Friday, October 31, 2008

John McCain Wrong Not To Make Health Care A Right For All Americans & White Supremacists Emboldened By McCain Fear Mongering & Racism

UPDATE below on Racism , White Supremacists and McCain Campaign and American officials ineptness or indifference to White Supremacists Groups.Is it just further proof Racism is alive and well in America . Are White Supremacists seen as just another competing interest.

McCain attacks Canadian and European health care

American Health Care is not the best in the world. This is a fact but McCain and Republicans don't like " Facts ". They only believe in their ideology of a " dog eat Dog " mentality. Of course they make an exception when it comes to giving out $700 Billion to Bailout Corporations and Financial institutes. or a trillion dollars to fight an unnecessary war.

Shouldn't Health Care Be A Right -As a Canadian it seems odd that McCain & Palin and The Republicans believe there is something evil about making health care a right for all American citizens. But then again out Holier Then Thou Evangelical Neocon Stephen Harper is out to chip away at our own Health Care System inorder to prove by underfunding that it is a bad system.

MCain believes that somehow an American citizen should be faced with debt and financial ruin due to medical bills. The well off or the rich like MCain's family are able to afford massive medical bills without going into debt.
According to McCain and the Republicans good quality Health Care is to be preserved as a privilege of the rich. They seem to argue that otherwise what's the point of being wealthy if every citizen is guaranteed good quality Health Care.
This I guess is partly due to their belief in Social Darwinism and the survival of the fittest so that Americans who are not able to pay for the best of Health Care are left to suffer and die younger than the more fit members of a Republican Society.
So McCain and his followers believe those who are unfit should die and decrease the surplus population as Scrooge would say in " A Christmas Carol".

More at http://therealnews.com/c.ph... Is McCain right when he says Canadian and European health care not as good as US? Pt. 2
Despite the fact the US continues to rank poorly in worldwide healthcare standards, John McCain like many, maintains that the United States healthcare is the best in the world. The Real News Network spoke to Steven Lewis, health policy and research consultant from Canada, Dr. Don McCanne of Physicians for a National Health Program, and Dr. Steffie Woolhandler from the Harvard Medical School. Comparisons with other countries on costs and quality still leave the United States low in health care standards amongst rich industrialized nations.




The racism and smears & McCain Palin campaigh helping to legitimize White Supremacists Organization.
US officials FBI etc. rarely investigate the various connections of White Supremacists to other supposedly more mainstream organizations ie militias, KKK etc.or their financial backers or politicians who support them - as in the Bombing in Oklahoma city.

Democracy Now! White Supremacy
Arrest of Neo-Nazis in Obama Assassination Plot a Reminder of Enduring White Supremacist Culture in US

Is a potential Barack Obama presidency bringing white supremacist subculture out of the shadows? Following the arrest of two neo-Nazis for plotting to assassinate Obama, we speak to investigative journalist James Ridgeway, author of Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads and the Rise of a New White Culture.




Part 2, US White Supremacy
Government cover up of a wider conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing
reports of plot beforehand were ignored by ATF etc. Need to reopen the case to discover the truth.



Given the past arguments Bush ,Cheney, Condoleeza Rice & McCain argue that cutting a detainee's penis with a razor blade is not torture since it would not lead to organ failure or death. But British officals seem to disagree:

CIA Officers Could Face Trial in Britain Over Torture Allegations Friday 31 October 2008 by: Robert Verkaik, The Independent UK

Senior CIA officers could be put on trial in Britain after it emerged last night that the Attorney General is to investigate allegations that a British resident held in Guantanamo Bay was brutally tortured, after being arrested and questioned by American forces following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has asked Baroness Scotland to consider bringing criminal proceedings against Americans allegedly responsible for the rendition and abuse of Binyam Mohamed, when he was held in prisons in Morocco and Afghanistan.
The development follows criticism of US prosecutors by British judges who have seen secret evidence of torture committed against Mr Mohamed, including allegations his torturers used a razor blade to repeatedly cut his penis. The Attorney's investigation is expected to include allegations that MI5 colluded in Mr Mohamed's rendition. Mr Mohamed, 30, an Ethiopian national and British resident, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, when he was questioned by an MI5 officer.

And McCain in desperation to give the appearance of wide spread support buses in 4,000 school kids to his rally. His rallies looking more like that of some desperate dictator in a Banana Republic.


McCain Busses in 4,000 School Kids to Fill Crowd Sam Stein, Huffington Post at 11:36 AM on October 30, 2008.
This happened less than a week out from the election, when the heat of the campaign should be drawing record crowds.

The most cringe-worthy political moment of the day, so far, came when Sen. John McCain called out for his new buddy Joe the Plumber to stand up at a rally in Ohio, only to be greeted with confused silence. Joe the Plumber wasn't there.
But that rally featured another embarrassing moment, one that illustrates a far more troubling dynamic for the Republican ticket. The McCain campaign actually had to bus in school kids from the surrounding area in order to fill the event.

As reported by MSNBC:

A local school district official confirmed after the event that of the 6,000 people estimated by the fire marshal to be in attendance this morning, more than 4,000 were bused in from schools in the area. The entire 2,500-student Defiance School District was in attendance, the official said, in addition to at least three other schools from neighboring districts, one of which sent 14 buses.
This happened -- as if a reminder were needed -- less than a week out from the election, when the heat of the campaign should be drawing record crowds.


and more on the Unfair election process in the USA:

And from The Real News Network
More difficult to vote in the US than in most other countries.For instance 2 million or more Felons not allowed to vote -only Armenia has such a draconian unfair rule against Felons who have served their time .
October 31, 2008
Millions not allowed to vote
Spencer Overton: We need an independent election commission; Is the fox guarding the henhouse Pt3



and so it goes,
GORD.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Obama A Socialist Because He Shared His Toys In Kindergarten

UPDATE:1:45 PM Oct. 30, 2008
Anyway Obama finds it difficult to take McCain's campaign outrageous attacks and name callin too seriously:

Sen. Obama Predicts McCain's Next Line of Attack
Obama Shared his Toys in Kindergarten



GOP Sinks To New Low - Dole's Sleazy "Godless" AdOct. 29,2008
CNN's Campbell Brown is "Cutting Through the Bull" about a nasty campaign ad from Elizabeth Dole that labels a candidate "godless."



Obama on the Daily Show w. John Stewart 29/10



Sarah Palin going rogue and off-message as she talks about losing this election and preparing for the 2012 Presidential Election.

CNN: Palin Talks 2012, McCain Aide "Speechless"



The Young Turks -Sarah Palin to Run in 2012



Once again Republicans are reminded that their party does not believe in " equality " that the notion of "Equality " is a Godless European notion.

The Young Turks- Conservative Host Says Equality is Not an American Value
" All men are created equal "



Meanwhile Bush supporters still trying to rig the election but they may be too late but we shall seesoon enough.

More Than 30,000 Registered Coloradans Barred From Voting Wednesday 29 October 2008 by: Naomi Zeveloff, The Colorado Independent

"Thousands of Coloradans have been denied the right to vote because of a policy that may violate federal law. Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman has authorized county clerks to purge newly registered voters under the so-called 20-day rule. Here, county clerks must send non-forwardable letters to newly registered voters. If the mail bounces back to the clerks, then they must remove the voter applicants' names from the rolls. Voting rights advocates say that the policy violates the 1965 National Voting Rights Act."

Voting rights advocates say that the policy violates the 1965 National Voting Rights Act. The Advancement Project, a voter protection organization, filed suit on behalf of several other groups against Coffman to halt the practice and reverse course on other voter purges. According to the suit, 3,291 of these 20-day applicants have been removed since August 2007.

