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


by ThePete 4:39 pm 2009-03-09
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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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Obama Ditches YouTube After (not) Breaking the Law (Kind of)


by ThePete 5:21 pm 2009-03-03
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OK, this is kind of a convoluted story here. According to two articles at ReadWriteWeb.com (here and here) President Barack Obama has had an interesting time using YouTube to deliver his weekly addresses.

As everyone knows, Prezzi Barry O’bama was posting his weekly vids on YouTube, but privacy advocates raised a big stink. The stink seems to be well founded since YouTube uses “long-term tracking cookies”. My guess is that these cookies allow Google to know where you go after you leave YouTube? I don’t know to be honest. Regardless, it seems that the White House using said cookies violates federal law. Yep. How many times did Bush violate federal law? Just a few times.

But worry not, Obamafans! The Obama Administration stopped violating federal law by, essentially, giving itself a pass. Which, you know, is pretty shitty. Talk about kingly behavior. I can hear Obama now:

“What’s that? Using YouTube is uhhhhh violation of federal law? Well, uhhhh, let’s just uhhhhh… changethelawforonlyus.”

That’s the very definition of being above the law. At least he had the decency to do it, uh, legally, by issuing himself an official exemption–just like Bush did with all of his signing statements.

Now, that was back in February–yesterday, ReadWriteWeb.com reported that the Obama Admin was ditching YouTube in favor of Vimeo (see cap above), and would no longer be using those pesky long-term cookies (we assume). Still, Obama and Pals broke the law.

Is this a concern of Abu Ghraib proportions?

Of course not.

But if this is how Obama treats the little laws, how is he going to treat the big ones when lives depend on it? Will principles, morals and/or the law win out? Or will the myth of security beat all?

The ObamaWatch continues…

Posted via email from thepete’s posterous

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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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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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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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Economic Crash Now Directly Risking Human Lives


by ThePete 3:46 pm 2009-02-12
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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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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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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 

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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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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. 

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


by ThePete 7:44 pm 2008-12-29
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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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President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama’s Cabinet So Far


by ThePete 3:01 pm 2008-12-09
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Wow, well, it’s looking good for the forces of evil, or at least, the forces of lameness. I guess we indy-types shouldn’t be too surprised that Obama can’t deliver the “change” promise he ran on. He may still be promising new ideas, but let’s look at some of the old people Obama’s appointed to his cabinet so far:

Treasury Secretary: Timothy Geithner, president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
ThePete Says: Wow, one of the handful of people that controls America’s money supply as TreasSec? Meh, I’d rather get some generally independent economist from outside the system that is currently crumbling under its own weight. Also, he was TreasSec under Clinton, so you might suggest that Geithner had something to do with setting the dinner table we’re all financially going hungry at right now.

I remember reading something about how Geithner was supposed to be corporate-experience-free–but guess what? Running a FedRes bank is, for all intents and purposes, the same thing as running a corporation. Apparently, Geithner was also instrumental in orchestrating the bailout of Bear Sterns. He also worked for Kissinger Associates–as in Henry Kissinger (many look at this man as a war criminal).

Secretary of State: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
ThePete Says: Giving her “lost to Obama” status, this seems like a fair appointment (though I’d still prefer her as VP). However, it doesn’t get much more Clintony than an actual Clinton. I know most of Americans are used to blaming Bush for all of our troubles, but remember, these economic problems are actually more complicated and older than the media is explaining right now. As I mentioned above, the table we’re all starving at right now was set by the Clinton Administration.

That said, I actually believe Hillary will make an OK SoS. (!) Of course, that’s in comparison to previous ones, which isn’t setting the bar too high, I think.

Attorney General: Eric Holder, former deputy attorney general.
ThePete Says: Yikes, this is the dude who defended Chiquita Banana against lawsuits accusing the fruit company of supporting terrorism (which they did, in order to keep farming bananas in Columbia). He was also Deputy AG under Bill Clinton and feels drug penalties should be more harsh.

