November 29, 2004
Ohio Provisional Ballots Look OK

This is an article from November 17, 2004. I meant to put it up earlier.

Ohio Provisional Ballots Seem Legitimate

By Mark Williams for the Associated Press.


The vast majority of provisional ballots cast in Ohio were legitimate, say election officials who are poring over thousands of presidential election ballots...

Of the 11 counties that have completed checking provisional ballots, 81 percent of the ballots are valid, according to an Associated Press survey Monday. Counties that have completed partial tallies also said most of the provisional ballots were being counted.

Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, has processed 40 percent, or 9,719 votes, of its 24,788 provisional ballots and rejected a third, according to a board tally. Most are being rejected because the voters were not registered.

In many counties, the smallest portion of rejected ballots were due to votes being cast in the wrong precinct. Before the election, Democrats lost a court appeal seeking to allow people to cast provisional ballots in precincts where they do not live...

Ohio voters cast 155,337 provisional ballots, which are used when voters names are not on the rolls for some reason or their eligibility is otherwise in doubt. Counties have until Dec. 1 to complete their final count. In 2000, about 87 percent of provisional ballots were counted.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111804V.shtml

Ohio Provisional Ballots Seem Legitimate
By Mark Williams
The Associated Press

Wednesday 17 November 2004

Columbus, Ohio - The vast majority of provisional ballots cast in Ohio were legitimate, say election officials who are poring over thousands of presidential election ballots.

The ballots that are being rejected are invalid because people simply were not registered, did not give information such as addresses or signatures, or voted in precincts where they do not live.

"Some people thought because they had changed their mailing address at the post office, or had changed their utilities, that they had done everything necessary to be eligible to vote," said Nancy Moore, deputy director of the Belmont County Board of Elections. "They still have to change their address at the board of elections. We're not mind readers."

President Bush beat Democrat John Kerry in Ohio by 136,000 votes in unofficial tallies, and Kerry has conceded not enough outstanding votes exist to sway the election his way in the key battleground state.

Of the 11 counties that have completed checking provisional ballots, 81 percent of the ballots are valid, according to an Associated Press survey Monday. Counties that have completed partial tallies also said most of the provisional ballots were being counted.

Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, has processed 40 percent, or 9,719 votes, of its 24,788 provisional ballots and rejected a third, according to a board tally. Most are being rejected because the voters were not registered.

In many counties, the smallest portion of rejected ballots were due to votes being cast in the wrong precinct. Before the election, Democrats lost a court appeal seeking to allow people to cast provisional ballots in precincts where they do not live.

Election officials said heightened public attention to the court case and the efforts of poll workers helped voters arrive at the right precincts.

Ohio voters cast 155,337 provisional ballots, which are used when voters names are not on the rolls for some reason or their eligibility is otherwise in doubt. Counties have until Dec. 1 to complete their final count. In 2000, about 87 percent of provisional ballots were counted.

Officials are determining voters' eligibility before counting each vote, so the result is not yet known.

In Colorado, the approval rate of provisional ballots was 76 percent, according to a survey of counties by the Denver Post. Nearly 24 percent of the state's estimated 51,000 provisional ballots had been rejected, the newspaper reported Wednesday.

Election officials had not yet compiled the reason for the rejections, the newspaper said. The rejection rate was 12 percent in Colorado in 2002, a non-presidential election year.

President Bush won in Colorado by more than 5 percentage points.

Posted by Lisa at 09:00 PM
More Reports From MSNBC's Keith Olbermann On The Election Recounts

These are from November 24 and 26, 2004.

Nov 24


Mirror of Nov 24


Nov 26


Mirror of Nov 26

Posted by Lisa at 08:54 PM
60 Minutes On the 15,000 "Uncounted" Deaths and Casualties Of The Shrub War

This is from the November 21, 2004 program of 60 Minutes.

This story is about the Shrub Administrations efforts to hide thousands of American deaths and casualties of this war by simply not reporting them, claiming they are "non-combat injuries." The families of dead soldiers and shell shocked soldiers who have lost limbs/become paralyzed/will never be the same again are pretty upset about it.


The Uncounted

(
Mirror

Posted by Lisa at 08:53 AM
Daily Show Comedy Clips And Interviews From November 11 - 18, 2004

I hate to do this, but I'm so far behind on everything right now that I figure it's better than you guys having to wait another week for this stuff. I promise I will post this stuff appropriately this weekend.

Here's the daily show clip for
November 11, 2004
(just one arafat clip)

Here are all of the clips (with zip files and mirrors!) for November 15-18, 2004:


November 15, 2004


November 15 Mirror


November 16, 2004
Includes Tom Brokaw Interview.

November 16 Mirror


November 17, 2004


November 17 Mirror


November 18, 2004
Includes Woody Harrelson Interview.

November 18 Mirror

Many Thanks to Thilo Schlabach for mirroring my clips! Please use the mirrors guys!

Posted by Lisa at 08:40 AM
November 28, 2004
U.S. Forces Using Chemical Weapons On Civilians In Fallujah


'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah

By Dahr Jamail for Common Dreams.


The U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report..

”Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah,” 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. ”They used everything -- tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground.”

Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons.

”They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud,” Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. ”Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.”

He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. ”People suffered so much from these,” he said.

Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging through the cordon U.S. forces are still maintaining around Fallujah.

”Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans,” said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad. ”Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die.”

Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little over a week ago told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the city.

”I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks,” he said. ”This happened so many times.”...

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1126-01.htm

Published on Friday, November 26, 2004 by the Inter Press Service
'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah
by Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Nov 26 (IPS) - The U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report..

”Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah,” 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. ”They used everything -- tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground.”

Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons.

”They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud,” Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. ”Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.”

He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. ”People suffered so much from these,” he said.

Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging through the cordon U.S. forces are still maintaining around Fallujah.

”Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans,” said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad. ”Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die.”

Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little over a week ago told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the city.

”I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks,” he said. ”This happened so many times.”

Abdul Razaq Ismail who escaped from Fallujah two weeks back said soldiers had used tanks to pull bodies to the soccer stadium to be buried. ”I saw dead bodies on the ground and nobody could bury them because of the American snipers,” he said. ”The Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah.”

Abu Hammad said he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. ”The Americans shot them with rifles from the shore,” he said. ”Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters, they were all shot..”

Hammad said he had seen elderly women carrying white flags shot by U.S. soldiers. ”Even the wounded people were killed. The Americans made announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were killed.”

Another Fallujah resident Khalil (40) told IPS he saw civilians shot as they held up makeshift white flags. ”They shot women and old men in the streets,” he said. ”Then they shot anyone who tried to get their bodies...Fallujah is suffering too much, it is almost gone now.”

Refugees had moved to another kind of misery now, he said. ”It's a disaster living here at this camp,” Khalil said. ”We are living like dogs and the kids do not have enough clothes.”

Spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad Abdel Hamid Salim told IPS that none of their relief teams had been allowed into Fallujah, and that the military had said it would be at least two more weeks before any refugees would be allowed back into the city.

”There is still heavy fighting in Fallujah,” said Salim. ”And the Americans won't let us in so we can help people.”

In many camps around Fallujah and throughout Baghdad, refugees are living without enough food, clothing and shelter. Relief groups estimate there are at least 15,000 refugee families in temporary shelters outside Fallujah.

Posted by Lisa at 04:34 PM
November 26, 2004
Daily Show Clip On The Football/Desperate Wives Controversy, Porter Goss' Partisan Leadership at the CIA, and Robert Novak Continuing To Go Unpunished For Being A Traitor

This is from the November 17, 2004 program.

Sorry the next bunch of clips may be a bit out of order.

Daily Show opening bit November 17, 2004

(
Mirror of this clip
)

Included in this clip:

Jon makes the insightful observation that, although the families of America were supposedly shocked and offended by the Desperate Wives/NFL cross promotional advertisement where the actresses shows off here naked....back! A bit later in that same broadcast, the same families were apparently unbothered by two women wrestling each other over a bud light. (And presumably scantilly-clad in some fashion - as is the tradition with beer ads - note: hearsay alert! I have not seen this ad)

He then goes on to discuss the first official partisan act of new CIA chief Porter Goss: to tell his ranks to shut up and support everything the Shrub Administration does (and, generally, to not question authority).

Jon ends the segment by reminding us all that Robert Novack still hasn't been penalized or prosecuted in any way for endangering the life of a CIA agent by leaking her identity in one of his articles.

Posted by Lisa at 06:24 PM
Our Own National Guard Troops Are Treated Like "Inmates With Weapons"

Hel-lo? Is there anybody out there? Now our government is sending National Guard troops to old WWII Prisoner of War camps and treating them like prisoners themselves before shipping them off to Iraq to become inevitable casualties of War.

They are treated horribly, given poor combat training, and then sent off to perform extremely dangerous tasks for a government that doesn't care if they live or die.

Many of them are going AWOL. Who can blame them? They are running off to see their families one last time before being sent to their deaths. (Theoretically, many are coming back after Thanksgiving. To these people I say: "Save yourself! Keep going! Don't ever come back if you want to stay alive!")

Will somebody please do something to stop this madness? I feel so helpless hearing about this stuff. So powerless to do anything to stop these nut cases in charge of our country.

Guardsmen Say They're Facing Iraq Ill-Trained

Troops from California describe a prison-like, demoralized camp in New Mexico that's short on gear and setting them up for high casualties.
By Scott Gold for the LA Times.


Members of a California Army National Guard battalion preparing for deployment to Iraq said this week that they were under strict lockdown and being treated like prisoners rather than soldiers by Army commanders at the remote desert camp where they are training.

More troubling, a number of the soldiers said, is that the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq early next year. "We are going to pay for this in blood," one soldier said...

"I feel like an inmate with a weapon," said Cpl. Jajuane Smith, 31, a six-year Guard veteran from Fresno who works for an armored transport company when not on active duty.

Several soldiers have fled Doña Ana by vaulting over rolls of barbed wire that surround the small camp, the soldiers interviewed said. Others, they said, are contemplating going AWOL, at least temporarily, to reunite with their families for Thanksgiving.

Army commanders said the concerns were an inevitable result of the decision to shore up the strained military by turning "citizen soldiers" into fully integrated, front-line combat troops. About 40% of the troops in Iraq are either reservists or National Guard troops.

Lt. Col. Michael Hubbard of Ft. Bliss said the military must confine the soldiers largely to Doña Ana to ensure that their training is complete before they are sent to Iraq.

"A lot of these individuals are used to doing this two days a month and then going home," Hubbard said. "Now the job is 24/7. And they experience culture shock."

But many of the soldiers interviewed said the problems they cited went much deeper than culture shock...

At Doña Ana, soldiers have questioned their commanders about conditions at the camp, occasionally breaking the protocol of formation drills to do so. They said they had been told repeatedly that they could not be trusted because they were not active-duty soldiers — though many of them are former active-duty soldiers.

"I'm a cop. I've got a career, a house, a family, a college degree," said one sergeant, who lives in Southern California and spoke, like most of the soldiers, on condition of anonymity.

"I came back to the National Guard specifically to go to Baghdad, because I believed in it, believed in the mission. But I have regretted every day of it. This is demoralizing, demeaning, degrading. And we're supposed to be ambassadors to another country? We're supposed to go to war like this?"...

Hubbard, the officer at Ft. Bliss, also said conditions at Doña Ana were designed to mirror the harsh and often thankless assignments the soldiers would take on in Iraq. That was an initiative launched by Brig. Gen. Joseph Chavez, commander of the 29th Separate Infantry Brigade, which includes the 184th Regiment.

The program has resulted in everything from an alcohol ban to armed guards at the entrance to Doña Ana, Hubbard said.

"We are preparing you and training you for what you're going to encounter over there," Hubbard said. "And they just have to get used to it."...

They also said the bulk of their training had been basic, such as first aid and rifle work, and not "theater-specific" to Iraq. They are supposed to be able to use night-vision goggles, for instance, because many patrols in Iraq take place in darkness. But one group of 200 soldiers trained for just an hour with 30 pairs of goggles, which they had to pass around quickly, soldiers said.

The soldiers said they had received little or no training for operations that they expected to undertake in Iraq, from convoy protection to guarding against insurgents' roadside bombs. One said he has put together a diary of what he called "wasted days" of training. It lists 95 days, he said, during which the soldiers learned nothing that would prepare them for Iraq.

Hubbard had said he would make two field commanders available on Tuesday to answer specific questions from the Los Angeles Times about the training, but that did not happen...

The soldiers also said they were risking courts-martial or other punishment by speaking publicly about their situation. But Staff Sgt. Lorenzo Dominguez, 45, one of the soldiers who allowed his identity to be revealed, said he feared that if nothing changed, men in his platoon would be killed in Iraq.

Dominguez is a father of two — including a 13-month-old son named Reagan, after the former president — and an employee of a mortgage bank in Alta Loma, Calif. A senior squad leader of his platoon, Dominguez said he had been in the National Guard for 20 years.

"Some of us are going to die there, and some of us are going to die unnecessarily because of the lack of training," he said. "So I don't care. Let them court-martial me. I want the American public to know what is going on. My men are guilty of one thing: volunteering to serve their country. And we are at the end of our rope."


Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guard25nov25,0,7278305.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Guardsmen Say They're Facing Iraq Ill-Trained
* Troops from California describe a prison-like, demoralized camp in New Mexico that's short on gear and setting them up for high casualties.



Times Headlines

Sizing Up Man Who Would Be Atty. Gen.

Breaking, Entering Your PC

A Rift Over Indian Portraits' Face Value

Got Robot? Dairy Farmer Sees 'Milking Parlor' as Tourist Stop

When New Drugs Go Wrong: Role of the FDA Debated

more >

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IRAQ
ARMY U S
CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD MILITARY DEPLOYMENT IRAQ
CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD
PF IG
MILITARY DEPLOYMENT



By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer

DOÑA ANA RANGE, N.M. — Members of a California Army National Guard battalion preparing for deployment to Iraq said this week that they were under strict lockdown and being treated like prisoners rather than soldiers by Army commanders at the remote desert camp where they are training.

More troubling, a number of the soldiers said, is that the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq early next year. "We are going to pay for this in blood," one soldier said.

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They said they believed their treatment and training reflected an institutional bias against National Guard troops by commanders in the active-duty Army, an allegation that Army commanders denied.

The 680 soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment were activated in August and are preparing for deployment at Doña Ana, a former World War II prisoner-of-war camp 20 miles west of its large parent base, Ft. Bliss, Texas.

Members of the battalion, headquartered in Modesto, said in two dozen interviews that they were allowed no visitors or travel passes, had scant contact with their families and that morale was terrible.

"I feel like an inmate with a weapon," said Cpl. Jajuane Smith, 31, a six-year Guard veteran from Fresno who works for an armored transport company when not on active duty.

Several soldiers have fled Doña Ana by vaulting over rolls of barbed wire that surround the small camp, the soldiers interviewed said. Others, they said, are contemplating going AWOL, at least temporarily, to reunite with their families for Thanksgiving.

Army commanders said the concerns were an inevitable result of the decision to shore up the strained military by turning "citizen soldiers" into fully integrated, front-line combat troops. About 40% of the troops in Iraq are either reservists or National Guard troops.

Lt. Col. Michael Hubbard of Ft. Bliss said the military must confine the soldiers largely to Doña Ana to ensure that their training is complete before they are sent to Iraq.

"A lot of these individuals are used to doing this two days a month and then going home," Hubbard said. "Now the job is 24/7. And they experience culture shock."

But many of the soldiers interviewed said the problems they cited went much deeper than culture shock.

And military analysts agree that tensions between active-duty Army soldiers and National Guard troops have been exacerbated as the war in Iraq has required dangerous and long-term deployments of both.

The concerns of the Guard troops at Doña Ana represent the latest in a series of incidents involving allegations that a two-tier system has shortchanged reservist and National Guard units compared with their active-duty counterparts.

In September, a National Guard battalion undergoing accelerated training at Ft. Dix, N.J., was confined to barracks for two weeks after 13 soldiers reportedly went AWOL to see family before shipping out for Iraq.

Last month, an Army National Guard platoon at Camp Shelby, Miss., refused its orders after voicing concerns about training conditions and poor leadership.

In the most highly publicized incident, in October, more than two dozen Army reservists in Iraq refused to drive a fuel convoy to a town north of Baghdad after arguing that the trucks they had been given were not armored for combat duty.

At Doña Ana, soldiers have questioned their commanders about conditions at the camp, occasionally breaking the protocol of formation drills to do so. They said they had been told repeatedly that they could not be trusted because they were not active-duty soldiers — though many of them are former active-duty soldiers.

"I'm a cop. I've got a career, a house, a family, a college degree," said one sergeant, who lives in Southern California and spoke, like most of the soldiers, on condition of anonymity.

"I came back to the National Guard specifically to go to Baghdad, because I believed in it, believed in the mission. But I have regretted every day of it. This is demoralizing, demeaning, degrading. And we're supposed to be ambassadors to another country? We're supposed to go to war like this?"

Pentagon and Army commanders rejected the allegation that National Guard or reserve troops were prepared for war differently than their active-duty counterparts.

"There is no difference," said Lt. Col. Chris Rodney, an Army spokesman in Washington. "We are, more than ever, one Army. Some have to come from a little farther back — they have a little less training. But the goal is to get everybody the same."

The Guard troops at Doña Ana were scheduled to train for six months before beginning a yearlong deployment. They recently learned, however, that the Army planned to send them overseas a month early — in January, most likely — as it speeds up troop movement to compensate for a shortage of full-time, active-duty troops.

Hubbard, the officer at Ft. Bliss, also said conditions at Doña Ana were designed to mirror the harsh and often thankless assignments the soldiers would take on in Iraq. That was an initiative launched by Brig. Gen. Joseph Chavez, commander of the 29th Separate Infantry Brigade, which includes the 184th Regiment.

The program has resulted in everything from an alcohol ban to armed guards at the entrance to Doña Ana, Hubbard said.

"We are preparing you and training you for what you're going to encounter over there," Hubbard said. "And they just have to get used to it."

Military analysts, however, questioned whether the soldiers' concerns could be attributed entirely to the military's attempt to mirror conditions in Iraq. For example, the soldiers say that an ammunition shortage has meant that they have often conducted operations firing blanks.

"The Bush administration had over a year of planning before going to war in Iraq," said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has acted as a defense lawyer in military courts. "An ammunition shortage is not an exercise in tough love."

Turley said that in every military since Alexander the Great's, there have been "gripes from grunts" but that "the complaints raised by these National Guardsmen raise some significant and troubling concerns."

The Guard troops in New Mexico said they wanted more sophisticated training and better equipment. They said they had been told, for example, that the vehicles they would drive in Iraq would not be armored, a common complaint among their counterparts already serving overseas.

They also said the bulk of their training had been basic, such as first aid and rifle work, and not "theater-specific" to Iraq. They are supposed to be able to use night-vision goggles, for instance, because many patrols in Iraq take place in darkness. But one group of 200 soldiers trained for just an hour with 30 pairs of goggles, which they had to pass around quickly, soldiers said.

The soldiers said they had received little or no training for operations that they expected to undertake in Iraq, from convoy protection to guarding against insurgents' roadside bombs. One said he has put together a diary of what he called "wasted days" of training. It lists 95 days, he said, during which the soldiers learned nothing that would prepare them for Iraq.

Hubbard had said he would make two field commanders available on Tuesday to answer specific questions from the Los Angeles Times about the training, but that did not happen.

The fact that the National Guardsmen have undergone largely basic training suggests that Army commanders do not trust their skills as soldiers, said David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland. That tension underscores a divide that has long existed between "citizen soldiers" and their active-duty counterparts, he said.

"These soldiers should be getting theater-specific training," Segal said. "This should not be an area where they are getting on-the-job training. The military is just making a bad situation worse."

The soldiers at Doña Ana emphasized their support for the war in Iraq. "In fact, a lot of us would rather go now rather than stay here," said one, a specialist and six-year National Guard veteran who works as a security guard in his civilian life in Southern California.

The soldiers also said they were risking courts-martial or other punishment by speaking publicly about their situation. But Staff Sgt. Lorenzo Dominguez, 45, one of the soldiers who allowed his identity to be revealed, said he feared that if nothing changed, men in his platoon would be killed in Iraq.

Dominguez is a father of two — including a 13-month-old son named Reagan, after the former president — and an employee of a mortgage bank in Alta Loma, Calif. A senior squad leader of his platoon, Dominguez said he had been in the National Guard for 20 years.

"Some of us are going to die there, and some of us are going to die unnecessarily because of the lack of training," he said. "So I don't care. Let them court-martial me. I want the American public to know what is going on. My men are guilty of one thing: volunteering to serve their country. And we are at the end of our rope."

Posted by Lisa at 03:28 PM
Check Out My Sister In "A Mulholland Christmas Carol"

My sister, Sierra, has a supporting role in a play down in L.A. over the next few weeks in
"A Mulholland Christmas Carol
."

She's always great (and I'm not just saying that because she's my little sister :-),
and she's always in great stage productions! This one's a musical comedy.

Posted by Lisa at 03:03 PM
November 24, 2004
MSNBC On Latest Ohio Recount Developments - Kerry and Dems to Participate

This is from the November 22, 2004 episode of Countdown w/


Keith Olbermann's Report On The Latest Ohio Recount Developments

(In one 20 MB vid or two smaller vids)

This also goes with this blog entry of Keith Olbermann's. This is actually a link to a bunch of posts on election developments.

Here is the complete text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6533008/#041122b

Ohio Dems join recount effort (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS— The headline might be a little expansive since the national headquarters has not yet echoed it, but it's still pretty impressive as it is:

"Kerry/Edwards Campaign Joins Ohio Recount."

The news release was issued this afternoon over the signature of Ohio's Democratic chairman, Dennis White: "As Senator Kerry stated in his concession speech in Boston, we do not necessarily expect the results of the election to change, however, we believe it necessary to make sure everyone's vote is counted fairly and accurately." White called for witnesses, volunteers, and donations.

The statement ends nearly three weeks of official Democratic ambivalence towards the formal recount process in the election's decisive state. As late as Friday, Senator Kerry's email to 3,000,000 supporters contained a seemingly ambiguous reference to that process, which began with the phrase "Regardless of the outcome of this election, once all the votes are counted, and believe me they will be counted, we will continue to challenge the administration."

It had been left to the independent parties, the Greens and Libertarians, to do the initial work demanding a recount in each of Ohio's 88 counties. Their combined effort led to a bond of $113,600 being posted with the state last Friday to guarantee the coverage of expenses incurred. Just today, the "Glibs" amplified their demands in Ohio, filing a federal lawsuit that, if successful, would require the completion of the "full, hand recount" before the meeting of the Electoral College on December 13.

The Ohio Democrats did not attach themselves to the lawsuit. "The recount can begin after the official results are certified, which likely will be in the first week of December," reads the news release. "The Democratic party wants to be fully prepared to begin a recount immediately."

Howard Fineman joins me on Countdown tonight at 8 and Midnight eastern to discuss the ramifications.

E-mail KOlbermann@MSNBC.com

• November 21, 2004 | 5:51 p.m. ET

Relax about Ohio, Relax about the guy tailing me (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK— Anybody else notice that when you politely refer to the Secretary of State of Ohio, you have to call him “Mr. Blackwell,” just like that guy who compiles the goofy worst-dressed list?

Mr. Kenneth Blackwell is the subject of three actions regarding the Ohio vote that you haven’t seen on television yet. Each (the Cobb/Badnarik Recount bid, the Alliance for Democracy legal challenge, and the Ohio Democratic Party suit over provisional ballots) has an undertone suggesting time is of the essence, and that he is wasting it. The accusation may or may not be true, but it also may or may not be relevant.

The Glibs’ recount effort was underscored last week by their letters to Blackwell insisting he hurry up and finish certifying the count well before the announced deadline of December 6, because otherwise, there won’t be enough time for the recount before the voting of the Electoral College on December 13. The Alliance attorney Clifford Arnebeck told The Columbus Dispatch that his quite separate legal challenge to the election must be addressed immediately because “time is critical.” The local Democrats haven’t been commenting on their low-flying suit - more about that later. They’re just smiling quietly to themselves.

Cobb, Badnarik, Arnebeck, and everybody else actually has more time than they think. I addressed this topic with the wonderfully knowledgeable George Washington University Constitutional Law professor, Jonathan Turley, back on Countdown on November 9th. He noted the election process is a little slower— and has one more major loophole— than is generally known. It begins on December 7th, the date “when you essentially certify your electors… it gives a presumption to the legitimacy to your votes. And then, on the 13th, the electors actually vote.”

But, Turley noted, “those votes are not opened by Congress until January 6. Now, if there are controversies, such as some disclosure that a state actually went for Kerry (instead of Bush), there is the ability of members of Congress to challenge.” In other words, even after the December 13th Electoral College Vote, in the extremely unlikely scenario that a court overturns the Ohio count, or that the recount discovers 4,000 Gahanna-style machines that each recorded 4,000 votes too many for one candidate, there is still a mechanism to correct the error, honest or otherwise.

“It requires a written objection from one House member and one senator,” Turley continues. Once that objection is raised, the joint meeting of the two houses is discontinued. “Then both Houses separate again and they vote by majority vote as to whether to accept the slate of electoral votes from that state.”

In these super-heated partisan times, it may seem like just another prospective process decided by majority rule instead of fact. But envision the far-fetched scenario of some dramatic, conclusive new result from Ohio turning up around, say, January 4th. What congressman or senator in his right mind would vote to seat the candidate who lost the popular vote in Ohio? We wouldn’t be talking about party loyalty any more - we’d be talking about pure political self-interest here, and whenever in our history that critical mass has been achieved, it’s been every politician for himself (ask Barry Goldwater when Richard Nixon trolled for his support in July and August, 1974, or Republican Senator Edmund Ross of Kansas when his was to be the decisive vote that would have impeached President Andrew Johnson in 1868).

The point of this dip into the world of political science fiction is that the Ohio timeframe is a little less condensed than it seems. The drop-dead date is not December 13, but January 6.

It is noteworthy that the announcement of a legal challenge made it into weekend editions of The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Columbus Dispatch, the Associated Press wires, and other publications. The Columbus paper even mentioned something curious. “Earlier this week, the Ohio Democratic party announced it would join a lawsuit arguing that the state lacks clear rules for evaluating provisional ballots, a move the party said will keep its options open if problems with the ballots surface.”

This makes a little more sense out of a confusing item that appeared in an obscure weekly paper in Westchester County, New York, last Wednesday, in which a reporter named Adam Stone wrote “A top-ranking official with Democratic Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign told North County News last week that although unlikely, there is a recount effort being waged that could unseat Republican President George Bush.” Stone quotes Kerry spokesman David Wade as saying: “We have 17,000 lawyers working on this, and the grassroots accountability couldn’t be any higher - no (irregularity) will go unchecked. Period.” Gives a little context to Senator Kerry’s opaque mass e-mail and on-line video statement from Friday afternoon.

The Ohio newspaper coverage suggests that even the mainstream media is beginning to sit up and take notice that, whatever its merits, the investigation into the voting irregularities of November 2nd has moved from the Reynolds Wrap Hat stage into legal and governmental action. Tripe does continue to appear, like Carol Pogash’s column in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. Its headline provided me with a laugh: “Liberals, the election is over, live with it.” I’ve gotten 37,000 emails in the last two weeks (now running at better than 25:1 in favor), and the two most repeated comments by those critical of the coverage have been references to the ratings of Fox News Channel, and the phrase “the election is over, (expletive deleted), live with it. I hesitate to generalize, but this does suggest a certain unwillingness of critics to engage in political discourses that don’t have no swear words in ‘em.