"We consider these voters to have been registered when they are entered into the SCORE database," Jenny Flanagan, executive director of Colorado Common Cause told the Colorado Independent, referring to the state's new voter database. "They have met the other requirements for registrations and they are taken off when the cards are returned. There are examples of when there could have been an error."


and so it goes,
GORD.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Republican Party Dirty Tricks Operatives Hard at Work To Steal US Presidential Election & GITMO's Kangaroo Courts

UPDATE 3:18 pm , Oct. 29, 2008

So let's begin with a revealing commentary by Keith Olbermann about " Socialist" Sarah Palin :

Olbermann: Sarah Palin Is A Socialist at Huffington Post oct. 28, 2008

In a Special Campaign Comment, Keith Olbermann cites yet another example of the McCain campaign accusing Barack Obama of something of which they themselves are guilty. In this case, Sarah Palin is accusing Barack Obama of advocating socialism when she literally used that word to describe the collective wealth sharing in her home state of Alaska.
Watch:





Anyway as some are claiming that Obama will win the US Presidential election and possibly by a landslide others caution that the Republican election machine is still at work using any means possible to rig the election in their favor. The Republicans will use the Race Card but also are trying to paint Obama as a " socialist" or even " Communist " & will use whatever smear they can to defeat Obama. But the Republicans with the help of the Bush Regime are also out to disqualify as many votes as they can to ensure that they win. The Republicans it appears believe that as a party they are entitled to rule America into the forseeable future . The Democrats the Republicans claim are not as patriotic or as loyal to basic American principles.

To begin here's a commentary by way of The Real News Network on election fraud . The accusations against ACORN are exaggerated and these accusations are being used to discount several million legally registered voters . These accusations are going unchallenged in the Mass Media as McCain makes these outrageous and unfounded claims to heighten fear and hysteria inorder to shift the attention of America's citizens away from the real and present danger of the Republican Election " Dirty Tricks " operatives.

US elections- Is the fox guarding the henhouse?
More at http://therealnews.com/c.ph...Spencer Overton: Claims about fraud will block thousands of innocent voters



Yes ,Even Iraq has a more transparent Election process . In Iraq there is an independent body that oversees the elections.

MORE DIRTY TRICKS once again Robert F. Kennedy jr. is sounding the alarm that the Republicans are trying to steal this election by the mainstream media is either complicit or unable to believe the Republicans would go so far . Or is the Mainstream Media all too willing to believe that a black Democrat is capable of anything while McCain Bush Palin and the Good Old Boys are surely innocent . Is the media in on the Fix . We'll know in a weeks time . Either Mccain will win and the Media will explain it all based on various analysis and even stats and pie-charts and Poer Point Presentations as they did in 2000 and 2004 . If Obama wins it in all likelihood will be by a slim margin explained away in the same manner and adding the so-called Bradley effect and other nonsense as they bring on their apologists with Phds in Political Pseudo-scientific analysis and the people will go back to watch " Dancing with the Stars " and other fluff manufactured for a fascist style regime.:

(My comments are in Bold typeface )

Drinking the ACORN Kool-Aid: How Cries of Voter Fraud Cover Up GOP Elections TheftHYPERLINK "/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-greg-palast"Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, October 28, 2008

Virtually the entire mainstream electronic media drank ACORN Kool-Aid this month brewed up by the Republican National Committee. Almost no one seriously challenged John McCain's comical assertions that ACORN, a grassroots voter registration group, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."
While the Republicans had the distracted media searching for links between Obama and ACORN, RNC operatives were busily completing one of the most massive voter suppression and purging efforts in American history, stealing hundreds of thousands of Democratic votes across the embattled swing states and striving to arrange chaos and endless lines at the voting booths next week.

First the facts about ACORN. Months ago, we obtained, as part of our investigation for Rolling Stone magazine, the Republican's list the GOP alleged were the very worst cases of vote and registration fraud by ACORN and similar groups. We went through the names the GOP asserted were "obviously, undeniably and clearly fraudulent" voter registrations.

First, there was Melissa Tais, a dubious ACORN registrant. Her two voter registration forms show, admittedly, suspiciously different signatures. Republicans suggested Melissa was part of a massive fraud to allow Democrats to vote twice.
They were wrong. Ms. Tais, a Cerrillos, New Mexico, waitress, told us she had signed one form on a table and one form holding the paper in her hand. Hence, a second, wobbly signature.

Then there was Patricia White, who Republicans claimed was a fictitious voter. When we filmed her at home in Albuquerque, she seemed real enough.
And so on, through the entire GOP list -- not one fraud. And these were their best cases out of the five million "illegal voters" who Republican leaders claim have infiltrated America's voting rolls.

The overblown histrionics about ACORN do not surprise those of us who have been watching the RNC's election manipulation antics. For eight years White House operatives have been trying to gin up press stories about voter fraud. David Iglesias of New Mexico was one of seven U.S. Attorneys fired by the White House for their refusal to bring voter fraud prosecutions. "We took over 100 complaints," from the GOP, he told us, "We investigated for almost 2 years, I didn't find one prosecutable voter fraud case in the entire state of New Mexico."

Iglesias, a McCain supporter, has, for the first time, leveled a new and serious charge: Despite finding none of the 200 voters guilty, he says the White House nevertheless ordered him to illegally prosecute baseless cases against innocent citizens, just to gin up voter fraud publicity. His refusal, he says, cost him his job. "They were looking for politicized -- for improperly politicized US attorneys to file bogus voter fraud cases."

Meanwhile as Kennedy & Palast point out the greatest fraud has been carried out by the Republican Party in past elections and has been doing so throughout this election cycle:

In 2004, highly organized GOP tacticians helped disenfranchise no less than 2.7 million American voters. Almost a million of them were African Americans. The The Federal Elections Commission has found black voters were nine times more likely to have their votes discarded than white voters and that over one-third of the million provisional ballots cast in 2004 -- ballots handed disproportionately to African Americans -- were never counted but simply thrown into dumpsters.

In a technique known as "caging" RNC operatives send millions of first class letters to black voters across the country marked 'do not forward.' Republican operatives armed with lists then invade black precincts on Election Day to challenge those voters whose letters were returned to the RNC because the voter was not home when the mail arrived. That tactic deliberately targeted black students on vacation in August, homeless men and soldiers posted overseas. "Caging" is resurrecting Old Dixie's Jim Crow procedures designed to rid the lists of black voters and create long lines in black precincts

and even the Supreme Court can not stand in the way of Bush & Republican operatives:

Despite a recent Supreme Court decision upholding Ohio's refusal to disenfranchise 200,000 legitimate voters based on this absurd demand to "match" voter names to databases, White House operatives are still fighting to purge these names from the rolls. President George Bush last week personally asked his Attorney General Mike Mukasey to renew Republican efforts to disenfranchise these voters.

and the writers advise voters to take steps to ensure their votes are counted:

They're stealing your vote, but you can steal it back. Here are some steps you should take to protect your vote. First, avoid the November 4th minefield. Voters, wherever possible, should vote early and in person. Where feasible, avoid mailing in your ballot, many are rejected for flimsy reasons, and first time voters in many states must include a photocopy of ID. However, if you have a mail-in ballot, don't throw it away. Follow directions, use the correct postage (that's an error that cost a hundred thousand votes last time) and, if possible, walk it in to your elections office.

At the polling station, should you find yourself one of the 2.7 million purged, or your ID rejected, then do your best to resist a "provisional" ballot--one third of which are not counted. Return with proper ID, or call 1-866-OUR VOTE for legal assistance. And never just walk away discouraged. That's just what they want you to do.


As writer Sam Stein points out the Republicans have also reverted to using old style dirty tricks to keep voter turnout low which would help the Republican Party.

As Election Nears, Dirty Tricks Grow More Common at Huffington Post, by Sam Stein oct. 28, 2008

As the election nears, examples of political dirty tricks are emerging with greater frequency.
On Tuesday, the Virginia Pilot reported that a phony Board of Elections flier was circulating the state "advising Republicans to vote on Nov. 4 and Democrats on Nov. 5." Voting, of course, is on the 4th only, creating fear among neutral observers and the Obama campaign that people were simply going to miss the opportunity to go to the polls.

Earlier this month, meanwhile, an anonymous flier was circulating in predominantly African-American neighborhoods in Philadelphia telling voters they could be arrested at the polls if they show up to vote with outstanding arrest warrants or unpaid parking tickets. This is also untrue.


also see article which questions that Obam's winning the election may not be a slam dunk for reasons of Bush tampering with votes or the " race Factor" or some new earth shaking crisis or smear that works against Obama and that the race itself is too close to call so BE AFRAID Palin/McCain may still win and the world will be shocked at how foolish or stupid Americans actually are:


Obama Is Dominating in the Polls, but Four Things Keep Me Awake at Night by Mitchell Bard, oct. 28, 2008 at Huffington Post



The Bush Regime has been tampering with the department of Justice & other departments for years in illegal and unethical ways to get the results they want whether in elections or in trials of GITMO detainees.