Defense Secretary: Robert Gates, a holdover from Bush administration.
ThePete Says: I love how the AP calls Gates a “holdover” from the Bush Admin. They’re almost all holdovers from previous administrations. Yet the AP seems to think this is not significant. What’s even funnier is that Gates is not only a holdover from George W.’s admin, but he was also the head of the CIA under George H.W. Bush. That makes him pretty much entrenched in evil. ;)

To be more specific, the Wikipedia page for Robert Gates reminds us of his role in the the Iran-Contra Affair. Remember that old chestnut?

Homeland Security Secretary: Gov. Janet Napolitano, D-Ariz.
ThePete Says: Don’t think that just because she’s a Democrat she’s not a racist xenophobe like most southern-border-based Republicans. Seems Napolitano is quite the hawk when it comes to cracking down on illegal immigration having called for not only National Guard support along the border but also asking for more ICE resources to be sent to Arizona, as well. She was also a US state attorney under Bill Clinton–yep, she’s another Clintonite.

National Security Adviser: Retired Marine Gen. James Jones.
ThePete Says: I don’t know much about this guy. Turns out he’s a former NATO commander and also served on the boards of Chevron and Boeing. Yeah, two big-ass companies, one oil and the other military/industrial (you know, like the complex). According to James L. Jones’ Wikipedia page, he:

.…became president of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and chair of the board of directors of the Atlantic Council of the United States. He also served as chairman of the Independent Commission on Security Forces of Iraq.

Hmmm, seems like that energy institute thing hasn’t worked out so well and that whole thing where he was to, according to that same Wikipedia page:

…investigate for 120 days the capabilities of the Iraq armed forces and police.

That hasn’t worked out either. Granted, he did find “serious deficiencies in the Iraq Interior Ministry and in the Iraq National Police” but his alleged strong negotiating skills didn’t exactly get his findings accepted as fact. Of course, the Bush Administration isn’t known for their acceptance of facts, are they?

Commerce Secretary: Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M.
ThePete Says: Meh, yet another Clintonite. Richardson was Energy Secretary under the Billster. He is also the object of scorn for some Chinese Americans who felt that he was unusually racisty during the Wen Ho Lee mess. Lee was the fellow who was wrongly accused by the Clinton admin for spying for the Chinese. Apparently, Richardson tried to encourage the idea that any Chinese people in the US could be spies.

Here’s a big however–I do like Richardson. I’ve seen him in a bunch of interviews and he seems like a fairly reasonable guy. Another however is that just because he’s reasonable doesn’t mean he’s a good leader.

National Economic Council Director: Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary.
ThePete Says: Haha, another Clintonite and another guy who’s partially responsible for our current money mess. Back in 1991 Summers was chief economist for the World Bank and wrote a memo suggesting that pollution from first world countries could be exported to third world countries which he consider to be “underpolluted”.

You may also remember Summers as the dude who had to resign as president of Harvard University after he said publicly that women had less innate scientific ability than men.

Office of Management and Budget Director: Peter Orszag, director of Congressional Budget Office.
ThePete Says: I hardly know anything about this guy, either. But if he’s in charge of money now, that worries me. However, Democracy Now reported that Orszag felt the bank bailout would make things worse, not better and testified to that. So, he gets points from me on that.

Veterans Affairs Secretary: Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki
ThePete Says: Ahhh, OK, cool–this dude is OK, as far as military-types go. He was the guy who was ignored by the Bush Administration when he told them the Iraq Attack would require waaaay more troops that the Bushites wanted to send in. Turns out Shinseki was right (as you may have noticed).

TheCONCLUSION: I don’t see a lot of change with this cabinet, so far. Sure, it’s tentative and the names could change as they are rejected by vetting or by Congress. Still, there have to be perfectly competent people out there who have not held positions in the Clinton Admin or in the financial or corporate worlds who can be appointed. I’m sick of all of these damned insiders. Nothing is ever going to change if the same people keep getting cycled through Washington.