Meantime, The Oakland Tribune not only devoted seventeen paragraphs Friday to the UC Berkeley study on the voting curiosities in Florida, but actually expended considerable energy towards what we used to call ‘advancing the story’: “The UC Berkeley report has not been peer reviewed, but a reputable MIT political scientist succeeded in replicating the analysis Thursday at the request of the Oakland Tribune and The Associated Press. He said an investigation is warranted.”

In fact, he - MIT Arts and Social Sciences Dean Charles Stewart - said more than that. “There is an interesting pattern here that I hope someone looks into.” Stewart is part of the same Cal Tech/MIT Voting Project that had earlier issued a preliminary report suggesting that there was no evidence of significant voting irregularity in Florida. Dean Stewart added he didn’t necessarily buy the Berkeley conclusion - that the only variable that could explain the “excessive” votes in Florida was poisoned touch-screen voting - and still thought there were other options, such as, in the words of The Tribune’s Ian Hoffman “absentee voting or some quirk of election administration.”

Neither MIT nor Cal Tech has yet responded to the comments of several poll-savvy commentators, and others, that its paper was using erroneous statistics. Its premise, you’ll recall, was that on a state-by-state basis, the notorious 2004 Exit Polls were within the margin of error and could be mathematically interpreted as having forecast the announced presidential outcome. It has been observed that the MIT/Cal Tech study used not the “raw” exit polls - as did Professor Steven Freeman of Penn did in his study - but rather the “weighted” polls, in which actual precinct and county official counts are mixed in to “correct” the organic “Hey, Buddy, who’d you vote for” numbers. The “weighted” polls have been analogized to a football handicapper predicting that the New Orleans Saints would beat the Denver Broncos 24-14, then, after the Broncos scored twenty points in the first quarter, announcing his prediction was now that the Saints would beat the Broncos 42-41, or even, that the Broncos would beat the Saints 40-7.

None of the coverage of the Berkeley study clarified a vitally important point about its conclusions regarding the touch-screen wobble in the fifteen Florida counties, and that has led to some unjustified optimism on the activist and Democratic sides. Its math produced two distinct numbers for “ghost votes” for President Bush: 130,000 and 260,000. This has led to the assumption in many quarters that Cal Tech has suggested as many as 260,000 Florida votes could swing from Bush to Kerry (enough to overturn the state). In fact - and the academics got a little too academic in summarizing their report and thus, this kind of got lost - the two numbers already consider the prospect of a swing:

a) There may have been 130,000 votes simply added to the Bush total. If proved and excised, they would reduce the President’s Florida margin from approximately 350,000 votes to approximately 220,000;

b) There may have been 130,000 votes switched from Kerry to Bush. If proved and corrected, they would reduce (by double the 130,000 figure - namely 260,000) the President’s Florida margin from approximately 350,000 votes to approximately 90,000.

On the ground in Florida, uncounted ballots continue to turn up in Pinellas County. Last Monday, an unmarked banker’s box with 268 absentee ballots was discovered “sitting in plain sight on an office floor, with papers and other boxes stacked on top of it,” according to The St. Petersburg Times. On Friday, the same paper reported that County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark found twelve more—ten provisionals in a blue pouch at a loading dock, and two absentees in a box headed for a storage facility. “I’m sick about this,” the paper quoted Clark, whose office also whiffed on 1400 absentee ballots on Election Day 2000, and counted another 600 twice. Asked by a reporter if the election is over, she replied “I certainly hope so.”

Well, I know how Ms. Clark feels. To close, a little anecdote from Big Town: I approached Seventh Avenue from the east and the guy in the black trenchcoat was walking north.

He got that little surprised look of recognition in his eyes and said “Keith! How are you?” We shook hands and he added, with apparent nervousness, “I’ll just be tailing you for the next block.” I laughed and said I was used to it.

Now, I’ve been getting recognized in public since 1982, and I had a stalker for eight years who once talked her way into ESPN and wound up being escorted to my desk— so I think I can tell the difference between a fan and a threat (this was a fan; a threat doesn’t come up and announce he’s going to tail you). I relate this just because of the timing. In the last week, I have read that I’ve been fired, suspended, muzzled, threatened (that, I think, was my NBC colleague Kevin Sites, who reported the Marine prisoner shooting in Iraq— our mailbox had a couple of those), and in the middle of it, I get a ‘What’s the frequency Kenneth moment’ from a fan who was just trying to be funny.

The laugh was genuine. As was my decision to cross the street.

Write me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

(Olbermann returns from not very much of a vacation to host Countdown, Monday November 22, 8:00 P.M. ET. Presumably.)

• November 19, 2004 | 5:39 p.m. ET

Didn't you run for president once? (Keith Olbermann)

SECURE UNDISCLOSED LOCATION— There has been a John Kerry sighting.

“Regardless of the outcome of this election, once all the votes are counted— and they will be counted— we will continue to challenge this administration,” the 2004 Democratic candidate said in a prepared statement released today. “I will fight for a national standard for federal elections that has both transparency and accountability in our voting system. It is unacceptable in the United States that people still don’t have full confidence in the integrity of the voting process.”

Since his concession, Kerry’s silence on the questions of voting irregularities in Florida, Ohio, and elsewhere, has perplexed those pursuing those questions, helped render largely passive the media who should’ve been doing so, and provided virtual proof to others that there weren’t any questions at all. His supporters have been mystified at news this week that millions of dollars from his war chest went unspent. His lawyers have been characterized as flying below the radar as the Libertarian and Green Parties have pushed their recount in Ohio.

He has seemed to his supporters and many neutrals, in short, as being AWOL.

The statement doesn’t exactly dispel that aroma. It came by way of an e-mail to supporters— but not to the media— and a video on his otherwise update-free campaign website, which maintains the frozen-in-time November 2 front page that makes it look like the political equivalent of Miss Haversham’s cobweb-strewn house in Dickens’ "Great Expectations."

The primary topic of the mass e-mail isn’t even this election or future ones. It’s about a petition drive for universal child health care legislation Kerry intends to introduce on the first day of the new Congress. Whether the voting stuff was added as a sop to supporters loudly wondering where he— and the unspent $15,000,000— has been, is conjecture.

But the video is just plain weird. The phrasing of the start of the relevant passage—“Regardless of the outcome of this election”— is open to the same kind of parsing and confusion usually reserved for the latest release from Osama Bin Laden. Those seven words are extra-temporal; they are tense-free. In them he could be describing an election long-since decided, or one whose outcome is still in doubt.

And the timing and delivery of the message are equally confusing. No notification to the media? When much of the mechanism of political coverage is kick-started by statements like this one? And its issuance on a Friday afternoon— the moment of minimum news attention so famously titled “Take Out The Trash Day” on the NBC series “The West Wing”?— is perplexing, if not suspicious.

It has the vague feel of deliberate ambiguity, as if Kerry is saying to those who are plagued by doubts about the vote just seventeen days ago, that he agrees with them, but they shouldn’t tell anybody. It’s exactly what these confusing times do not need: more confusion.

Thoughts? E-mail KOlbermann@MSNBC.com

• November 19, 2004 | 9:40 a.m. ET

All I know is what I don't read in the papers (Keith Olbermann)

SECURE UNDISCLOSED LOCATION— I’m beginning to think like Jim Bunning now.

So far in this post-election trip through Alice’s looking glass we’ve had:

—a University of Pennsylvania professor defending the accuracy of exit polling in order damn the accuracy of vote counting;

—a joint CalTech/MIT study defending the accuracy of exit polling in order to confirm the accuracy of vote counting;

—a series of lesser academic works assailing the validity of the Penn and CalTech/MIT assessments;

—and now, a UC Berkeley Research Team report that concludes President Bush may have received up to 260,000 more votes in fifteen Florida counties than he should have, all courtesy the one-armed bandits better known as touch-screen voting systems.

And, save, for one "New York Times"reference to the CalTech/MIT study "disproving" the idea that the exit poll results were so wacky that they required thoroughly botched election nights in several states, the closest any of these research efforts have gotten to the mainstream media have been "Wired News" and "Countdown."

I still hesitate to endorse the ‘media lock-down’ theory extolled so widely on the net. I've expended a lot of space on the facts of political media passivity and exhaustion, and now I’ll add one factor to explain the collective shrugged shoulder: reading this stuff is hard. It’s hard work.

There are, as we know, lies, damn lies, and statistics. But there is one level of hell lower still— scholarly statistical studies. I have made four passes at “The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections,” and the thing has still got me pinned to the floor.

Most of the paper is so academically dense that it seems to have been written not just in another language, but in some form of code. There is one table captioned “OLS Regression with Robust Standard Errors.” Another is titled “OLS regressions with frequency weights for county size.” Only the summary produced by Professor Michael Hout and the Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Time is intelligible.

Of course, I’m reminded suddenly of the old cartoon, with the guy saying “I don’t understand women,” and the second guy saying, “So? Do you understand electricity?”

In his news conference yesterday at Berkeley (who attended? Who phoned in to the conference call? Why didn’t they try?) Professor Hout analogized the report to a “beeping smoke alarm.” It doesn’t say how bad the fire it is, it doesn’t accuse anybody of arson, it just says somebody ought to have an extinguisher handy.

Without attempting to crack the methodology, it’s clear the researchers claim they’ve compensated for all the bugaboos that hampered the usefulness of previous studies of the county voting results in Florida. They’ve weighted the thing to allow for an individual county’s voting record in both the 2000 and 1996 elections (throwing out the ‘Dixiecrat’ effect), to wash out issues like the varying Hispanic populations, median income, voter turnout change, and the different numbers of people voting in each county.

And they say that when you calculate all that, you are forced to conclude that compared to the Florida counties that used paper ballots, the ones that used electronic voting machines were much more likely to show “excessive votes” for Mr. Bush, and that the statistical odds of this happening organically are less than one in 1,000.

They also say that these “excessives” occurred most prominently in counties where Senator Kerry beat the President most handily. In the Democratic bastion of Broward, where Kerry won by roughly 105,000, they suggest the touch-screens “gave” the President 72,000 more votes than statistical consistency should have allowed. In Miami-Dade (Kerry by 55,000) they saw 19,300 more votes for Bush than expected. In Palm Beach (Kerry by 115,000) they claim Bush got 50,000 more votes than possible.

Hout and his research team consistently insisted they were not alleging that voting was rigged, nor even that what they’ve found actually affected the direction of Florida’s 27 Electoral Votes. They point out that in a worst-case scenario, they see 260,000 “excessives” - and Bush took the state by 350,000 votes. But they insist that based on Florida’s voting patterns in 1996 and 2000, the margin cannot be explained by successful get-out-the-vote campaigns, or income variables, or anything but something rotten in the touch screens.

It’s deep-woods mathematics, and it cries out for people who speak the language and can refute or confirm its value. Kim Zetter, who did an excellent work-up for "Wired News,"got the responses you’d expect from both sides. She quotes Susan Van Houten of Palm Beach’s Coalition for Election Reform as saying “I’ve believed the same thing for a while, that the numbers are screwy, and it looks like they proved it.” She quotes Jill Friedman-Wilson of the touch-screen manufacturer Election Systems & Software (their machines were in use in Broward and Miami-Dade) as responding “If you consider real-world experience, we know that ES&S’ touch-screen voting system has been proven in thousands of elections throughout the country.”

What’s possibly of more interest to us poor laymen is what isn’t in the Berkeley report.

As I mentioned previously, they don’t claim to know how this happened. But more importantly, they say that they ran a similar examination on the voting patterns in Ohio, comparing its paper ballot and electronic results, and found absolutely nothing to suggest either candidate got any “bump” that couldn’t otherwise be explained by past voting patterns, income, turnout, or any other commonplace factor.

In other words: No e-voting machines spontaneously combusting in Ohio.

“For the sake of all future elections involving electronic voting,” Professor Hout concluded, “someone must investigate and explain the statistical anomalies in Florida. We’re calling on voting officials in Florida to take action.”

Anybody want to belly up to this bar?

Posted by Lisa at 04:04 PM
Daily Show Comedy Clips From November 10, 2004 - Including An Interview With Tom Wolfe

This is from the November 10, 2004 program.

Note that there is a zip file of all 4 clips also available for download.

Daily Show Clips From November 10, 2004

Included in these clips:
Ashcroft's resignation and hand written resignation letter

Ed Helms on Florida's disenfranchisement ploy of a checkbox in which
voters had to affirm that "I have not be adjudicated mentally incapacitated
with respect to voting, or, if I have, my competency has been restored.

Science Scope - finding the 18,000 year-old remains of a man-like "hobbit"
Global Warming creating a lovely "Northern Sea Route" in Russia
(Makes global warming worth it all!)

Tom Wolfe interview about his new book: "I am Charlotte Simmons."

Posted by Lisa at 02:04 PM
November 22, 2004
More Daily Show Clips Up

Although they're not linked or described properly yet, you should know that you can always just look in my directory by date for Daily Show clips.

There are some more in the November 2004
section, I uploaded over the weekend, for instance...

Posted by Lisa at 08:39 AM
November 21, 2004
Article and Video Available: UC Berkeley Researchers Prove That Florida Evoting Count Statistically Impossible

This post contains both an article and video.


Here's where you can download the PDF and data for yourself
.


Here's a direct link to the PDF file
. (Working Paper: The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections
by Michael Hout, Laura Mangels, Jennifer Carlson, and Rachel Best)

ATTENTION: This isn't just some bumpkin like me at home with a calculator spouting off, this is the
University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team.

These guys give new meaning to the phrase "Do The Math."

It took a little while to get the numbers together and crunch them and double and triple (and quadruple x 10 to the 6th power)-check everything, but now the numbers are in baby, and they just plain don't add up.

In fact, it's statistically impossible for them to be what the official count says they are.


UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds 'Smoke Alarm' for Florida E-Vote Count

Research Team Calls For Investigation
By UC Berkeley.

There's also some video of the researchers explaining their findings:

http://undergroundclips.com/video/ucdata/11-18-04_VidConf_HQ.mov

(120 MB)

http://undergroundclips.com/video/ucdata/11-18-04_VidConf_LQ.mov

(26 MB)

(
My mirror up of these clips is here
.)


Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods - what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm." Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team formally disclosed results of the study at a press conference today at the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, where they called on Florida voting officials to investigate.

The three counties where the voting anomalies were most prevalent were also the most heavily Democratic: Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, respectively. Statistical patterns in counties that did not have e-touch voting machines predict a 28,000 vote decrease in President Bush's support in Broward County; machines tallied an increase of 51,000 votes - a net gain of 81,000 for the incumbent. President Bush should have lost 8,900 votes in Palm Beach County, but instead gained 41,000 - a difference of 49,900. He should have gained only 18,400 votes in Miami-Dade County but saw a gain of 37,000 - a difference of 19,300 votes...

"No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic voting cannot be explained," said Hout. "The study shows, that a county's use of electronic voting resulted in a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush. There is just a trivial probability of evidence like this appearing in a population where the true difference is zero - less than once in a thousand chances."

The data used in this study came from public sources including CNN.com, the 2000 US Census, and the Verified Voting Foundation. For a copy of the working paper, raw data and other information used in the study can be found at: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111904W.shtml

UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds 'Smoke Alarm' for Florida E-Vote Count
By UC Berkeley

Thursday 18 November 2004

Research team calls for investigation.

Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods - what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm." Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1 percent. The research team formally disclosed results of the study at a press conference today at the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, where they called on Florida voting officials to investigate.

The three counties where the voting anomalies were most prevalent were also the most heavily Democratic: Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, respectively. Statistical patterns in counties that did not have e-touch voting machines predict a 28,000 vote decrease in President Bush's support in Broward County; machines tallied an increase of 51,000 votes - a net gain of 81,000 for the incumbent. President Bush should have lost 8,900 votes in Palm Beach County, but instead gained 41,000 - a difference of 49,900. He should have gained only 18,400 votes in Miami-Dade County but saw a gain of 37,000 - a difference of 19,300 votes.

"For the sake of all future elections involving electronic voting - someone must investigate and explain the statistical anomalies in Florida," says Professor Michael Hout. "We're calling on voting officials in Florida to take action."

The research team is comprised of doctoral students and faculty in the UC Berkeley sociology department, and led by Sociology Professor Michael Hout, a nationally-known expert on statistical methods and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center.

For its research, the team used multiple-regression analysis, a statistical method widely used in the social and physical sciences to distinguish the individual effects of many variables on quantitative outcomes like vote totals. This multiple-regression analysis takes into account of the following variables by county:

* number of voters
* median income
* Hispanic/Latino population
* change in voter turnout between 2000 and 2004
* support for Senator Dole in the 1996 election
* support for President Bush in the 2000 election
* use of electronic voting or paper ballots

"No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic voting cannot be explained," said Hout. "The study shows, that a county's use of electronic voting resulted in a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush. There is just a trivial probability of evidence like this appearing in a population where the true difference is zero - less than once in a thousand chances."

The data used in this study came from public sources including CNN.com, the 2000 US Census, and the Verified Voting Foundation. For a copy of the working paper, raw data and other information used in the study can be found at: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/.

Posted by Lisa at 11:33 AM
Bev Harris Uncovers Bogus Poll Tapes In Florida


'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida

by Thom Hartmann for Commondreams.

This is an incredible sequence of events. The entire article is available below, but for those of you who have less time, I thought I'd summarize it for you:

Bev Harris shows up at Florida's Volusia Country Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 16, 2004 to see, under a public records request, each of the poll tapes for the 100+ optical scanners of that county. The elections workers were notified in advance of her request. When she shows up, they give her a set of printouts that were oddly dated November 15 and lacking the proper signatures.

Bev complains that the printouts provided were not the original poll tapes and had no signatures, and were therefore not what she requested. They tell her that the originals were actually kept in another location, the Elections Office Warehouse, and that, since it was the end of the day, she should meet them there the following morning to see them.

Bev shows up bright and early on November 17th -- several hours before the scheduled meeting -- to discover three of the Elections Officials in the Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looks like the poll tapes. When they see her and the others there, she is thrown out and the door is slammed in her face.

Once thrown out on the porch, she noticed a garbage bag on the porch with what appears to be the original poll tapes in it (signed appropriately, etc.).

When the Elections Officials see them looking through the trash on the porch, they call the cops on them. They fought for the garbage, kept it, and took it back to compare the original tapes to the printouts given to them previously that were dated November 15th.

During the comparison, they had a camera crew from votergate.tv there. As they are doing their comparison, another election employee passes by with another bin of "garbage" that clearly looked like more polling tapes. Bev and her crew recover the garbage and, sure enough, it turned out to be more signed original polling tapes.

The officials had excuses for why they were throwing out what they claimed were "back up copies" (signed, back up copies?!) -- and the Elections Supervisor for the Volusia County Elections Office, Deanie Lowe, was unavailable/unwilling to speak to reporters.

I don't have to tell you how the comparison turned out: the "new" printouts provided to Harris from November 15th had hundreds of extra votes for The Shrub.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1118-22.htm

'Stinking Evidence' of Possible Election Fraud Found in Florida
by Thom Hartmann

There was something odd about the poll tapes.

A "poll tape" is the phrase used to describe a printout from an optical scan voting machine made the evening of an election, after the machine has read all the ballots and crunched the numbers on its internal computer. It shows the total results of the election in that location. The printout is signed by the polling officials present in that precinct/location, and then submitted to the county elections office as the official record of how the people in that particular precinct had voted. (Usually each location has only one single optical scanner/reader, and thus produces only one poll tape.)

Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org, the erstwhile investigator of electronic voting machines, along with people from Florida Fair Elections, showed up at Florida's Volusia County Elections Office on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 16, 2004, and asked to see, under a public records request, each of the poll tapes for the 100+ optical scanners in the precincts in that county. The elections workers - having been notified in advance of her request - handed her a set of printouts, oddly dated November 15 and lacking signatures.

Bev pointed out that the printouts given her were not the original poll tapes and had no signatures, and thus were not what she'd requested. Obligingly, they told her that the originals were held in another location, the Elections Office's Warehouse, and that since it was the end of the day they should meet Bev the following morning to show them to her.

Bev showed up bright and early the morning of Wednesday the 17th - well before the scheduled meeting - and discovered three of the elections officials in the Elections Warehouse standing over a table covered with what looked like poll tapes. When they saw Bev and her friends, Bev told me in a telephone interview less than an hour later, "They immediately shoved us out and slammed the door."

In a way, that was a blessing, because it led to the stinking evidence.

"On the porch was a garbage bag," Bev said, "and so I looked in it and, and lo and behold, there were public record tapes."

Thrown away. Discarded. Waiting to be hauled off.

"It was technically stinking, in fact," Bev added, "because what they had done was to have thrown some of their polling tapes, which are the official records of the election, into the garbage. These were the ones signed by the poll workers. These are something we had done an official public records request for."

When the elections officials inside realized that the people outside were going through the trash, they called the police and one came out to challenge Bev.

Kathleen Wynne, a www.blackboxvoting.org investigator, was there.

"We caught the whole thing on videotape," she said. "I don't think you'll ever see anything like this - Bev Harris having a tug of war with an election worker over a bag of garbage, and he held onto it and she pulled on it, and it split right open, spilling out those poll tapes. They were throwing away our democracy, and Bev wasn't going to let them do it."

As I was interviewing Bev just moments after the tussle, she had to get off the phone, because, "Two police cars just showed up."

She told me later in the day, in an on-air interview, that when the police arrived, "We all had a vigorous debate on the merits of my public records request."

The outcome of that debate was that they all went from the Elections Warehouse back to the Elections Office, to compare the original, November 2 dated and signed poll tapes with the November 15 printouts the Elections Office had submitted to the Secretary of State. A camera crew from www.votergate.tv met them there, as well.

And then things got even odder.

"We were sitting there comparing the real [signed, original] tapes with the [later printout] ones that were given us," Bev said, "and finding things missing and finding things not matching, when one of the elections employees took a bin full of things that looked like garbage - that looked like polling tapes, actually - and passed by and disappeared out the back of the building."

This provoked investigator Ellen Brodsky to walk outside and check the garbage of the Elections Office itself. Sure enough - more original, signed poll tapes, freshly trashed.

"And I must tell you," Bev said, "that whatever they had taken out [the back door] just came right back in the front door and we said, 'What are these polling place tapes doing in your dumpster?'"

A November 18 call to the Volusia County Elections Office found that Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe was unavailable and nobody was willing to speak on the record with an out-of-state reporter. However, The Daytona Beach News (in Volusia County), in a November 17th article by staff writer Christine Girardin, noted, "Harris went to the Department of Elections' warehouse on State Road 44 in DeLand on Tuesday to inspect original Nov. 2 polling place tapes, after being given a set of reprints dated Nov. 15. While there, Harris saw Nov. 2 polling place tapes in a garbage bag, heightening her concern about the integrity of voting records."

The Daytona Beach News further noted that, "[Elections Supervisor] Lowe confirmed Wednesday some backup copies of tapes from the Nov. 2 election were destined for the shredder," but pointed out that, according to Lowe, that was simply because there were two sets of tapes produced on election night, each signed. "One tape is delivered in one car along with the ballots and a memory card," the News reported. "The backup tape is delivered to the elections office in a second car."

Suggesting that duplicates don't need to be kept, Lowe claims that Harris didn't want to hear an explanation of why some signed poll tapes would be in the garbage. "She's not wanting to listen to an explanation," Lowe told the News of Harris. "She has her own ideas."

But the Ollie North action in two locations on two days was only half of the surprise that awaited Bev and her associates. When they compared the discarded, signed, original tapes with the recent printouts submitted to the state and used to tabulate the Florida election winners, Harris says a disturbing pattern emerged.

"The difference was hundreds of votes in each of the different places we examined," said Bev, "and most of those were in minority areas."

When I asked Bev if the errors they were finding in precinct after precinct were random, as one would expect from technical, clerical, or computer errors, she became uncomfortable.

"You have to understand that we are non-partisan," she said. "We're not trying to change the outcome of an election, just to find out if there was any voting fraud."

That said, Bev added: "The pattern was very clear. The anomalies favored George W. Bush. Every single time."

Of course finding possible voting "anomalies" in one Florida county doesn't mean they'll show up in all counties. It's even conceivable there are innocent explanations for both the mismatched counts and trashed original records; this story undoubtedly will continue to play out. And, unless further investigation demonstrates a pervasive and statewide trend toward "anomalous" election results in many of Florida's counties, odds are none of this will change the outcome of the election (which exit polls showed John Kerry winning in Florida).

Nonetheless, Bev and her merry band are off to hit another county.

As she told me on her cell phone while driving toward their next destination, "We just put Volusia County and their lawyers on notice that they need to continue to keep a number of documents under seal, including all of the memory cards to the ballot boxes, and all of the signed poll tapes."

Why?

"Simple," she said. "Because we found anomalies indicative of fraud."

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call To Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To Democracy."

Posted by Lisa at 11:30 AM
Woo Hoo! Lawsuit Challenges Ohio Presidential Results!


Ohio Presidential Results to be Challenged

By Steven Rosenfeld for the FreePress.org.


Ohio's 2004 presidential vote will be challenged as soon as next week in the state Supreme Court, a coalition of public-interest lawyers announced Friday.

The lawyers have taken sworn testimony from hundreds of people in hearings in Columbus and Cincinnati, and will use excerpts as well as documents obtained from county election officials and Election Day exit polls to make a case that thousands of votes were incorrectly counted or not counted on Election Day.

"The objective is to get to the truth," said Columbus Ohio lawyer Cliff Arnebeck, coordinator of the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign. "What's critically important, whether it's President Bush or Sen. Kerry, whoever's been elected actually elected, is to know you won by an honest election. So it's in the interest of both sides as American citizens to know the truth and have this answered."

The challenge comes as the Green Party has plans to file for a recount of the state's 2004 presidential vote. The Green Party and the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign both believe the unofficial results announced on Election Day were wrong. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has not yet certified the Nov. 2 vote. The state's election law says an election challenge must show the wrong candidate was been declared the winner, or it can be dismissed without a hearing. The state Supreme Court's chief justice hears the case...

The 'Ohio Honest Election Campaign' is a coalition of public-interest groups and citizens interested in free and fair elections. The three lawyers announcing the challenge are associated with a variety of established groups. Arnebeck is the counsel for Common Cause's Ohio chapter and The Alliance for Democracy. Attorney Susan Truitt is with Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections-Ohio, www.caseohio.org. The boards of groups have not yet formally endorsed the election challenge but are expected to do so in coming days.

The Honest Election campaign is part of a populist groundswell to safeguard voting rights. The 2004 campaign saw the most new voters in a generation. Even though Kerry conceded on Nov. 3, many people were not satisfied with national media explanations of the Ohio vote. Scientifically designed nonpartisan exit polls taken during the day showed a different result from the result reported that night, when George W. Bush was declared the victor.

Moreover, on Election Day there were long lines and widespread accounts of people who did not get to vote in urban Democratic-leaning precincts across the state. These factors and other reports of voter frustration, computerized voting miscounts and still-changing provisional ballot counting rules left many doubts about the unofficial vote count and George W. Bush's 130,000 vote margin.