Corrupt and unethical behavior Unbecoming of an officer in the US Military - Is anyone really surprised - Bush Regime has been playing fast and loose with the US Constitution & The Bill of Rights so who can blame a General for doing the same with Military Criminal Trials which have been a farce since 9/11

Military Probing Abuse of Power by Top Gitmo Brass Posted by Steve Czajkowski, Jurist Legal News and Research October 27, 2008.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann is being investigated for inappropriately seeking to influence the military commissions trials.


[JURIST] The U.S. Air Force is conducting an ethics investigation of Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann over allegations that he abused his power and inappropriately influenced the prosecution of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, military officials said Saturday. Hartmann was the legal advisor to the U.S. military commissions at Guantanamo and supervisor of the Office of Military Commissions-Prosecution (OMC-P) until he was reassigned to the position of director of operations of the Office of Military Commissions last month. It has been alleged that Hartmann forced officials at Guantanamo to bring prosecution cases before they were ready, prosecuted an individual on charges that were unwarranted, and that he tried to get prosecutors to use coerced evidence notwithstanding their objections. The Air Force is also investigating complaints by two military officials that Hartmann exhibited abusive and retaliatory behavior towards them within the Office of Military Commissions. The Los Angeles Times has more. AP has additional coverage.
Earlier this year military judges presiding over the trials of Guantanamo detainees Omar Khadr, Mohammed Jawad and Salim Ahmed Hamdan barred Hartmann from taking any part in the trials of those detainees on grounds that he was unduly biased towards the prosecution. U.S. Army Gen. Gregory Zanetti, deputy commander at Guantanamo Bay, testified in August that Hartmann routinely bullied his counterparts and was inappropriately aggressive in seeking indictments against detainees. In October, newly resigned Guantanamo chief military prosecutor Col. Morris Davis said during his tenure Hartmann questioned the need for open trials and was upset with the slow pace of the proceedings begun by Davis.

-------

And from the Los Angeles Times on how Pentagon/ Bush appointee has been interferring & rigging legal cases at GITMO. This is not surprising given the Bush/Cheney Regime's record and it cavalier attitude towards the US Constitution and the US Bill of Rights which they see as old fashioned types of theinking in the hysteria induced world post 9/11. Basic human rights such as the right to a fair and speedy trial along with full disclosure. Instead these trials are anything but fair and are considered by the Bush Regime a mere formality in dealing with detainees they claim are guilty. But if no trials are needed for " Terrorist Suspects " then why hold trials for Americans accused of other crimes. As the ultra Conservatives would prefer to get rid of the whole "liberal" Justice system which merely coddles criminals. What Ultra-conservatives pine for is the good old days when " Lynching " was allowed. They also see nothing wrong with abusing and torturing detainees or other accused criminals.Entering into a long uncertain trials is not as satisfying to many Americans as just a good old " Summary Execution" of someone accused of a murder or rape or drug selling or terrorism.

(bold typeface my comments)
Los Angeles Times Guantanamo tribunals overseer under investigation By Josh Meyer October 25, 2008

Reporting from Washington -- A Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals is the subject of two investigations into his conduct, including one wide-ranging ethics examination into whether he abused his power and improperly influenced the prosecutions of enemy combatants.

An internal Air Force investigation into the activities of Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann appears to be the more significant of the two probes because it was launched only after a preliminary inquiry found sufficient grounds to move forward, military officials said

--And if the allegations are true they will have a far wider consequence--

...The investigations will further undermine the credibility of the tribunals just as some of the most high-profile cases -- including the trial of five men alleged to have helped plot Sept. 11 -- are getting underway, according to some military defense lawyers at Guantanamo, former prosecutors who have quit in protest and human rights officials.

The investigations will "cast doubt on all of the decisions that have been taken under his tenure," said Hina Shamsi, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and an officially designated trial observer at Guantanamo.

Hartmann, 63, was the legal advisor to the administrator of the tribunals until last month, when he was given the newly created position of director of operations, planning and development for military commissions.

The chief counsel to Connecticut-based MXenergy Holdings Inc. and an Air Force reservist with experience as a military prosecutor, he was called up for active duty in July 2007 specifically for the Guantanamo post.

and there had been doubts raised about Hartman's role in the tribunals early on :& raises questions about the Pentagon's role and those further up the chain of command but will the American public give a damn or is the idea of the rule of law just an old-fashioned quaint pre-9/11 ideal of a by-gone era. Its odd how conservative in America like to talk about some long gone Golden Era yet when it suits them they toss out all of the basic democratic principles of a free society in order to find detainees guilty as charged even if they are innocent and why just to protect George Bush Cheney and their cronies?

Hartmann's dual legal role at Guantanamo was controversial from the beginning.

He was responsible for providing legal advice to the war crimes administrator, known as the convening authority, who must make impartial rulings on issues raised by both the prosecution and defense. Hartmann was also responsible for supervising the prosecution of enemy combatants, but not personally intervening in the work of the prosecutors.

But three Guantanamo judges since May have barred Hartmann from serving as legal advisor in their cases, after supporting at least a portion of defense claims that he exerted "unlawful influence."

Air Force Col. Morris D. Davis, who resigned as chief Guantanamo prosecutor in October 2007 after frequent clashes with Hartmann, said that "full, fair and open trials were not possible under the system," and that it had become deeply politicized under the hard-charging general.

He and others said Friday that they welcome the investigation, because the Pentagon has, for the most part, skirted the issue of whether Hartmann undermined the tribunal process by repeatedly overstepping his legal authority and improperly meddling in cases.

Davis and a military defense lawyer told The Times that they have been interviewed at length by the probe's chief investigator, Air Force Brig. Gen. Steven J. Lepper, about a wide range of issues involving Hartmann's conduct.

In his interview, Davis said, he told Lepper that Hartmann "grossly exceeded his role as a neutral and independent and impartial legal advisor."

At least three other prosecutors quit the tribunals in recent years, claiming improper political meddling and other inappropriate behavior by Hartmann and others that they believe stacked the deck against defendants there.


And on the issue of torture... Canadians should not appear too smug in criticizing the US. Human rights and the legal issues surrounding detainees under Stephen Harper have raised a number of questions about our policies on these issues. Stephen Harper like his mentor George Bush plays fast and loose with such concepts as Human Rights or what constitutes torture and how to apply the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements. In the end Harper & the Conservatives have their own self-serving attitude towards the Geneva Conventions and human rights such as we see in this recent CBC report. It once again is falsely argued by the Conservatives and many Canadians that one our Country & our goverment our RCMP or our military are not responsible for torture of individuals if Canadian officals or Canadian military personnel didn't do the actual torturing. The Geneva Conventions says that a country is culpable if individuals are tortured if it is believed that the country they are handed over to torture detainees. The same goes I believe to handing over detainees to US Forces or to Afghanistan foces whom we know routinely torture detainees.

Canadian Officials Directly Responsibile For Torture! Again!

http://cspanjunkie.org/
October 21, 2008 CBC




and so it goes,
GORD.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

McCain & Palin Campaign "Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry & Smear" & Election Officials & Bush Regime Claim : Voting A Mere Formality

Update: JUST IN see side bar- Palin's Corrupt Mentor-

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

"...In her 1950 Declaration of Conscience, Margaret Chase Smith said that "I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny -- Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear." John McCain, Sarah Palin and the Republican Party have knowingly resurrected these demons with a vengeance. We must not, we cannot let them get away with it. "



Above quote from the article
McCarthyism Redux: The McCain Campaign's Calumny Express Menachem Rosensaft at Huffington Post Oct. 27, 2008
in which he details the false and incendiary accusations made by the Palin/McCain campaign against Barack Obama and all those in their view UnAmericans who support Obama:

"Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism."
While these words seem tailor made for the divisive rhetoric of the McCain campaign, they were actually spoken more than 58 years ago on the floor of the United States Senate by Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith from Maine in her historic repudiation of the vicious character assassinations hurled by Senator Joseph McCarthy against countless Americans. Speaking on behalf of herself and six other Republican Senators, she said that, "The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as 'Communists' or 'Fascists' by their opponents."
The more popular epithets emanating from present-day Republican apparatchiks and the other flacks associated with the 2008 McCain campaign are "terrorist," "Muslim," and "anti-American," but their intent is the same as the red scare labels used so effectively by their McCarthyite role models: to depict their political adversaries generally, and Barack Obama specifically, as somehow dangerous, subversive, even evil.