Am I being a bit harsh? Maybe, but it’s the media’s job to play devil’s advocate for everything the government does. Figure, the government puts forth the “pro” argument for everything they do. Who will represent the “con” argument? Some lame Republican think-tanks? That’s just letting the system criticize itself–the press needs to represent the non-government opinion and be critical of all. That’s how they’ve let us down and that’s why I cite only the negative aspects of Obama’s appointees. I figure, if you want to read how good these people are, go to Obama’s blog, Change.gov. Come to me for some contrarian stuff :)

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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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Obama’s Possible AG nom: Former Lawyer for a Corporation that Supported Terror


by ThePete 1:35 pm 2008-11-21
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This is where I get to start showing my independent stripes, folks.  This is also where you get to show your commitment to the law and to morality when I start pointing out the bad things Democrats in power do.  The Obamessiah, as some on the right call him sarcastically, is being looked at with an extreme level of hope from many in America.  Yet, the reality is that Barack Obama is a politician like any other.  When you're a politician, it's hard to keep your own hands clean, let alone the hands of your friends.  That said, it's usually a good thing to avoid hiring lawyers who have defended terrorist-supporting mega-corporations as your top cop for the country.

This is what will happen if Eric Holder gets the job of attorney general, as is being reported in the news.  Sure, he'd be the first black guy to run the Department of Justice, which is great, but check out what Democracy Now reported a couple days ago:

Since leaving public office, Holder has worked as a partner at the D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling. His clients have included the fruit giant Chiquita. Last week on Democracy Now!, journalist Mario Murillo criticized Holder’s ties to Chiquita.

Mario Murillo: “There’s been talk about a close ally and friend of Obama as a potential Attorney General for the United States, Eric Holder, who is currently defending Chiquita Brands International in its defense against dozens of plaintiffs here in Colombia, working families who were targeted by paramilitaries who were funded to the tune of $1.7 million over the last several years. It’s a major scandal. And if this guy becomes the Attorney General under an Obama administration, then it’s going to be really hard to find justice in this case coming from the United States.”

In a speech to the American Constitution Society in June, Eric Holder said the next president must “move immediately to reclaim America’s standing in the world as a nation that cherishes and protects individual freedom and basic human rights.” Holder is an opponent of the death penalty but has called for stiffer penalties for some drug offensives. In 2005, he was part of the legal team that developed strategies for securing reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act.

YIKES!

And you thought Democracy Now was a left-leaning news source!

Actually, they are–which is what's scary about them going after stuff a Democrat is doing–if DN are lefties and they're pointing out bad stuff the Dems do, does that mean the Dems are… <em>righties?</em>

Regardless, good for DN for sticking to their morals and not bowing to politically correct pressure (YAY! A black man!) or partisan political pressure (YAY! A Democrat!).

Just so you know that Democracy Now isn't the only one who is saying Holder defended a major American corporation against people suing because said corporation supported terrorists, here's a little excerpt from Holder's Wikipedia.org article:

In 2004, Holder helped negotiate an agreement with the Justice Department for Chiquita Brands International in a case that involved Chiquita's payment of "protection money" to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a group on the U.S. government's list of terrorist organizations.

Double-yikes!  When it's put that way, you can really see how this guy was morally corrupt.  He defended a corporation that just had to do business in Columbia that they paid a terrorist group to NOT kill them–of course, they had to know that protection money would fund the killing of others. 

But hey, they have a right to make a living, right?  Just like those De Beers guys, even when people die for it.

So, this, apparently, is the change we need.  A black guy (great!) who doesn't seem to mind defending companies that pay folks to kill (not so great).  Not that I wish McCain had won–his picks would have been even worse–I'm sure he would have gone with someone like John Negroponte, who some know as the American diplomat to Honduras who didn't seem to mind Honduran deathsquads on his watch.