Those concerns coalesced into a grassroots campaign for an answer. Within two weeks following Election Day, Arnebeck had talked to the Green and Libertarian Parties about filing for a recount - if the funds could be raised. The Greens and the Honest Election Campaign started fundraising the same day, and in less than a week, the Greens had raised $150,000 via their website to file for the recount. The Ohio Honest Election Campaign raised about $90,000 via the Alliance for Democracy site, after two Air America Radio hosts, Laura Flanders and Randi Rhodes, embraced the cause and talked up the campaign.

Meanwhile, FreePress.org's Bob Fitrakis inspired Amy Kaplan and Jonathan Meier, two young members of the League of Pissed-Off Voters' Ohio chapter (www.indyvoter.org) to organize public hearings to gather testimony under oath of the people who saw or experienced what they thought was voter suppression or intimidation. Such intentional acts would violate the federal Voting Rights Act. Two hearings were held in Columbus and hundreds of people showed up and testified. Then activists in Cincinnati and Cleveland organized hearings.

At these hearings, scores of people said too few voting machines were put in Democratic-leaning inner-city precincts, creating long lines and deterring many people from voting. In contrast, Republican-leaning suburbs had plenty of voting machines and did not have the long lines. There were also reports of miscounts by computer voting machines, as well as errors registering the wrong candidate for president. Minority voters also spoke of disproportionately getting provisional ballots, including long-time residents.

Early in the weeks those hearings were being held, the Green and Libertarian Parties announced they would seek a statewide recount. By week's end, the Honest Election Campaign announced its intention to challenge presidential election result at the Ohio Supreme Court.

Others lawsuits may be announced next week, Arnebeck said, because there is limited time to hold a meaningful recount and to address election irregularities before the Electoral College meets in December.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/899

Ohio Presidential Results to be Challenged
By Steven Rosenfeld
FreePress.org

Saturday 20 November 2004

Ohio's 2004 presidential vote will be challenged as soon as next week in the state Supreme Court, a coalition of public-interest lawyers announced Friday.

The lawyers have taken sworn testimony from hundreds of people in hearings in Columbus and Cincinnati, and will use excerpts as well as documents obtained from county election officials and Election Day exit polls to make a case that thousands of votes were incorrectly counted or not counted on Election Day.

"The objective is to get to the truth," said Columbus Ohio lawyer Cliff Arnebeck, coordinator of the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign. "What's critically important, whether it's President Bush or Sen. Kerry, whoever's been elected actually elected, is to know you won by an honest election. So it's in the interest of both sides as American citizens to know the truth and have this answered."

The challenge comes as the Green Party has plans to file for a recount of the state's 2004 presidential vote. The Green Party and the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign both believe the unofficial results announced on Election Day were wrong. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has not yet certified the Nov. 2 vote. The state's election law says an election challenge must show the wrong candidate was been declared the winner, or it can be dismissed without a hearing. The state Supreme Court's chief justice hears the case.

The Ohio Republican Party dismissed the challenge on Friday, the Associated Press reported, but the coalition announcing it said they were ready to litigate.

"The sworn statements that we've received should give everyone cause to go forward in terms of this inquiry," said Robert Fitrakis, a lawyer, political science professor at Columbus State Community College, and editor at www.freepress.org, at the announcement.

The 'Ohio Honest Election Campaign' is a coalition of public-interest groups and citizens interested in free and fair elections. The three lawyers announcing the challenge are associated with a variety of established groups. Arnebeck is the counsel for Common Cause's Ohio chapter and The Alliance for Democracy. Attorney Susan Truitt is with Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections-Ohio, www.caseohio.org. The boards of groups have not yet formally endorsed the election challenge but are expected to do so in coming days.

The Honest Election campaign is part of a populist groundswell to safeguard voting rights. The 2004 campaign saw the most new voters in a generation. Even though Kerry conceded on Nov. 3, many people were not satisfied with national media explanations of the Ohio vote. Scientifically designed nonpartisan exit polls taken during the day showed a different result from the result reported that night, when George W. Bush was declared the victor.

Moreover, on Election Day there were long lines and widespread accounts of people who did not get to vote in urban Democratic-leaning precincts across the state. These factors and other reports of voter frustration, computerized voting miscounts and still-changing provisional ballot counting rules left many doubts about the unofficial vote count and George W. Bush's 130,000 vote margin.

Those concerns coalesced into a grassroots campaign for an answer. Within two weeks following Election Day, Arnebeck had talked to the Green and Libertarian Parties about filing for a recount - if the funds could be raised. The Greens and the Honest Election Campaign started fundraising the same day, and in less than a week, the Greens had raised $150,000 via their website to file for the recount. The Ohio Honest Election Campaign raised about $90,000 via the Alliance for Democracy site, after two Air America Radio hosts, Laura Flanders and Randi Rhodes, embraced the cause and talked up the campaign.

Meanwhile, FreePress.org's Bob Fitrakis inspired Amy Kaplan and Jonathan Meier, two young members of the League of Pissed-Off Voters' Ohio chapter (www.indyvoter.org) to organize public hearings to gather testimony under oath of the people who saw or experienced what they thought was voter suppression or intimidation. Such intentional acts would violate the federal Voting Rights Act. Two hearings were held in Columbus and hundreds of people showed up and testified. Then activists in Cincinnati and Cleveland organized hearings.

At these hearings, scores of people said too few voting machines were put in Democratic-leaning inner-city precincts, creating long lines and deterring many people from voting. In contrast, Republican-leaning suburbs had plenty of voting machines and did not have the long lines. There were also reports of miscounts by computer voting machines, as well as errors registering the wrong candidate for president. Minority voters also spoke of disproportionately getting provisional ballots, including long-time residents.

Early in the weeks those hearings were being held, the Green and Libertarian Parties announced they would seek a statewide recount. By week's end, the Honest Election Campaign announced its intention to challenge presidential election result at the Ohio Supreme Court.

Others lawsuits may be announced next week, Arnebeck said, because there is limited time to hold a meaningful recount and to address election irregularities before the Electoral College meets in December.

Posted by Lisa at 11:17 AM
November 18, 2004
Check Out The Newest Wide Hive Release: Dissent's Swap Meet Seers

Hey sorry I haven't been posting much this week. You can get the Daily Show from November 10th here in the mean time, but I've been busy with our latest Wide Hive release, Dissent's
Swap Meet Seers.

There are 3 different songs available in their entirety
on the website
.

Check it out! I'd love to know what you think.

I'll be back getting more stuff up tomorrow, or the weekend.

Posted by Lisa at 09:19 AM
November 15, 2004
Recount In Ohio Is On!

Thanks to Green Party candidate David Cobb for pulling this off.

I don't know you (never even heard of you before this instant), but I love you :-)

This just in from T r u t h o u t:

Recount in Ohio a Sure Thing

Green Party Campaign Raises $150,000 in 4 Days, Shifts Gears to Phase II


On Thursday, David Cobb, the Green Party’s 2004 presidential candidate, announced his intention to seek a recount of the vote in Ohio. Since the required fee for a statewide recount is $113,600, the only question was whether that money could be raised in time to meet the filing deadline. That question has been answered.

“Thanks to the thousands of people who have contributed to this effort, we can say with certainty that there will be a recount in Ohio,” said Blair Bobier, Media Director for the Cobb-LaMarche campaign.

“The grassroots support for the recount has been astounding. The donations have come in fast and furiously, with the vast majority in the $10-$50 range, allowing us to meet our goal for the first phase of the recount effort in only four days,” said Bobier.

Bobier said the campaign is still raising money for the next phase of the recount effort which will be recruiting, training and mobilizing volunteers to monitor the actual recount.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111604W.shtml

Green Party Campaign Raises $150,000 in 4 Days, Shifts Gears to Phase II

WASHINGTON -- November 15 -- There will be a recount of the presidential vote in Ohio.

On Thursday, David Cobb, the Green Party’s 2004 presidential candidate, announced his intention to seek a recount of the vote in Ohio. Since the required fee for a statewide recount is $113,600, the only question was whether that money could be raised in time to meet the filing deadline. That question has been answered.

“Thanks to the thousands of people who have contributed to this effort, we can say with certainty that there will be a recount in Ohio,” said Blair Bobier, Media Director for the Cobb-LaMarche campaign.

“The grassroots support for the recount has been astounding. The donations have come in fast and furiously, with the vast majority in the $10-$50 range, allowing us to meet our goal for the first phase of the recount effort in only four days,” said Bobier.

Bobier said the campaign is still raising money for the next phase of the recount effort which will be recruiting, training and mobilizing volunteers to monitor the actual recount.

The Ohio presidential election was marred by numerous press and independent reports of mis-marked and discarded ballots, problems with electronic voting machines and the targeted disenfranchisement of African American voters. A number of citizens’ groups and voting rights organizations are holding the second of two hearings today in Columbus, Ohio, to take testimony from voters, poll watchers and election experts about problems with the Ohio vote. The hearing, from 6-9 p.m., will be held at the Courthouse, meeting room A, 373 S. High St., in Columbus. The Cobb-LaMarche campaign will be represented at the hearing by campaign manager Lynne Serpe.

A demand for a recount in Ohio can only be filed by a presidential candidate who was either a certified write-in candidate or on the ballot in that state. Both Green Party candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik will be demanding a recount. No other candidate has stated an intention to seek a recount and no other citizen or organization would have legal standing to do so in Ohio. The Cobb-LaMarche campaign is still exploring the possibility of seeking recounts in other states but no decision has been made yet.

Posted by Lisa at 04:33 PM
More Tales Of Ohio Voter Troubles -- This Time Expressed At A Public Hearing In Columbus


Ohio voters tell of Election Day troubles at hearing

By Reginald Fields for The Plain Dealer.


Tales of waiting more than five hours to vote, voter intimidation, under-trained polling-station workers and too few or broken voting machines largely in urban or heavily minority areas were retold Saturday at a public hearing organized by voter-rights groups.

For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about Election Day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy.

The hearing, sponsored by the Election Protection Coalition, was to collect testimony of voting troubles that might be used to seek legislative changes to Ohio's election process.

The organizers chose Ohio because it was a swing state in the presidential election as well as the site of numerous claims of election fraud and voter disenfranchisement.

"I think a lot of us had a sense that something had deeply went wrong on Nov. 2 and it had to do with the election process and procedures in place that were unacceptable," said Amy Kaplan, one of the hearing's coordinators.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1100428444286470.xml

Ohio voters tell of Election Day troubles at hearing
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Reginald Fields
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus

Tales of waiting more than five hours to vote, voter intimidation, under-trained polling-station workers and too few or broken voting machines largely in urban or heavily minority areas were retold Saturday at a public hearing organized by voter-rights groups.

For three hours, burdened voters, one after another, offered sworn testimony about Election Day voter suppression and irregularities that they believe are threatening democracy.

The hearing, sponsored by the Election Protection Coalition, was to collect testimony of voting troubles that might be used to seek legislative changes to Ohio's election process.

The organizers chose Ohio because it was a swing state in the presidential election as well as the site of numerous claims of election fraud and voter disenfranchisement.

"I think a lot of us had a sense that something had deeply went wrong on Nov. 2 and it had to do with the election process and procedures in place that were unacceptable," said Amy Kaplan, one of the hearing's coordinators.

Kaplan said the hearing gave everyday citizens a chance to have their concerns placed into public record.

Both a written and video report on the hearing will be provided to anyone who wants a copy, especially state lawmakers who are considering mandating Election Day changes, Kaplan said.

Many of the voters who testified were clearly Democrats who wonder if their losing presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, was able to draw all the votes that were intended for him.

"I call on Sen. Kerry to un-concede until there is a full count of the votes," said Werner Lange of Trumbull County, who claimed that polling places in his Northeast Ohio neighborhood had half the number of voting machines that were needed.

"This caused a bottleneck at polling stations, and many people left without voting," he said.

Others said they were testifying not on political grounds but out of concern for a suspicious election system that should be above reproach.

Harvey Wasserman of Bexley said he tried to vote absentee with the same home address he has used for 18 years but was told he couldn't because his absentee application had the wrong address.

"But the notice telling me I had the wrong address arrived at the right address," he said. "I wonder, how many of these absentee ballots were rejected for no good reason?

"My concern is not out of the outcome of the election," Wasserman said, "but that this could go on and an election could be stolen. And we simply can't have that in a democracy."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

rfields@plaind.com, 1-800-228-8272

Posted by Lisa at 04:32 PM
Jon Stewart On 60 Minutes

This is from the October 24, 2004 program.

Jon Stewart On 60 Minutes

(in one 29 MB chunk and two 14 and 15 MB chunks)

Mirror of these clips

(Thanks to Thilo Schlabach for the server space!)

Posted by Lisa at 08:40 AM
November 14, 2004
Newsday Editorial On The Shrub's Judicial Strategy To Overturn Roe v. Wade


ROE V. WADE AT CROSSROADS: Abortion foes are just one Supreme Court justice away from victory

In Newsweek.


Anyone who thinks abortion rights aren't in serious jeopardy should consider the plight of Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Specter has been a Republican for 40 years. He's in line to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. He has voted to confirm every single one of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees. Despite that record, angry conservatives are determined to block his rise to chairman. Why?

Because Specter supports abortion rights. And because he had the temerity to state the obvious: That Bush would have trouble winning Senate confirmation of any Supreme Court nominee who is notoriously anti-abortion rights. That's a simple mathematical fact.

It takes only 51 of 100 Senate votes to confirm a judicial nominee. But it takes 60 votes to cut off debate and move to a confirmation vote. Come January, there will be 55 Republicans in the Senate. Do the math. That's not enough to derail a determined Democratic filibuster. Specter said he was alluding to that numerical reality when he made the remark that has haunted him all week.

But conservative foes of abortion rights have been emboldened by the perception that they provided Bush's margin of victory Nov. 2. They aren't of a mind to tolerate even the barest hint of resistance to their agenda, which is reversal of Roe v. Wade. That would be a tragedy. It would strip women of the right to control their bodies and turn the clock back to the grisly days of back-alley abortions.

Bush has a choice to make. Option 1: He could opt for polarizing political warfare by nominating anti-abortion absolutists for the top court. He could push for a change in Senate filibuster rules to deprive Democrats of that time-honored tactic and rely on raw political power to beat back all opposition. Option 2: Do what he promised during the campaign - impose no abortion litmus test for judicial candidates, while nominating people who will strictly interpret the Constitution rather than legislating from the bench. That's the better course...

Replacing Rehnquist, a solid vote against abortion rights, isn't likely to alter the court balance. But that balance could tip decisively should any one of the abortion-rights supporters leave the bench. That includes Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, as well as swing voters David Souter, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, whose positions on abortion are less black and white.

The nation may be approaching a legal sea change that could end or sharply curtail a woman's right to abortion. But change that profound should be approached through reasoned debate, not a political beat-down.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vproe134040507nov13,0,6398338.story?coll=ny-editorials-headlines

Abortion foes are just one Supreme Court justice away from victory

Email this story
Printer friendly format

November 13, 2004

Anyone who thinks abortion rights aren't in serious jeopardy should consider the plight of Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Specter has been a Republican for 40 years. He's in line to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in January. He has voted to confirm every single one of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees. Despite that record, angry conservatives are determined to block his rise to chairman. Why?

Because Specter supports abortion rights. And because he had the temerity to state the obvious: That Bush would have trouble winning Senate confirmation of any Supreme Court nominee who is notoriously anti-abortion rights. That's a simple mathematical fact.

It takes only 51 of 100 Senate votes to confirm a judicial nominee. But it takes 60 votes to cut off debate and move to a confirmation vote. Come January, there will be 55 Republicans in the Senate. Do the math. That's not enough to derail a determined Democratic filibuster. Specter said he was alluding to that numerical reality when he made the remark that has haunted him all week.

But conservative foes of abortion rights have been emboldened by the perception that they provided Bush's margin of victory Nov. 2. They aren't of a mind to tolerate even the barest hint of resistance to their agenda, which is reversal of Roe v. Wade. That would be a tragedy. It would strip women of the right to control their bodies and turn the clock back to the grisly days of back-alley abortions.

Bush has a choice to make. Option 1: He could opt for polarizing political warfare by nominating anti-abortion absolutists for the top court. He could push for a change in Senate filibuster rules to deprive Democrats of that time-honored tactic and rely on raw political power to beat back all opposition. Option 2: Do what he promised during the campaign - impose no abortion litmus test for judicial candidates, while nominating people who will strictly interpret the Constitution rather than legislating from the bench. That's the better course.

Partisan warfare over the abortion positions of Supreme Court nominees would inflame the country's political division and undermine public confidence in the independence of the judicial system.

Bush has the right to nominate people who share his political views. But he should engage Democrats in the process in search of nominees acceptable to both sides. Democrats have blocked 10 of his lower court picks, employing the filibuster as their weapon of choice. But Bush is in the driver's seat. The Senate confirmed more than 200 of his judicial nominees, many of whom share his anti-abortion convictions.

Anti-abortion forces won't like a less confrontational approach because they're just one justice away from achieving their objective. Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion, commanded a 7 to 2 majority in 1973. More recent abortion decisions have seen that majority slip to 5 to 4. There are no immediate Supreme Court vacancies. There haven't been any for a decade. But the court is aging and Chief Justice William Rehnquist was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer. There will probably be one or more spots to fill in the next four years.

Replacing Rehnquist, a solid vote against abortion rights, isn't likely to alter the court balance. But that balance could tip decisively should any one of the abortion-rights supporters leave the bench. That includes Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, as well as swing voters David Souter, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, whose positions on abortion are less black and white.

The nation may be approaching a legal sea change that could end or sharply curtail a woman's right to abortion. But change that profound should be approached through reasoned debate, not a political beat-down.

Posted by Lisa at 05:30 PM
Daily Show Interview With Billionaire Richard Branson - He Agrees To Put Up A Prize For The Person Who Can Get Us Off Of Oil

This is from the November 9, 2004 program.

Daily Show Interview With Richard Branson
(14 MB)

This interview gets really interesting when Jon asks Branson to sponsor a contest to invent something to "get us off the internal combustion engine."

BTW: Branson said he would do it! He also seemed rather preoccupied with the prospect for the rest of the interview. Let's try to hold him to it!

Here's a partial transcript:


Stewart: "What about this: putting up a prize for somebody to invent something to get us off the internal combustion engine? What do you think of that? Get uh, like an X prize type of thing like they did with space travel."

Branson: "Hmmm."

Stewart: "What do you think of that?"

Branson: "That makes a lot of sense."

Stewart: "It does?"

Branson laughs.

Stewart: "How 'bout giving me some seed money?"

Branson: (leans back...) "Um. Okay."

Stewart: "What do you think of that? You could set this thing up, and people could..it'd be like a private industry thing. There's gotta be a way. I mean, we can fake diamonds."

Branson: "Um hmmm."

Stewart: "There's gotta be a way we can make fake oil or something. You know what I'm saying? It's just carbon for god's sakes."

Branson: "Water."

Stewart: "Water? An engine that runs on water? Set up a prize!"

Branson: "Well I've just given you the answer. So I want the money."

Stewart: "Or you're gonna do it?"

Branson: "No..WATER?"

Stewart: "Cars run on water?"

Branson: "Yeah. They could do."

Stewart: "What on hydroelectric cells or something?"

Branson: "Something like that. I don't know. I'm trying to get my money back."

Stewart: "I'm telling you something. This could be a great thing."

Branson: "Okay."

Stewart: "Seed money."

Branson: "Alright. Would everybody chip in here?"

Stewart: "YOUR the billionaire!"

Branson: "Alright."

Link to zip file of all November 9, 2004 clips. (39 MB)

The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 04:56 PM
Lewis Black Covers Some Of The New Repubs

This is from the November 9, 2004 program.

Lewis Black Covers Some Of The New Repubs
(8 MB)

Link to zip file of all November 9, 2004 clips. (39 MB)

The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 04:09 PM
Ed Helms On Iraq's Martial Law And Upcoming Elections

This is from the November 9, 2004 program.

(Note that I've also started making zip files available for the clips I've made available for each day.)

Ed Helms On Iraq's Martial Law and Its Upcoming Elections
(7 MB)

Link to zip file of all November 9, 2004 clips. (39 MB)

The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 04:07 PM
Michael Moore's Video Crew's Documentary Of Disenfranchised Voters In Cleveland, Ohio

And there are A LOT of them.

In a nutshell, a lot of voters in the poorer and minority areas were turned away for a variety of unfair reasons. The film documents these cases of disenfranchisement.

This was produced by Michael Moore's "Video The Vote" crew in Cleveland.


Video The Vote
(59 MB)

Here's a link to Xeni's
Boing Boing Post and a bunch of Mirrors

The producers of this (and the editor, Dave Pentecost) wanted me to mention the following:

1)
People for the American Way
and
Election Protection

2) Their apologies to The Jayhawks for not clearing the music first. (They are still waiting to hear back, their rights person is in transit) but they felt that it is really a free music video for the group!

3) This was shot by a dedicated group of 20 volunteer filmmakers, but any mistakes in the editing or focus of this video are Dave Pentecost's fault.
(Aww Dave, I didn't see any errors :-)

4) The organizers of the trip will release a longer selection of statements by voters who had problems voting. (Probably on Monday, November 15, 2004)

This goes with this earlier post.

I've had this since November 5, 2004, so I guess that's the publishing date. You've probably seen it around already, but I promised I would host it here so...better late than never :-)

Posted by Lisa at 10:01 AM
One In Six U.S. Soldiers Coming Back From Iraq Have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The usual anti-depressant drugs aren't working for these guys. Remember that most of these Vets will have to get lawyers to get the medical benefits coming to them anyway -- so all of this is combining to form a big stinking mess -- that our boys/girls returning from this war are going to have to clean up for themselves.

These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep

A mental health crisis is emerging, with one in six returning soldiers afflicted, experts say.
By Esther Schrader for The LA Times.


A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research found that 15.6% of Marines and 17.1% of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder — a debilitating, sometimes lifelong change in the brain's chemistry that can include flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, violent outbursts, acute anxiety and emotional numbness.

Army and Veterans Administration mental health experts say there is reason to believe the war's ultimate psychological fallout will worsen. The Army survey of 6,200 soldiers and Marines included only troops willing to report their problems. The study did not look at reservists, who tend to suffer a higher rate of psychological injury than career Marines and soldiers. And the soldiers in the study served in the early months of the war, when tours were shorter and before the Iraqi insurgency took shape.

"The bad news is that the study underestimated the prevalence of what we are going to see down the road," said Dr. Matthew J. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Dartmouth Medical School who is executive director of the VA's National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Since the study was completed, Friedman said: "The complexion of the war has changed into a grueling counterinsurgency. And that may be very important in terms of the potential toxicity of this combat experience."

Mental health professionals say they fear the system is not moving fast enough to treat the trauma. They say slowness to recognize what was happening to Vietnam veterans contributed to the psychological devastation from that war.

More than 30% of Vietnam veterans eventually suffered from the condition that more than a decade later was given the name post-traumatic stress disorder. But since their distress was not clinically understood until long after the war ended, most went for years without meaningful treatment.

"When we missed the boat with the Vietnam vets, we didn't get another chance," said Jerry Clark, director of the veterans clinic in Alexandria, Va. "When they left the service, they went away not for a month or two but for 10 years. And they came back addicted, incarcerated and all these things. We can't miss the boat again. It is imperative."...

Before the war, LaBranche was living in Saco, Maine, with his wife and children and had no history of mental illness.

He deployed to Iraq with a National Guard transportation company based in Bangor. He came home a different person.

Just three days after he was discharged from Walter Reed, he was arrested for threatening his former wife. When he goes to court Dec. 9, he could be looking at jail time.

He lies on a couch at his brother's house most days now, struggling with the image of the Iraqi woman who died in his arms after he shot her, and the children he says caught some of his bullets. His speech is pocked with obscenities.

On a recent outing with friends, he became so enraged when he saw a Muslim family that he had to take medication to calm down.

He is seeing a therapist, but only once every two weeks.

"I'm taking enough drugs to sedate an elephant, and I still wake up dreaming about it," LaBranche said. "I wish I had just freaking died over there."

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-trauma14nov14,0,2230913.story?coll=la-home-headlines

These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep
* A mental health crisis is emerging, with one in six returning soldiers afflicted, experts say.



Times Headlines

These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep


By Esther Schrader, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Matt LaBranche got the tattoos at a seedy place down the street from the Army hospital here where he was a patient in the psychiatric ward.

The pain of the needle felt good to the 40-year-old former Army sergeant, whose memories of his nine months as a machine-gunner in Iraq had left him, he said, "feeling dead inside." LaBranche's back is now covered in images, the largest the dark outline of a sword. Drawn from his neck to the small of his back, it is emblazoned with the words LaBranche says encapsulate the war's effect on him: "I've come to bring you hell."

In soldiers like LaBranche — their bodies whole but their psyches deeply wounded — a crisis is unfolding, mental health experts say. One out of six soldiers returning from Iraq is suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress — and as more come home, that number is widely expected to grow.

The Pentagon, which did not anticipate the extent of the problem, is scrambling to find resources to address it.

A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research found that 15.6% of Marines and 17.1% of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder — a debilitating, sometimes lifelong change in the brain's chemistry that can include flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, violent outbursts, acute anxiety and emotional numbness.

Army and Veterans Administration mental health experts say there is reason to believe the war's ultimate psychological fallout will worsen. The Army survey of 6,200 soldiers and Marines included only troops willing to report their problems. The study did not look at reservists, who tend to suffer a higher rate of psychological injury than career Marines and soldiers. And the soldiers in the study served in the early months of the war, when tours were shorter and before the Iraqi insurgency took shape.

"The bad news is that the study underestimated the prevalence of what we are going to see down the road," said Dr. Matthew J. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Dartmouth Medical School who is executive director of the VA's National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Since the study was completed, Friedman said: "The complexion of the war has changed into a grueling counterinsurgency. And that may be very important in terms of the potential toxicity of this combat experience."

Mental health professionals say they fear the system is not moving fast enough to treat the trauma. They say slowness to recognize what was happening to Vietnam veterans contributed to the psychological devastation from that war.

More than 30% of Vietnam veterans eventually suffered from the condition that more than a decade later was given the name post-traumatic stress disorder. But since their distress was not clinically understood until long after the war ended, most went for years without meaningful treatment.

"When we missed the boat with the Vietnam vets, we didn't get another chance," said Jerry Clark, director of the veterans clinic in Alexandria, Va. "When they left the service, they went away not for a month or two but for 10 years. And they came back addicted, incarcerated and all these things. We can't miss the boat again. It is imperative."

Experts on post-traumatic stress disorder say it should come as no surprise that some of the soldiers in Iraq are fighting mental illness.

Combat stress disorders — named and renamed but strikingly alike — have ruined lives following every war in history. Homer's Achilles may have suffered from some form of it. Combat stress was documented in the late 19th century after the Franco-Prussian War. After the Civil War, doctors called the condition "nostalgia," or "soldiers heart." In World War I, soldiers were said to suffer shell shock; in World War II and Korea, combat fatigue or battle fatigue.

But it wasn't until 1985 that the American Psychiatric Assn. finally gave a name to the condition that had sent tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans into lives of homelessness, crime or despair.

A war like the one in Iraq — in which a child is as likely to die as a soldier and unseen enemies detonate bombs — presents ideal conditions for its rise.

