thing of all is that Obama was supposed to change all of this. Now we see that Democrats and Republicans, alike, believe that the law is to be enforced on the little people and that for the rich (mostly white) folks in government, the law is simply not a concern if one’s motives are pure.

I said mostly white, above, because now, apparently, Obama is in violation of the law too–international law demands that war crimminals be prosecuted.

So while I’ll never call him "King Barry," Barack Obama is, and will continue to be, above the law until he goes after the Bush Administration.

Progress?

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by ThePete 11:06 am 2009-04-24 Categories In TheNews, ObamaWatch, Politricks, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , , , , , , , | $ | Comments (2) »

Stateside Secretive Prisons for Mostly Muslims (Questionably Guilty, too)


by ThePete 6:09 pm 2009-04-17
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Damn, I wish this didn’t make me feel so gross. Let me quote from the post on DemocracyNow.org that the included screencap comes from:

While President Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo and the secret overseas CIA prisons, calls are increasing for him to reexamine the treatment of prisoners detained as part of the so-called war on terror being held inside the United States.

With little public scrutiny, the Bush administration opened two secretive prisons in Indiana and Illinois, known as Communication Management Units, or CMUs, that are designed to severely restrict prisoner communication with family members, the media and the outside world. Dozens of Muslim men are still being held at the CMUs, as well as other prisoners, including environmental and animal rights activists.

Man, do we really think America is so weak that it can be threatened by folks fighting Global Warming and trying to free monkeys from labs? No wonder we think Al Qaeda are so bad-ass and killing a bunch of Somali pirates is something to be proud of (come on, they’re pirates… from Somalia).

Here’s a bit more from the DN transcript:

Prisoners held inside the special unit include Dr. Rafil Dhafir, the Iraqi-born doctor from upstate New York who is serving a twenty-two-year sentence for violating the Iraqi sanctions by sending aid to Iraq through his charity Help the Needy; Yassin Aref, the Kurdish-born imam from Albany, New York, who was convicted in a controversial FBI sting operation; and also the environmental activist Daniel McGowan. He’s serving a seven-year sentence for his role in two acts of arson.

Some critics have suggested McGowan and other non-Muslim prisoners are being held in the CMU, because the federal government wants to avoid accusations that the CMUs are designed to only hold Muslim men.

And from a bit further on lawyer for one of the prisoners of a CMU prison, Kathy Manley says:

Well, yeah, it’s unconstitutional to treat people more restrictively in a prison context because of their race or religion. And they’re clearly doing that. I mean, the CMU in Terre Haute is almost 90 percent Muslim.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: New boss (almost the) same as the old boss.

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by ThePete 6:09 pm 2009-04-17 Categories ObamaWatch, Politricks, TheBig Brother, thepete.com | Tags , | $ | Comments (0) »

All of Your Paranoia about Government and Corporations is Accurate (and then some)


by ThePete 5:41 pm 2009-04-07
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Above: money doesn’t make the world go ’round–but it does keep the system moving.

Yeah, pretty sad when things in the real world happen like they would in a novel–you know when the people you trust betray you in a way you would never have expected? Let me get more specific.

Remember that thing called “government” that’s supposed to protect your rights and help organize society in a way that allows humanity to have an easier, more enjoyable time?

How about corporations? Remember them? They’re the groups of smaller businesses that team up to help better provide for the communities they exist in.

Well, that’s the way both were originally supposed to work, anyway. Alas, they’ve supplanted those wonderful ideals with concerns only for themselves. Corporations have the same rights as we individuals and, while they can’t vote, politicians make sure big businesses are more than equally represented in government.

Capitalism is dead and probably has been for years–it’s only recently that we’ve discovered its body. See, Capitalism too, has been supplanted by the system of Corruptionism.

The basic idea is that our leaders (both political and corporate) tell us that they care about all humans, our rights, the environment and our morals, but all they really care about is taking from us and giving to themselves. We give our money to corporations in exchange for products and services we don’t need (but are literally brainwashed to believe are necessary) and the corporations take that money and pay off politicians to make laws that make it easier for corporations to make even more money off of us.

Politicians are corrupt because they take money for favors. We are corrupt because our money comes from corporations that we then use for things we don’t bother realizing we don’t need. Corporations are corrupt because the people who run the corporations take money, ignore their own morals, and keep the corporate interests going.

Everyone is corrupt in this system.

Maybe the Corruptionist system (like most systems) can actually function to make life easier for us. However, take it to the extreme and we get what we have now.

Last month Matt Taibbi wrote an amazingly in-depth piece that you can find at RollingStone.com that covers the bail-out, the AIG mess, corrupt politicians and most importantly how this whole thing has functioned as a non-violent coup meant to wrest control of government (and therefore us) from our elected leaders. Of course, I’d suggest that our elected officials haven’t had any substantive power for years. Regardless, the reality seems to be that now they don’t. Here’s a bit from Taibbi’s article:

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they’re not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d’état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — “our partners in the government,” as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.