And in America the " Right to Vote " is not really a right so much as merely an annoyance to over-worked bureaucrats and an annoyance to the Bush Regime & the Republican Party which believes it is the only part entitled to rule America in these troubled times . And if McCain and Palin win even if it appears to have been the result of a fixed election Barack Obama and the Democrats will be told to "graciously" accept defeat for the Good of the Republic. Meanwhile Officials tell complainers to get a life since voting in an election isn't all that important in America . So who cares if the election is fair or not only " Communists " and other trouble making subversive dare question whether the process is fair or not even if millions find themselves disenfranchised .

"Woefully inadequate response from election officials " in regard to voter complaints about problems at polls Election Official tells complainers " to get a life ". Even if thousands are unable to vote officials are unconcerned voters unable to vote due to mismanagement at the polls is not Voter Officials concern. So what is their job & their concern . Are they more interested in making sure as few voters actually vote . Are they more interested in helping the Government in power that is the status-quo which means the Republicans. There seems to be a concerted effort across America to disenfranchise as many voters as possible. Will these voter officials attempt for instance to improve the situation on election day . Maybe they could insist polls remain open longer and that local officials make arrangements for polls staying open longer . Maybe it is time that average American citizens should remind such officials and the government bureaucracy that they work for the average citizen and not just for the Republicans & the Bush Regime or other partisan groups.
Facing Substantial Delays at the Polls, Voters Sue the State of Pennsylvania
Posted by Danielle Ivory, American News Project at 10:49 AM on October 27, 2008.


With the help of Voter Action and the NAACP, voters filed a complaint in a Philadelphia federal court.
Earlier this week, ANP reported that, come November, Pennsylvania voters could face substantial delays at the polls. We spoke with the man running the election in Philadelphia, who scoffed at long lines and tales of lost votes. Now, voters are suing the state of Pennsylvania. With the help of Voter Action and the NAACP, they filed a complaint this morning in Philadelphia federal court, specifically citing an interview between the American News Project and Philadelphia Deputy City Commissioner Fred Voigt. Here's an update and more of our interview with Voigt.



Meanwhile McCain and Palin accuse Obama of being a "communist" and "subversive" &" terrorists "average Americans are losing their homes, their jobs and their investments while living without adequate health care.These bread and butter issues are of little real concern to McCain and Palin who are more interested in pushing for prayer & creationism in the schools and trying to overturn Roe v Wade and to fight for the so called traditional values . And what are the traditional values that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer while the Middle Class see their incomes being reduced and their jobs being outsourced to other countries. Meanwhile the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have become a quagmire and a strain on the US failing economy and becoming a problem for America's foreign relations. And detainees are being kept in prison who may or may not be guilty of any crime .

Wassup 2008
Posted by ZP Heller, Brave New Films on October 27, 2008


You know McCain's campaign is in trouble when the 'Wassup' guys -- the faces of Budweiser and the Anheuser-Busch company that has made so much money for the McCains over the years -- come out in support of his opponent. But that's what happens after eight years of Bush-McCain policies that have led us to and kept us in Iraq, economic turmoil, and catastrophic climate change. True!




According to Palin any country which has higher tax rates than United States are not Democratic or Free. Canada , Great Britain and most of Europe according to her rant are not free democratic countries. In many of those countries average citizens get better health care and education and other benefits than do average Americans because they pay higher taxes . And Americans only believe in the survival of the fittest that is Darwinian Social and Economic policies.
Somehow McCain and Palin have made the leap from having those making over &250,000 a year pay more of their share of taxes to being a form of collectivization as in Lenin, Stalin, Mao etc. And somehow they believe that helping the poor , the homeless, the working poor or even doing more to help out veterans or those who have lost their jobs or homes is all part of a Communist plot rather than a nation taking care of its own citizens. Obama has never argued for instance in getting rid of private property or private ownership or stripping multi-millionaires or Billionaires of all of their wealth. He has proposed that a multi-millionaire pay a couple of thousand dollars a year more in Income Tax while lessening the tax burden on those making less than $ 250,000 a year. It is no wonder with this fear mongering and exaggerations that it is difficult if not impossible to get many Americans to accept the reasonableness of a universal Helth Care plan such as the one we have in Canada.

Palin Bizarre Rant Warns of Communist Nightmare Regime



Next thing you know Barack Obama will be insisting that all of America's children have a right to a decent education. That all schools across America be adequately funded so that all schools have enough text books and other resources necessary for a good education including a well looked after school building . In America though it is considered acceptable that schools in prosperous areas be better funded than those in poorer areas which is just another form of Apartheid for the poor and certain visible minorities in America.

By accepting this status quo those from poorer areas start of with fewer opportunities for success than children in more prosperous areas. Social injustice is just part of the American Way. If you are poor than you attend poorly looked after schools and you are not eligible for good healthcare or decent housing or nutrition which leaves such children behind and at the back of the economic & opportunities bus as it were. But that's their own fault Bush & Palin would say for being or allowing themselves to be born into an economically deprived home that is into poverty.

But America has had a long history of mindless or uncritical thinking in terms of belief in American exceptionalism and Fanatical Patriotism and the Faith that America is always right and is on God's side. Those who argue that certain issues are complex and are therefore not open to easy or simple solutions are called UnAmerican or Pointy-headed intellectuals. Americans in general prefer decisive action no matter how wrong over a thoughtful response to an issues . So after 9/11 invading and occupying Iraq and killing a million Iraqis made many Americans feel good about themselves and proud of their country. So Flag-Waving Hucksters such as Bush & Cheney or now McCain and Palin are able at times to shout down any reasonable thoughtful criticisms of these disastrous foreign policy decisions. Even most of the Media who should know better acted out of a need for vengeance and as much blood as possible to teach those evil people the Muslims, the Arabs all those less than human swine ( according to the Hysterical American Press & its uninformed Masses )a lesson that you don't fuck with America that is God's Chosen people. And again and again they argue that no international court or organization or international agreements have any hold over America . So Americans can kill and torture individuals they deem the "Enemy "and terrorize whole nations at will.

It is unfortunate for the rest of the world that Americans have never valued the virtue of humility. They also continue to believe as the Soviet Union once did that its ideology is superior to all other points of view, that Evangelical Christianity is the only True Religion and when arguments and diplomacy will not convince others of their rightness than Military Force will. America is like a banana republic which suddenly was thrust into being a Super Power

Or as the writer in this next article points out ignorance is championed in the United States and even if Obama becomes president he will have a difficult time over-coming this legacy of ignorance and anti-intellectualism :

How these gibbering numbskulls came to dominate Washington
The degradation of intelligence and learning George Monbiot The Guardian, Tuesday October 28 2008
--

How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind's closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama was a Muslim and a terrorist?

Like most people on my side of the Atlantic, I have for many years been mystified by American politics. The US has the world's best universities and attracts the world's finest minds. It dominates discoveries in science and medicine. Its wealth and power depend on the application of knowledge. Yet, uniquely among the developed nations (with the possible exception of Australia), learning is a grave political disadvantage.

On one level, this is easy to answer. Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the US health system, is notorious for its failures. In the most powerful nation on earth, one adult in five believes the sun revolves round the earth; only 26% accept that evolution takes place by means of natural selection; two-thirds of young adults are unable to find Iraq on a map; two-thirds of US voters cannot name the three branches of government; the maths skills of 15-year-olds in the US are ranked 24th out of the 29 countries of the OECD. But this merely extends the mystery: how did so many US citizens become so stupid, and so suspicious of intelligence? Susan Jacoby's book The Age of American Unreason provides the fullest explanation I have read so far. She shows that the degradation of US politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies.

One theme is both familiar and clear: religion - in particular fundamentalist religion - makes you stupid. The US is the only rich country in which Christian fundamentalism is vast and growing.