Yet the Army initially sent far too few psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers to combat areas, an Army study released in the summer of 2003 found. Until this year, Congress had allocated no new funds to deal with the mental health effects of the war in Iraq. And when it did earmark money, the sum was minimal: $5 million in each of the next three years.

"We're gearing ourselves up now and preparing ourselves to meet whatever the need is, but clearly this is something that could not be planned for," said Dr. Alfonso Batres, a psychologist who heads the VA's national office of readjustment counseling services.

Last year, 1,100 troops who had fought in Iraq or Afghanistan came to VA clinics seeking help for symptoms of depression or post-traumatic stress; this year, the number grew tenfold. In all, 23% of Iraq veterans treated at VA facilities have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"And this is first-year data," Batres said. "Our experience is that over time that will increase."

In the red brick buildings of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the "psych patients," as they are known, mingle, sometimes uncomfortably, with those who have lost limbs and organs.

One soldier being treated at Walter Reed, who spoke on condition of anonymity, walks the hospital campus in the bloodied combat boots of a friend he watched bleed to death.

Another Iraq veteran in treatment at Walter Reed, Army 1st Lt. Jullian Philip Goodrum, drives most mornings to nearby Silver Spring, Md., seeking the solitude of movies and the solace of friends.

He leaves early to avoid traffic — the crush of cars makes him jumpy. On more than one occasion, he has imagined snipers with their sights on him in the streets. Diesel fumes cause flashbacks. He keeps a vial of medication in his pocket and pops a pill when he gets nervous.

"You question — outside of dealing with your psych injury, which will affect you from one degree or another throughout your life — you also question yourself," Goodrum said. "I trained. I was an excellent soldier, a strong character. How could my mind dysfunction?"

When it began to become clear that what the Pentagon initially believed would be a rapid, clear-cut war had transmuted into a drawn-out counterinsurgency, the Army began pushing to reach and treat distressed soldiers sooner.

The number of mental health professionals deployed near frontline positions in Iraq has been increased. Suicide prevention programs are given to soldiers in the field. According to the Pentagon, 31 U.S. troops have killed themselves in Iraq.

At more than 200 storefront clinics known as Vet Centers — created in 1979 to reach out to Vietnam veterans — the VA has increased the number of group therapy sessions and staff. Three months ago, the VA hired 50 Iraq war veterans to help serve as advocates at the clinics.

Officials acknowledge that is only a start. The Government Accountability Office found in a study released in September that the VA lacked the information it needed to determine whether it could meet an increased demand for services.

"Predicting which veterans will seek VA care and at which facilities is inherently uncertain," the report concluded, "particularly given that the symptoms of PTSD may not appear for years."

The Army and the VA are also trying to catalog and research the mental health effects of this war better than they have in the past. In addition to the Walter Reed study, several more are tracking soldiers from before their deployment to Iraq through their combat experiences and into the future.

If Iraq veterans can be helped sooner, they may fare better than those who fought in Vietnam, mental health experts say. And they note that the nation, although divided on the Iraq war, is more united in caring for the needs of returning soldiers than it was in the Vietnam era. And in the last decade, new techniques have proved effective in treating stress disorders, among them cognitive-behavioral therapy and drugs like Zoloft and Paxil.

Whether people like Matt LaBranche seek and receive treatment will determine how deep an effect the stress of the war in Iraq ultimately has on U.S. society.

Before the war, LaBranche was living in Saco, Maine, with his wife and children and had no history of mental illness.

He deployed to Iraq with a National Guard transportation company based in Bangor. He came home a different person.

Just three days after he was discharged from Walter Reed, he was arrested for threatening his former wife. When he goes to court Dec. 9, he could be looking at jail time.

He lies on a couch at his brother's house most days now, struggling with the image of the Iraqi woman who died in his arms after he shot her, and the children he says caught some of his bullets. His speech is pocked with obscenities.

On a recent outing with friends, he became so enraged when he saw a Muslim family that he had to take medication to calm down.

He is seeing a therapist, but only once every two weeks.

"I'm taking enough drugs to sedate an elephant, and I still wake up dreaming about it," LaBranche said. "I wish I had just freaking died over there."

Posted by Lisa at 09:46 AM
Wesley Clark In The Washington Post: Fallujah Is Just The Beginning: What This War Lacks Is Any Real Diplomacy

Wesley Clark has been chiming in a lot lately on the Shrub War situation. I think he's a smart guy with a lot of experience in this War stuff, so I've created a category for him.

I'm not trying to archive everything the guy does or anything, but once I've posted a couple things from the same person (as I am about to- I've got some good clips of him from Bill Maher's show a few weeks back), it will make it easier to find the stuff later if it has its own category.


The Real Battle

Winning in Fallujah Is Just the Beginning
By Wesley K. Clark for The Washington Post.


Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assures us that U.S. and Iraqi government forces have moved steadily through the insurgent stronghold and that the assault has been "very, very successful." Last night, even as troops fought to secure the final section of the Sunni city, senior Iraqi officials declared it "liberated." But it's hardly surprising that the measure of success in Fallujah is elusive: There's no uniformed enemy force, no headquarters, no central command complex for the troops to occupy and win. At the end, there will be no surrender.

After "winning": Tactical victory is one thing, strategic victory another. U.S. Marines regroup inside the Khulafah Rashid mosque in Fallujah after taking it Thursday. They left later after routed insurgents regrouped and fired on the mosque. (Luis Sinco -- Los Angeles Times Via AP)

Instead, the outcome of the battle must be judged by a less clear-cut standard: not by the seizure and occupation of ground, but by the impact it has on the political and diplomatic process in Iraq. Its chances for success in that area are highly uncertain. Will Fallujah, like the famous Vietnam village, be the place we destroyed in order to save it? Will the bulk of the insurgents simply scatter to other Iraqi cities? Will we win a tactical victory only to fail in our strategic goal of convincing Iraqis that we are making their country safe for democracy -- and specifically for the elections scheduled for the end of January?...

But in what sense is this "winning?"

To win means not just to occupy the city, but to do so in a way that knocks the local opponent permanently out of the fight, demoralizes broader resistance, and builds legitimacy for U.S. aims, methods and allies. Seen this way, the battle for Fallujah is not just a matter of shooting. It is part of a larger bargaining process that has included negotiations, threats and staged preparations to pressure insurgent groups into preemptive surrender, to deprive them of popular tolerance and support, and to demonstrate to the Iraqi people and to others that force was used only as a last resort in order to gain increased legitimacy for the interim Iraqi government.

Even the use of force required a further calculus. Had we relentlessly destroyed the city and killed large numbers of innocent civilians, or suffered crippling losses in the fighting, we most certainly would have been judged "losers." And if we can't hold on and prevent the insurgents from infiltrating back in -- as has now occurred in the recently "liberated" city of Samarra -- we also shall have lost...

This insurgency has continued to grow, despite U.S. military effectiveness on the ground. While Saddam Hussein's security forces may have always had a plan to resist the occupation, it was the failure of American policymakers to gain political legitimacy that enabled the insurgency to grow. And while the failure may have begun with the inability to impose order after Saddam's ouster, it was the lack of a political coterie and the tools of political development -- such as the Vietnam program of Civil Operations-Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) -- that seems to have enabled the insurgency to take root amid the U.S. presence. These are the sorts of mistakes the United States must avoid in the future, otherwise the battle of Fallujah may end up being nothing more than the "taking down" of an insurgent stronghold -- a battlefield success on the road to strategic failure.

Troops are in Fallujah because of a political failure: Large numbers of Sunnis either wouldn't, or couldn't, participate in the political process and the coming elections. Greater security in Fallujah may move citizens (whenever they return) to take part in the voting; it's too early to say. But it's certain that you can't bomb people into the polling booths.

We should be under no illusions: This is not so much a war as it is an effort to birth a nation. It is past time for the administration to undertake diplomatic efforts in the region and political efforts inside Iraq that are worthy of the risks and burdens born by our men and women in uniform. No one knows better than they do: You cannot win in Iraq simply by killing the opponent. Much as we honor our troops and pray for their well-being, if diplomacy fails, their sacrifices and even their successes in Fallujah won't be enough.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47034-2004Nov12.html

The Real Battle
Winning in Fallujah Is Just the Beginning

By Wesley K. Clark
Sunday, November 14, 2004; Page B01

Americans scouring news reports of the U.S.-led assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah can be forgiven if they are experiencing a degree of confusion and uncertainty.

Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assures us that U.S. and Iraqi government forces have moved steadily through the insurgent stronghold and that the assault has been "very, very successful." Last night, even as troops fought to secure the final section of the Sunni city, senior Iraqi officials declared it "liberated." But it's hardly surprising that the measure of success in Fallujah is elusive: There's no uniformed enemy force, no headquarters, no central command complex for the troops to occupy and win. At the end, there will be no surrender.

After "winning": Tactical victory is one thing, strategic victory another. U.S. Marines regroup inside the Khulafah Rashid mosque in Fallujah after taking it Thursday. They left later after routed insurgents regrouped and fired on the mosque. (Luis Sinco -- Los Angeles Times Via AP)

Instead, the outcome of the battle must be judged by a less clear-cut standard: not by the seizure and occupation of ground, but by the impact it has on the political and diplomatic process in Iraq. Its chances for success in that area are highly uncertain. Will Fallujah, like the famous Vietnam village, be the place we destroyed in order to save it? Will the bulk of the insurgents simply scatter to other Iraqi cities? Will we win a tactical victory only to fail in our strategic goal of convincing Iraqis that we are making their country safe for democracy -- and specifically for the elections scheduled for the end of January?

An attack on Fallujah has been inevitable for many months. If we are to succeed in the democratization of Iraq, the interim government and its U.S. and coalition allies must have a "monopoly" on the use of force within the country's borders. There can be no sanctuaries for insurgents and terrorists, no fiefdoms run by private armies. Fallujah could not continue to be a base for those waging war on the Iraqi government and a no-go place for those organizing elections.

Now that we have engaged, there cannot be any doubt about the outcome. It, too, is inevitable. U.S. forces don't "lose" on the battlefield these days. We haven't lost once in Iraq. Nor in Afghanistan. Not in the Balkans, or in the first Gulf War. Nor in Panama. We fight where we are told and win where we fight. We are well trained, disciplined and, when we prepare adequately, exceedingly well equipped. We will take the city, and with relatively few U.S. casualties. And we will have killed a lot of people who were armed and resisting us.

But in what sense is this "winning?"

To win means not just to occupy the city, but to do so in a way that knocks the local opponent permanently out of the fight, demoralizes broader resistance, and builds legitimacy for U.S. aims, methods and allies. Seen this way, the battle for Fallujah is not just a matter of shooting. It is part of a larger bargaining process that has included negotiations, threats and staged preparations to pressure insurgent groups into preemptive surrender, to deprive them of popular tolerance and support, and to demonstrate to the Iraqi people and to others that force was used only as a last resort in order to gain increased legitimacy for the interim Iraqi government.

Even the use of force required a further calculus. Had we relentlessly destroyed the city and killed large numbers of innocent civilians, or suffered crippling losses in the fighting, we most certainly would have been judged "losers." And if we can't hold on and prevent the insurgents from infiltrating back in -- as has now occurred in the recently "liberated" city of Samarra -- we also shall have lost.

The battle plan was tailored to prevent significant destruction. It called for a slow squeeze, starting with precision strikes against identified targets, and followed by a careful assault directed at taking out the opposition and reoccupying the city, while minimizing civilian and friendly casualties. We have superior mobility, with heavily armored vehicles; we have superior firepower, with the Bradley's 25mm cannon, M1A1 Abrams tanks, artillery and airstrikes; we have advantages in reconnaissance, with satellites, TV-equipped unmanned aerial vehicles and a whole array of electronic gear. But urban combat partially neutralizes these advantages. A weaker defender can inflict much punishment with only a meager force fighting from the rubble, provided they fight to the death. So this has not been a "cakewalk." This has been a tough battle, and the men and women fighting it deserve every Combat Infantryman's Badge, Bronze Star or Purple Heart they receive.

During the recent presidential campaign, there was a lot of talk about supporting our troops in wartime. And yet calling what's going on in Iraq "war" has distracted us from marshaling the diplomatic and political support our troops need to win.

To a considerable extent, the insurgency in Iraq has been supported by external efforts: Syria's facilitating of passage by jihadists, Iran's eager efforts to reintegrate Shiism and assure the emergence of an Iraqi regime to Tehran's liking, efforts by some Saudis to reinforce Sunni dominance in Iraq. (On the eve of the battle in Fallujah, one group of 26 Saudi religious scholars urged Iraqis to support the insurgents.)

The success of our military efforts in Iraq is thus directly connected to the skill of U.S. diplomacy in the region. Certainly neither Syria nor Iran could welcome American success in Iraq if they believe it means they'll be next on a list of regimes to be "reformed" by the United States -- and yet that's precisely the goal of American policy. Bringing about change in those countries should be a matter of offering inducements as well as making threats, but not if it adds to the danger for our men and women in uniform. We need to choose: continue to project a grand vision, or focus on success in Iraq. Not only the safety of our troops, but the success of our mission depends on a degree of Syrian and Iranian accommodation for an American-supported, peaceful, stable, democratizing Iraq. And we won't get that support if they think they're next on the hit list.

It is equally important to seek a resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, which has fueled the recruiting efforts and determination of the jihadists we're fighting in Iraq.

And then there's the matter of the political struggle inside Iraq. If, despite a high level of chaos, the elections do take place, the Bush administration must be prepared to accept and empower an Iraqi government and a nascent political process with sufficient independence to win support from the populace and undercut anger at the American troops. For most of a year, the effort at political transformation was been submerged beneath the rubric of "reconstruction" and hindered by the attitude that "security must come first." Security and domestic Iraqi politics go hand in hand.

Which brings us back to some of the factors that made last week's battle of Fallujah inevitable: a series of circumstances and errors in 2003 -- an initial coalition occupying force too small to achieve dominance over a historically restive population, the lack of a skilled political corps to reorganize the local inhabitants, the proscription of Baathist participation in the early postwar recovery and the disbanding of the Iraqi military. Then there was the aborted April 2004 effort to subdue the city, in which an under-strength Marine assault was called off by the White House. A silly plan of turning the city back over to a thrown-together Iraqi force left the enemy in control of the battlefield and turned Fallujah into even more of an insurgent stronghold.

This insurgency has continued to grow, despite U.S. military effectiveness on the ground. While Saddam Hussein's security forces may have always had a plan to resist the occupation, it was the failure of American policymakers to gain political legitimacy that enabled the insurgency to grow. And while the failure may have begun with the inability to impose order after Saddam's ouster, it was the lack of a political coterie and the tools of political development -- such as the Vietnam program of Civil Operations-Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) -- that seems to have enabled the insurgency to take root amid the U.S. presence. These are the sorts of mistakes the United States must avoid in the future, otherwise the battle of Fallujah may end up being nothing more than the "taking down" of an insurgent stronghold -- a battlefield success on the road to strategic failure.

Troops are in Fallujah because of a political failure: Large numbers of Sunnis either wouldn't, or couldn't, participate in the political process and the coming elections. Greater security in Fallujah may move citizens (whenever they return) to take part in the voting; it's too early to say. But it's certain that you can't bomb people into the polling booths.

We should be under no illusions: This is not so much a war as it is an effort to birth a nation. It is past time for the administration to undertake diplomatic efforts in the region and political efforts inside Iraq that are worthy of the risks and burdens born by our men and women in uniform. No one knows better than they do: You cannot win in Iraq simply by killing the opponent. Much as we honor our troops and pray for their well-being, if diplomacy fails, their sacrifices and even their successes in Fallujah won't be enough.

Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark served as commander in chief, U.S. Southern Command and later as supreme allied commander in Europe during the war in Kosovo. He was a candidate for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

Posted by Lisa at 09:24 AM
November 13, 2004
Saving Private Ryan Controversy

Clarification: The "I'm pissed" sentiment below is because of my technical difficulties, not over this Saving Private Ryan thing -- which is interesting at best, but nothing to get too excited about. After re-reading this post, it seemed like that may have been unclear. thanks!

Oh man am I pissed. I forgot to hook up the audio on my camera when I was taping a report on MSNBC's Countdown (yes I missed all of the election reports too because of this) -- about how many of the ABC affiliates refused to air "Saving Private Ryan" last week because of its soldiers filthy mouths in light of the potential FCC fines. (That's right, their blaming the Janet boob incident for this.)

We know the real reason these stations opted out of airing the film (the agreement with Spielberg required the film to be shown unedited in its entirety): this is one graphic film that shows the reality of war.

Anyway I wanted to at least place a note here on the subject. If anyone sees articles around about this, let me know and I'll link to them here.

Posted by Lisa at 10:09 PM
Judge Halts War-Crime Trial at Guantánamo


Judge Halts War-Crime Trial at Guantánamo

By Neil A. Lewis for The New York Times.


A federal judge ruled Monday that President Bush had both overstepped his constitutional bounds and improperly brushed aside the Geneva Conventions in establishing military commissions to try detainees at the United States naval base here as war criminals.

The ruling by Judge James Robertson of United States District Court in Washington brought an abrupt halt to the trial here of one detainee, one of hundreds being held at Guantánamo as enemy combatants. It threw into doubt the future of the first set of United States military commission trials since the end of World War II as well as other legal proceedings devised by the administration to deal with suspected terrorists.

The administration reacted quickly, saying it would seek an emergency stay and a quick appeal.

Judge Robertson ruled against the government in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan who is facing terrorism charges. Mr. Hamdan's lawyers had asked the court to declare the military commission process fatally flawed.

The ruling and its timing had a theatrical effect on the courtroom here where pretrial proceedings were under way with Mr. Hamdan, a 34-year-old Yemeni in a flowing white robe, seated next to his lawyers.

About 30 minutes into the afternoon proceedings, the presiding officer, Col. Peter S. Brownback III, was handed a note from a Marine sergeant. Colonel Brownback immediately called a recess and rushed from the room with the commission's two other officers. When he returned, he announced that the proceeding was in recess indefinitely and he departed quickly.

Neal K. Katyal, a Georgetown Law School professor who is one of Mr. Hamdan's lawyers and who supervised the federal lawsuit, told the puzzled courtroom audience, "We won."

Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, said in a statement, "The process struck down by the district court today was carefully crafted to protect America from terrorists while affording those charged with violations of the laws of war with fair process, and the department will make every effort to have this process restored through appeal."

Mr. Corallo said, "By conferring protected legal status under the Geneva Conventions on members of Al Qaeda, the judge has put terrorism on the same legal footing as legitimate methods of waging war."

Judge Robertson ruled that the administration could not under current circumstances try Mr. Hamdan before the military commissions set up shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but could only bring him before a court-martial, where different rules of evidence apply.

In the 45-page ruling, the judge said the administration had ignored a basic provision of the Geneva Conventions, the international treaties signed by the United States that form the basic elements of the laws governing the conduct of war.

The conventions oblige the United States to treat Mr. Hamdan as a prisoner of war, the judge said , unless he goes before a special tribunal described in Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention that determines he is not. A P.O.W. is entitled to a court-martial if there are accusations of war crimes but may not be tried before a military commission.

The United States military did not conduct Article 5 tribunals at the end of the Afghanistan war, saying they were unnecessary. Government lawyers argued that the president had already used his authority to deem members of Al Qaeda unlawful combatants who would be deprived of P.O.W. status.

But Judge Robertson, who was nominated to be on the court by President Bill Clinton, said that that was not enough. "The president is not a panel tribunal," he wrote. "The law of war includes the Third Geneva Convention, which requires trial by court-martial as long as Hamdan's P.O.W. status is in doubt."


Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/09/politics/09gitmo.html

By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: November 9, 2004


Correction Appended

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, Nov. 8 - A federal judge ruled Monday that President Bush had both overstepped his constitutional bounds and improperly brushed aside the Geneva Conventions in establishing military commissions to try detainees at the United States naval base here as war criminals.

The ruling by Judge James Robertson of United States District Court in Washington brought an abrupt halt to the trial here of one detainee, one of hundreds being held at Guantánamo as enemy combatants. It threw into doubt the future of the first set of United States military commission trials since the end of World War II as well as other legal proceedings devised by the administration to deal with suspected terrorists.

The administration reacted quickly, saying it would seek an emergency stay and a quick appeal.

Judge Robertson ruled against the government in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan who is facing terrorism charges. Mr. Hamdan's lawyers had asked the court to declare the military commission process fatally flawed.

The ruling and its timing had a theatrical effect on the courtroom here where pretrial proceedings were under way with Mr. Hamdan, a 34-year-old Yemeni in a flowing white robe, seated next to his lawyers.

About 30 minutes into the afternoon proceedings, the presiding officer, Col. Peter S. Brownback III, was handed a note from a Marine sergeant. Colonel Brownback immediately called a recess and rushed from the room with the commission's two other officers. When he returned, he announced that the proceeding was in recess indefinitely and he departed quickly.

Neal K. Katyal, a Georgetown Law School professor who is one of Mr. Hamdan's lawyers and who supervised the federal lawsuit, told the puzzled courtroom audience, "We won."

Mark Corallo, a Justice Department spokesman, said in a statement, "The process struck down by the district court today was carefully crafted to protect America from terrorists while affording those charged with violations of the laws of war with fair process, and the department will make every effort to have this process restored through appeal."

Mr. Corallo said, "By conferring protected legal status under the Geneva Conventions on members of Al Qaeda, the judge has put terrorism on the same legal footing as legitimate methods of waging war."

Judge Robertson ruled that the administration could not under current circumstances try Mr. Hamdan before the military commissions set up shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but could only bring him before a court-martial, where different rules of evidence apply.

In the 45-page ruling, the judge said the administration had ignored a basic provision of the Geneva Conventions, the international treaties signed by the United States that form the basic elements of the laws governing the conduct of war.

The conventions oblige the United States to treat Mr. Hamdan as a prisoner of war, the judge said , unless he goes before a special tribunal described in Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention that determines he is not. A P.O.W. is entitled to a court-martial if there are accusations of war crimes but may not be tried before a military commission.

The United States military did not conduct Article 5 tribunals at the end of the Afghanistan war, saying they were unnecessary. Government lawyers argued that the president had already used his authority to deem members of Al Qaeda unlawful combatants who would be deprived of P.O.W. status.

But Judge Robertson, who was nominated to be on the court by President Bill Clinton, said that that was not enough. "The president is not a panel," he wrote. "The law of war includes the Third Geneva Convention, which requires trial by court-martial as long as Hamdan's P.O.W. status is in doubt."

The government is in the midst of conducting a separate set of tribunals here at Guantánamo, similar to those required by the Geneva Conventions, to determine whether detainees were properly deemed unlawful enemy combatants. Those proceedings, called combatant status review tribunals, were quickly put into place by the Bush administration after the Supreme Court's ruling in June that the Guantánamo prisoners were entitled to challenge their detentions in federal court. Judge Robertson said, however, that those tribunals were not designed to satisfy the Geneva Convention requirement and were insufficient.

page 2

The ruling on Monday may also make those tribunals obsolete, but Scott L. Silliman, professor of military law at Duke University, said the military might modify them to fit the Geneva Convention requirements.

The judge also said that in asserting that the Guantánamo prisoners are unlawful combatants and outside the reach of the Geneva Conventions, "the government has asserted a position starkly different from the positions and behavior of the United States in previous conflicts, one that can only weaken the United States' own ability to demand application of the Geneva applications to Americans captured during armed conflicts abroad."
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Professor Katyal told reporters that while the ruling on Monday applied only to the Hamdan case, "the spirit of the ruling extends more broadly, perhaps to everything that is going on here in Guantánamo Bay."

Mr. Hamdan is one of about 63 Guantánamo detainees on whose behalf lawsuits have been filed in federal court. The lawsuits consist of habeas corpus petitions, in which people may demand that the government provide some explanation as to why they are imprisoned.

Critics have said that the military commissions fall short of the rights that defendants have in courts-martial in two respects. But Judge Robertson said that one of those reasons, the inability to appeal to the federal judiciary, was not a serious problem. The principal problem, he said, was that defendants before commissions did not have a fair opportunity to respond to charges because some of the evidence was classified and would be withheld. He said that no American court could approve of any proceeding that had such a glaring lack of the right to confront one's accusers and the evidence.

Stephen Saltzburg, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, said it was inevitable that a federal judge somewhere would find fault with the administration's approach "that you can keep people locked up for two and three years and you still don't really know who they are and why we're keeping them."

Professor Saltzburg also said the ruling could set up a sharp confrontation between the judiciary and the executive branch. "No president, Democrat or Republican, is going to welcome the idea that judges who sit in Washington are going to supervise who is detained on the battlefield," he said.

Capt. Brian Thompson of the Air Force, who is defending one of the other three detainees who have been charged with war crimes before a military commission, said he was confident that Judge Robertson's ruling would apply to his client as well. "Not in a strict legal sense," he said, "but certainly in a practical sense."

Commission officials said they were considering whether to halt action on the other cases as well.

Correction: Nov. 12, 2004, Friday

A front-page article and the Quotation of the Day on Tuesday about a decision that halted the trial of a detainee at the United States naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, misstated part of a quotation from the opinion of James Robertson, a federal judge, who said President Bush had ignored the Geneva Conventions in establishing military tribunals to try such detainees. He wrote that "the president is not a tribunal"; he did not say "not a panel."

Posted by Lisa at 09:54 PM
Halliburton Subpoenaed On Nigerian Payments

I saw this in the November 9, 2004 NY Times on page C4 of the Business Section. But I couldn't find it online, so I decided to just retype it here.

From the NY Times (From Reuters):


The Halliburton Company, the oil services company, has disclosed in a regulatory filing that one of its joint ventures may have improperly paid Nigerian officials to win a multibillion-dollar contract. The company also said the United States officials had issued subpoenas to current and former employees of Kellogg Brown & Root, its engineering and construction unit. Halliburton said in September that an internal investigation has found that members of the TSKJ consortium, which it helps lead, may have considered bribing Nigerian officials a decade ago. Nigeria is also investigating allegations that the consortium paid as much as $180 million to secure a contract for the TSKJ liquefied natural gas project. (Reuters)

Posted by Lisa at 09:13 PM
Finally! A Peep Out Of The Kerry Squad

Emphasize peep! (The peep we've all been waiting for :-)

Kerry campaign scrutinizes Ohio

Checks provisional ballots, other issues
By Scott Hiaasen for The Plain Dealer.


Lawyers with John Kerry's presidential campaign are gathering information from Ohio election boards about uncounted ballots and other unresolved issues from last week's election.

Attorneys say they are not trying to challenge the election but are only carrying out Kerry's promise to make sure that all the votes in Ohio are counted. They describe this effort, which began this week, as a "fact-finding mission."...

Dan Hoffheimer, the statewide counsel for the Kerry campaign, said the goal is to identify any voting problems to prevent them in the future - and quell doubts about the legitimacy of the Ohio election being raised on the Internet.

"We're not expecting to change the outcome of the election," Hoffheimer said. "We want to be sure that the public knows what really happened."

The campaign's inquiries come against a backdrop of increasing hysteria among Internet activists who, in chains of e-mails and articles, claim that Ohio's election was so riddled with problems that the outcome may not be legitimate.

For example, a confusing counting method used in Cuyahoga County's election totals wrongly suggests that more than two dozen suburbs had more votes than voters. And a computer glitch in Franklin County added nearly 3,900 phantom votes for Bush in one precinct...