The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.

That article has been sitting in a tab in Firefox since last month and is so incredibly long I still haven’t finished reading the whole thing. It’s a pretty good read, so far, though.

As much as I’d like to be wrong about this, the moral of the story seems to be that, ultimately, every ounce of stereotypical paranoia any of us have had about politicians and businessmen being liars has been accurate.

Politicians and businessmen are all lying–all the time. They may not even be aware of their own dishonesty, but the reality sure seems to be that eventually, any corporation and every politician will sacrifice what ever it/he/she needs to in order to make as much money as it/he/she can.


Click here to see visit my Disgusting People (Magazine)
page which I set up just days after 911.

One good example of this is when People Magazine put out their 911 Memorial Issue, just a few days after 911. They ran ads opposite pictures of the disaster. My “favorite” was a picture of a man on his knees, mouth agape, seemingly staring across the gap between the page his picture was on and the page facing him which featured an ad for State Farm life insurance.

I emailed the editor and complained. She replied with a bunch of rationalizations and apologized only for my offense. Members of an email list I was subscribed to at the time seemed nonplussed by my offense at People Magazine’s behavior.

“They have to make a living don’t they?” said one person on the list.

Here we are 8 years later and things have only gotten worse. We’re all just fodder for the machine of Corruptionism–we seem generally OK with that and so do our political leaders. So much so that, morals are put aside in favor of bringing in the cash so we can buy our iPods, pay our bills, and feed our kids. Our government takes our money (both directly through taxes and indirectly by having the Fed inject new cash into the system) and gives it to these corporations to keep them going and to quite literally reward them for their horrible behavior.

Just keep doing what you’re doing, the government seems to be saying.

But “corruption” is the right word for it, isn’t it?

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by ThePete 5:41 pm 2009-04-07 Categories In TheNews, Politricks, TheBig Business, TheMoney, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »

You Really Have to See This: Comparing Bailout Funds to Government Spending Over the Years


by ThePete 4:39 pm 2009-03-09
Categories In TheNews, Politricks, TheHELL?, TheWarnings, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »
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Here’s another reason Republicans should shut their fracking GOBS about how the Democrats are wasting spending our tax dollars.  Check out that chart.

Can you believe that shit?

Look at the absurd difference between how much the moonshot ran us, compared to the Bailout.

$237 billion vs. $4,616 billion.

Dude, our leaders are unbelievable fools.

Just to add to that chart, I did a quick bit of Googling and found the Cancer.gov’s numbers on how much was spent by our government on cancer research in 2007: $1367.1 million–not even a billion-and-a-half dollars were spent on cancer research.

So, if my math is right, to save our banks the outlay was 3,000 times the amount spent on cancer research in 2007. (That’s 4,616,500,000,000 ÷ 1,367,100,000 = 3376.85612, according to my Mac’s calculator widget–actually, I had to lop off the bottom six zeroes because it couldn’t handle anything with so many zeroes.)

So, this is our lovely government. Charged with keeping us safe, yet more willing to keep bad banks afloat than to keep our lives, uh, alive.

Incidentally, according to Cancer.org, in 2007, Cancer killed just short of 1.5 million Americans (1,444,920 is the exact number, FYI.) The current estimated population of America is just short of 306 million people. That means that around 1 in 300 people die of cancer in a year. How many people die of bad banking?

Special thanks to my good friend Katabasis at http://i-squared.blogspot.com for pointing me at a VoltageCreative.com blog post written by Wade who made up the chart above based on numbers from a post by Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing.net.

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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by ThePete 4:39 pm 2009-03-09 Categories In TheNews, Politricks, TheHELL?, TheWarnings, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »

Job Creation Chart Makes Me Wonder Why Anyone Votes for Republicans


by ThePete 2:19 pm 2009-03-03
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I nicked this image from a post by Devilstower at the loco liberal website DailyKos.com but if the job numbers can be trusted it tells a sad story about Republican
voters.

The chart tells us, first, that Democrat presidents are statistically better at job creation than Repub presidents. Second, it tells us that Republican voters are morons to vote for Republican presidential candidates because invariably a Republican in the White House means fewer jobs for Americans. What is more important to our strength as a country than jobs?

So, why does anyone vote for Republicans if they mean less jobs for Americans?

Is Al Qaeda that scary?

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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by ThePete 2:19 pm 2009-03-03 Categories Politricks, thepete.com | Tags , , , | $ | Comments (2) »

Rush Limbaugh Talks for an HOUR+ and Reminds Us How He’s Full of Hot Air


by ThePete 2:09 am 2009-03-02
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Seriously, what better a way to remind us you’re a big, fat, lying
windbag than by spinning a web of misleading crap so vast that it
takes you LONGER THAN AN HOUR TO SAY IT.

I thought about doing a quipfest to Rush Limbaugh’s speech at the CPAC conserv-o-rama conference which took place over the weekend in some very Caucasian part of America (made that way by all those Republicans attending the conference). The thing is, the transcript to Rush’s speech is too long–it would literally take me weeks to post the entire thing with my quips in small enough chunks that you’d actually want to read it.