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Democracy in Danger: Hey, Until We Start Hand-Counting Paper Ballots…


by ThePete 12:45 am 2008-11-20
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Yep, this is a topic I'm just going to track like a bloodhound–or as best as I can–until we stop using unreliable, untrustworthy, secretive computerized ballot machines.  Sure, Obama won, but as I've said many times before on ThePete.Com, there have been plenty of irregularities and even some serious strangeness.  First off, I'd like to once again point you to VotersUnite.org and BradBlog.com.  Both of these sites have been very good at posting news on problems people have had voting.  VU's "Daily Voting News" posts that they cross-post at BradBlog.com are particularly thorough.  In fact the post for November 14, 2008 includes a HUGE number of links to stories on the web covering various types of problems with elections.  This includes everything from recounts, arrests and a lot more–in short, things are still very much a mess.

But let me tell you about the stories I've come across.  Firstly, you've probably heard that Alaska spitfire Senator Ted Stevens has actually lost his senate seat to his Democrat challenger.  This could not have happened to a nicer guy.  This moronic loudmouth was just convicted of corruption and somehow thought he would win his seat for another term.  In fact, as of November 5, 2008, it looked like a win was actually in the bag for him.  Then they find 90,000 uncounted ballots and start counting them.  By the thirteenth of November, Stevens was losing the race by 814 votes.  Finally, yesterday, AP.org reported that Ted Stevens had lost his senate seat for sure.  WHEW!

Ironically, according to ADN.com, officials were surprised to see how low voter turnout was in Alaska–then it turns out that by this past Monday, there are so many votes counted that they came to believe that this may mark the highest voter turnout in Alaska history

Sorry, Ted!

Meanwhile, the recount in the Franken/Coleman race in Minnesota has commenced, while, in the background, loads of Republicans suddenly sounding like we election-integrity freaks spouting off about how funny things look.  Brad Friedman, of BradBlog.com, calls these guys tin-foil hat wearers based on their lack of proof, while I simply call them late to the party.  If they have hard evidence that the fix is in for Franken to win, I'd love to see it.  Apparently, they don't have any, however.

Here are another couple of stories from the BradBlog I thought were worth pointing out:

FL Election Integrity Advocate, Candidate For Election Supervisor Arrested at Direction of Election Supervisor, Opponent
Ellen H. Brodsky Jailed Overnight After Being Barred From Oversight Several Times by Incumbent SoE Brenda Snipes
Third Such Arrest of an EI Activist Since Summer…

A candidate for Supervisor of Elections in Broward County, FL, was arrested yesterday, following threats and orders from her opponent, the current Broward SOE, Dr. Brenda Snipes.

Ellen H. Brodsky, the county's first non-partisan candidate for SOE, had previously been barred from public counting and oversight on a number of occasions, at the county's official Canvassing Board site and voting machine warehouse in Lauderhill, Florida.

After being taken into custody yesterday afternoon by three uniformed police officers, Brodsky was held overnight at the Broward County Jail even though the $25 — that's twenty-five dollar — bail had been posted for her by her son by 8pm last night. She was finally released well after 5am this morning.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6668

Isn't it nice when indies running for office get messed with?  Seems like it's often the folks brave enough to be outsiders that get messed with.  Ah well.

Now, one of the promises of electronic voting, computerized ballot boxes, touchscreen voting, blah-blah-blah, and all that other voting technology, is that it's easier and will speed up the whole process so people can get back to work (because clearly, democracy is like fast food).  Well, it seems like that's not the case.  Here's a nice little headline, excerpt and link from the BB that reports the opposite:

Machine Problems Worsened 2008 Voting Woes
Voting Machine Issues, Confusion Compounded Delays Faced by Untold Thousands of Voters This Fall
Though Even That Number Fails to Reveal Untold Counting Errors on E-Voting Systems Across the Nation…

Guest blogged by Steven Rosenfeld of AlterNet

The electronic voting problems in the 2008 election are broader than recently-publicized snafus such as machines not turning on, voter databases omitting names, or touch screens not properly recording votes, according to an analysis of 1,700 incident reports from the nation's largest voter hotline.