The Kerry campaign has compiled a list of more than 30 questions for local election officials, asking about the number of absentee and provisional ballots, any reports of equipment malfunctions on election night, and any ballots that still listed third-party challenger Ralph Nader as a candidate. (Nader was removed from the ballot by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.)

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1100169336227680.xml


Thursday, November 11, 2004
Scott Hiaasen
Plain Dealer Reporter

Lawyers with John Kerry's presidential campaign are gathering information from Ohio election boards about uncounted ballots and other unresolved issues from last week's election.

Attorneys say they are not trying to challenge the election but are only carrying out Kerry's promise to make sure that all the votes in Ohio are counted. They describe this effort, which began this week, as a "fact-finding mission."
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Unofficial totals give President Bush a 136,000-vote advantage over Kerry in Ohio, but the totals won't be certified until early next month.

Dan Hoffheimer, the statewide counsel for the Kerry campaign, said the goal is to identify any voting problems to prevent them in the future - and quell doubts about the legitimacy of the Ohio election being raised on the Internet.

"We're not expecting to change the outcome of the election," Hoffheimer said. "We want to be sure that the public knows what really happened."

The campaign's inquiries come against a backdrop of increasing hysteria among Internet activists who, in chains of e-mails and articles, claim that Ohio's election was so riddled with problems that the outcome may not be legitimate.

For example, a confusing counting method used in Cuyahoga County's election totals wrongly suggests that more than two dozen suburbs had more votes than voters. And a computer glitch in Franklin County added nearly 3,900 phantom votes for Bush in one precinct.

"There were enough problems reported around the state that undermined people's confidence," Hoffheimer said.

The Kerry campaign has compiled a list of more than 30 questions for local election officials, asking about the number of absentee and provisional ballots, any reports of equipment malfunctions on election night, and any ballots that still listed third-party challenger Ralph Nader as a candidate. (Nader was removed from the ballot by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.)

As of yesterday, the attorneys had not yet contacted the Cuyahoga County's elections director, Michael Vu.

Election officials cannot begin to officially canvass the ballots until Saturday. But in Cuyahoga County, they have begun reviewing provisional ballots to make sure the voters are registered and did not vote more than once.

This review process is being monitored by representatives of both political parties. Mark Griffin, a Democratic lawyer, said he's worried that some provisional ballots - special ballots given to voters who believe they are registered but who don't appear on the voter rolls - may be discarded because poll workers failed to sign the ballot envelope as required.

But election officials said they would count these provisional ballots if the voter's signature matched the one in their records.

About 155,000 provisional ballots were cast in Ohio, including nearly 25,000 in Cuyahoga County. Whether these ballots are counted is a decision left to the local election boards, which are each made up of two Democrats and two Republicans.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

shiaasen@plaind.com, 216-999-4927


Posted by Lisa at 08:19 PM
Donna Britt Condemns Voter Apathy Towards Election Irregularities

Nice job Donna!

She makes the really excellent point that, if the Repubs had lost, due to any reason whatsoever, you can bet they'd be fighting to recount every single vote.

I hope there's somebody listening out there.

Kerry and Edwards: are you listening?!?

Worst Voter Error Is Apathy Toward Irregularities

By Donna Britt for The Washington Post.


Is anyone surprised that accusations of voter disenfranchisement and irregularities abound after the most passionately contested presidential campaign in memory? Is anybody stunned that the mainstream media appear largely unconcerned?

To many people's thinking, too few citizens were discouraged from voting to matter. Those people would suggest that not nearly enough votes for John Kerry were missed or siphoned away to overturn President Bush's win. To which I'd respond:

Excuse me -- I thought this was America.

Informed that I was writing about voter disenfranchisement, a Democratic friend admitted, "I'm trying not to care about that." I understand. Less than two weeks after a bruising election in a nation in which it's unfashionable to overtly care about anything, it's annoying of me even to notice.

But citizens who insist, election after election, that each vote is sacred and then shrug at hundreds of credible reports that honest-to-God votes were suppressed and discouraged aren't just being hypocritical.

They're telling the millions who never vote because "it doesn't matter anyway" that they're the smart ones.

Come on. If Republicans had lost the election, this column would be unnecessary because Karl Rove and company would be contesting every vote. I keep hearing from those who wonder whether Democrats are "too nice," and from others who wonder whether efforts by the mainstream media to be "fair and balanced" sometimes render them "neutered and less effective."

Perhaps. But the much-publicized voting-machine error that gave Bush 4,258 votes in an Ohio precinct where only 638 people cast ballots preceded a flood of disturbing reports, ranging from the Florida voting machine that counted backward to the North Carolina computer that eliminated votes. In Ohio's Warren County, election officials citing "homeland security" concerns locked the doors to the county building where votes were being counted, refusing to allow members of the media and bipartisan observers to watch...

Why aren't more Americans exercised about this issue? Maybe the problem is who's being disenfranchised -- usually poor and minority voters. In a recent poll of black and white adults by Harvard University professor Michael Dawson, 37 percent of white respondents said that widely publicized reports of attempts to prevent blacks from voting in the 2000 election were a Democratic "fabrication." More disturbingly, nearly one-quarter of whites surveyed said that if such attempts were made, they either were "not a problem" (9 percent) or "not so big a problem" (13 percent).

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43630-2004Nov11.html?sub=new

Worst Voter Error Is Apathy Toward Irregularities

By Donna Britt
Friday, November 12, 2004; Page B01

Is anyone surprised that accusations of voter disenfranchisement and irregularities abound after the most passionately contested presidential campaign in memory? Is anybody stunned that the mainstream media appear largely unconcerned?

To many people's thinking, too few citizens were discouraged from voting to matter. Those people would suggest that not nearly enough votes for John Kerry were missed or siphoned away to overturn President Bush's win. To which I'd respond:
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Excuse me -- I thought this was America.

Informed that I was writing about voter disenfranchisement, a Democratic friend admitted, "I'm trying not to care about that." I understand. Less than two weeks after a bruising election in a nation in which it's unfashionable to overtly care about anything, it's annoying of me even to notice.

But citizens who insist, election after election, that each vote is sacred and then shrug at hundreds of credible reports that honest-to-God votes were suppressed and discouraged aren't just being hypocritical.

They're telling the millions who never vote because "it doesn't matter anyway" that they're the smart ones.

Come on. If Republicans had lost the election, this column would be unnecessary because Karl Rove and company would be contesting every vote. I keep hearing from those who wonder whether Democrats are "too nice," and from others who wonder whether efforts by the mainstream media to be "fair and balanced" sometimes render them "neutered and less effective."

Perhaps. But the much-publicized voting-machine error that gave Bush 4,258 votes in an Ohio precinct where only 638 people cast ballots preceded a flood of disturbing reports, ranging from the Florida voting machine that counted backward to the North Carolina computer that eliminated votes. In Ohio's Warren County, election officials citing "homeland security" concerns locked the doors to the county building where votes were being counted, refusing to allow members of the media and bipartisan observers to watch.

Bush won the county overwhelmingly.

Much of the media dismisses anxiety over such irregularities as grousing by poor-loser Democrats, rabid conspiracy theorists and pouters frustrated by Kerry's lightning-quick concession. Some of it surely is.

But more people's concerns are elementary-school basic -- which isn't coincidental since that's where many of us learned about democracy. We feel that Americans mustn't concede the noble intentions upon which our nation was founded to the cynical or the indifferent. We believe in our nation's sacred assurance that every citizen's voice be heard through his or her vote.

The point isn't just which candidate won or lost. It's that we all lose when we ignore that thousands of Americans might have been discouraged or prevented from voting, or not had their votes count.

If it were us, we'd be screaming bloody murder.

Yesterday, Lafayette Square was the scene of a lively rally at which dozens of upbeat, mostly older-than-25 protesters organized by ReDefeatBush.com heard democracy-praising singers, rappers and speakers. Protester Susan Ribe, 33, a Wheaton tax researcher, said that though she's "open-minded" to the possibility that election results might be correct, she believes that reports of irregularities suggest "there's the need for a serious investigation."

page 2

Election Protection, the nonpartisan coalition of civil rights organizations that sent 25,000 poll monitors across the nation to ensure that registered voters could cast their ballots, received hundreds of reports of Election Day abuses.

Some were from voters who said they repeatedly pressed the "Kerry" button on their electronic voting screens, only to have "Bush" keep lighting up. Others said that though they pushed "Kerry," they were asked to confirm their "Bush" vote. There were calls about a Broward County, Fla., roadblock that denied voters access to precincts in predominantly black districts, and reports from hundreds who said they'd registered weeks before Florida's October deadline yet weren't on the rolls.
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Why aren't more Americans exercised about this issue? Maybe the problem is who's being disenfranchised -- usually poor and minority voters. In a recent poll of black and white adults by Harvard University professor Michael Dawson, 37 percent of white respondents said that widely publicized reports of attempts to prevent blacks from voting in the 2000 election were a Democratic "fabrication." More disturbingly, nearly one-quarter of whites surveyed said that if such attempts were made, they either were "not a problem" (9 percent) or "not so big a problem" (13 percent).

Excuse me?

Electronic, paper-trail-free voting is a danger to democracy that the United States can, and I believe will, address. But not giving a damn about fellow citizens' votes?

Election Protection volunteer Bernestine Singley, a Texas-based writer-lawyer I know, was torn between elation and outrage on Nov. 2 as she monitored polls in three Florida precincts. Inspiring to Singley were hundreds of volunteers, most of them white, who'd traveled hundreds of miles to ensure the inclusion of minority voters. She felt stirred by scores of young, black voters whose attitude, she says, was, "I don't care how long I have to stand in line before I do what I came here to do."

Singley's outrage was sparked by clearly hostile white poll workers, and the police officer who stood -- illegally -- by a polling place door, hand on his revolver.

Did I mention the guy who shoved her?

After watching Singley assist voters for hours, a scowling, white-haired 70-something poll worker patronizingly suggested that she was not a poll monitor. When she replied that he knew exactly what she was doing, he rammed his chest into hers, shoving her backward.

Pushing right back, Singley told the man, "You better get off me." He did. Minutes later, Singley says the man told another poll worker within her hearing: "I don't know why she thinks I know who she is. They all look alike to me."

Excuse me -- is this 2004 or 1954?

Ironically, if all Americans did look alike -- if "black" and "white" and "poor" and "well-to-do" didn't exist -- outrages such as those would happen much less often.

When they did, many more Americans would fight to ensure they never happened again.

Posted by Lisa at 04:02 PM
State Approves Nader Recount In New Hampshire

I was mad as hell about Nader running at all. And we're still not sure (since we're not sure about any of the numbers in this election) if he affected Kerry's numbers adversely or now.

That said, it looks like Nader's the only one so far with enough guts to request a recount. Where's Kerry in all of this!?!

This post goes with this one.

State approves Nader recount

By The Associated Press.


State election officials agreed Friday to a last-minute recount of the presidential race requested by Ralph Nader.

Nader asked for a recount in 11 wards last week, but the state initially said no because his request did not include the $2,000 fee. He had until 4:30 p.m. Friday to get the money to the Secretary of State's office.

Nader's campaign said some voting machines in the state logged results that favored President Bush by as much as 15 percent over what previous trends and exit polls would suggest.

Nader requested hand recounts in Litchfield, Sandown, Newton, Danville, Salem, Pelham, one ward in Somersworth and four wards in Manchester.

Nader's campaign could be required to pay additional fees as the recount proceeds. There was no estimate as to when the recount might begin.

Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said the campaign would consider requesting additional recounts after reviewing the results of the initial 11.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/nader/articles/2004/11/12/state_approves_nader_recount/

State approves Nader recount

November 12, 2004

CONCORD, N.H. -- State election officials agreed Friday to a last-minute recount of the presidential race requested by Ralph Nader.
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Nader asked for a recount in 11 wards last week, but the state initially said no because his request did not include the $2,000 fee. He had until 4:30 p.m. Friday to get the money to the Secretary of State's office.

The fee is required of candidates who lose by more than 3 percentage points. Democrat John Kerry won the state with 50 percent to Bush's 49 percent. Nader had just under 1 percent.

The state agreed to the recount Friday after Nader's campaign electronically transferred the fee Friday afternoon.

Nader's campaign said some voting machines in the state logged results that favored President Bush by as much as 15 percent over what previous trends and exit polls would suggest.

Nader requested hand recounts in Litchfield, Sandown, Newton, Danville, Salem, Pelham, one ward in Somersworth and four wards in Manchester.

Nader's campaign could be required to pay additional fees as the recount proceeds. There was no estimate as to when the recount might begin.

Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said the campaign would consider requesting additional recounts after reviewing the results of the initial 11.

Posted by Lisa at 03:12 PM
Military Hospitals Prepare For Vietnam-Like Casualties From Fallujah Assault

This is from November 5, 2004.

Military hospital preparing for Fallujah battle

Marines say the toll is expected to rival those seen in Vietnam War
By Tom Lasseter for Knight Ridder Tribune News.


The number of dead and wounded from the expected battle to retake insurgent-controlled Fallujah probably will reach levels not seen since Vietnam, a senior surgeon at the Marine camp outside Fallujah said Thursday.

Navy Cmdr. Lach Noyes said the camp's hospital is preparing to handle 25 severely injured soldiers a day, not counting walking wounded and the dead.

The hospital has added two operating rooms, doubled its supplies, added a mortuary and stocked up on blood reserves. Doctors have set up a system of ambulance vehicles that will rush to the camp's gate to receive the dead and wounded so units can return to battle quickly...

More than 1,120 U.S. soldiers and Marines have died in Iraq since the war began.

The deadliest month was April, when fierce fighting killed 126 U.S. troops, largely at Fallujah and Ramadi, before a cease-fire virtually turned Fallujah over to the insurgents.

Even then, the death toll was far below the worst month of Vietnam, April 1969, when the U.S. death toll was 543 at the height of American involvement there.

The toll in human suffering has already been grave.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2885271

Military hospital preparing for Fallujah battle
Marines say the toll is expected to rival those seen in Vietnam War
By TOM LASSETER
Knight Ridder Tribune News

WITH U.S. FORCES NEAR FALLUJAH, IRAQ - The number of dead and wounded from the expected battle to retake insurgent-controlled Fallujah probably will reach levels not seen since Vietnam, a senior surgeon at the Marine camp outside Fallujah said Thursday.

Navy Cmdr. Lach Noyes said the camp's hospital is preparing to handle 25 severely injured soldiers a day, not counting walking wounded and the dead.

The hospital has added two operating rooms, doubled its supplies, added a mortuary and stocked up on blood reserves. Doctors have set up a system of ambulance vehicles that will rush to the camp's gate to receive the dead and wounded so units can return to battle quickly.

The plans underscore the ferocity of the fight the U.S. military expects in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim city about 35 miles west of Baghdad, which has been under insurgent control since April.

On Thursday, U.S. troops pounded Fallujah with airstrikes and artillery fire, softening up militants ahead of the expected assault.

Loudspeakers at Fallujah mosques blared out Quranic verses and shouts of "Allahu akbar," or "God is great," during the assault, residents said.

American aircraft blasted militant positions in northeastern and southeastern parts of the city, the military said. U.S. batteries later fired two to three dozen heavy artillery shells at insurgent positions, the military said.

U.S. forces have been building up outside Fallujah for weeks in preparation for taking the city back.

Military officials say they expect U.S. troops to encounter not just fighters wielding AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, but also heavy concentrations of mines, roadside bombs and possibly car bombs.

"We'll probably just see those in a lot better concentration in the city," said Maj. Jim West, an intelligence officer with 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

West said he thinks there are some 4,000 to 5,000 fighters between Fallujah and nearby Ramadi, and they may try to draw troops into cramped urban areas in Fallujah that have been booby-trapped.

More than 1,120 U.S. soldiers and Marines have died in Iraq since the war began.

The deadliest month was April, when fierce fighting killed 126 U.S. troops, largely at Fallujah and Ramadi, before a cease-fire virtually turned Fallujah over to the insurgents.

Even then, the death toll was far below the worst month of Vietnam, April 1969, when the U.S. death toll was 543 at the height of American involvement there.

The toll in human suffering has already been grave.

Staff Sgt. Jason Benedict was on a convoy heading to the Fallujah camp Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into the truck Benedict and his platoon mates were traveling in.

A few minutes later, mortars and rifle fire rained down on the survivors.

As he rolled toward the safety of a ditch, Benedict saw one of his friends crawling on all fours, with blood pouring from his face.

"You've got to expect casualties," said Benedict, 28. The fight for Fallujah, he said, "is overdue."

Posted by Lisa at 03:03 PM
November 12, 2004
Daily Show Messopotamia Coverage Of Fallujah Assault

This is from the November 9, 2004 program.

Quote from Jon to Richard Armitage:


Dick. Dick. Dick. You won the election...
You don't have to lie anymore!


Daily Show On Fallujah Assault

Link to
zip file
of all November 9, 2004 clips. (39 MB)

The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 06:21 PM
Daily Show Interview With The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol

This is from the November 4, 2004 program.

Kristol is always a great guest.

Bill Kristol On The Daily Show

Posted by Lisa at 06:14 PM
Daily Show On Salem, Mass Changing Its Witchy Image

Now why on earth would Salem want to do that? :)

This is from the November 4, 2004 program.


Daily Show Movie On Salem, Massachusetts

Posted by Lisa at 06:13 PM
Daily Show's Lewis Black Comments On The Election

This is from the November 4, 2004 program.

Lewis Black On Election 2004

Lewis comments on Alaska's allowing Bear Baiting, Brad Pitt (for) vs. Mel "God is on my side" Gibson (against) on California's Prop 71 (Stem Cell Research - Yeah! it passed), and the 11 states that passed anti-gay "marriage protection" laws.

Quote from Lewis:


These ballot initiatives remind us that America is the land where people are free to dream whatever they want, so long as that dream doesn't make midwesterners feel icky!

Posted by Lisa at 06:09 PM
November 11, 2004
Karl Rove On Meet The Press

This is from the November 7, 2004 program.

Karl Rove On Meet The Press (Parts 1-3)
(19 MB, 18 MB, 9 MB)

Posted by Lisa at 01:50 PM
November 09, 2004
Taking A Birthday Day After All

I've decided the world can live without me for a day. See you guys Wednesday night.

peace!

lisa

Posted by Lisa at 03:28 PM
MSNBC's Countdown To Cover Election Irregularities Tonight at 5pm PST 8pm EST - Here's What Was Covered Last Night


Naked Promotional Announcement (Keith Olbermann)


Interestingly, none of the complaining emailers took issue with the remarkable results out of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In 29 precincts there, the County’s website shows, we had the most unexpected results in years: more votes than voters.

I’ll repeat that: more votes than voters. 93,000 more votes than voters.

Oops.

Talk about successful get-out-the-vote campaigns! What a triumph for democracy in Fairview Park, twelve miles west of downtown Cleveland. Only 13,342 registered voters there, but they cast 18,472 votes.

Vote early! Vote often!

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240

Naked Promotional Announcement (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS -- A quick and haplessly generic answer now to the 6,000 emails and the hundreds of phone calls.

Firstly, thank you.

Secondly, we will indeed be resuming our coverage of the voting irregularities in Ohio and Florida -- and elsewhere -- on this evening's edition of Countdown {8:00 p.m. ET}. The two scheduled guests are Jonathan Turley, an excellent professor of law at George Washington University, and MSNBC analyst and Congressional Quarterly senior columnist Craig Crawford.

For Jonathan, the questions are obvious: the process and implications of voting reviews, especially after a candidate has conceded, even after a President has been re-elected. For Craig, the questions are equally obvious: did John Kerry's concession indeed neuter mainstream media attention to the questions about voting and especially electronic voting, and what is the political state of play on the investigations and the protests.

Phase Two, in which Doris gets her oats...

Keep them coming. Email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• November 9, 2004 | 12:55 a.m. ET

Electronic voting angst (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK — Bev Harris, the Blackbox lady, was apparently quoted in a number of venues during the day Monday as having written “I was tipped off by a person very high up in TV that the news has been locked down tight, and there will be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2… My source said they’ve also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time.”

I didn’t get the memo.

We were able to put together a reasonably solid 15 minutes or so on the voting irregularities in Florida and Ohio on Monday’s Countdown. There was some You-Are-There insight from the Cincinnati Enquirer reporter who had personally encountered the ‘lockdown’ during the vote count in Warren County, Ohio, a week ago, and a good deal of fairly contained comment from Representative John Conyers of Michigan, who now leads a small but growing group of Democratic congressmen who’ve written the General Accountability Office demanding an investigation of what we should gently call the Electronic Voting Angst. Conyers insisted he wasn’t trying to re-cast the election, but seemed mystified that in the 21st Century we could have advanced to a technological state in which voting— fine, flawed, or felonious— should leave no paper trail.

But the show should not have been confused with Edward R. Murrow flattening Joe McCarthy. I mean that both in terms of editorial content and controversy. I swear, and I have never been known to cover-up for any management anywhere, that I got nothing but support from MSNBC both for the Web-work and the television time. We were asked if perhaps we shouldn’t begin the program with the Fallujah offensive and do the voting story later, but nobody flinched when we argued that the Countdown format pretty much allows us to start wherever we please.

It may be different elsewhere, but there was no struggle to get this story on the air, and evidently I should be washing the feet of my bosses this morning in thanks. Because your reaction was a little different than mine. By actual rough count, between the 8 p.m. ET start of the program and 10:30 p.m. ET last night, we received 1,570 e-mails (none of them duplicates or forms, as near as I can tell). 1,508 were positive, 62 negative.

Well the volume is startling to begin with. I know some of the overtly liberal sites encouraged readers to write, but that’s still a hunk of mail, and a decisive margin (hell, 150 to 62 is considered a decisive margin). Writing this, I know I’m inviting negative comment, but so be it. I read a large number of the missives, skimmed all others, appreciate all— and all since— deeply.

Even the negative ones, because in between the repeated “you lost” nonsense and one baffling reference to my toupee (seriously, if I wore a rug, wouldn’t I get one that was all the same color?), there was a solid point raised about some of the incongruous voting noted on the website of Florida’s Secretary of State.

There, 52 counties tallied their votes using paper ballots that were then optically scanned by machines produced by Diebold, Sequoia, or Election Systems and Software. 29 of those Florida counties had large Democratic majorities among registered voters (as high a ratio as Liberty County— Bristol, Florida and environs— where it’s 88 percent Democrats, 8 percent Republicans) but produced landslides for President Bush. On Countdown, we cited the five biggest surprises (Liberty ended Bush: 1,927; Kerry: 1,070), but did not mention the other 24.

Those protesting e-mailers pointed out that four of the five counties we mentioned also went for Bush in 2000, and were in Florida’s panhandle or near the Georgia border. Many of them have long “Dixiecrat” histories and the swing to Bush, while remarkably large, isn’t of itself suggestive of voting fraud.

That the other 24 counties were scattered across the state, and that they had nothing in common except the optical scanning method, I didn’t mention. My bad. I used the most eye-popping numbers, and should have used a better regional mix instead.

Interestingly, none of the complaining emailers took issue with the remarkable results out of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In 29 precincts there, the County’s website shows, we had the most unexpected results in years: more votes than voters.

I’ll repeat that: more votes than voters. 93,000 more votes than voters.

Oops.

Talk about successful get-out-the-vote campaigns! What a triumph for democracy in Fairview Park, twelve miles west of downtown Cleveland. Only 13,342 registered voters there, but they cast 18,472 votes.

Vote early! Vote often!

And in the continuing saga of the secret vote count in Warren County, Ohio (outside Cincinnati), no protestor offered an explanation or even a reference, excepting one sympathetic writer who noted that there was a “beautiful Mosque” in or near Warren County, and that a warning from Homeland Security might have been predicated on that fact.

To her credit, Pat South, President of the Warren County Commissioners who chose to keep the media from watching the actual vote count, was willing to come on the program— but only by phone. Instead, we asked her to compose a statement about the bizarre events at her County Administration building a week ago, which I can quote at greater length here than I did on the air.

“About three weeks prior to elections,” Ms. South stated, “our emergency services department had been receiving quite a few pieces of correspondence from the office of Homeland Security on the upcoming elections. These memos were sent out statewide, not just to Warren County and they included a lot of planning tools and resources to use for election day security.

“In a face to face meeting between the FBI and our director of Emergency Services, we were informed that on a scale from 1 to 10, the tri-state area of Southwest Ohio was ranked at a high 8 to a low 9 in terms of security risk. Warren County in particular, was rated at 10 (with 10 being the highest risk). Pursuant to the Ohio revised code, we followed the law to the letter that basically says that no one is allowed within a hundred feet of a polling place except for voters and that after the polls close the only people allowed in the board of elections area where votes are being counted are the board of election members, judges, clerks, poll challengers, police, and that no one other than those people can be there while tabulation is taking place.”

Ms. South said she admitted the media to the building’s lobby, and that they were provided with updates on the ballot-counting every half hour. Of course, the ballot-counting was being conducted on the third floor, and the idea that it would have probably looked better if Warren had done what Ohio’s other 87 counties did— at least let reporters look through windows as the tabulations proceeded— apparently didn’t occur to anybody.

Back to those emails, especially the 1,508 positive ones. Apart from the supportive words (my favorites: “Although I did not vote for Kerry, as a former government teacher, I am encouraged by your ‘covering’ the voting issue which is the basis of our government. Thank you.”), the main topics were questions about why ours was apparently the first television or mainstream print coverage of any of the issues in Florida or Ohio. I have a couple of theories.

Firstly, John Kerry conceded. As I pointed out here Sunday, no candidate’s statement is legally binding— what matters is the state election commissions’ reports, and the Electoral College vote next month. But in terms of reportorial momentum, the concession took the wind out of a lot of journalists’ aggressiveness towards the entire issue. Many were prepared for Election Night premature jocularity, and a post-vote stampede to the courts— especially after John Edwards’ late night proclamation from Boston. When Kerry brought that to a halt, a lot of the media saw something of which they had not dared dream: a long weekend off.

Don’t discount this. This has been our longest presidential campaign ever, to say nothing of the one in which the truth was most artfully hidden or manufactured. To consider this mess over was enough to get 54 percent of the respondents to an Associated Press poll released yesterday to say that the “conclusiveness” of last week’s vote had given them renewed confidence in our electoral system (of course, 39 percent said it had given them less confidence). Up for the battle for truth or not, a lot of fulltime political reporters were ready for a rest. Not me— I get to do “Oddball” and “Newsmakers” every night and they always serve to refresh my spirit, and my conviction that man is the silliest of the creator’s creations.

There’s a third element to the reluctance to address all this, I think. It comes from the mainstream’s love-hate relationship with this very thing you’re reading now: The Blog. This medium is so new that print, radio, and television don’t know what to do with it, especially given that a system of internet checks and balances has yet to develop. A good reporter may encounter a tip, or two, or five, in a day’s time. He has to check them all out before publishing or reporting.

What happens when you get 1,000 tips, all at once?

I’m sounding like an apologist for the silence of television and I don’t mean to. Just remember that when radio news arose in the '30s, the response of newspapers and the wire services was to boycott it, then try to limit it to specific hours. There’s a measure of competitiveness, a measure of confusion, and the undeniable fact that in searching for clear, non-partisan truth in this most partisan of times, the I’m-Surprised-This-Name-Never-Caught-On “Information Super Highway” becomes a road with direction signs listing 1,000 destinations each.