So, I’m not going to bother. Rush doesn’t deserve to have his words repeated AGAIN. I will repeat a few of them in the interest of being critical of him.

Now, the guy behind the website Donkelphant.com, was covering Rush’s speech for his blog that generally tries to be middle-of-the road. He was not pounding on Rush, but he was suggesting that Rush might not be the best person for conservatives to use as their unelected leader. He caught a bit of flack for these comments and that got me thinking once again about, what I think is, the absurdity of being Republican in today’s day and age. I thought I had covered all of my bases on Friday with my post “Rant Time: Why are their Still Republicans?” However, after reading some of what Rush had to say, I decided I had to jump back in the ring.


I’ve never read the book,
but I love the title!
Click to buy it now!

As I said, the transcript to Rush’s speech is HUGE but CNN.com posted some of his comments in an article (see the cap above–I LOVE how Monsanto is sponsoring the article!), so I’ll refer to some of those those. From the article:

“We conservatives have not done a good enough job of
just laying out basically who we are, because we make the mistake of
assuming that people know. What they know is largely incorrect, based
on the way we’re portrayed in pop culture, in the drive-by media, by
the Democrat party,” the conservative talk show host told a mostly
young crowd of energized supporters.

Uhhh, which part of “we don’t think gays should marry” did we not understand?

How better can you explain it when Republicans tell us they don’t think women should be allowed to have abortions? I mean, John McCain, during the 2008 campaign, seemed to think there was a “pro-abortion” movement. He referred to it in one of the debates with his own mouth. Is he part of the drive-by media?

And now that I mention it, aren’t YOU part of the drive-by media, Rush? I love the tactic being used by MANY Republicans these days of accusing others of doing the exact same thing they, themselves, are doing. The Daily Show had a thing recently where they pointed out how Bill O’Reilly hated the paparazzi but was OK when his own camera men hounded politicians with cameras. Same thing here–oh, it’s the media’s fault America doesn’t know who conservatives are! But Rush, you work in the media.

Duh.

More from the article:

“We want every American to be the best he or she
chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and
revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of
Independence. We believe that the preamble of the Constitution
contains an inarguable truth, that we are all endowed by our creator
with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, freedom —
and the pursuit of happiness,” he said, pausing several times for
enthusiastic applause.

You want every American to be white and male and all others can be sub-humans. Seriously, Republicans think women should make less than men for the same work done. Republicans think women should not have control over their bodies. Republicans think gays should not be allowed to have state recognized marriages. Republicans think Islamo Fascism is some sort of threat to America (it isn’t). So, I guess the definition Rush and fellow Republicans have for “being the best he or she chooses to be” is an odd one since the above is true. If Republicans really wanted every American to be the best he or she chooses to be, then shouldn’t women get paid the same amount, gays be allowed to get married and women be allowed full control over their bodies?

And hey, wait–”the best he or she chooses to be”? Doesn’t that mean I can screw up my life on purpose and not suffer for it? If I intentionally choose to have a very low standard of “best,” doesn’t that mean I can not get a job, get free food, housing and entertainment compliments of the Republican party? Rush says that’s what he wants–HIS WORDS. ;)

Oh yeah, Rush, if you “loved and revered our founding documents” you would not have been allowing George W. Bush and pals pee all over them for 8 years. Do you even know what “habeus corpus” means? You are a lying bastard to say that you revere the founding documents for anything but their ability to serve as your toilet paper. Extraordinary renditions? Torture? Unfounded wars based on lies? Are those the things the founding documents protect and support?

More from the article:

“He wants people in fear, angst and crisis, fearing
the worst each and every day, because that clears the decks for
President Obama and his pals to come in with the answers, which are
abject failures, historically shown and demonstrated. Doesn’t matter.
They’ll have control of it when it’s all over. And that’s what they
want,” Limbaugh said.

It’s like he thinks we’re all morons–in fact, I think Rush Limbaugh is one of the most cynical assholes who ever lived. Does he think we have not been paying attention to the “abject failures” that have been running the USA for the last 8 years? Does he think we haven’t noticed the way the Bush Administration has trumped up Al Qaeda as some big, bad threat when they’re just a bunch of extremists in the desert?

While we were all being told we could be blown to hell by an Extremist Islamic Nuke, our economy was beginning to show the signs of imminent failure. Funny, AQ hasn’t done shit to us since 911.

Yet, our way of life is dying all the same.

And Rush is telling us Obama’s answers are abject failures.

What GOT US HERE, dipshit?

Proven by history, my ass. OH YES and the Republican answers have been proven successes??

It’s literally like Republicans are vampires–incapable of holding up a mirror and seeing themselves reflected in it.

“They see these inequalities, these inequities that
capitalism produces. How do they try to fix it? Do they try to elevate
those at the bottom? No, they try to tear down the people at the
top.”