Moreover, the voting machine issues and the confusion they caused among poll workers appear to have compounded the delays faced by untold thousands of voters this fall, a preliminary analysis of 1-800-OUR-VOTE reports by Joseph Lorenzo Hall, a researcher at Princeton University and the University of California, has found…
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6671

I really hope the Obama Administration gives this country's leaders on all levels an fracking enema.  I'm so tired of reading about how leaders across the spectrum of responsibilities are letting us down.  Is it me or is money causing more problems than it ever has in the history of our country?  All this money influencing our leaders–all this outsourcing our elections to private companies while all of these supposed leaders quite literally buy into the promise that technology is perfect and can protect democracy.  As I've been saying for years, now, anything can be hacked.  Simply anything.

It's like that old story about how NASA had to spend millions to develop a pen that would write in space while the Russians just used a pencil.  This is what we should be doing with our elections.  Paper and pencils and humans counting.  Sure, it'll take a long time, but I think knowing for sure who our leaders are is a good thing, don't you?

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Democracy In Danger: Alaska Edition


by ThePete 8:24 pm 2008-11-13
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Well, if you don’t know who Ted Stevens is, I’m a little surprised. He’s the guy who wears his “Incredible Hulk” tie to the Senate floor when he is expecting to have to put up a fight to get a bill passed. Stevens is the brilliant mind who described the Internet as a series of tubes.

OH yeah, THAT Ted Stevens–ANYway, so he was recently convicted of corruption–a conviction he is appealing. In the meantime, there’s an election going on for his seat. Turns out, initially, he won. The catch? Ted Stevens, is now trailing his opponent, Anchorage Mayor, and Democrat, Mark Begich, by 814 points, according to an article at Reuters.com. But how did we go from disgraced-but-somehow-re-elected to losing by 800+ Alaskans?

Back on November 7, 2008, I linked to a post over at BradBlog.com called “SOMETHING SMELLS VERY FISHY IN ALASKA.” Here’s the excerpt from that article that I used in my post a week ago:

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 enough to get out and vote for Barack Obama.

Then, on October 10, BradBlog.com reported this:

Alaska Update: Thousands of Ballots ‘Found’, One-Third Remain Uncounted in the State’s Still-Fishy ‘08 Election
This just in from Alaska, where thousands of new ballots continue to be found each day, since it was first reported that turnout in 2008 was 11% lower than in 2004. Thousands of ballots, nearly a third of them, remain uncounted nearly a week after the election. Their numbers could explain the strange results so far in races — such as those of the felonious Sen. Ted Stevens (R) and the under-investigation Rep. Don Young (R) — for which pollsters had predicted decisive losses for the Republicans.
www.bradblog.com/?p=6654

Yeah, pretty neat, huh? Thousands of ballot turn up and they begin counting them. By last night, Keith Olbermann reported that Begich had inched ahead of Stevens by just three votes.

Yep:

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io


…THREE.

It turns out, according to another post at BradBlog.com, 90,000 ballots were in the process of being counted after they were found days after the election.

And by today, Reuters reported Begich’s lead over Stevens had reached 814 votes.

Perhaps the people of Alaska aren’t as dumb as we were led to believe? Sure, they elected Palin governor, but they seem to have been smart enough to vote out a very recently convicted Stevens. Now, if we could only find out why 90,000 ballots were left uncounted as Stevens was being reported as the winner of that race.

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America Elects Barack Hussein Obama: My Thoughts A Week Later


by ThePete 2:03 pm 2008-11-11
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Mayank Dhingra, one of the guys behind Kwippy.com, asked me to put together a post that encapsulated my thoughts on Barack Obama as president of the USA and as someone who impacts the rest of the world. He was kind enough to post it on his blog:

Let the change begin.