Having said all that— for crying out loud, all the data we used tonight on Countdown was on official government websites in Cleveland and Florida. We confirmed all of it— moved it right out of the Reynolds Wrap Hat zone in about ten minutes.

Which offers one way bloggers can help guide the mainstream at times like this: source your stuff like crazy, and the stuffier the source the better.

Enough from the soapbox. We have heard the message on the Voting Angst and will continue to cover it with all prudent speed.

Thanks for your support.

Keep them coming... Email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• November 7, 2004 | 6:55 p.m. ET

George, John, and Warren (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK— Here’s an interesting little sidebar of our system of government confirmed recently by the crack Countdown research staff: no Presidential candidate’s concession speech is legally binding. The only determinants of the outcome of election are the reports of the state returns boards and the vote of the Electoral College.

That’s right. Richard Nixon may have phoned John Kennedy in November, 1960, and congratulated him through clenched teeth. But if the FBI had burst into Kennedy headquarters in Chicago a week later and walked out with all the file cabinets and a bunch of employees with their raincoats drawn up over their heads, nothing Nixon had said would’ve prevented him, and not JFK, from taking the oath of office the following January.

This is mentioned because there is a small but blood-curdling set of news stories that right now exists somewhere between the world of investigative journalism, and the world of the Reynolds Wrap Hat. And while the group’s ultimate home remains unclear - so might our election of just a week ago.

Stories like these have filled the web since the tide turned against John Kerry late Tuesday night. But not until Friday did they begin to spill into the more conventional news media. That’s when the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that officials in Warren County, Ohio, had “locked down” its administration building to prevent anybody from observing the vote count there.

Suspicious enough on the face of it, the decision got more dubious still when County Commissioners confirmed that they were acting on the advice of their Emergency Services Director, Frank Young. Mr. Young had explained that he had been advised by the federal government to implement the measures for the sake of Homeland Security.

Gotcha. Tom Ridge thought Osama Bin Laden was planning to hit Caesar Creek State Park in Waynesville. During the vote count in Lebanon. Or maybe it was Kings Island Amusement Park that had gone Code-Orange without telling anybody. Al-Qaeda had selected Turtlecreek Township for its first foray into a Red State.

The State of Ohio confirms that of all of its 88 Counties, Warren alone decided such Homeland Security measures were necessary. Even in Butler County, reports the Enquirer, the media and others were permitted to watch through a window as ballot-checkers performed their duties. In Warren, the media was finally admitted to the lobby of the administration building, which may have been slightly less incommodious for the reporters, but which still managed to keep them two floors away from the venue of the actual count.

Nobody in Warren County seems to think they’ve done anything wrong. The newspaper quotes County Prosecutor Rachel Hurtzel as saying the Commissioners “were within their rights” to lock the building down, because having photographers or reporters present could have interfered with the count.

You bet, Rachel.

As I suggested, this is the first time one of the Fix stories has moved fully into the mainstream media. In so saying, I’m not dismissing the blogosphere. Hell, I’m in the blogosphere now, and there have been nights when I’ve gotten far more web hits than television viewers (thank you, Debate Scorecard readers). Even the overt partisanship of blogs don’t bother me - Tom Paine was a pretty partisan guy, and ultimately that served truth a lot better than a ship full of neutral reporters would have. I was just reading last night of the struggles Edward R. Murrow and William L. Shirer had during their early reporting from Europe in ’38 and ’39, because CBS thought them too anti-Nazi.

The only reason I differentiate between the blogs and the newspapers is that in the latter, a certain bar of ascertainable, reasonably neutral, fact has to be passed, and has to be approved by a consensus of reporters and editors. The process isn’t flawless (ask Dan Rather) but the next time you read a blog where bald-faced lies are accepted as fact, ask yourself whether we here in cyberspace have yet achieved the reliability of even the mainstream media. In short, a lot gets left out of newspapers, radio, and tv - but what’s left in tends to be, in the words of my old CNN Sports colleague NickCharles, a lead-pipe cinch.

Thus the majority of the media has yet to touch the other stories of Ohio (the amazing Bush Times Ten voting machine in Gahanna) or the sagas of Ohio South: huge margins for Bush in Florida counties in which registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2-1, places where the optical scanning of precinct totals seems to have turned results from perfect matches for the pro-Kerry exit poll data, to Bush sweeps.

We will be endeavoring to pull those stories, along with the Warren County farce, into the mainstream Monday and/or Tuesday nights on Countdown. That is, if we can wedge them in there among the news media’s main concerns since last Tuesday:

* Who fixed the Exit Polls? Yes - you could deliberately skew a national series of post-vote questionnaires in favor of Kerry to discourage people from voting out west, where everything but New Mexico had been ceded to Kerry anyway, but you couldn’t alter key precinct votes in Ohio and/or Florida; and,
* What will Bush do with his Mandate and his Political Capital? He got the highest vote total for a presidential candidate, you know. Did anybody notice who’s second on the list? A Mr. Kerry. Since when was the term “mandate” applied when 56 million people voted against a guy? And by the way, how about that Karl Rove and his Freudian slip on “Fox News Sunday”? Rove was asked if the electoral triumph would be as impactful on the balance of power between the parties as William McKinley’s in 1896 and he forgot his own talking points. The victories were “similarly narrow,” Rove began, and then, seemingly aghast at his forthrightness, corrected himself. “Not narrow; similarly structured.”

Gotta dash now. Some of us have to get to work on the Warren and Florida stories.

In the interim, Senator Kerry, kindly don’t leave the country.

Thoughts? Let me know at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• November 3, 2004 | 2:51 a.m. ET

Pick a total, any total (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS — At 2:37 A.M. Eastern Time, the five major television news organizations were in complete disagreement over the electoral count:

* NBC: Bush 269 Kerry 211.
* Fox: Bush 269 Kerry 238.
* CNN: Bush 249 Kerry 242.
* CBS: Bush 249 Kerry 238.
* ABC: Bush 249 Kerry 225.

Remember when I scored the debates as boxing matches? Those are boxing judges' scorecard totals— and not one of them agrees.

The Kerry campaign announcing at 2:45 a.m. ET, a "full lid" -- political news terminology for no further comment for the night.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

• November 3, 2004 | 1:46 a.m. ET

Premature jocularity (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS— Oh, here we go.

The legal equivalent of the Bat Signal has just gone up from Cleveland.

The Kerry Campaign isn’t going to concede until the last lawyer is spent in Ohio. Manager Mary Beth Cahill issuing the statement at 1:27 AM EST and to quote it in full: "The vote count in Ohio has not been completed. There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio."

The Ohio challenge actually began yesterday when two Federal District judges ruled that Republican vote-challengers could not position themselves at the poll. Those Republicans successfully appealed, and then the court actions began to multiply like rabbits.

Today came news of interminable lines, voters offered paper ballots in voting districts that had no provisions for counting them, and then the provisional ballots issue. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet for litigators.

And when we wondered if it could be worse than 2000, we just found the way. I split part of October in 1997 between Miami and Cleveland, covering the World Series. Miami was warm, humid, and enjoyable. Cleveland had a wind-chill of 22 degrees with snow.

So it’s Florida— only with parkas.

• November 3, 2004 | 12:18 a.m. ET

Too close leads too early by two million (Keith Olbermann)

So much for the ultra-conservative state-calling by the television networks in the wake of the debacle of 2000.

As midnight came to the East, ABC and CBS, were out there, alone, having called Florida for the President. Just as four years ago, that’s great if they’re right. But if they’re not, it will again guarantee a long-running dispute and perhaps a Constitutional crisis.

And in the interim, the fact that two big news organizations called Florida for Bush while the others - CNN, Fox, NBC - did not immediately follow, may foment a crisis whether the Florida prediction is wrong or right. If the assumption of the last few months is correct and that the Democrats will cede nothing, the partial-prediction may have already given Senator Kerry a platform from which to mount a protest or a contest, whether it’s justified or not.

Also shaping up as a controversy, the quality of the exit-polling— all of which looked disastrous for Bush from late afternoon onwards. What happened there will be heavily scrutinized, and the question will be raised, did it replace the quick-calling of 2000 as the area in which the media (and the campaigns) could replace fact with extrapolation.

• November 2, 2004 | 10:35 p.m. ET

It's 10 p.m., do you know where your spin is? (Keith Olbermann)

Secaucus — How right have we been tonight about the distress in the White House? The re-election campaign admitted a pool camera and still photographers to the residence to videotape images of Mr. Bush and his family sitting around stiffly on a couch, he in a white shirt and a tie, smiling towards the media and saying “I believe I will win. It’s going to be an exciting evening.”

Well, the night Titanic sank was an exciting evening.

The President’s men had begun whining about the exit polling and its interpretation since shortly after 7 PM tonight. Norah O’Donnell’s 9:50 EST report had referred to “anxiety” from Republicans out in the field, and perhaps the odd photo-op was designed as much to reassure them as to counter-effect the exit polling with which the White House so fervently disagreed.

Brian Williams offered the astute observation that the White House did need to influence photo and videotape selection. Mr. Bush had been captured with stern and/or exhausted looks on his face at yesterday’s pre-election events, and today’s voting - and that’s the last thing the campaign wanted to project. Hence, in Norah’s phrase, the decision to “put the President out.”

As I write here Mr. Bush is up by around 80 Electoral Votes, and just about that many from the promised land. But the Zogby forecast from 5:30 EST tonight — which ends with Senator Kerry getting at least 311 and the President no more than 227 —has performed flawlessly through the first 32 NBC state projections.

Zogby’s forecast will be sorely tested in the next few hours in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Washington, and Wisconsin - all of which he’s predicted for Kerry. And then, later—maybe much later— the big three: Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, all of which Zogby thought were “trending” to Kerry. Interestingly, if Zogby’s model holds up in the smaller states, Kerry could lose Ohio and Pennsylvania and still gain the White House— providing he wins Florida.

• November 2, 2004 | 9:01 p.m. ET

Exit numbers meaning a Bush exit?

Secaucus — The exit polling is sometimes easy enough to read that even I can figure it out.

The NBC information released at 8:23 indicates numbers crushing for the president’s hopes of gaining significant votes based on the war in Iraq.

Only 12% of voters nationally agreed that things were “going well” in Iraq, and only another 32% said things were going “somewhat well” there. 55% were clearly negative, saying things were going “badly.”

More significantly perhaps, the President’s argument that the war in Iraq is a component of the war on terror, was only partially successful with voters. 52% of today’s voters, 45% said the two elements were separate.

Overall, the exit polls show voters evenly split about the wisdom to go into Iraq in the first place, 48-48.

And most strikingly, when asked if the action in Iraq improved our security or harmed it, only 43 percent said it had improved it - 54 percent felt otherwise.

No wonder Norah O’Donnell latest report refers to more grim faces inside the White House strategy and war rooms - what we liked to call the “interior numbers” would suggest that the fundaments of the President’s reelection strategy haven’t succeeded, and the Zogby forecast of a Kerry 100+ Electoral College vote looks ever-increasingly plausible.

And those “interior numbers” in Ohio fascinate.

The NBC exit polling there suggests the state saw 800,000 new voters — 13 percent of the entire electorate there — and they went 56-44 Kerry (58-41 Kerry among those under 30), with the only demographic group going for the President in Ohio being those 60 and over.

But Ohio still shows the closeness of the votes-in-hand.

As of 8:15 EST, out of the 40,367 absentee ballots cast in Franklin County — that’s Columbus, the President led Senator Kerry by exactly 267 of them. That’s not the case in Cuyahoga (Cleveland), where Kerry got nearly two out of every three absentees (49,816 to 27,770).

• November 2, 2004 | 7:34 p.m. ET

"Discouragement" at the White House (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS — That’s the term used by NBC’s White House Correspondent David Gregory in his 7:05 PM report, describing the reaction of President Bush’s “top advisors” in a war room within the war room at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

David’s sources report a “tense” set of advisors, who have already determined an unwanted “tightness in the race,” not unlike what they saw in the waning days of the 2000 Gore-Bush vote.

Any time word leaks of an incumbent official’s top advisors being “discouraged” when only a handful of states have closed, you can interpret the verbal body language. They’ve seen it, it’s bad, and it’s likely to get worse - so maybe Friend Zogby’s 100-point electoral margin for Kerry is not so wildly broad as it may have first looked (two posts down).

The NBC News Exit Polling released at 7:23 EST continues to provide troubling numbers for the incumbent:

* 50% of today’s voters say the country is on the wrong track; 47% say it’s going in the right direction.
* The first numbers on Mr. Bush’s job approval are razor tight: 51% positive, 47% negative.
* The partisanship within those numbers is extraordinary: 92% of Republicans give the President approval; 84% of Democrats disapprove.

On the Senatorial level, only one of the races thus far called affects the swing: the Republicans taking the open seat in Georgia. The good news for the GOP is that Congressman Johnny Isakson is projected to beat the Democratic Congresswoman Denise Majette. The bad news is, the seat belonged to Zell Miller, so it’s a numerical loss for the Democrats but not much of a political one.

North Carolina is evidently close enough that Democratic VP nominee John Edwards actually held his plane on the tarmac in Orlando so he could call in to African-American radio stations in North Carolina to push the candidacy of former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles over Republican Congressman Richard Burr.

• November 2, 2004 | 6:46 p.m. ET

Notes from the balance of power desk (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS— Which, you may be as delighted to read as I was to see, was still being constructed — plastic flats being stapled into place — even as Chris Matthews was signing on from Democracy Plaza.

The tone of Norah O’Donnell’s first report from the White House suggested that whatever the Re-Election Campaign is reading in the way of exit polls, they must be similar to the 5:30 ET final Zogby tracking numbers which forecast a Kerry landslide by as many as 100 Electoral Votes (while giving Mr. Bush an absolutely useless popular majority of 3/10ths of one percent). Norah reported the President and his supporters putting on positive but somewhat forced faces.

If they read those Zogby numbers, we know why (I summarized Zogby’s findings in the previous post — scroll down).

And if they heard the first set of nationwide exit polling released by NBC a little after 6 PM, the White House can’t be very hopeful:

* 54% thought the economy was “not good”; only 45% “good.”
* 46% thought they were worse off today than they were in 2000; only 21% said they were better off;
* Only 52% said they thought we were safer from the threat of terrorism now than before; 43% thought we were less safe.
* And while 53% said they were somewhat worried about another terrorist attack, just 22% described themselves as “very” worried, a comparatively small percentage.

The last two numbers can be interpreted in favor of either candidate (although it seems like more mental gymnastics would be required to spin them in Mr. Bush’s favor). Those first two — I don’t think so.

All of which brings us to what might be a very unpleasant Election Night party in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington— the President’s soiree.

The Washington Post reported this morning that reporters are only being admitted to the grounds if they pay $300 - $500 if they want food.

That doesn’t even get them inside.

The ticket cost got the journalist a two foot by three foot work space, and a chair (padded), in a tent near the party itself, plus the right to watch the party on closed-circuit television.

Periodically, small groups of reporters will be escorted into the building atrium to gather “color” —what it looks like— but they won’t be permitted to talk to guests (although a twenty might get you a quote if you ask the right person).

Question: If there’s no Bush party tonight, do the reporters get their money back?

• November 2, 2004 | 5:51 p.m. ET

Redskin rule and Carter corollary (Keith Olbermann)

Secaucus — John Zogby’s polling was generally considered the most accurate during the crazed 2000 election, and if he maintains that measure of reliability, you can go to sleep now.

Zogby’s final tracking poll, state by state, released at 5:30 EST, suggests the prospect of a Kerry win by a margin of 311 Electoral Votes to 213, with only Colorado and Nevada too close to call (and representing just fourteen votes between them).

Oh and by the way, he has Mr. Bush winning the popular vote, narrowly— an irony of biblical proportions that one Democratic pollster rated a one-in-three chance just last week.

It should be noted Zogby is doing a lot of extrapolating. In the two from Column A (Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania), two from Column B (Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin) states, he gives them all to Kerry. But Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are listed as “trending Kerry” based on exit polling. The smaller three states show Kerry up by 5-6%.

If he’s right, it upholds both the Redskin Rule (a bloody football team would be 18-0 predicting who gets to run the country) and the Carter Corollary (no incumbent is reelected nor defeated narrowly).

A lot of people remaining uncertain that he’s right.

• November 2, 2004 | 5:15 p.m. ET

Why is red red, and blue blue? (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS— So in the most ambiguously colored of the states, Florida, the Kerry Campaign reported within the hour that voting has been "very smooth." The spokesman, Matthew Miller, says the campaign has received word of less than 20 voter challenges and only about 1,000 provisional ballots being issued. The Bush campaign agrees on those rough figures and everybody seems stunned by the smoothness, though there was one confirmed case of that Internet animation gag coming true. You probably got it in an e-mail: a guy trying to vote for Kerry on one of the touch-screens, and various "are you sure you don't mean Bush" messages appearing instead. It apparently happened to one voter in Pinellas County, where she needed six tries to get "Bush" from popping up, even after she repeatedly hit "Kerry."

In an ominous sign for those of you who want the Red/Blue election decision and Christmas to coincide, however, they cleared it up.

Which reminds me: where the hell did this Red/Blue stuff come from, anyway?

If you happen to pull down your VHS copy of NBC’s coverage of the 1976 Election (what? You didn’t roll tape? Regretting that now, aren’t you?) you’ll see David Brinkley and Tom Brokaw and John Chancellor referring to a huge map not very much dissimilar from the ones we’re showing tonight on MSNBC. It’s full of Red States and Blue States.

The Blue States, obviously, belong to then-President Gerald Ford, the Republican.

The Red States, naturally, belong to his challenger, Jimmy Carter, the Democrat.

Huh?

The newspaper The Bergen Record noted this curious historical fact in an article a few weeks ago which tried to trace our now standardized, clichéd representation of this nation as Red Nation and Blue Nation. Turns out the standardization is a pretty damn recent thing— 2000, in fact.

As late as 1980 on ABC, Red was for the Democrats, Blue for the Republicans (and white for the not-yet-called states). So there’s your color scheme: Red, White, and Blue.

So the Red and the Blue have no more historical status than four years’ worth. And in the big picture, they are interchangeable— the Washington Post not only noted today that its color maps of the election were Red/Democrat, Blue/Republican as late as 2000, but that the first reversal appears to have occured on MSNBC just a week before the 2000 vote.

They thus fall into that category filled with similar contradictions and reversals. When the National Hockey League was divided into two divisions, American and Canadian, a now-defunct team called the New York Americans played, incongruously, in the Canadian Division. And for years, the official name of the American League baseball team in the capital was “The Washington Nationals.”

One further historical curiosity missed by The Record and others researching the Red/Blue phenomenon. Before World War II, when there were only about five national radio networks, NBC owned not just one, but two of them. They were each identified as NBC, with the only differentiation being that the one originally owned by RCA was called the NBC Blue Network, and the one purchased by RCA from AT&T was called the NBC Red Network. The government later forced RCA to sell one of the networks (Blue) to the man behind Life Savers candy - he re-named it ABC in 1946.

Two closing personal notes. Not to encourage you to do this, but if you happen to catch the CNN shot from the new Time-Warner Center in New York (they used it during Crossfire), you can see my house on the right. I opted not to hang out a “CNN *****” sign on my balcony.

And it was very entertaining to see on the “Citizen Journalists” page here a shot of a college freshman— Danny David— proudly holding his absentee ballot, one of which was provided last June to each member of his high school graduating class.

Turns out the high school is in Hastings-On-Hudson, New York— my hometown.

• November 2, 2004 | 1:34 p.m. ET

Gore's Law and the Redskin Rule (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK - Somebody’s Law (we don’t know whose; fittingly, he forgot to name it after himself) tells us that if we ignore a prospective logistical disaster, it’ll promptly occur, but if we’re fully prepared for it, especially if we’ve spent large sums of money in the preparation, it won’t happen.

Perhaps we can name the law after Al Gore. Or pick a television executive. For, clearly, the election four years ago was a confluence of everything the media and the politicians had ignored: the failure of exit polling, the naked partisanship of judges and state officials, the haste of tv newsrooms, the premature jocularity of the candidates themselves.

Well, we have so many counterweights in place this year - from the daily e-mails reminding us tv types that we don’t get a bonus for “extrapolating” data (i.e., making stuff up), to nearly every analyst predicting a late night or a late morning or a late autumn decision, to the roaming packs of election attorneys foraging across the countryside like those cloned Homer Simpsons in the Halloween episode a few years back, to the voters who apparently this morning followed the old joke: Vote Early, Vote Often.

With that much preparation, Gore’s Law insists - nothing will happen.

The President and Senator Kerry haven’t agreed on much, but they both insisted the election would be decided tonight, not next month. We had two Secretaries of Commerce on Countdown last night, Don Evans and Mickey Kantor, and they said the election would be decided tonight (although when Evans asked one question I asked each of them - if you had a choice of seeing your opponent win, or having the process dragged out as badly or worse than it was in 2000, which would you choose - Evans said the country survived the 2000 process quite nicely, thus scaring the shinola out of me).

So, if Gore’s Law predicts a decision tonight, what are the augurs about who?

— On the ground at mid-day, we have the Miami Herald’s reports of the voting going surprisingly quickly and smoothly in Florida (sure it is: those touch-pad machines are actually just modified Speak & Spell toys for children - the votes aren’t being recorded at all). Craig Crawford said last night that the early exit polling from Florida saw heavy Democratic voting, which surprised both of us, and when Secretary Evans reported that his party would have the greatest get-out-the-vote-effort in history, John Harwood of The Wall Street Journal said “they’d better” because if they don’t, the Democrats will.

— We have the late ruling of the Ohio Appeals Court, voting 2-1 along party lines to let the Republican Piranha Lawyers back in to the polling places to challenge anybody named Dick Tracy or Mary Poppins who shows up, having been enrolled by the guy who claims he got paid in crack cocaine. Does anybody besides me find that entire story just too perfect to be true?

— We have the last set of pre-voting numbers from Zogby. It’s kind of close. As of 5 PM yesterday he has Bush at 252 Electoral Votes and Kerry at 252, with only Pennsylvania (21 votes) and Virginia (14 votes) outstanding - and each state tied. That bodes poorly for Gore’s Law - although I have no idea if Zogby has yet applied the Carter Corollary that he himself pushed so hard once Kerry had sealed the Democratic nomination, namely that the undecideds always break against the incumbent.

The top supporting evidence for Gore’s Law is of course Sunday’s application of The Redskin Rule. I wrote it about it here at (probably too great) length, and then the Kerry-Edwards campaign got it wrong while boasting it. In short, in the 17 elections since the football team became the Redskins, its last home game before the vote has presaged the presidential outcome. Redskins win, and the incumbent party retains the White House; Redskins lose, and the challengers take over. The Redskins lost on Sunday, 28-14, to the Green Bay Packers in a game that even came complete with a rallying Washington touchdown called back due to a penalty flag thrown by Celebrity Referee Antonin Scalia.

You know, that joke killed at Democracy Plaza on Sunday.

Immediately after the Green Bay victory, somebody in the Kerry-Edwards camp issued an overwrought news release, complete with an overwrought quote attributed to the candidate, claiming that the streak dated back to Herbert Hoover and Herbert Hoover lost all those jobs and so did George Bush and Herbert Hoover then lost his job and so will George Bush.

Down, Sparky!

The Redskin Rule dates back not to 1932 (Hoover) but 1936 (Alf Landon). In 1932, the franchise, then still called The Boston Football Braves, actually won its last home game, against The Staten Island Stapletons (yes, Staten Island had an NFL team), which should have predicted Hoover retaining the White House, not losing it.

I do all this research about this thus-far infallible forecaster and you guys don’t bother to read it?

Anyway, the Redskin Rule says nothing about margin of victory, length of election, or the beneficiary understanding it and not keeping his big bazoo closed long enough to avoid possibly jinxing it. So, if it doesn’t work this time, John Kerry has nobody to blamebut himself.

Got something to say? E-mail me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• October 31, 2004 | 9:47 a.m. ET

Of Rehearals and Reelections (Keith Olbermann)

NEW YORK - After six months telling us that Tuesday is going to be tighter than Britney Spears’ pants, the murmurs from the cognoscenti during our MSNBC election rehearsal last night reflected a much older conventional wisdom: that incumbents never have tight elections, win or lose.

The bigger-margin-than-we-thought talk was not the result of the rehearsal. For the pure purposes of practicing, elaborate story lines are created (for the paranoid of both parties, it’s your worst fear come true: the same people who’ll bring you the election results are making stuff up on-camera). But even these were relatively balanced from a smorgasboard of scenarios: a big Kerry win, a big Bush win, lines of thousands waiting to vote and polling hours extended in a swing state, early reports of voters being blocked from the polling places - all that good juicy political science fiction stuff that, if we had been thinking, we should have recorded, edited down, and sold as a DVD.

No, the “somebody by 30 Electoral votes” talk was history itself speaking: the Clinton and Reagan second-term victories, the Bush 41 and especially the Carter defeats. Carter’s was invoked because on the Friday before it, the 1980 election looked as tight as, well, to adjust the cultural reference, Cher’s pants, yet Reagan wound up walking away on Tuesday. The theory goes that by now, the electorate has pretty much made its mind up on the incumbent: they either want him back or they don’t.

The benefit of the large-margin doubt talk seemed to be mostly in the President’s favor, and I have to assume that has to do with the Osama Bin Laden tape from Friday. I follow the logic - there is a significant tide of terror anxiety prevalent among the proverbial Soccer Moms (that’s why otherwise Democratic-controlled New Jersey is believed to be in play).

But I guess what I don’t follow is the logic of the Soccer Moms.

I saw or read nearly the entirety of the Bin Laden tape and it’s the damnedest one yet. I can’t understand how it could be viewed as being beneficial to Mr. Bush. On a fundamental level, it’s clearly recently-recorded - the Ramadan reference suggests maybe as late as a week ago - and he’s clearly alive and healthy. I can’t imagine that among the Soccer Moms and the others dismissing all other issues to focus their vote solely on the terror threat, that one of the other primal reactions in their synapses wouldn’t be “Umm, how come we haven’t caught him yet? Who’s in charge of that?”

And to anybody who listened to the madman’s comments had to feel perversely liberated. Unless the tape was an elaborate, subtle feint to suddenly get this country to let it’s guard down (a very poor bet, to say nothing of exhibiting nuanced psychological planning in which the terrorists have shown no prior interest whatsoever) - Al-Qaeda’s sole intervention in this election will have turned out to be its head gangster to announcing that it didn’t really matter to him who anybody voted for, because the re-election of Bush or the election of Kerry wasn’t going to impact how Al-Qaeda wants to impact us.

This has to, in some minds anyway, have reduced the apocalyptic anticipations which the Bush-Cheney campaign has repeatedly invoked. Bin Laden may not be one for subtle actions, but it can’t have been accidental that he appeared without his trademark sub-machine gun. It’s not like he forgot it back in the cave. Don’t get me wrong on this: I’m not buying his explanations nor his posture as a borderline-sane geo-politician. But those intentions were clear. That was a policy speech. In his lunacy, he probably thought it was statesmanship.

I may be wildly wrong about its impact in the days before this election. It may very well be that the It-Helps-Bush crowd is right, that the knee jerk reaction will certify the re-election: There’s Osama, Better Keep Bush. Back in my sports days when people asked me for a prediction on a game I used to be smart enough to invoke the great sportscaster Red Barber’s standard reply: If I knew in advance who’d win, they wouldn’t have to bother playing the game, would they?