“Elevate… at the bottom?” I think you hypocritical Republicans would likely have a problem with that, wouldn’t you? Every time someone wants to give us poor folks a hand-out all you guys want is for us to get a job. Yet here’s Rush saying we should be “elevated.” What the hell does that even mean, anyway? And since it’s the people at the TOP WHO CAUSED THIS MESS aren’t they the first who should pay?

Us poor folks didn’t cause the economy to crash and bleed out. It was the bankers and the businesses–and the politicians who thought the bankers and the businessmen could be trusted to not get greedy.

I could go on and on and on and on, but I have things to do.

Oh yeah and one last thing–Rush wants Republicans to take back the country? Republicans. Didn’t they just have the country for 8 years?

Republicans: Please stay away from Rush Limbaugh. He is saying things that betray you and your beliefs. As an independent, I don’t like a lot of what the Democrats are doing any more than I like what the Republicans have done. But Rush is just trying to polarize you. He’s trying to manipulate you by using the same tactics he accuses Obama of using.

Think for yourself–learn the truth for yourself. It’s hard work, for sure. But if it was easy to think for yourself, everyone would be doing it.

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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by ThePete 2:09 am 2009-03-02 Categories In TheNews, Politricks, TheDistractainment, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , , | $ | Comments (10) »

Wikileaks Cracks Pentagon Encryption; My Faith in Our Leaders is Restored (or NOT)


by ThePete 1:59 pm 2009-02-27
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This is hilarious–well, assuming you think massive incompetence being a Pentagon job requirement is funny. Can you believe this? Apparently there was a password on the politically sensitive file at this URL:

http://oneteam.centcom.mil/isc/Shared%20Documents/NATO%20Master%20Narrative.doc

By the look of it, the only thing protecting the contents of this file is the fact that it’s a password-protected MS Word doc. Wtf?? What bright-eyes thought this would be a good idea? Let’s just leave a politically sensitive WORD DOC in an unprotected directory and expect a fracking MS Word password to keep it safe. WHAT COULD HAPPEN?

So, anyway, the post at Wikileaks.org (see screencap above or original here: https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/N1 ) doesn’t explain how the “encryption” was “cracked” but I suspect it was something simple, like the highly technical process of entering random words until something worked.

You may be wondering what was so politically sensitive in the Word doc. Well, it turns out it was a document meant for NATO officials, and it tells them not to tell anyone that the country of Jordan is involved in helping us with the War Against Terror (aka tWAT) in Afghanistan. What’s the catch with the world knowing Jordan is involved? It’s supposed to be a secret. Apparently, back in 2001 they officially withdrew from the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), which is officially in charge of our efforts in Afghanistan. It seems like they sure didn’t stop helping us.

Why is it a big deal that Jordan is still involved in our Afghani efforts? Well, it seems they’re real big in the torture community. They are also said to be big helpers with our extraordinary renditions program. So, essentially, they help us when we go into one country, kidnap a suspect and deliver said suspect to another country where we ask them questions and let local authorities torture if we don’t like the answers.

In an obviously related story the Pentagon shut their entire site down this afternoon. Gee, I wonder why they did that!

Does anyone still wonder why the world has so much wrong with it when our leaders are smegging moronic enough to use only a single password to protect sensitive information?

OH yeah and the password on the doc? Progress.

Well done, Pentagon! Well done!!

Massive kudos to Twitter-user Zaibatsu who posted about Wikileaks cracking the password on the NATO file.

I wonder if this story will hit CNN or any of the other MSM news “sources.”

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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by ThePete 1:59 pm 2009-02-27 Categories Politricks, TheWars, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »

Jay Doesn’t Understand Obama’s Plan


by ThePete 10:52 pm 2009-02-25
Categories In TheNews, ObamaWatch, Politricks, TheMoney, thepete.com, tv.thepete.com | Tags , , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »
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And neither do I.

Here’s Jay’s 12 second take:


Jay Doesn’t Understand Obama’s Plan on 12seconds.tv

Sure, it’s an oversimplification, but if loans are what got us into trouble in the first place, how are more loans going to fix things?

Seriously: Banks give loans to people who can’t afford them and then pawn off the lawns to someone else who then gets screwed.

Obama wants us to give money to the same banks who will then, somehow miraculously NOT give money to people who will default on the loans?

Since the economy is hurting, a LOT of folks won’t have good enough credit to get loans, so who are these loans going to be given to?

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by ThePete 10:52 pm 2009-02-25 Categories In TheNews, ObamaWatch, Politricks, TheMoney, thepete.com, tv.thepete.com | Tags , , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »

Republicans Celebrate Bobby Jindal’s Coming Out Party–Apparently, the GOP Likes Gays Now


by ThePete 1:12 pm 2009-02-24
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The headline of that CNN.com article cracked me up when I first saw it late last night. Turns out the GOP actually used the phrase “coming out party” to describe Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s turn at responding to President Barry’s Mini-State of the Empire address tonight. Jindal’s appearance on national TV (people still watch that?) is seen as a big deal for the 37 year-old Indian-American who was a US Congressman before taking office in January 2008 (I read his Wikipedia article!). But is this married minority coming out of the closet?