Modern fundamentalists reject the science of Darwinian evolution and accept the pseudoscience of social Darwinism

...Besides fundamentalist religion, perhaps the most potent reason intellectuals struggle in elections is that intellectualism has been equated with subversion. The brief flirtation of some thinkers with communism a long time ago has been used to create an impression in the public mind that all intellectuals are communists. Almost every day men such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly rage against the "liberal elites" destroying America.

The spectre of pointy-headed alien subversives was crucial to the election of Reagan and Bush. A genuine intellectual elite - like the neocons (some of them former communists) surrounding Bush - has managed to pitch the political conflict as a battle between ordinary Americans and an over-educated pinko establishment. Any attempt to challenge the ideas of the rightwing elite has been successfully branded as elitism.

Obama has a lot to offer the US, but none of this will stop if he wins. Until the great failures of the US education system are reversed or religious fundamentalism withers, there will be political opportunities for people, like Bush and Palin, who flaunt their ignorance


and so it goes,
GORD.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Study Shows Systematic Problems In Voter Registration & malfuntioning or Hacked Computers : Republican Efforts to Steal This Election

UPDATE: 5:45 Oct. 27

There is still a great deal of concern over whether or not the Presidential Election in the United States will be fair. That is will those who have registered to vote be permitted to vote. There are is concern that local officials motivated along partisan lines ie Republicans may illegally purge large numbers of registered voters.
Many voters who believe that are or have been legally registered to vote may find they have had their names purged from the voters list for some trivial and unfair reason . In some cases these may be the result of honest mistakes on the part of officials or it could be because Republican officials are out to purge as many newly registered Democrats to turn the election in the Republicans favor.

Others may find that they on going to the polls on election day that because of some minor discrepancy in their voter registration & their IDs they are using they are unable to vote.ie a slight difference in their signature or address which for partisan reasons the officials are all too willing to use as an excuse not to allow especially newly registered Democrats to vote.

Then there are the problems with the Computers themselves used by citizens to vote which malfunction, or that those giving voters instructions are not adequately familiar with the machines themselves.

Another issue is whether or not the computers security has been compromised in some way either physically or that the programs have been hacked or tampered with. It is odd that such a supposedly rich and democratic nation such as the United States seems plagued by such problem during the last few national elections.If their elections are not fair and above board then how can the United States continue to act as if it were a democratic nation.

Meanwhile the Republicans & President Bush have raised false concerns about Voter or Registration Fraud which is not much of an issue according to election experts. The sort of fraud they are talking about is the appearance on a voter registration list under a phoney name such as Mickey Mouse or duplication of names or someone who is deceased . But Mickey Mouse is not going to show up to vote nor is a dead person nor will someone be able to vote more than once even if their name appears on voter registration list more than once. These cases are usually discovered early on and are the result of individuals who have been hired to register others to vote but put in phony names etc. in order to avoid doing the actual work. But Republicans are using these more trivial instances to purge large numbers off of the voters list or to use rather strict and draconian rules to check IDs of legally registered voters.

Voter Purging

"Huge potential for partisan mischief." system is " Chaotic ", " Unreliable " with no serious oversight to ensure fair and honest election results.

" 19 States ignoring federal laws baning systematic purges within 90 days of a federal election." CBS
10S OF THOUSANDS ARE BEING PURGED IN 6 SWING STATES



See articles below on NYU Brennan Center For Justice study.

Are the Republicans out to steal the election to win by any means necessary?

Group sues on voter purge
They claim thousands were wrongly disenfranchised. Colorado's secretary of state says his actions are legal. By Annette Espinoza, the Denver Post.com , Oct. 25, 2008

By Annette Espinoza
The Denver Post

A national voter-protection group announced Saturday that it is suing Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman for alleged illegal purging of voter rolls that they claim has resulted in thousands of people being wrongly disenfranchised.

Advancement Project filed the lawsuit Saturday on behalf of Colorado Common Cause; Mi Familia Vota, a voter-registration group; and the Service Employees International Union.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction to stop "any more voters from being purged from the list of eligible voters for any reason not allowed by the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA)." It also seeks to reinstate all voters improperly purged.

Coffman issued a statement through his spokesman Saturday taking issue with the lawsuit.

"Through consultation with the attorney general's office, we believe Colorado has fully complied with all applicable voter-registration laws and voter-cancellation procedures," he said.

Earlier this month, The New York Times published a story saying that six swing states, including Colorado, may have illegally removed tens of thousands of voters from rolls or blocked them from registering.

Coffman said the report was "way off." But in reviewing voter rolls, he said his office discovered there were 2,454 duplicate voter registrations canceled within 90 days of the November election.

Coffman asked for an opinion from Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, who said canceling the duplicate registrations did not violate the law because those voters still would be eligible to vote under their current voter registrations.
Coffman also acknowledged that another 4,000 or so voters were given bad information about when their registrations had to be completed, and he said they have all been contacted with the correct information.

Democrats have been critical of Coffman, saying their figures do not match his. Coffman and Suthers are Republicans.

and:
<Every vote may not count on election day by David A. Love , New Hampshire Sentinel Source.com Saturday, October 25, 2008

In the land of the free, everyone’s vote should be counted. But at the rate we’re going, millions of votes could be discarded on Election Day.

First, some of the voting machines are not reliable. Their software and hardware are faulty, and they lack safeguards to prevent election officials from tampering with ballots and election tallies. Already, in early voting in West Virginia, six voters in two counties claim that electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democratic to Republican.

Due to a backlog by the Election Assistance Commission (the federal agency that oversees voting), defective voting machines throughout the nation will not be repaired in time for the presidential election, the New York Times reports. That’s unacceptable.

But malfunctioning machines may be the least of our problems. Republican operatives are again engaged in voter suppression efforts, with some officials trying to purge the voter rolls again, as they did in Florida in 2000.

Scheming to restrict the vote has a sordid past in American politics.

In the Jim Crow South, election officials used poll taxes, literacy tests, physical threats and Klan violence to suppress the black vote.

Sometimes, black voters were forced to answer questions as inane as “How many bubbles in a bar of soap?”

Today, the Republican Party is worried that mass voter registration efforts across the country will dampen its chances of victory at the polls. So it is making grandiose allegations about people fraudulently registering to vote. Sen. John McCain accused one group of possibly “destroying the fabric of our democracy.”

But the issue of voter fraud is a ruse. There has been no significant evidence of voter fraud in recent elections.

“The incidence of election fraud is minimal across the 50 states and rarely affects election outcomes,” notes a report by the nonprofit group Demos entitled “Securing the Vote.” “The disenfranchisement of voters through antiquated voting systems, system error, and improper management of registration databases, as occurred in Florida in the 2000 election, is a far bigger problem than traditional forms of election fraud.”

Already, in the last few months, thousands of legitimate voters have been illegally purged, according to the New York Times. Another 200,000 new voters in Ohio were at risk of being challenged until the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in. The high court struck down a federal court ruling that would have challenged these new registrants, whose information was not a perfect match with government databases due to typographical and data entry errors.

What’s more, some states simply will be unprepared to handle the dramatic swelling in their voter rolls, according to a study by the Advancement Project, another nonprofit group. It predicts that in many jurisdictions, there will be insufficient numbers of voting machines, privacy booths and poll workers. This study of the battleground states of Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia also finds that polling place resources are misallocated in some precincts, which is likely to result in long lines disproportionately in communities of color.

With broken machines, voter purging and insufficient resources, an outsider might conclude that the United States runs its elections like a banana republic. A citizen should not have to worry about his or her vote being thrown in the garbage can. We must protect our voting rights.

--
States' Attempts to Clean up Voting Lists Result in Unlawful Voter Purging and Suppression from civilrights.org Karen Tanenbaum October 17, 2008

Tens of thousands of voters have registered in preparation for the 2008 presidential election; these numbers, however, are being offset by large-scale purges of voters from voter registration lists in key swing states.

States are trying to flag and remove ineligible voters from their lists to comply with the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which requires states to update their election and voter registration procedures. But according to a study conducted by the New York Times, tens of thousands of eligible voters have been unlawfully removed from the rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states.
The study, which reviewed Social Security data and state records, showed that in some states, for every new voter registration in the past two months, election officials have removed two registered voters from the rolls.

States that appear to be violating federal laws for removing voters are Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana—the first six of which are key swing states in the 2008 presidential election.
Various voting rights and community-based organizations have filed lawsuits in Michigan, Florida, and Georgia. Other states are under close scrutiny.