But I’m covering news now, therefore I am dumber.

And I think the political analysts have forgotten to examine the psychology of an electorate under the stress of war and fear. For the longest time, even when Mr. Bush’s approval ratings were at their apex in the post-Afghanistan and immediate post-Saddam periods, I kept wondering if he wouldn’t fall victim to the Winston Churchill effect.

Mid-20th Century British politics aren’t taught much in American schools any more, but it has fascinated me always that in the spring of 1945, with Hitler dead, England’s gamble to fight the Nazis having been vindicated, and his own gallantry and leadership acclaimed universally, that the British promptly voted Churchill out of office in favor of a first-time Prime Minister in Clement Attlee. It astonished Churchill, and British pollsters, and world leaders in general.

There were many factors - the country clamored for universal health care (sound familiar?) and Churchill loathed the concept. But I always wished someone had conducted an exit poll, not with statisticians or political volunteers, but with psychologists. I continue to wonder if the British voters, in the brief quietude of their voting booths, hadn’t looked at Churchill’s name and seen not just victory, but also death and destruction and most of all anxiety, and if they hadn’t said “Thanks for getting us through that, Buddy. We’d like to forget that now. Bye bye.”

What will sound more loudly in the psyches of more voters on Tuesday? The idea that terrorists are still an extraordinary threat, or the idea that George Bush’s presidency, whether through his fault or merely by the circumstances of history, has been a time of stress and death and war and falling skyscrapers and terror color codes - things we may or may not be personally able to alter or impact in any way - but which we really wish would just go away.

When offered an incumbent for a second term, a country has always tended to decide not just on a man, but also on an era. I’ve wondered for two years if the Americans of our time would choose - rightly or wrongly, thoughtfully or naively - to ask Mr. Bush to go away, and take the years 2001-2004 with him.

The history of the large margins for or against an incumbent with which I started these meanderings, and which we’ll address in a special Sunday edition of Countdown tonight, includes FDR and Abraham Lincoln. It’s a shocking fact to look at the 1944 vote, in the midst of a World War the necessity and conduct of which few had any doubts, and see that Roosevelt gained a fourth term by only 53-46 over Thomas E. Dewey.

And as to our greatest war-time leader, the history books show Lincoln having handled General George McLellan pretty easily in 1864, 55-45. Less easily remembered is that as late as that August, Lincoln was certain he wouldn’t be returned to office, his greatest media ally Horace Greeley wrote of how the nation begged for peace at any price, and that leaders in his own party were calculating if there was still time to nominate another candidate.

People wanted it to all go away.

And then Sherman captured Atlanta.

The videotape may remind voters, perhaps in a deeply subconscious way, that Mr. Bush has not made Osama Bin Laden go away, and there doesn’t seem to be an Atlanta on the schedule between now and Tuesday night.

Thoughts? email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

• October 29, 2004| 11:13 a.m. ET

Election to be decided Sunday (Keith Olbermann)

New York— Well, so much for saving the Bill O’Reilly tapes. We got up to about $175,000 in your pledges (excuse me for a 1970ism, but how far out is that?) but we couldn’t top Bill O’Reilly, who may have paid a year’s salary ($2M-$10M, says The New York Daily News) to keep the tapes from showing up at Tower Records. We’ll have to settle for those lovely transcripts and the knowledge that you can never get all the toothpaste back in the tube, nor all the soap out of the loofah.

We now rejoin the election, already in progress.

And, as teased here these last two days, we might be told Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, or not until January 15th, but, if history holds, we will know by around 4 p.m. EST Sunday who will be president next year. There are many irrelevant indicators out there on which to hang a forecast (the NASCAR dads, the stock market, Robert Novak), but to my knowledge only one logical fallacy has stood the test of time. So here goes.

By definition, the logical fallacy, of course is simply this: Event A occurs. Then Event B occurs. Therefore, Event A caused Event B. Obviously, it’s simply not true. Nonetheless, when the presidential election is this close, we look for anything and everything that might predict the outcome— whether common-sense or logically fallacious.

And as logical fallacies go, we are privileged to have a doozy, one that seems to have correctly predicted the last seventeen Presidential Elections.

Terror? The economy? The incumbent’s final rating in the Gallup poll? Turnout in Ohio?

Nope.

It’s the Washington Redskins.

The football team with the politically incorrect name has been anything but incorrect in presaging which party will win the White House. The franchise began its life in Boston in 1932, when George Preston Marshall bought a dormant team that had gone belly-up in Newark. Originally named after the baseball team in town— the Braves— they were re-christened the Redskins in 1933, and thus it would not be until November 1st, 1936, that the ‘Skins played their first game during an election season.

In their last game home before the vote, the Boston Redskins beat the Chicago Cardinals 13 to 10. And two days later, Franklin Roosevelt was reelected president. By the time FDR ran again in 1940, Marshall had moved the Redskins to Griffith Stadium in Washington. And, again, in their last home game before that election, the Redskins beat Pittsburgh 37-10, and Roosevelt was returned to office.

On November 5th, 1944, it was Cleveland at Washington. Redskins won 14-10. Two days later, Roosevelt was re-re-reelected. And four years later, they repeated the trick, preceding Harry Truman’s unexpected holding of the White House for the Democrats. The Redskins were now 4-0 in their “election day games”— and so were the Democrats.

But on November 2nd, 1952, the Redskins, in their last home game before the vote, lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers 24-23. And days later, Democrat Adlai Stevenson lost the presidency to Dwight Eisenhower. In '56, it was a pre-election home victory for Washington, and a re-election for Ike.

And in 1960, the tanking Redskins were clobbered in that last home game before the vote, by Cleveland, by 21 points. Nine days later, it was John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon, by about 21 votes. And by now, the pattern had emerged. If the Redskins won their final home game before a presidential election, the incumbent party kept the White House. If the Redskins lost that game, so did the party in power.

And this, remarkably, has held up:

1964: Skins 27, Bears 20. Lyndon Johnson retains the office.

1968: Washington loses the last home game before the vote, to the New York Giants. The Democrats fall out of power, in favor of Richard Nixon

1972: Skins win; so does Nixon.

1976: Washington loses to Dallas; Republican Gerald Ford loses to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

1980: They lose again; Carter loses to Republican Ronald Reagan.

1984: Washington wins, Reagan wins again.

1988: Washington wins, George W. Bush wins.

1992: Washington loses to the Giants 24 to 7, and the incumbent party is bounced again: Bush out, Clinton in.

1996: Clinton's re-election is foretold: the Redskins win their final home game before the vote, against Indianapolis.

Going into the Bush-Gore race of 2000, the outcome of Washington's last home game before the election had coincided perfectly for 16 consecutive games, and 16 consecutive elections: 10 Redskins wins, each of which is followed by the incumbent president and/or party retaining the office, and six Redskins losses, each of which is followed by the incumbent president and/or party losing the office.

On October 30th, 2000, the Washington Redskins, with, to that point, 6 victories and 2 losses, hosted the Tennessee Titans, who had 6 victories and 1 loss. In betting circles it was a virtual toss-up, with a slight edge to Washington because it was playing at home. The Redskins scored first and led 7-0, giving an early hint that the Democrats would retain the White House. But Tennessee rallied to go in front 20-7, and hold on for a 27-21 win. It’s a six-point victory, and, six weeks later, a five-electoral-vote victory for George W. Bush— of the party that had been out of office, the Republicans.

Now it would be really spooky if those 17 games had all surprises, upsets as they call them. I was disappointed to find, after having gone back and calculated won-lost records and intangibles, that, in fact, all but three times the Redskins were favored to win and did, or they were expected to lose and did. Then again, how many elections in that same span have really been upsets? Truman, anecdotally if not truly; maybe Reagan over Carter, probably Bush over Gore— and no, the Redskins’ game upsets do not perfectly coincide with the election upsets.

Still, it's some streak. The Redskins have played home games before 17 Presidential Elections, and only 17 Presidential Elections, and their results have easily and without qualification forecast the outcomes of all 17.

And now for the 64-billion dollar question. When is/was the Redskins’ last game before this year's election? The one in which the prophecy says, if they win, George Bush is re-elected, and, if they lose, John Kerry takes office? It’s Sunday, against the Green Bay Packers, who’ve won two in a row. Who play in Lambeau Field— which Senator Kerry infamously misidentified earlier in the campaign as Lambert Field. The Redskins, meanwhile, have already suffered a four-game losing streak and found that the return of Coach Joe Gibbs (himself a NASCAR owner and presumably a NASCAR dad) has not been the panacea Washington sports fans always expect as if it was an unfunded federal mandate.

Oddsmakers favor Green Bay by two or two-and-a-half points, which, as any politician— or football gambler— can tell you, is well inside the margin of error.

But this is an ironclad sports tradition:

Skins win, incumbents stay in;

Skins lose, incumbents are old news.

An ironclad sports tradition, just like the fact that in 122 years of post-season competition, no baseball team has ever come back from down three-nothing to win a playoff series.

Oh, wait— didn’t somebody just do that?

Email me at KOlbermann@msnbc.com

Posted by Lisa at 02:06 PM
Judge Rules Guantanamo Trials Unlawful

They're calling this decision a setback for Bush's policy.

It's definitely a plus for democracy.

Judge Says Detainees' Trials Are Unlawful

By Carol D. Leonnig and John Mintz for The Washington Post.


The special trials established to determine the guilt or innocence of prisoners at the U.S. military prison in Cuba are unlawful and cannot continue in their current form, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

In a setback for the Bush administration, U.S. District Judge James Robertson found that detainees at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions and therefore entitled to the protections of international and military law -- which the government has declined to grant them.

The decision came in a lawsuit filed by the first alleged al Qaeda member facing trial before what the government calls "military commissions." The decision upends -- for now -- the administration's strategy for prosecuting hundreds of alleged al Qaeda and Taliban detainees accused of terrorist crimes.

Human rights advocates, foreign governments and the detainees' attorneys have contended that the rules governing military commissions are unfairly stacked against the defendants. But Robertson's ruling is the first by a federal judge to assert that the commissions, which took nearly two years to get underway, are invalid.

The Bush administration denounced the ruling as wrongly giving special rights to terrorists and announced that it will ask a higher court for an emergency stay and reversal of Robertson's decision. Military officers at Guantanamo immediately halted commission proceedings in light of the ruling.

"We vigorously disagree. . . . The judge has put terrorism on the same legal footing as legitimate methods of waging war," said Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo. "The Constitution entrusts to the president the responsibility to safeguard the nation's security. The Department of Justice will continue to defend the president's ability and authority under the Constitution to fulfill that duty."

Robertson ruled that the military commissions, which Bush authorized the Pentagon to revive after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, are neither lawful nor proper. Under commission rules, the government could, for example, exclude people accused of terrorist acts from some commission sessions and deny them access to evidence, which the judge said would violate basic military law.

Robertson said the government should have held special hearings for detainees to determine whether they qualified for prisoner-of-war protections when they were captured, as required by the Geneva Conventions. Instead, the administration declared the captives "enemy combatants" and decided to afford them some of the protections spelled out by the Geneva accords.

Robertson ordered that until the government provides the hearing, it can prosecute the detainees only in courts-martial, under long-established military law.

Robertson issued his decision in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a detainee captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and accused of being a member of al Qaeda. Robertson's opinion is expected to set the standard for treatment of other detainees before military commissions. So far, four Guantanamo Bay detainees have been ordered to stand trial...

Kevin Barry, a retired Coast Guard judge who is critical of the Pentagon's legal justifications for the Guantanamo Bay detentions, called Robertson's ruling a "remarkable" decision that "will give heart to all who think the rule of law should apply in the Afghanistan conflict." Barry said the war on terrorism is the first U.S. war since the Geneva Conventions' adoption in 1949 in which the government has not accorded POW status to enemy fighters.

"Even the Viet Cong, who were farmers by day and fighters at night, were accorded that status," he said. "The judge got these issues right."

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111004X.shtml

Judge Says Detainees' Trials Are Unlawful
By Carol D. Leonnig and John Mintz
The Washington Post

Tuesday 09 November 2004

Ruling is setback for Bush policy.

The special trials established to determine the guilt or innocence of prisoners at the U.S. military prison in Cuba are unlawful and cannot continue in their current form, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

In a setback for the Bush administration, U.S. District Judge James Robertson found that detainees at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions and therefore entitled to the protections of international and military law -- which the government has declined to grant them.

The decision came in a lawsuit filed by the first alleged al Qaeda member facing trial before what the government calls "military commissions." The decision upends -- for now -- the administration's strategy for prosecuting hundreds of alleged al Qaeda and Taliban detainees accused of terrorist crimes.

Human rights advocates, foreign governments and the detainees' attorneys have contended that the rules governing military commissions are unfairly stacked against the defendants. But Robertson's ruling is the first by a federal judge to assert that the commissions, which took nearly two years to get underway, are invalid.

The Bush administration denounced the ruling as wrongly giving special rights to terrorists and announced that it will ask a higher court for an emergency stay and reversal of Robertson's decision. Military officers at Guantanamo immediately halted commission proceedings in light of the ruling.

"We vigorously disagree. . . . The judge has put terrorism on the same legal footing as legitimate methods of waging war," said Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo. "The Constitution entrusts to the president the responsibility to safeguard the nation's security. The Department of Justice will continue to defend the president's ability and authority under the Constitution to fulfill that duty."

Robertson ruled that the military commissions, which Bush authorized the Pentagon to revive after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, are neither lawful nor proper. Under commission rules, the government could, for example, exclude people accused of terrorist acts from some commission sessions and deny them access to evidence, which the judge said would violate basic military law.

Robertson said the government should have held special hearings for detainees to determine whether they qualified for prisoner-of-war protections when they were captured, as required by the Geneva Conventions. Instead, the administration declared the captives "enemy combatants" and decided to afford them some of the protections spelled out by the Geneva accords.

Robertson ordered that until the government provides the hearing, it can prosecute the detainees only in courts-martial, under long-established military law.

Robertson issued his decision in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a detainee captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 and accused of being a member of al Qaeda. Robertson's opinion is expected to set the standard for treatment of other detainees before military commissions. So far, four Guantanamo Bay detainees have been ordered to stand trial.

The unusual coalition of defense lawyers and conservative military law experts who banded together to challenge the commissions hailed the decision as a major victory in efforts to level the playing field for the detainees, some of whom have been held for nearly three years.

"We are thrilled by this ruling," said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based group that represents the families of some Guantanamo Bay prisoners. "Military commissions were a bad idea and an embarrassment. The refusal of the Bush administration to apply the Geneva Conventions was a legal and moral outrage."

Kevin Barry, a retired Coast Guard judge who is critical of the Pentagon's legal justifications for the Guantanamo Bay detentions, called Robertson's ruling a "remarkable" decision that "will give heart to all who think the rule of law should apply in the Afghanistan conflict." Barry said the war on terrorism is the first U.S. war since the Geneva Conventions' adoption in 1949 in which the government has not accorded POW status to enemy fighters.

"Even the Viet Cong, who were farmers by day and fighters at night, were accorded that status," he said. "The judge got these issues right."

The government has been under pressure since June to revise other facets of its strategy for handling the cases of the more than 500 Guantanamo Bay detainees. In a landmark ruling that month, the Supreme Court rejected the government's argument that the president may indefinitely hold and interrogate alleged al Qaeda and Taliban members captured on the battlefield without filing charges or providing them lawyers.

The court ruled that the detainees were entitled to hear the charges against them and challenge their imprisonment in U.S. federal courts. Nearly 70 have filed such challenges, called habeas corpus petitions, in federal courts here.

Since the Supreme Court ruling, the government has begun holding "combatant status review tribunals" at Guantanamo Bay for each detainee to determine whether he should continue to be held. The detainees do not have legal representation at those hearings. So far 317 hearings have been held and 131 cases have been adjudicated, all but one in favor of continued detention.

Douglass Cassel, director of the Center for International Human Rights at the Northwestern University School of Law, said he hopes the Bush administration reconsiders its overall strategy in light of the Supreme Court's June decision and Robertson's ruling yesterday.

"I hope the government sits back and says, 'This is a chance to regain the high ground in the court of public opinion,' " he said. "This decision is of enormous importance to the perceived commitment of the United States to the rule of law."

But Douglas W. Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor, called Robertson "sadly mistaken" for intervening in the case at this point. He said the judge should have postponed any ruling until the military commissions had completed their work.

Eugene R. Fidell, a Washington lawyer specializing in military justice, said it will be difficult for military commissions and status review panels to decide fairly whether a detainee is a prisoner of war, after top executive branch and military leaders have declared all of them enemy combatants, not POWs.

"That's where they got into trouble," Fidell said. "The people driving the train were not people familiar with the military justice system."

-------

Posted by Lisa at 12:32 PM
NY Times Editorial: New Standards For Elections


New Standards for Elections

By The New York Times.


1. A holiday for voting. It's wrong for working people to be forced to choose between standing in a long line to vote and being on time for work. Election Day should be a holiday, to underscore the significance of the event, to give all voters time to cast ballots and to free up more qualified people to serve as poll workers.

2. Early voting. In states that permit it, early voting encourages people to turn out by letting them vote at times that are convenient for them. And it gives election officials and outside groups more time to react to voting problems ranging from faulty voting machines to voter intimidation.

3. Improved electronic voting. For voters to trust electronic voting, there must be a voter-verified paper record of every vote cast, and mandatory recounts of a reasonable percentage of the votes. The computer code should be provided to election officials, and made public so it can be widely reviewed. There should be spot-checks of the software being used on Election Day, as there are of slot machines in Nevada, to ensure that the software in use matches what is on file with election officials.

4. Shorter lines at the polls. Forcing voters to wait five hours, as some did this year, is unreasonable, and it disenfranchises those who cannot afford the wait. There should be standards for the number of voting machines and poll workers per 100 voters, to ensure that waiting times are reasonable and uniform from precinct to precinct.

5. Impartial election administrators. Partisan secretaries of state routinely issued rulings this year that favored their parties and themselves. Decisions about who can vote and how votes will be counted should be made by officials who are not running for higher office or supporting any candidates. Voting machine manufacturers and their employees, and companies that handle ballots, should not endorse or contribute to political candidates.

6. Uniform and inclusive voter registration standards. Registration forms should be simplified, so no one is again disenfranchised for failing to check a superfluous box, as occurred this year in Florida, or for not using heavy enough paper, as occurred in Ohio. The rules should be geared to getting as many qualified voters as possible on the rolls.

7. Accurate and transparent voting roll purges. This year, Florida once again conducted a flawed and apparently partisan purge of its rolls, and went to court to try to keep it secret. There should be clear standards for how purges are done that are made public in advance. Names that are due to be removed should be published, and posted online, well in advance of Election Day.

8. Uniform and voter-friendly standards for counting provisional ballots. A large number of provisional ballots cast by registered voters were thrown out this year because they were handed in at the wrong precinct. There should be a uniform national rule that such ballots count.

9. Upgraded voting machines and improved ballot design. Incredibly, more than 70 percent of the Ohio vote was cast on the infamous punch card ballots, which produce chads and have a high error rate. States should shift to better machines, ideally optical scans, which combine the efficiency of computers and the reliability of a voter-verified paper record. Election officials should get professional help to design ballots that are intuitive and clear, and minimize voter error.

10. Fair and uniform voter ID rules. No voter should lose his right to vote because he is required to produce identification he does not have. ID requirements should allow for an expansive array of acceptable identification. The rules should be posted at every polling place, and poll workers should be carefully trained so no one is turned away, as happened repeatedly this year, for not having ID that was not legally required.

11. An end to minority vote suppression. Protections need to be put in place to prevent Election Day challengers from turning away qualified minority voters or slowing down voting in minority precincts. More must be done to stop the sort of dirty tricks that are aimed at minority voters every year, like fliers distributed in poor neighborhoods warning that people with outstanding traffic tickets are ineligible to vote. Laws barring former felons from voting, which disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, should be rescinded.

12. Improved absentee ballot procedures. Voters outside of their states, including military voters, have a right to receive absentee ballots in a timely fashion, which did not always happen this year. Absentee ballots should be widely available for downloading over the Internet. Voters should not be asked, as military voters were this year, to send their ballots by fax lines or e-mail, denying them a secret ballot.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/opinion/07sun1.html

New Standards for Elections

Published: November 7, 2004


The 2004 election may not have an asterisk next to it the way the 2000 election does, but the mechanics of our democracy remained badly flawed. From untrustworthy electronic voting machines, to partisan secretaries of state, to outrageously long lines at the polls, the election system was far from what voters are entitled to.

It's patently obvious that presidential elections, at least, should be conducted under uniform rules. Voters in Alaska and Texas should not have different levels of protection when it comes to their right to cast a ballot and have it counted. It's ridiculous that citizens who vote in one place have to show picture ID while others do not, that a person who accidentally walks into the wrong polling place can cast a provisional ballot that will be counted in one state but thrown out in another. States may have the right to set their own standards for local elections, but picking the president is a national enterprise.

This is obviously a job for Congress, and it deserves the same kind of persistent, intense lobbying effort that reformers have given the issue of campaign finance. But improvements by the states may be easier to achieve, and will clearly help prod Congress by their good example. Advocates should push every level of government to be part of the solution:

1. A holiday for voting. It's wrong for working people to be forced to choose between standing in a long line to vote and being on time for work. Election Day should be a holiday, to underscore the significance of the event, to give all voters time to cast ballots and to free up more qualified people to serve as poll workers.

2. Early voting. In states that permit it, early voting encourages people to turn out by letting them vote at times that are convenient for them. And it gives election officials and outside groups more time to react to voting problems ranging from faulty voting machines to voter intimidation.

3. Improved electronic voting. For voters to trust electronic voting, there must be a voter-verified paper record of every vote cast, and mandatory recounts of a reasonable percentage of the votes. The computer code should be provided to election officials, and made public so it can be widely reviewed. There should be spot-checks of the software being used on Election Day, as there are of slot machines in Nevada, to ensure that the software in use matches what is on file with election officials.

4. Shorter lines at the polls. Forcing voters to wait five hours, as some did this year, is unreasonable, and it disenfranchises those who cannot afford the wait. There should be standards for the number of voting machines and poll workers per 100 voters, to ensure that waiting times are reasonable and uniform from precinct to precinct.

5. Impartial election administrators. Partisan secretaries of state routinely issued rulings this year that favored their parties and themselves. Decisions about who can vote and how votes will be counted should be made by officials who are not running for higher office or supporting any candidates. Voting machine manufacturers and their employees, and companies that handle ballots, should not endorse or contribute to political candidates.

6. Uniform and inclusive voter registration standards. Registration forms should be simplified, so no one is again disenfranchised for failing to check a superfluous box, as occurred this year in Florida, or for not using heavy enough paper, as occurred in Ohio. The rules should be geared to getting as many qualified voters as possible on the rolls.

7. Accurate and transparent voting roll purges. This year, Florida once again conducted a flawed and apparently partisan purge of its rolls, and went to court to try to keep it secret. There should be clear standards for how purges are done that are made public in advance. Names that are due to be removed should be published, and posted online, well in advance of Election Day.

page 2

8. Uniform and voter-friendly standards for counting provisional ballots. A large number of provisional ballots cast by registered voters were thrown out this year because they were handed in at the wrong precinct. There should be a uniform national rule that such ballots count.

9. Upgraded voting machines and improved ballot design. Incredibly, more than 70 percent of the Ohio vote was cast on the infamous punch card ballots, which produce chads and have a high error rate. States should shift to better machines, ideally optical scans, which combine the efficiency of computers and the reliability of a voter-verified paper record. Election officials should get professional help to design ballots that are intuitive and clear, and minimize voter error.

10. Fair and uniform voter ID rules. No voter should lose his right to vote because he is required to produce identification he does not have. ID requirements should allow for an expansive array of acceptable identification. The rules should be posted at every polling place, and poll workers should be carefully trained so no one is turned away, as happened repeatedly this year, for not having ID that was not legally required.

11. An end to minority vote suppression. Protections need to be put in place to prevent Election Day challengers from turning away qualified minority voters or slowing down voting in minority precincts. More must be done to stop the sort of dirty tricks that are aimed at minority voters every year, like fliers distributed in poor neighborhoods warning that people with outstanding traffic tickets are ineligible to vote. Laws barring former felons from voting, which disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, should be rescinded.

12. Improved absentee ballot procedures. Voters outside of their states, including military voters, have a right to receive absentee ballots in a timely fashion, which did not always happen this year. Absentee ballots should be widely available for downloading over the Internet. Voters should not be asked, as military voters were this year, to send their ballots by fax lines or e-mail, denying them a secret ballot.

This year's election, thankfully, did not end in the kind of breakdown we witnessed in 2000. But that was because of luck. There were many places in the country where, if the vote had been closer, scrutiny of the election process would have produced the same sort of consternation. In a closely divided political world, we cannot depend on a margin for error when it comes to counting votes. We have four years now to make things right.

Making Votes Count: Editorials in this series remain online at nytimes.com/makingvotescount.

Posted by Lisa at 08:16 AM
November 08, 2004
Daily Show Compendium Of Reactions To The Election - Tony Blair, Anti-Bush Demonstrators, and The Shrub "Reaching Out"

This is from the November 4, 2004 program.

Reactions to the Election
(13 MB)

This one includes Tony Blair's latest press conference brown-nose, the Shrub reaching out to people who already share his goals, and the Shrub enforcing the one-question rule while looking forward to spending his new found "political capital."

It also has footage of the Shrub being misinformed about Arafat being dead and his reaction to the news. (A fact which was clarified with a one sentence press conference.)


The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 10:32 PM
Soldier Drops Case Against Army In Exchange For Honorable Discharge - Sued The Army On the Basis that the Back Door Draft Violates Constitutional Rights Against "Involuntary Servitude"


Honorable Discharge in Iraq Deployment Case

By for The LA Times

This is great news. However, I'm also totally confused by this, because this post explains how soldiers can't sue the military because of a Supreme Court decision from the 1950s.

I am not confused about the results though. It would appear that this guy sued the Army and won (even if only because they "settled" by letting him resign like he wanted in the first place.)

If this guy was able to get an honorable discharge from at least attempting to sue the government, all of these soldiers who are having their tours extended against their will should maybe do the same. (Maybe a class action even.)

If it needs to go all the way up to the Supreme Court, let it go. The more cases the better..

From the article:



"The Army had not acted on his resignation request until he sued the government.

Ferriola's suit had charged that the Army's deployment order, dated Oct. 8, violated his constitutional rights against "involuntary servitude " and breached his military contract..."

Capt. Jay Ferriola drops his lawsuit against the Army for assigning him to active duty after his contract had expired and he had resigned.

NEW YORK - The Army has agreed to honorably discharge a captain who challenged his assignment to Iraq in court, saying he had properly resigned...

Ferriola, a New Yorker who had served in South Korea and Bosnia, said he brought his lawsuit two weeks ago because he was assigned to Iraq even though he had told the Army in June that he was resigning because his eight-year term was finished.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-discharge6nov06,1,1918171.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Here's the truthout link to it:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110904X.shtml

Honorable Discharge in Iraq Deployment Case
The Los Angeles Times

Saturday 06 November 2004

Capt. Jay Ferriola drops his lawsuit against the Army for assigning him to active duty after his contract had expired and he had resigned.