Of course not. It just goes to show you how effing clueless the Republicans still are.

They think they can “put a fresh face on the party” by making sure that “face” isn’t white.

As if that somehow changes the bad ideas the party embraces. As if it means the Republicans suddenly like minorities and think women should get paid the same amount as men. As if “GOP” now stands for the “Gay Old Party.”

That IS something to remember–the Republicans still don’t like gays.

They still believe that a “pro-abortion movement” actually exists.

They still favor businesses and bankers over American citizens, think that Al Qeada and the Taleban are two mighty armies that threaten our way of life (instead of being two loose-knit bands of extremist losers) and most of all don’t seem to mind when the American government commits domestic and international crimes (too late to impeach Bush, but he can still be indicted, can’t he?).

Then again, the Democrats believe those things, too.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what color skin the face on which ever party has. It’s all the (corrupt) business as usual.

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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by ThePete 1:12 pm 2009-02-24 Categories Politricks, thepete.com | Tags , , , , | $ | Comments (6) »

Economic Crash Now Directly Risking Human Lives


by ThePete 3:46 pm 2009-02-12
Categories In TheNews, Politricks, TheBig Business, TheMoney, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , | $ | Comments (7) »
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I first found this Salon article through a posting at DisInfo.com a great Digg alternative for folks who like to think for themselves but still like to see what sites/articles other, like-minded, folks are checking out. The Salon.com article in question is entitled “Is a shortage of patients hurting hospitals?.

The headline alone turned me off to reading the rest of the article, though–the DisInfo post points out: “Hospitals, doctors, and dentists are of late experiencing a shortfall of patients, as people who have been laid off lose their insurance (and thus the ability to pay for treatment)”

So, this is where the rubber hits the road–the private health care industry, that forces all Americans to pay for health care is now too expensive for a growing number of Americans to pay for.

The economic downturn is now putting a tremendous number of human lives at risk.

And it’s all in the name of making a profit, making a living, keeping businesses alive.

So, now businesses are more important than the lives of average Americans.

THIS is where our wonderful system has taken us.

Maybe now we can agree that capitalism unbridled is a bad idea.

Maybe now we can agree that the free market in all corners, unregulated, is a bad idea.

Perhaps, at this point, we can move toward universal health care for everyone since so many more of us now, thanks to the mistakes/insane greed on Wall Street and in Washington DC, can’t afford a doctor’s visit.

I don’t see any other way to cut this one.

You can’t blame all the people who got laid off during this economic crash for getting laid off.

Free health care MUST happen now.

If only our politicians would realize this.

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by ThePete 3:46 pm 2009-02-12 Categories In TheNews, Politricks, TheBig Business, TheMoney, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , | $ | Comments (7) »

In Case You Missed It: At Least 78 Billion Lost in TARP


by ThePete 4:17 pm 2009-02-10
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Yeah, this kind of thing cracks me up. While the Republifools are freaking out about the Citizen’s Bailout bill that just passed the Senate, no one seems to be raising a big stink about $78 billion being lost when the USG paid $176 billion for $254 billion of bank crap–er–capital purchases from banks. Sure, $78 billion isn’t that much these days (!!) but compared to the stuff the Republicans were bitching about yesterday it seems pretty substantial.

The really frustrating thing for the “law and order” crowd is that former TreasSec Henry “Hank” Paulsen effectively committed fraud on Congress and the American People. According to the February 6, 2009 Bloomberg.com article capped above, the oversight panel in charge of the TARP bailout was run by a woman called Elizabeth Warren. She said, according to the Bloomberg article, that:

The panel asked Paulson in December to value taxpayers’ return on the investments, Warren said. According to Warren, he said they were made “at or near par,” meaning they received about $1 for every $1 invested.

The panel subsequently found the value to be about 66 cents on the dollar, Warren said.

So, if you consider 66% “at or near par” with 100%, then you shouldn’t have a problem. In which case, I’d like to buy all the money in your bank account for 66 cents per dollar. Sound good?

Didn’t think so.

So, here we go again with another example of how Obama will be letting the previous administration get away with lying to the American people.

CHANGE HAS COME TO AMERICA and it looks really familiar!

Oh and in case you think $78 billion still isn’t that much, here’s something else from that Bloomberg article:

“The loss estimate is conservative,” said Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. “It could turn out that those assets in the end are worthless. These are massive handouts to favored institutions to try to make up with taxpayer money the mistakes they made with investor money.”

Yeah, so it’s possibly more than $78 billion. In fact, with the track record of this whole thing, I’m expecting it to definitely be more than $78 billion.