On October 13, a federal judge ordered Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land to reinstate over 1,500 voters that had incorrectly been removed from voting lists.
States like Michigan and Colorado are also under fire for removing voters within 90 days of an election. Under federal law, only voters who have died, notified officials that they have moved out of state, or been proven unfit to vote may be removed within three months of an election.

In Colorado, 37,000 voters were removed from the lists in the three weeks starting on July 21. But during that time only 5,100 people moved from the state and 2,400 died, according to records.

also see:

October 21, 2008 at 07:56:59
Brennan Experts in DC for State of Election Science Updateby Marta Steele opednews.com


or go to:
Brennan Center For Justice on voter purges etc.

Weighing Possible Outcomes This November 4

NYU Law’s Brennan Center for Justice sent representatives today to the National Press Club in Washington, DC, to inform the press of their findings about the pre-election conditions that may make or break the people’s choice for president.
To a packed room, Executive Director Michael Waldman, a former speechwriter during the Clinton years, addressed us, supplemented by Wendy Weiser, who directs the Brennan Center's work on voting rights and elections; Larry Norden, project director for the Voting Technology Assessment Project; and Jonah Goldman, director of the National Campaign for Fair Elections in the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s Voting Rights Project. These experts fielded the many audience questions for which a good amount of time was set aside after Waldman’s brief presentation, which included PowerPoint slides that will be available at the Web site brennancenter.org.

Walden first presented the three major barriers to an accurate vote count: 1) no match-no vote; 2) voter purges, and 3) partisan voter challenges.

As many know, mostly “insiders,” the first mentioned barrier could eliminate and disenfranchise countless registered voters. Born of the Help America Vote Act that was passed in 2002, heavily influenced by superheroes such as Bob Ney and Jack Abramoff, HAVA mandates state-level voter rolls. Activated differently by each county, according to who is manning the polls, a mere typo can prevent a vote. No match-no vote, meant to purge various categories of voter from the rolls, mandates that the exact voter name must be listed on separate databases, including Social Security lists and registration lists.

I have illustrated this before. I may be Joan Public on one list and Joan Q. Public on another and if so, there goes my vote.

If I have a hard-to-spell ethnic name, from González to Wurtzelbacher, chances are good that misspellings will occur, even if I have gained instant fame as Joe the Plumber.

In Ohio, that bugaboo of 2004, 260,000 more voters have registered than in 2004. Of these 100,000 were eliminated by various interpretations, many of them questionable, of HAVA. Litigation has traveled from the Federal Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court and then back to Ohio. In litigation also was the misspelling of a name on the same sheet of paper as Myhal and Mihal, which eliminated another voter who took the case to court.

Florida is accorded the highest prize for mismatching, with Latino names, among the minorities, most likely to be misspelled (and consider all the Cuban-American Republicans in Miami this may affect!).

No match-no vote could impact hundreds of thousands of votes.

Thirteen million voters have been taken off the rolls in the last few years. Voter purging was conceived, supposedly, to eliminate dead voters from the lists and, indeed, dead people have been known to vote in presidential elections before.
But the process lacks transparency and occurs behind closed doors. The lists are riddled with errors and open to documented partisan abuse. In Mississippi voters were purged in the primaries; in Georgia 700 “felons” were kept from voting though they’d never served time in prison. In Louisiana, displacement caused by Katrina occasioned much confusion and opportunities for abuse, in that people forced out of the state faced many barriers, including sheer distance. But here there was a partial solution. Displaced Katrina voters were allowed to return and vote in their former precincts. In Colorado the Secretary of State admitted that 2,454 voters were illegally purged.

In a notorious and well-publicized case, Kevin Fury, about to go overseas to serve his country in the military, was told he couldn’t vote for this reason.
Home foreclosures in Michigan and Indiana, leaving the victims without official addresses, have also eliminated qualified voters from the polls. In Michigan Senator Barack Obama was able to litigate to prevent challenges to foreclosure victims.
Moreover, the deadline for purging lists honestly or otherwise, officially ninety days prior to Election Day, has passed, but the practice persists.

The third major barrier to fair elections, especially at the presidential level, is partisan voter challenges on Election Day. A voter may stand in line in the rain for two hours and then be told that he or she is not on the registration list. Actual situations have occurred in which, in a room serving four precincts, the eliminated voter might be in the wrong precinct line; the correct line may be a few feet away, but no one informs him or her about this oversight.

The solution in such cases? Provisional ballots, which Waldman called “a partial and inadequate solution.”


and also checkout Gary Younge, Oct. 27, 2008 at Guardian writes in his article that given the situation in America:
Black America may get a president before black Americans get to vote

URL:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/27/african-american-voters-barack-obama
or go to:http://www.guardian.co.uk/

The manipulation and intimidation that African-Americans must face in order to cast a vote will only get worse this year

While attempts at voter suppression are partisan in intent they are racial in effect. The Democrats have not won an election without the black vote since 1964. The most effective and crude way to undermine their base is to minimise the vote in black areas. This is precisely what happened in Florida in 2000, where Republicans lowered the threshold for inclusion on the "purge list" of ineligible voters. By the time they were done, African-Americans accounted for 88% of those purged, even though they only comprised 11% of the actual electorate.

The practical consequences of this interference, manipulation and, at times, intimidation is twofold. It disenfranchises people who either don't have the time, inclination or wherewithal to stand up to officialdom. And it creates huge lines while others stay and fight. A Democratic party survey from 2004 found half of the state's African-American voters in Ohio reported some problems at the polls on election day. On average, black voters waited in longer lines than whites, were more likely to be asked for identification when they got there and felt more intimidated.
This year will be worse. Obama's strategy has hinged on registering huge numbers of new voters. Overrepresented among them are the black, the young and first-time voters. For at least six months this eventuality has been predictable. And yet electoral officers around the country have declared themselves entirely unprepared. Just as in South Africa 14 years ago, the huge turnout we are seeing in early voting, and which will undoubtedly come on election day, marks a celebration of a historic moment in the nation's democracy. But the long lines and their demographic composition will mark not dignity but disorganisation and discrimination.


and from the Huffington Post see:

Confusing North Carolina Ballot Leaves off Votes for President
Diane Tucker, Oct. 27, 2008


and see:Justice Department Pressed by Bush to Contest 200,000 Ohio Voters By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted October 27, 2008.

How far will an already politicized Justice Department go to assist Republicans win on November 4?


and:Obama vs. McCain: Our Democracy and Elections Are Both Vibrant and in Peril -- Voter Guide
AlterNet. Posted October 17, 2008.


American democracy is both vibrant and deeply imperiled in 2008. As millions of Americans pay attention to the presidential campaign, with thousands volunteering in battleground states, there is no doubt Americans are concerned and engaged. However, the foundation of our representative democracy, the voting process and public trust in elections, is threatened in unprecedented ways. America's democratic infrastructure -- the way we vote and count those ballots -- has deep systematic problems. The country could be on the verge of the third consecutive presidential election in which a mix of bad election administration, unreliable vote-counting technology and deliberate partisan tactics will sully the vote count and the legitimacy of the next president.


and on Terrorists who are acceptable to The Right as opposed those "Bad " Terrorists :

The GOP-Terrorism Connection: It's Not 'Just' Palin
Posted by Paul Rosenberg, Open Left at 5:29 AM on October 26, 2008.


Conservatives are perfectly willing to embrace terrorism -- if it's the "right" kind of terrorism.



and so it goes,
GORD.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Election Results May Not Be Reliable Due To Computer Malfunctions & Partisan Tampering & Bush Regime's Interference



In Canada we use a simple paper ballot to which one writes in an X beside the person & party one is voting for. Americans have used electronic voting machines & computers or the old punch card & they have had and are still having no end of problems & issues with these supposedly "better High Tech forms " of voting. And Stephen Harper has suggested Canada go the High Tech route but why. Canadians should say NO to unnecessary High Tech method. And Americans might be better off if they simply used an old-fashioned paper ballot.