After living in America for 8 years under the rule of George W. Bush, it’s funny to find myself trying to be hopeful. I keep having to remind myself of the amazing thing we Americans did the other day. A great many of us were expecting a neck-and-neck battle to last for days or even weeks, but in the end, American voters really, reeeeally wanted change right now. Perhaps, once Bush has abdicated the Oval Office and Obama takes his oath, I’ll have an easier time accepting that things have changed.

But what does change really mean to the US and to world?

Check out the rest of my piece over at Mayank’s blog.

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Democracy Still in Danger: A Stack of Stories Since Tuesday


by ThePete 3:56 pm 2008-11-07
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Sorry about the lack of blog posts since Tuesday on the topic of voting irregularities–I needed a couple days off after all the election fun. I still have to do my election recap-post and talk about a few things I got wrong. It’s nice being wrong once in a while :) But that’s for another post. Here come the latest stories of irregularities, most of them from BradBlog.com. I did do find a few non-BradBlog-based stories that I found actually a little disturbing. Let’s get to those first:

Voting Problems Minimal on Election Day
For all of the worrying over voter fraud, voter suppression, and voting machine meltdowns, this year’s presidential election went surprisingly smoothly. That’s not to say that there weren’t any problems, but that simply problems weren’t widespread or severe enough to cause any doubt about the winner of the election.
www.switched.com/2008/11/07/voting-problems-minimal-this-election-day/
Switched.com is some sort of gadget blog–I’ve never heard of them before today, but they’re part of AOL’s network of blogs, so they’ve got to be reasonably accurate, I suppose. Sadly, this post, while factually accurate plays down the very problems it reports in the first paragraph of the post (excerpted above). So, voting problems not that big of deal? Then why are you covering them? I love this odd contradiction–there’s no story here, they just wanted to let us know that there was no story. Too bad there is a story here. And not everything is about the presidential races. Nice of the post to admit that there is still work to be done, though. Funny how he fails to mention the undecided races still out and about.

Again, this is about more than just the president.

Recount Reverses Results in Kent County District 29 Race
State Rep. Pamela Thornburg, a Republican lawmaker from Hartly who thought she lost her District 29 seat on election night, was told Thursday evening that she won.

The Kent County Court of Canvass overturned election results that initially gave the seat to Democratic challenger W. Charles “Trey” Paradee III.

… it appears to be that the Diebold scanners used in the District 29 race may be to blame for the initial miscount. She said an expert is being brought in from Tennessee to examine the problem.

“We’re waiting for an explanation as to why there is a problem,” she said.

Wright also noted that it seems that the problem with the scanners only occurred in the District 29 race and not with any other districts in the state.
www.wboc.com/Global/story.asp?S=9310325
See? It’s not just presidential elections that can suffer because of ballot machines gone screwy–and you should note that this story is about optical scanners–not touchscreen computerized voting. This is about the machine that scans the ballots and counts the votes. Yeah–if this kind of machine is fallible, can I just ask what’s so wrong with hiring people to do this counting? Sure, humans are fallible, too, but hiring people to count creates jobs and then we can hire an extra couple people to recount what the counters just counted. Sure, it will take longer, but that’s OK. As I’ve said before, I think our democracy is worth it.

Officials: State Experienced a Few Glitches on Election Day
Secretary of State’s Office reports county elections officials experienced no more problems than usual on Election Day despite worries about “vote flipping” on touch-screen voting machines.
www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=46508
Wow, start your article up with a blurb like that and your readers won’t keep reading! Why should they if there were “no more problems than usual”? And what the heck does that even mean? “no more problems than usual”? So, usually votes don’t get counted and it’s cool? No big deal? What about in tight races like the Franken/Coleman race in Minnesota? Coleman is ahead of Franken by 239 votes. Certainly the usual number of votes uncounted in an election wouldn’t matter in a case like that, would it?

RNC May Challenge Integrity of ‘Computerized Voting’
On Tuesday, Forensicon, a Chicago computer forensic company, said that it was contacted last week by a security firm last week to assist the Republic National Committee (RNC) in challenging cases of “computerized voter fraud.”