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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by ThePete 4:17 pm 2009-02-10 Categories Politricks, TheMoney, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , , | $ | Comments (5) »

Republican Sez Path to Disaster Ahead if Stimulus Bill Passes, Cute How He Tries, Isn’t It?


by ThePete 2:41 am 2009-02-09
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As if the Republicans have ANY credibility with America left at all, some Republitard called Shelby has announced that the current stimulus bill will send us down "a road to financial disaster."

…as opposed to the last two bailout bills, passed under Republicans, that have led us to happyfunplayland with money trees and loli-pops for everyone!

Do these Republifools know how stupid they sound just opening their gobs?  

These idiots have become the Jar-Jar Binks of modern political discourse–and, as with The Phantom Menace, all We, The People, can do is yell "SHUT UP!" at the screen because the Democrats are still too polite to just call their "opponents" in Washington what they are.

Sure, one of Obama's guys did call out the Shelby-Unit's comment, but, as you can see in the screencap above, he did it with such absurd politeness that it pretty much doesn't count.  Lawrence Summer said that the Republicans "don't seem to me in a strong position to lecture about the lessons of history,"

OOOOOO! WHAT A CUT!

OUCH.

Wait, the Democrats were riding that pony to war and economic disaster, too.  Where were they for the last eight years?

Once again, I return to my earlier point: the government doesn't really give a crap about We, The People .  The Dems are OK at pretending, but even they don't really care.  If they had cared, they would have stood up to the Bushites and done what the Constitution asks of them.

Read the whole article I capped above at CNN.com here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/08/congress.economy/index.html 

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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by ThePete 2:41 am 2009-02-09 Categories Politricks, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , , | $ | Comments (14) »

Washington Finally Interested in Helping We, The People… imagine that!


by ThePete 3:05 am 2009-01-29
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In a January 28, 2009 article at CNN.com, CNNMoney reporter David Goldman reported on the US House passing an $819 billion stimulus bill that included a buttload of money for us poor folks. Now, there are a couple of things to note, here.

First off, do you wonder why the bill that helps the poor folks out is coming now, after the corporations and the banks have already gotten their bailouts?

I looked at that headline and had to stop myself from shaking my head and worrying about inflation. Instinctively, I wanted to say “more money injected into the system which will drive down the value of the money already in the system.”

The thing is, we’ve already seen well over a trillion dollars injected into the US economy in the past six months or so–possibly more than two trillion–it’s hard to keep track. The value of the American dollar is fucked already, might as well pretend we have money–after all, it’s only fair that finally, we, the regular folks, get our turn at the pot.

Why do I think we won’t be seeing checks proportionate to what the banks and corporations have gotten? Regardless, you have to wonder why We, The People of the United States of America are third in line of economic importance behind the banks and the corporations.

It’s more evidence proving that our government doesn’t give two shits about the people they’re supposed to represent. Why do we not get our bailout before these businesses and banks?

Aren’t we more important than them?

Don’t they exist, like our government, to serve us?

Apparently, not.

Secondly, you have to wonder why precisely NO REPUBLICANS voted for this bill.

To paraphrase Kanye West: Republicans to do not care about poor people.

I mean, seriously, Republicans–do you understand reality? We voted you assholes out of office. You had your asses handed to you in the last election. 8 million more people wanted the Democrats’ guy over your guy and you guys are retarded enough to vote against a bill that helps the regular people who voted against you?

UNbelievable.

Of course, we only get our bailout checks because we voted Obama into office. This is his thank you gift to us. Our payoff, if you will. He knows he’s got to give us SOMEthing or we’ll revolt.

The thing that’s the most frustrating is just how illogical our “leaders” in Washington are behaving.

Jon Stewart asked, on Tuesday’s Daily Show, why not give us the money and let us pay off the loans we’ve defaulted on, rather than have the USG buy up all the bad debt? Give us the money so we’ll directly spend it on the economy rather than giving the money to the greedy bastards who caused all this trouble in the first place?

It’s fucking frightening when the only sane voice in the room comes from a basic cable TV comedy news show host.

What the fuck, America?

We elected Obama, but now what?

Are we going to let ourselves be seduced by hope? Or are we going to demand actual leadership from our elected politicians in Washington?

Change may have come to America, but Washington is still filled with dipshits and morons who are happy to trade oral sex acts with the economic powerhouses that put them in office.

And that Blagojevich guy is getting impeached for being honest about trying to sell the Illinois senate seat. Seems hypocritical when we all know how our government is up for sale.

How else do you explain us normal folks seeing our bailout checks last?

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by ThePete 3:05 am 2009-01-29 Categories Politricks, TheMoney, thepete.com | Tags , , , , | $ | Comments (1) »

John Conyers Subpoena’s Karl Rove??? Holy Crap! We’re Not on Bizarro World Anymore!


by ThePete 8:00 pm 2009-01-26
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A world where crimes are investigated properly?  A planet where bad people are dealt with?  An Earth where George W. Bush faces war crimes charges?

We're not quite back to that Earth, but it seems, at least, like we're leaving the Bizarro World of the Bush Regime, behind (Busharro World?).