Anyway the opinion polls show Barack Obama is ahead in the presidential race and should therefore, in all likely hood win the election. But there are questions being raised about the reliability of the voting machines being used by Americans to cast their votes. The machines seemed to be plagued by malfunctions which could decide the election in favor of McCain/ Palin ticket. These malfuntions were known about by the election officials and by the companies who provided the States with these machines. Knowingly selling a flawed product is at the least a form of Fraud . These computerized systems are not as secure as the companies who manufactured them claim. They are in fact hackable in various ways. Their physical security features can be breached rather easily some experts have claimed. It is also the contrntion of some experts that the software is vulnerable to hackers. Another issue is that the majority of states are not requiring some form of paper trail which can then be checked and verified to show that the votes are tallied correctly.Given the problems with these current machines and with the earlier punch-cards used in previous elections it is a wonder to those of us outside United States that the US administration didn't just revert to a simple straight forward paper ballot such as we use in Canada.

It is bizarre that now Stephen Harper is suggesting that Canada in the future use such machines or computers for voting . One wonders if Harper or one of his friends either owns a company which wishes to lease or sell such computers to the government and is this the real reason for supporting such a change in our voting procedure.IsHopefully Canadians will resist such a change .



The Young Turks: Voter Fraud In West Virginia
From: TheYoungTurks
Added: October 21, 2008

Watch more clips at http://www.theyoungturks.com


Ohio and west virginia Voting Machine problems plus possible tampering
Voting Machines Switching Votes In West Virginia!


CNN: GOP using foreclosure list to purge voters

CNN̢۪s Carol Costello reported that Republican Party in Michigan may be trying to use a list of foreclosed homes to purge voter rolls.

This video is from CNN̢۪s American Morning, broadcast October 20, 2008.



Notebook: Voting Machines
From: CBS
Added: October 13, 2008
In a heated campaign riddled with conflict, arguments should be left to candidates' stances on the issues, not on the accuracy of voting machines. Katie Couric has more.



No paper trail & confusion on the part of Poll workers
Diebold voting - security flaws in American voting machines

Every election has fraud but now the trail is paperless. As of today: Who is counting our votes if not the election workers? Who owns the machines? Is there independent oversight in this process?

Penn. gets paper ballots after complaints-1/2

Electronic voting problems & Outsourcing to Private Companies
Following Widespread Complaints, New Lawsuit Seeks Paper Balloting in Pennsylvania

Voter rights groups have filed a federal lawsuit in Pennsylvania seeking emergency paper ballots. The lawsuit was filed after Pennsylvania̢۪s Secretary of State ordered counties to provide emergency paper ballots only if every electronic voting machine breaks down at a voting site. We speak to John Bonifaz of Voter Action.




Voting Machine Companies Knowingly Selling Macines They Know are Flawed
Massive purges of Registered Voters combined with an Insitance on strict enforcement voter IDs could lead to large numbers of voters not having their votes counted or not being able to vote at all.

Following Widespread Complaints, New Lawsuit Seeks Paper Bal


also see:

FBI working in league with the Bush Regime to discredit ACORN while ignoring widespread attempts at voter suppression on the part of the Republican party and its supporters. America has moved far from its democratic principles as it has been taken over by those who support Bush and McCain and the rich and powerful while ignoring the wishes and political decisons of the majority of American citizens in regards to how they would wish to be governed and by whom they are to be governed. But according to the Religious Right America must obey God's law and so according to their view it is up to the True Believes even if they are a minority to take control of the country to enforce God's Law.

Justice Department Targets ACORN But Ignores GOP Voter Suppression By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. October 23, 2008.

On the eve of the 2008 election, the Department leaks a FBI probe of ACORN but remains silent on widespread voter intimidation tactics.
Partisan considerations still appear to be contributing to the Department of Justice's actions when it comes to enforcing the nation's voting rights laws.
With Election Day less than two weeks away, proponents of more tightly regulating the voting process -- this time led by congressional Republicans -- have gotten their desired response from the nation's guardian of civil rights' laws: a FBI investigation into ACORN, the low-income advocacy coalition that registered 1.3 million new voters in 2008.

Last week, two FBI officials told reporters an ACORN investigation was underway, violating Department rules for disclosing information on cases that could impact an election. The Obama campaign's response was to ask the Attorney General to include that leak in a special prosecutors' investigation of the U.S. attorney firing scandal. No response to that request has been forthcoming.

But more disturbing to civil rights attorneys is the Department's silence on what voting rights lawyers say are myriad voter suppression tactics by partisans in the campaign's final weeks. These efforts include attempts by Republicans to disqualify legal voter registrations, unlawfully purge voters, threaten individual voters with polling place challenges, fabricate barriers to student voting and abuse prosecutorial authority by investigating 2008's early voters.

"Voter suppression is not new. But this year has brought heightened efforts to disenfranchise and intimidate voters," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in a Wednesday press conference. "We've seen legal challenges to registered, valid voters in Ohio; Fear tactics threatening that mortgage foreclosures or unpaid bills will thwart your right to vote or may even result in arrest; and massive attempts to confuse voters through robo-calls, official looking web sites and e-mails. These are targeted and insidious attempts to suppress the vote, particularly in communities of color."

(and as is pointed out Bush and Cheney and their supporters are still calling the shots at the FBI and the Justice Department .) gord.

What is most striking about the voting rights lawyers' criticism of the Department is that the agency does not have to wait until Election Day to act. Under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, the Department can move to stop voter intimidation schemes without having to prove the motive behind those actions. This section of the law does not require the government show any intent by partisans to discriminate, the lawyers say. Instead, if the result is intimidation or suppression of minority voters, it can act.

"We really need the Justice Department to get out there and make a pronouncement, publicly, that voter intimidation and voter suppression will not be tolerated because it violates federal law," said Gerry Hebert, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center and a former Department Voting Section Chief. "We have asked the Attorney General to do this and thus far there has been a deafening silence."
"I think the Department's response to these issues, at best, is tepid, and at worst ignores what we think is a serious problem and their responsibility to address it," Henderson said. "The Department of Justice often argues that its jurisdiction is limited. But we think the interpretation that they have given to their jurisdiction is exceedingly narrow and it certainly ignores the larger responsibility to use the bully pulpit of the Attorney General to make clear that the Department will vigorously prosecute where possible, under federal law, any attempt to suppress the right of duly registered American citizens."

and :

Anyway yes indeed President Bush is at it again trying to prevent large numbers of registered voters ( most of whom are democrats ) from casting ballots . Meanwhile there have been a number of stories about malfunctioning voting machines and a lack of machines if there is a big voter turnout. There maybe a big voter turnout because the Obama campaign has been doing a great job of getting more new voters registered and getting them to vote early. According to the McCain campaign & Republicans the Obama campain is acting illegally or unethicaly by encouraging American citizens to register to vote and encouraging them to actually vote.

Bush Orders DOJ To Probe Ohio Voter Registrations
October 25, 2008 By Jason Leopold The Public Record


President George W. Bush late Friday asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate whether hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters in the battleground state of Ohio would have to verify the information on their voter registration forms or be given provisional ballots, an issue the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on last week.

The unprecedented intervention by the White House less than two weeks before the presidential election may result in at least 200,000 voters in Ohio not being able to vote on Election Day if they are forced to provide additional identification when they head to the polls.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Bush Friday asking that he order the Department of Justice to probe the matter.

"I strongly urge you to direct Attorney General Mukasey and the Department of Justice to act." Boehner said in his letter "Unless action is taken by the Department immediately, thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of names whose information has not been verified through the [Help America Vote Act] procedures mandated by Congress will remain on the voter rolls during the November 4 election; and there is a significant risk if not a certainty, that unlawful votes will be cast and counted. Given the Election Day is less than two weeks away, immediate action by the Department is not only warranted, but also crucial."
Independent studies have shown that phony registrations rarely result in illegally cast ballots because there are so many other safeguards built into the system.
For instance, from October 2002 to September 2005, a total of 70 people were convicted for federal election related crimes, according to figures compiled by the New York Times last year. Only 18 of those were for ineligible voting.
In recent years, federal prosecutors reached similar conclusions despite pressure from the Bush administration to lodge "election fraud" charges against voter registration groups seen as bringing more Democratic voters into the democratic process.