“If the election returns vary significantly from the polled numbers in any precincts that proves crucial to the election outcome, I expect that a legal struggle over the validity of the election results will ensue,” said Forensicon’s President, Lee Neubecker in a press release.

The move seems to indicate a future move by the RNC to challenge certain voting results, in some contradiction to past RNC actions regarding electronic voting, which includes recent legal actions in Pennsylvania.
www.pubrecord.org/component/content/470.html?task=view
This is interesting considering that the more prominent electronic ballot machine companies are owned by Republicans. The head guy in charge of Diebold, back in 2004, got in trouble for actually admitting in a campaign fund-raising letter that he was determined to deliver Ohio to George W. Bush. Odds are he meant “by raising a lot of money” but it does seem like a bad idea to put it the way he did when you’re running a company that provides computerized ballot machines to a buttload of America.

‘Daily Voting News’ For November 05, 2008
As we suspected tabulation of ballots has revealed problems with voting systems from all of the vendors. Hillsborough Co Florida is rethinking their contract with Premier/Diebold for $6M after having big problems counting votes. Manatee Co Florida also had a problem with Premier. Palm Beach Co had bad memory cartridges from Sequoia. Counties in Pennsylvania and South Carolina had problems with their ES&S system. We also have a run-off for senator from Georgia and a recount for senator from Minnesota.
www.bradblog.com/?p=6639
The post goes on to touch on a HUGE number of problems from various corners of the US.

Al Franken’s Razor-Thin MN Senate Race Counted on Flawed Optical-Scan Systems
PLUS: Details on ‘What in the Hell Happened in Alaska’ and Georgia and Oregon…
www.bradblog.com/?p=6641
This is the story I touched on above–only this BradBlog post is a couple days old. And yep, those optical scan machines are the same kinds of devices that went wrong in the Kent County story above. The added fun here is that when Franken was still on Air America Radio, he was the only AAR host who didn’t want to talk about voting irregularities. Two words: eye ronic.

All Diebold Touch-Screen Systems Impounded by Judge in PA County
Straight-Party Ticket Votes Failed to Allow Voters to Review Names of Presidential Candidates Before Casting ‘Ballot’
Same Flawed, Hackable, Unverifiable Machines Being Used in GA Senate Race, Elsewhere…

www.bradblog.com/?p=6643
I’ll just take the first paragraph from the post since it explains things just right:

All 185 of the completely unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting machines used in Northumberland County, PA’s election were ordered impounded by a judge Tuesday night after complaints from both the Republican and Democratic parties. Officials from both parties had filed requested action following reports from voters that straight-party ticket votes were not showing voters the names of their selection for President on the summary screen near the end of the 100% faith-based touch-screen voting process.

Weeeee…?

SOMETHING SMELLS VERY FISHY IN ALASKA
Turnout Rate Reported as Lowest Ever in State, Down 11% From ‘04 Even With Both Palin and Obama on the Ballot
Hanging in the Balance in the Diebold State: Felon Ted Stevens’ U.S. Senate Race, Corrupt Don Young’s House Race & Much More…

www.bradblog.com/?p=6644
Check out this excerpt:

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 enough to get out and vote for Barack Obama.

It goes on, too–calling this “fishy” is understating it seriously. I’m going to try and keep an eye on this story–it seems like Alaskans got seriously shafted here.

BradBlog.com is the single best place to learn about election irregularities. Don’t wait for me to cover them–just head over there!

Those are all the stories I have for now. I’m sure there will be more.

So, I hope you have a good idea of why voting irregularities are still important things to pay attention to. In a presidential election like this one, with a massive landslide, it’s easy to see what the intent of voting Americans is. But in tighter races where every last vote counts, we need to have a system that does a much better, and much more reliable, job of counting votes.

Thanks for reading! Please pass this on to others!

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