Today, amazingly enough, John Conyers subpoenaed Karl Rove .  According to a January 26, 2009 article from AP.org (see screencap above) Representative Conyers:

…has subpoenaed former White House adviser Karl Rove to testify about the Bush administration's firing of U.S. attorneys.

Ohhh, bummin'.  It's just about the possibly illegal firing of US attorneys and not anything like betraying the public trust, or violating international law, or even breaking the FISA law.  The nice thing about this, however, is pointed out in the AP article:

The subpoena Monday by Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers continues a long-running legal battle. Rove previously refused to appear before the panel, contending that former presidential advisers cannot be compelled to testify before Congress.

If the government fails to get Rove to show up THIS time, it'll be painfully obvious that we're still back on Bizarro World.  In America, no one is supposed to be above the law.  Yet, if Rove can avoid testifying, well, that'll put several people right up there, above the law.  So, it'll be nice and obvious if it happens.

I am not so pessimistic, however.  Conyers wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post that he posted on his website.  In it he talks about "Why We Have To Look Back." It's a pretty uplifting read for those of us who believe the law should be enforced.  Here's my favorite bit:

Only by chronicling and confronting the past in a comprehensive, bipartisan fashion can we reclaim our moral authority and establish a credible path forward to meet the complex challenges of a post-Sept. 11 world.

Pretty cool, huh?  Seems Conyers understands the value of learning from history–even recent history.  This is good.  However, he has let us down in the past.  John Conyers' voice was one of the strongest calling for the i-word (impeachment) for Bush and pals, yet he let politics get to him and took impeachment off of the table when Nancy told him to.

So, while I'm hopeful, I'm not blind.  I still think politicians would rather keep their jobs than do the right thing.  

I hope Conyers is different.

On a side note, I love how, in that screencap of the AP article, Google News throws up the map of where Washington DC is.  I suppose that's useful to someone who doesn't have Google. 

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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by ThePete 8:00 pm 2009-01-26 Categories In TheNews, Politricks, thepete.com | Tags , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »

$1.2 TRILLION Deficit! Well-done, Politicians! Oh, it’s not just Bush’s fault!


by ThePete 2:27 pm 2009-01-08
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Yep, the US government’s budget deficit is $1,200,000,000,000!! And
Congress is said to find that number “jaw-dropping.”

I’m pretty sure this would be the case for ANYone who understood what kind of money that is.

First off, in case you’re fuzzy on it, the budget deficit is the difference between the amount of money a body has and the amount it wants to spend. Yep–the USG wants to spend $1.2 tril more than they’ve got–that being a “surprise” to Congress, really gives us an idea of how much they’ve got!

The main thing to consider is just how absurd it is that Congress finds this jaw-dropping. Why is this so shocking to them? Where have they been all of this time? Have they not been paying attention to things like this? Seriously:

Just who the hell is minding the store down there in Washington??

I don’t think it’s possible for our government to do anything more to undermine our confidence in it. Come on–how do you not see a hole so big you could stick $1.2 trillion in it??

You people in DC are absolute idiots. Why do we put up with this behavior from the people who we’ve supposedly hired to protect us? This isn’t just a Bush thing, clearly–it’s EVERYONE IN WASHINGTON.

I suppose it’s too much to ask that you all impeach yourselves, isn’t it?

The above screencap comes from: www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/6199619.html

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by ThePete 2:27 pm 2009-01-08 Categories In TheNews, Politricks, TheMoney, thepete.com | Tags , , | $ | Comments (0) »

Condi sez: soon we’ll thank Bush. She’s right…


by ThePete 7:44 pm 2008-12-29
Categories El Archivos del Arbusto, In TheNews, Politricks, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »
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Oh yeah, soon, we’ll be thanking Bush all right…FOR LEAVING!

DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE WAY OUT, GEORGIE!

I’ll also be thanking him for not conjuring up some bullshit excuse
for him staying in the White House past Jan. 20. Of course, I would
have thanked Congress for doing their job and impeaching this lying
criminal, too, but they didn’t do that.

Check out the article the above screengrab comes from here:
www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/28/rice.administration/index.html

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Democracy In Danger: Three Weeks Later, Election ‘08 is Still a Mess


by ThePete 3:18 pm 2008-11-26
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This is a still from a video I shot about how my vote didn’t count in the California primaries this year. Watch it now.

Here are the latest election irregularity stories I’ve come across since last week:

Voting machines weren’t tested
Checks would’ve found straight-ticket error, panel told

FRANKFORT – Election officials in Kenton County and most of Kentucky have repeatedly violated state regulations that mandate testing of some voting machines before elections.

The tests were not performed in Kenton County or any of the almost 100 other counties – including Boone and Campbell counties – that use voting machines provided by Lexington-based Harp Enterprises, the company’s president told the Kentucky Board of Elections on Friday.

A test that local officials are required to perform would have almost certainly detected a programming error made by Harp Enterprises that rendered almost 80 of its E-slate machines incapable of tabulating straight-ticket voting on Election Day in Kenton County.
nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20081122/NEWS0103/811220364
Thanks to MikeAmundsen who posted a link to this on FriendFeed.