Some of the Bush administration prosecutors who refused to seek these indictments were then fired in 2006 as part of a purge of nine U.S. Attorneys deemed not "loyal Bushies."


and so it goes,
GORD.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Racist Rape Hoax !!! Sarah Palin & McCain On Terrorism

Were the media especially FoX News and others all too willing to believe this sort of stereotypical story-line. Is racism still a major factor in America.
Rachel Maddow: McCain campaign worker admits attack HOAX!! 10/24/2008



Sanchez Slams FOX & Media That Fell For McCain Volunteer's Mutilation Hoax



Another disturbing story is that of Sarah Palin having trouble defining " Terrorism ". It appears that her own religious and political views make it difficult for her to view any & all attacks on innocent civilians which is done to spread fear among a particular group in society as a " Terrorist" act . She's not comfortable calling an attack on an Abortion Clinic or its staffers as an act of terrorism. She may think it's illegal but not so sure of the " terrorism " label.

As per usual the Ultraconservatives and the Religious Right define the term terrorism along partisan views and causes. Because they are against abortion they refuse to call an anti-abortionist who assassinates a doctor or blows up an abortion clinic as terrorist. In the old days when whites lynched blacks or blew up a black church or school they were and still are not referred to as terrorists by those whites who were or are still against desegregation which they believe was forced on the individual states by the United States Federal Government and the actions of uppity blacks such as Martin Luther King Jr.

As usual Palin refers back to Bill Ayers but the point is anyone using violent actions against innocent civilians that is non-combatants and their intention is to " terrorize " .

For example at About.com one can find a number of definitions of terrorism . These definitions for the most part are in agreement with one another and there is not the sort of confusion or ambivalence about the definition of Terrorism as Sarah Palin might claim. Blowing up an abortion clinic is an act of terror equal to that of blowing up a church or Synagogue or Mosque or some animal rights group blowing up a research lab which uses animals or killing a researcher who uses animals- these are all by definition acts of " Terrorism ". But there is a long history in America of calling friendly terrorist " Freedom Fighters ". So Sarah Palin isn't alone in making these false distinctions.

Sarah Palin should do a quick search on Google and look up the US Statutes on Terrorism rather than just making shit up.It took me a minute or two to find these definitions.

Sarah Palin and those not sure about what constitutes " Terrorism " should just GOOGLE IT !!!


The FBI defines terrorism as:
The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.



League of Nations Convention Definition of Terrorism, 1937
All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public.



The Department of Defense Dictionary of Military Terms defines terrorism as:
The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological



The United States Law Code:
(1) the term “international terrorism” means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than 1 country;
(2) the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents;
(3) the term “terrorist group” means any group, or which has significant subgroups which practice, international terrorism;
(4) the terms “territory” and “territory of the country” mean the land, waters, and airspace of the country; and
(5) the terms “terrorist sanctuary” and “sanctuary” mean an area in the territory of the country—
(A) that is used by a terrorist or terrorist organization—
(i) to carry out terrorist activities, including training, fundraising, financing, and recruitment; or
(ii) as a transit point; and
(B) the government of which expressly consents to, or with knowledge, allows, tolerates, or disregards such use of its territory and is not subject to a determination under—


Part of what Sarah Palin is doing is confusing acts of terrorism with " International Terrorism" . An individual within a group I.E. anti-Abortionist who commits a particular form of violence is a terrorist. If the group to which the person is a member condones this violent action then this group is a " terrorist Organization". If any group condones such actions can be called " Terrorist Organizations "- preaching hate and physical violence against certain targeted groups for example the KKK is a terrorist organization ,

In Palin's world as in Bush's someone who attacks innocent civilians is not a terrorist if the motive is to terrorize a Communist Nation or any Nation which is seen as an enemy of America such as Cuba. For instance Posada Carriles, a former CIA agent, in 1976 bombed a Civilian Cuban airliner, killing all 73 persons aboard.

But we are told he was on the side of America, God & Capitalism so he is forgiven for killing innocent civilians.. Posada Carriles we assume according to McCain and Palin was or is not a "Terrorists " since his victims were Cuban Civilians and Cuba is a Communist country. Anyone living in a Communist country I guess is fair game for being shot or blown to pieces by those who disapprove of that regime. This is just typical American Hypocrisy . One has to remember that US administrations have had a long history of supporting terroists in various countries to maintain a friendly government in power ( using "death squads" etc. ) as with Pinochet in Chile or the Shah of Iran etc. or to oust a government which they do not approve of by backing extremists anti-government forces the Contras in Nicaragua or anti-Castro extremist in Cuba or Cuban exiles even working out of Florida.

As we have seen McCain for instance supported a ruthless terrorist group RENAMO in Mozambique in the 1980s .

see: Alleged anti-Castro terrorist Posada arrested Wanted in Venezuela for 1976 downing of Cuban airliner From Susan Candiotti CNN Tuesday, May 17, 2005

and : LUIS POSADA CARRILES
THE DECLASSIFIED RECORD
CIA and FBI Documents Detail Career in International Terrorism; Connection to U.S.



Washington D.C. May 18, 2005 - The National Security Archive today posted additional documents that show that the CIA had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner. The Archive also posted another document that shows that the FBI's attache in Caracas had multiple contacts with one of the Venezuelans who placed the bomb on the plane, and provided him with a visa to the U.S. five days before the bombing, despite suspicions that he was engaged in terrorist activities at the direction of Luis Posada Carriles.




In the longer version of this interview McCain & Palin just go on about Bill Ayers suggesting once again that Obama's motivation for becoming President is suspect. And McCain goes on to explain that somehow the Weathermen are different from militant anti-abortionists organization. The actions of the Weathermen were premeditated actions not spontaneous acts. Though McCain at one point makes the assertion that any such attacks no matter what the motivations or beliefs of the individual are reprehensible acts. Palin appears uneasy about such an assertion.

Palin on Terrorist Anti-Abortionist Killer Eric Robert Rudolph vs. William Ayers by Adam Blickstein at Huffington Post Oct. 24, 2008


Sarah Palin's contradictory and nonsensical answer on what constitutes a terrorist is being thoroughly fisked online. Her claim that William Ayers is a terrorist but an abortion clinic bomber is not leaves a lot to be desired intellectually, which begs an important follow-up: what would her view of someone who has a record of targeting both abortion clinics and non-natal personnel and infrastructure? I'm talking about Eric Robert Rudolph, the "Olympic Centennial Park Bomber" who was also convicted of attacks on two abortion clinics and a lesbian nightclub. He was a far worse "terrorist" than William Ayers ever was, in both scope of physical damage (Rudolph left a trail of destruction that left 2 people dead, and 120 injured), national psychological trauma (a five-year manhunt shrouded in uncertainty that led to Rudolph's arrest in the North Carolina mountains) and eventual prison sentence (Rudolph got life, Ayers' case was dismissed). The Olympic bombing was undoubtedly one of the most audacious acts of international terror during the 90's, not just for the human toll, but also the psychological and visual effect which left Atlanta and the international community on edge for the rest of the games. I'm not defending Ayer's actions or involvement in the Weather Underground, but the context and breadth of impact matters here. Rudolph was indeed, as Attorney General John Ashcroft said in 2003, "the most notorious American fugitive on the FBI's 'Most Wanted' list," a stature Ayers never even came close to. As to whether abortion clinic bomber Rudolph was a terrorist, I'll leave that characterization to Alberto Gonzalez:

"The many victims of Eric Rudolph's terrorist attacks in Atlanta and Birmingham can rest assured that Rudolph will spend the rest of his life behind bars," said Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. "The best interests of justice are served by resolution of this case and by the skillful operation that secured the dangerous explosives buried in North Carolina."


The overarching question for Sarah Palin is: would you consider the Olympic Park Bombing an act of terror but the abortion clinic attacks in Birmingham and Atlanta as well as on the nightclub as simply ordinary acts of violence? Would this make Rudolph only a quasi-terrorist?

Terror is terror, no matter what the target. And to create special carve-outs to the definition of terrorism in order to placate a political constituency further calls into question Palin's fitness to truly put country instead of politics (not to mention common sense) first.

On McCain & the Mozambique terrorist organization RENAMO see:

McCain Urged Reagan Admin To Meet Terror Groups Without Pre-Conditions Jacob Alperin-Sheriff , Oct. 23, 2008 at Huffington Post

and for more on The Religious Right and The Republican Party

The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party at Theocracy Watch

and on Sarah Palin see: Sarah Palin at Theocracy Watch


and so it goes,
GORD.