Concerns About CA’s Prop 8 Election Prompt Calls for Investigation, Official Complaints, Fraud Tips
Following reports of concerns from voters, election monitors, observers, and election integrity advocates about the voting equipment and procedures used during the November 4th election in which Prop 8 — a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality for all Californians — is said to have passed, Velvet Revolution is requesting that official complaints from citizens be filed with the CA Sec. of State, by Monday if possible. Any voters who may have witnessed unusual activity, or problems with voting equipment that may have affected the casting or counting of votes on Proposition 8, are asked to contact SoS Debra Bowen’s office as soon as possible. More details are posted here…
www.bradblog.com/?p=6692

Speaking of VelvetRevolution.us, here is a related story from their blog:

VR To California Secretary Of State: Investigate Proposition 8 Vote Count
VR has called on California Secretary of State Debra Bowen to order an immediate investigation into the accuracy of the vote count on Proposition 8, the ballot measure to amend the state’s Constitution by repealing marriage equality.

VR believes an investigation is warranted due to witnessed failures in election auditing procedures, complaints from voters and election monitors, equipment failures, and more, including:
www.velvetrevolution.us/#112608

Every Vote Matters in MN’s U.S. Senate Hand-Count. Every. Single. One.
Missing Ballots, Uncounted Absentees and the GOP PR Battle That May Trump Both…

Math/statistics/poll-wiz Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com predicts the race between incumbent MN Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and challenger Al Franken (D) could result in a 27 vote win for Franken. That’s right, just 27 votes.
www.bradblog.com/?p=6698

That last post links to another post at Politico which covers the Franken campaign’s contention that there are many missing ballots across the state. The post also claims to have possible photographic evidence of an uncounted ballot (suggesting more are uncounted):

Missing ballots concern Franken camp
Things are getting even dicier in the Minnesota Senate recount.

Al Franken’s campaign is contending that Minnesota election officials may have lost several dozen ballots across the state. Their basis for the charge is that the number of recounted ballots in certain counties does not match the total numbers of votes tallied on Election Day.
www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/1108/Franken_campaign_concerned_over_missing_ballots.html

The photo in question does not present any evidence as far as I can tell–it’s just a piece of paper sticking out of the back of what looks like a ballot machine.

You can follow the Minnesota recount fun on the state’s official unofficial recount results page here: electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20081104/SenateRecount.asp

Here’s a little sumthin’-sumthin’ about the 2002 election–yep, some people just won’t let go! Especially when it comes to democracy! Go figure. Anyway, here you go:

Stealing Georgia – Let’s Hope Not Again
But How Would We Know? The State Uses 100% Unverifiable Voting Machines
America Needs to Wake Up to Election Reform…

Why Georgia? There’s strongly suggestive evidence that the 2002 senatorial election in Georgia was stolen. That was the first election in which Diebold DRE (Direct Recording Electronic, usually touch-screen) voting machines were used statewide. Republican Saxby Chambliss beat front runner Democrat Max Cleland, with an astounding 12-point reversal of the vote count compared to pre-election polls. A last-minute “patch” had been applied covertly by Diebold staff to multiple voting machines throughout the state.
www.bradblog.com/?p=6682

Catch a nice nutshell explanation of the Saxby Chambliss story in the following video clip from Stealing America (a documentary I helped make, in case you hadn’t heard ;P):

And here’s some of the aftermath of the Chambliss mess:

‘Document Hold’ Served by OH Attorney to GA SoS in Advance of State’s U.S. Senate Run-off Election
Diebold Touch-Screen Memory Cards and Other Documents Sought for Retention as Allegations of Racketeering Scheme ‘to Corrupt Elections in the U.S. Over the Course of This Decade’ Spread to Encompass ‘02 and ‘08 Senate Races in the Peach State…
www.bradblog.com/?p=6696

There are PLENTY more stories on the news page over at VotersUnite.org which you can check out here: www.votersunite.org/news.asp

There’s also BradBlog.com which, by now, you know I recommend, too.

The short of it all is that democracy isn’t pretty or even easy. However, shouldn’t we make it simple if we can? Why bother with machines and technology if we’re just going to have to second-guess everything when the machines screw up? Why not take a week to let everyone vote and just take another week and have humans hand count the ballots once all the voting is done?

Sure, making everyone vote on a certain day and having the ballots mostly counted by the end of that day is SO much more dramatic, but which do you want? A democracy or a drama-cracy?

Why are we all being so childish about this?

When a guy with a logo like mine calls you childish, you know it’s bad!

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by ThePete 3:18 pm 2008-11-26 Categories In TheNews, Politricks, thepete.com | Tags , , , , , , , , | $ | Comments (0) »

TheBlurb: Why can't everyone support Iranians and their quest for liberty?
updated on 06/30/09 22:57:59 Change it! Archives