NEW YORK - The Army has agreed to honorably discharge a captain who challenged his assignment to Iraq in court, saying he had properly resigned.

Jay Ferriola, 31, emerged smiling from U.S. District Court on Friday after his lawyer, Barry Slotnick, told a judge that Ferriola was withdrawing his legal challenge because the Army had formally and honorably discharged him.

"I'm very happy," Ferriola said.

Ferriola, a New Yorker who had served in South Korea and Bosnia, said he brought his lawsuit two weeks ago because he was assigned to Iraq even though he had told the Army in June that he was resigning because his eight-year term was finished.

The Army had not acted on his resignation request until he sued the government.

"It wasn't a fear of going over," Ferriola said. "I didn't want to lose 18 months of my life whether I was going to Iraq or Paris."

In a similar case in California, however, a federal judge on Friday declined to block the deployment to Iraq of an Army National Guardsman who said his duty time was wrongly extended under the military "stop-loss" policy.

The cases reflect a sensitive issue over how the United States maintains its level of armed forces in Iraq, where an intense insurgency has prompted Pentagon policy makers to seek ways to supply troops.

Ferriola's suit had charged that the Army's deployment order, dated Oct. 8, violated his constitutional rights against "involuntary servitude" and breached his military contract.

Ferriola, who had enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in exchange for a scholarship at Virginia Military Institute, completed his eight years of service with the Army in February, and resigned in June.

In the California case, a National Guardsman listed in court documents as John Doe had filed a lawsuit last month challenging the stop-loss policy.

The military has extended the man's service term and plans to send him to Iraq in two weeks. The federal judge in Sacramento on Friday denied Doe's request for a preliminary injunction to block the deployment.

The judge said Doe's challenge appeared premature because his original period of enlistment was not due to expire until April 30, 2005. Doe has been assigned to a 545-day Iraq tour that would extend his total time under arms by nearly a year.

Doe's attorney, Michael Sorgen, said he would appeal the judge's ruling because the soldier was expected to be shipped out soon. The judge is due to hear the merits of the suit later this month.

Posted by Lisa at 09:51 PM
The Communists Weigh-in On The Election

Update 9:52 pm: In re-reading this, a thought occurs to me: Can anyone help me out with some data supporting the numbers in the second paragraph? Thx! - lisa

Someone emailed this to me, and I thought it was interesting.

It was written by Carl Dix, the National Spokesperson of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, and a cofounder of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality.

It reads like it was written before or during the election, rather than afterwards.

We disagree on the point that I do believe that voting Bush out of office is a postivie step in the right direction. Or would have been...or will be...or, well, you get the picture.


Another Stolen Election? -- Time For Serious Resistance!
by Carl Dix

Black people have had to fight fiercely for every gain. From slave revolts down thru people being killed just for trying to register to vote, every step of the way has been marked by struggle to force the authorities to grant basic rights. Now today the right to vote is being snatched back from many Black and Latino people.

Am I exaggerating? Not one bit. Earlier this year, Florida's Secretary of State issued a list of 47,000 "felons" who would be ineligible to vote. Most of them were Black. Florida was forced to make the list public, and it was found to contain thousands of errors, including having hundreds of people who were listed as being convicted in the future. This is on top of the 94,000 people, again mostly Black, who were stricken from the voting rolls by a similarly error filled list in 2000, most of whom have not still not been put back on the voting lists!

Ohio is using an old state law about the kind of paper voter registrations must be on to invalidate newly registered Black voters. The Republican Party has lined up thousands of "poll watchers," who are really political thugs, to challenge Latinos and Blacks to present proof that they are citizens or that they live in the precinct they're voting in on election day. This is another rerun of 2000 when some "poll watchers" wore shirts that falsely implied they were federal police to intimidate people from even trying to vote. Additionally, corporations tied to the Republicans have made electronic voting machines that leave no way to check the accuracy of their count that will be used in states across the country.

All this is on top of the way the criminal injustice system works to criminalize Black and Latino people. Youth of color are routinely jacked up by the cops, beaten down and arrested for nothing more than being the wrong color or having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is part of the reason why half of the two million people in jail in the US are Black.

Bush and company are out to disenfranchise millions of Black and other minority voters. THIS POINTS TO THE PROSPECT OF A STOLEN ELECTION IN 2004.
This is what the Republicans did in 2000, and the Democrats let them get away with it. They didn't build a fight to stop it and stood in the way of others who wanted to fight it. Things must be different this time. There must be massive resistance to any and all attempts by Bush and company to steal the presidency again!

Another Stolen Election? -- Time For Serious Resistance!
by Carl Dix

Black people have had to fight fiercely for every gain. From slave revolts down thru people being killed just for trying to register to vote, every step of the way has been marked by struggle to force the authorities to grant basic rights. Now today the right to vote is being snatched back from many Black and Latino people.

Am I exaggerating? Not one bit. Earlier this year, Florida's Secretary of State issued a list of 47,000 "felons" who would be ineligible to vote. Most of them were Black. Florida was forced to make the list public, and it was found to contain thousands of errors, including having hundreds of people who were listed as being convicted in the future. This is on top of the 94,000 people, again mostly Black, who were stricken from the voting rolls by a similarly error filled list in 2000, most of whom have not still not been put back on the voting lists!

Ohio is using an old state law about the kind of paper voter registrations must be on to invalidate newly registered Black voters. The Republican Party has lined up thousands of "poll watchers," who are really political thugs, to challenge Latinos and Blacks to present proof that they are citizens or that they live in the precinct they're voting in on election day. This is another rerun of 2000 when some "poll watchers" wore shirts that falsely implied they were federal police to intimidate people from even trying to vote. Additionally, corporations tied to the Republicans have made electronic voting machines that leave no way to check the accuracy of their count that will be used in states across the country.
All this is on top of the way the criminal injustice system works to criminalize Black and Latino people. Youth of color are routinely jacked up by the cops, beaten down and arrested for nothing more than being the wrong color or having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is part of the reason why half of the two million people in jail in the US are Black.

Bush and company are out to disenfranchise millions of Black and other minority voters. THIS POINTS TO THE PROSPECT OF A STOLEN ELECTION IN 2004.
This is what the Republicans did in 2000, and the Democrats let them get away with it. They didn't build a fight to stop it and stood in the way of others who wanted to fight it. Things must be different this time. There must be massive resistance to any and all attempts by Bush and company to steal the presidency again!

Much is at stake. Bush and company have set the country on a dangerous course--a "War On Terror" (WOT), which is really a power move aimed at keeping the US the dominant imperialist power in the world. It includes the illegitimate, immoral and illegal occupation of Iraq, an intensifying repressive clamp down in the US and the promise of more wars and more repression for generations to come. The attempts to steal the election thru thuggery and manipulating the vote count is an extension of the fascist direction they have the country on. Many, many people are agonizing over what can and must be done to stop all this.

As a revolutionary communist, I have to say that voting Bush out isn't going to reverse this direction. Kerry and the Democrats provide no answer to this. The terms on which this election is being fought out don't include should the US occupy Iraq or not, or should the repressive laws and policies be reversed. Instead the terms for this election come down to who would be the better commander in chief for the WOT! People who want to vote against the occupation, can't do that. People who want to vote against the USA PATRIOT Act in this election can't do that either. That's why I say the will of the people cannot and will not be exercised in this election.

We can't rely on the Democrats to lead the fight to stop Bush and his crew from stealing this election. We have to take the initiative into our hands and rely on ourselves to win this fight. The Republican Party will have its thousands of poll watching thugs at voting sites nationwide. They must be met by thousands of determined people in the streets declaring that they will not sit by while Bush steals another election. There must be massive resistance to this and to the whole agenda Bush and company have set in motion.

And we need to go beyond resistance. It's going to take revolution, millions of people rising up to overthrow this imperialist ruling class and going on to build a whole new society in place of this one to solve all the problems this system forces countless millions in the US and millions more worldwide to endure once and for all. There is leadership that exists to lead the masses in doing just that. Bob Avakian, the chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party has analyzed the accomplishments and shortcomings of previous revolutionary societies and developed a vision of how to make revolution and how to involve the masses of people in building a new society after seizing power. A society that is no longer dominated by a rich capitalist class, where whites no longer lord it over people of color and men no longer dominate women. Avakian is addressing all the questions that would confront us in preparing for and making revolution here in the belly of the beast, as we used to put it in the 1960'S. (Interested readers can find writings by Avakian at http://www.bobavakian.net)

The ballot box has never been where the direction of the country has been decided. Nor has it been where issues of major concern for the people have been decided. But it is intolerable that Bush and company are trying to steal this election. It is a reflection of how serious things are in the US that they can't even allow the election to go down without the group in power trying to rig the result. This can't be allowed to happen. It must be met with determined resistance.
* * *
CARL DIX is a longtime revolutionary political activist. Carl is the National Spokesperson of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, and a cofounder of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality. A Vietnam-era veteran, Carl was one of the Fort Lewis 6 active duty GI's who refused orders to Vietnam. To can contact Carl, e-mail him at:comradecarl@hotmail.com or call (866) 841-9139 x2670.

Posted by Lisa at 06:34 PM
Daily Show Interview With Chuck Schumer (D) New York

This is from the November 3, 2004 program.

Interview with Chuck Schumer - Part 1 of 2
(9 MB)

Interview with Chuck Schumer - Part 2 of 2
(7 MB)



The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 06:13 PM
Nader Requests A Recount In New Hampshire

Even though I personally feel that Nader should have dropped out of the election the day before, at least he has the guts to ask for a recount.

No word yet on any response from the GAO to the letter sent on Friday by three Democratic congressmen requesting a formal investigation.

The complete letter is included below (underneath the quote that goes with this story).

Nader requests N.H. vote recount

By Kevin Landrigan for the Telegraph Online.


Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader requested a hand recount of ballots in New Hampshire after getting seven-tenths of 1 percent of the vote.

“We have received reports of irregularities in the vote reported on the AccuVote Diebold Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New Hampshire,’’ Nader wrote.

“These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5 percent to 15 percent over what was expected. Problems in these electronic voting machines and optical scanners are being reported in machines in a variety of states.’’

Nader’s recount request came in as a fax at 4:59 p.m., one minute before the deadline.

The application is not legal, however, because it did not come with payment, according to Assistant Attorney General Bud Fitch.

“At this point, we aren’t considering it to be a valid request,’’ he said.

Anyone who loses by more than 1 percent of the vote has to pay for a recount, he said, noting the cost statewide could be $80,000.

Nader can appeal that decision to the state Ballot Law Commission...

Gardner said his staff intends to meet today to schedule the 14 recounts that were legally requested - three state Senate elections and 11 for seats in the 400-person House of Representatives.

The recounts requested on Friday included Hillsborough County District 27, the Hudson-Litchfield-Pelham district that elected 13 representatives on Tuesday.

Hudson Democrat Donna Marie Marceau requested the recount after finishing 32 votes away from the 13th-place finisher.

Here's the letter that Nader faxed over:


November 5, 2004

Via fax: 603-271-6316

To The Secretary of State of New Hampshire:

The Nader/Camejo campaign requests a hand recount of the ballots in the
presidential election in New Hampshire. Numerous voting rights activists have
requested that we seek a recount of this vote.

We have received reports of irregularities in the vote reported on the
AccuVote Diebold Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New
Hampshire. These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5% to 15% over
what was expected. Problems in these electronic voting machines and optical
scanners are being reported in machines in a variety of states.
We are requesting that the state undertake this recount or a statistically
significant sample audit of these vote counts.
We would like to make sure every vote counts and is counted accurately.

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041106/NEWS02/111060040/-1/news

Nader requests N.H. vote recount

By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Telegraph Staff
landrigank@telegraph-nh.com
Published: Saturday, Nov. 6, 2004

CONCORD - Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader requested a hand recount of ballots in New Hampshire after getting seven-tenths of 1 percent of the vote.

“We have received reports of irregularities in the vote reported on the AccuVote Diebold Machines in comparison to exit polls and trends in voting in New Hampshire,’’ Nader wrote.

“These irregularities favor President George W. Bush by 5 percent to 15 percent over what was expected. Problems in these electronic voting machines and optical scanners are being reported in machines in a variety of states.’’

Nader’s recount request came in as a fax at 4:59 p.m., one minute before the deadline.

The application is not legal, however, because it did not come with payment, according to Assistant Attorney General Bud Fitch.

“At this point, we aren’t considering it to be a valid request,’’ he said.

Anyone who loses by more than 1 percent of the vote has to pay for a recount, he said, noting the cost statewide could be $80,000.

Nader can appeal that decision to the state Ballot Law Commission.

Two years ago, the commission agreed to go forward with a recount for a legislative seat after a losing candidate tried to fax a copy of the check to pay for the recount.

Secretary of State Bill Gardner said a Nader official told him the campaign tried to fax a copy of the check to pay for the recount but it jammed.

“If they appeal, it’s up to the Ballot Law Commission to settle this,’’ Gardner said.

Fitch said he had been in contact with Nader campaign officials throughout Friday to inform them of the recount requirements.

In the request, Nader said he wants either a full recount or a “statistically significant sample audit’’ of these vote counts.

“We would like to make sure every vote counts and is counted accurately,’’ Nader wrote.

Gardner said his staff intends to meet today to schedule the 14 recounts that were legally requested - three state Senate elections and 11 for seats in the 400-person House of Representatives.

The recounts requested on Friday included Hillsborough County District 27, the Hudson-Litchfield-Pelham district that elected 13 representatives on Tuesday.

Hudson Democrat Donna Marie Marceau requested the recount after finishing 32 votes away from the 13th-place finisher.
Kevin Landrigan can be reached at 224-8804 or landrigank@telegraph-nh.com.

Posted by Lisa at 06:07 PM
Video Of 60 Minutes II Interview With National Guardsman Who Got Brain Damage While Posing As A Prisoner During Guantanamo "Drill"

This is from the November 3, 2004 program of 60 Minutes II. This post goes with this one.

Here's the story on Sean Baker from the 60 Minutes II website.

This Administration doesn't give a damn about anybody.

Here's how the Administration treats the most patriotic of its soldiers.

(Sorry for the sound quality. My 60 minutes broadcasts are almost always distorted on my cable system now. Not sure what I can do about it...)

Interview with Sean Baker - Part 1 of 2
(17 MB)

Interview with Sean Baker - Part 2 of 2
(16 MB)

Baker makes the point that if a real detainee was trying to explain himself to the interrogators in a foreign language, he would undoubtedly have no chance at all:
"What does he think would have happened if he had been a real detainee? "I think they would have busted him up," says Baker. "I've seen detainees come outta there with blood on 'em. …If there wasn't someone to say, 'I'm a U.S. soldier,' if you were speaking Arabic or Pashto or Urdu or some other language in the camp, we may never know what would have happened to that individual."

Summary:

Sean Baker received brain damage because the Guantanamo officers didn't know he was a plant during the "drill." Video tapes are usually kept for such drills, but in this case, of course, there is no video tape to be found.

Baker was a model soldier during the Gulf war. Then, immediately following 911, he joined the National Guard because he felt his country needed him.

He volunteered to take part as a prisoner plant during Guantanamo Bay guard drills. They put him in an orange prisoner jumpsuit and told him to go lay down on the floor underneath a bunk bed in a prisoners cell. He was frightened, but his squad leader kept assuring him "you'll be fine."

He was then brutally attacked by two guards who continually smashed his forehead into the steel floor until he received severe brain damage.

This guy is so dedicated, that after he got out of the hospital, he requested to be sent back to Guantanamo to finish his tour with his unit. He hoped that no one would notice the 10-20 seizures he was having every day as a result of his injuries.

(He is on 9 different medications a day in an attempt to treat these seizures, but he still has them on a daily basis, despite the medications.)

He can't sue the government because of a Supreme Court Decision from the 1950's that prohibits members of the Military from suing the government.

There are no pictures of what happened in the prison camp at Guantanamo last year. But Correspondent Bob Simon has a shocking story -- and it's not about what Americans did to foreign detainees. It's about what Americans did to a fellow American soldier, Sean Baker. Sean Baker has seizures an average of four times a week. 60 Minutes Wednesday went to see him a few weeks ago in a New York hospital.

Baker, a National Guardsman, was working last year as a military policeman in the Guantanamo Bay prison when other MPs injured him during a training drill. It was a drill during which Baker was only obeying orders.

"I was assaulted by these individuals," says Baker. "Pure and simple."...

In November 2002, Baker's unit was sent to Guantanamo Bay, home to what the Pentagon called the most vicious terrorists in the world. Spc. Baker’s job was to escort prisoners and walk the causeways of the prison block.

He was the new guy on the block, and he says he got special treatment from the detainees: "They wanna try the new guy. See how much they can push you. You know? How much water they can throw on you. How much urine they can throw on you. How much feces they can dump on you."

His unit was on duty at 2 a.m. on Jan. 24, 2003, when his squad leader got a message. "'Someone needs to go for training,'" says Baker. "And I looked around the room. I couldn’t believe that everyone had not stood up, and said, 'I'll go.' But I said, 'Right here, Sarg.'"

Baker was always the first to volunteer. This time, it was to go to the block where the most dangerous detainees were kept in isolated cells. There, Baker was met by Second Lt. Shaw Locke of the 303rd Military Police Company from Michigan. Locke, who was in charge of an IRF (Immediate Reaction Force) team, briefed Baker about the training drill he was planning.

"'We’re going to put you in a cell and extract you, have their IRF team come in and extract you. And what I’d like you to do is go ahead and strip your uniform off and put on this orange suit,'" says Baker, who was ordered to wear an orange jumpsuit, just like the ones worn by the detainees at Guantanamo.

"I’d never questioned an order before. But, at first I said, my only remark was, ‘Sir?' Just in the form of a question. And he said, ‘You’ll be fine,’" recalls Baker. "I said, ‘Well, you know what’s gonna happen when they come in there on me?’ And he said, ‘Trust me, Spc. Baker. You will be fine.’"

Drills to practice extracting uncooperative prisoners took place every day, with a U.S. soldier playing the role of a detainee, but not in an orange jumpsuit, and not at full force.

"You always train at 70 percent. Never 100 percent," says Michael Riley, who was Baker's platoon sergeant. "Seventy percent means you want to practice and be proficient, but not get anybody hurt."

Baker says his orders that night were to get under a bunk on a steel floor in a dark cell, and wait: "I said, 'Sir, you're going to tell that IRF team that I'm a U.S. soldier?' He said, 'Yes, you'll be fine, Spc. Baker. Trust me.'"

But in fact, Locke later acknowledged in a sworn statement that he did not indicate “whether the scenario was a drill or not a drill to the IRF team.” Locke did, however, tell the team the detainee had not responded to pepper spray.

"They wanted to make training a little more realistic," says Baker. "Put this orange suit on."

Locke gave Baker a code word – red - to shout out in case of trouble. From under the bunk, Baker heard the extraction team coming down the causeway. In sworn statements, however, four members of the team said they thought they were going after a real detainee.

"My face was down. And of course, they’re pushing it down against the steel floor, you know, my right temple, pushing it down against the floor," recalls Baker. "And someone’s holding me by the throat, using a pressure point on me and holding my throat. And I used the word, ‘red.’ At that point I, you know, I became afraid."

Apparently, no one heard the code word ‘red’ because Baker says he continued to be manhandled, especially by an MP named Scott Sinclair who was holding onto his head.

"And when I said the word ‘Red,’ he forced my head down against the steel floor and was sort of just grinding it into the floor. The individual then, when I picked up my head and said, ‘Red,’ slammed my head down against the floor," says Baker. "I was so afraid, I groaned out, ‘I’m a U.S. soldier.' And when I said that, he slammed my head again, one more time against the floor. And I groaned out one more time, I said, ‘I’m a U.S. soldier.’ And I heard them say, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,' you know, like he wanted to, he was telling the other guy to stop."

Bloodied and disoriented, Baker somehow made it back to his unit, and his first thought was to get hold of the videotape. "I said, 'Go get the tape,'" recalls Baker. "'They've got a tape. Go get the tape.' My squad leader went to get the tape."

Every extraction drill at Guantanamo was routinely videotaped, and the tape of this drill would show what happened. But Baker says his squad leader came back and said, "There is no tape."

"That was the only time that I heard that a tape had gone missing," says Riley, Baker's platoon sergeant.

"Of all the tapes, this was probably the most important one that we should have kept," adds England.

Baker started having a seizure that morning and was whisked to the Naval Hospital at Guantanamo. "[He looked like] he'd had the crap beat out of him. He had a concussion. I mean, it was textbook," says Riley. "[His face} was blank. You know, a dead stare, like he was seeing you, but really looking through you."

Baker was airlifted to the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center in Virginia, where doctors determined he had suffered an injury to the right side of his brain. He was released after four days, and Baker says he requested to go back to Cuba.

"I wanted to go back and perform my duties," says Baker. "I wanted to be back with my unit."

Baker got back to Guantanamo, and hoped no one would notice he was having seizures, but they got to the point where he says he couldn't hide them: "I was shaking and convulsing around people."

Some days, he says, he was having 10 to 12 seizures per day...

Baker was finally taken off Guantanamo and sent to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he was put in a psychiatric ward. His diagnosis: traumatic brain injury. After 47 days, he was ordered to report to a medical hold unit at Fort Dix, N.J. But the seizures continued.

"He was shaking all over his whole body. It just looked like he was -- you ever seen 'The Exorcist?' That’s what it looked like. It was pretty freaky," says Spc. Sean Bateman, who saw Baker. "He had plenty [of seizures]. I can't count them all is pretty much what I'm saying. He had some so often, it was pretty much expected."

But back at Guantanamo, a promised investigation into what happened to Baker wasn’t getting anywhere.

"There was what was called a commander’s inquiry. It doesn’t really tell me anything," says England. "And after that it more or less seemed like, least said the best said. That was my opinion of it."

Riley says he and England approached Capt. Judith Brown, the commander of the Kentucky National Guard at Guantanamo, and asked her what was going on with that investigation. What did the captain say? "I'll paraphrase. It's something like, it's being looked into, but we really don't wanna get anybody in trouble," says Riley.

Nobody got into trouble because the Army didn’t conduct a serious investigation into what happened to Spc. Baker -- not for 17 months. Only then, and only after word of Baker’s beating got leaked to the media, did the Pentagon launch a criminal investigation into how he got so badly hurt that January morning in Guantanamo.

The criminal investigation is still going on. 60 Minutes Wednesday wanted to talk to someone at the Pentagon about the Baker case, but was told no one would talk about it.


Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/02/60II/main652953.shtml

G.I. Attacked During Training

Nov. 3, 2004


Spc. Sean Baker was brutally attacked by other soldiers during a training exercise in Guantanamo Bay. (Photo: CBS)

"When I said the word 'red,' he forced my head down against the steel floor and was sort of just grinding it into the floor."
Spc. Sean Baker

Baker, who was a military policeman in the Guantanamo Bay prison, now requires heavy doses of medication each day. (Photo: CBS)

There are no pictures of what happened in the prison camp at Guantanamo last year. But Correspondent Bob Simon has a shocking story -- and it's not about what Americans did to foreign detainees. It's about what Americans did to a fellow American soldier, Sean Baker. Sean Baker has seizures an average of four times a week. 60 Minutes Wednesday went to see him a few weeks ago in a New York hospital.

Baker, a National Guardsman, was working last year as a military policeman in the Guantanamo Bay prison when other MPs injured him during a training drill. It was a drill during which Baker was only obeying orders.

"I was assaulted by these individuals," says Baker. "Pure and simple."

It’s all the more bizarre because Baker was considered a model soldier and he had served as an MP in Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War.

Then, minutes after the attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, Baker made a phone call from the auto repair shop in Lexington, Ky., where he was working. "I had to get back in the military right then," recalls Baker. "I had to go back then. I had to do something."

And he did. At 35, married and with a child, Baker volunteered to join the 438th Military Police Company in Murray, Ky., because it was about to be deployed overseas.

Ron England was Baker’s first sergeant. "He seemed to like being a soldier," says England. "He loved being a soldier. He was always more than willing to give his part and somebody else’s, or to pitch in for somebody else."

In November 2002, Baker's unit was sent to Guantanamo Bay, home to what the Pentagon called the most vicious terrorists in the world. Spc. Baker’s job was to escort prisoners and walk the causeways of the prison block.

He was the new guy on the block, and he says he got special treatment from the detainees: "They wanna try the new guy. See how much they can push you. You know? How much water they can throw on you. How much urine they can throw on you. How much feces they can dump on you."

His unit was on duty at 2 a.m. on Jan. 24, 2003, when his squad leader got a message. "'Someone needs to go for training,'" says Baker. "And I looked around the room. I couldn’t believe that everyone had not stood up, and said, 'I'll go.' But I said, 'Right here, Sarg.'"

Baker was always the first to volunteer. This time, it was to go to the block where the most dangerous detainees were kept in isolated cells. There, Baker was met by Second Lt. Shaw Locke of the 303rd Military Police Company from Michigan. Locke, who was in charge of an IRF (Immediate Reaction Force) team, briefed Baker about the training drill he was planning.

"'We’re going to put you in a cell and extract you, have their IRF team come in and extract you. And what I’d like you to do is go ahead and strip your uniform off and put on this orange suit,'" says Baker, who was ordered to wear an orange jumpsuit, just like the ones worn by the detainees at Guantanamo.

"I’d never questioned an order before. But, at first I said, my only remark was, ‘Sir?' Just in the form of a question. And he said, ‘You’ll be fine,’" recalls Baker. "I said, ‘Well, you know what’s gonna happen when they come in there on me?’ And he said, ‘Trust me, Spc. Baker. You will be fine.’"

Drills to practice extracting uncooperative prisoners took place every day, with a U.S. soldier playing the role of a detainee, but not in an orange jumpsuit, and not at full force.

"You always train at 70 percent. Never 100 percent," says Michael Riley, who was Baker's platoon sergeant. "Seventy percent means you want to practice and be proficient, but not get anybody hurt."

Baker says his orders that night were to get under a bunk on a steel floor in a dark cell, and wait: "I said, 'Sir, you're going to tell that IRF team that I'm a U.S. soldier?' He said, 'Yes, you'll be fine, Spc. Baker. Trust me.'"

But in fact, Locke later acknowledged in a sworn statement that he did not indicate “whether the scenario was a drill or not a drill to the IRF team.” Locke did, however, tell the team the detainee had not responded to pepper spray.

"They wanted to make training a little more realistic," says Baker. "Put this orange suit on."

Locke gave Baker a code word – red - to shout out in case of trouble. From under the bunk, Baker heard the extraction team coming down the causeway. In sworn statements, however, four members of the team said they thought they were going after a real detainee.

"My face was down. And of course, they’re pushing it down against the steel floor, you know, my right temple, pushing it down against the floor," recalls Baker. "And someone’s holding me by the throat, using a pressure point on me and holding my throat. And I used the word, ‘red.’ At that point I, you know, I became afraid."

Apparently, no one heard the code word ‘red’ because Baker says he continued to be manhandled, especially by an MP named Scott Sinclair who was holding onto his head.

"And when I said the word ‘Red,’ he forced my head down against the steel floor and was sort of just grinding it into the floor. The individual then, when I picked up my head and said, ‘Red,’ slammed my head down against the floor," says Baker. "I was so afraid, I groaned out, ‘I’m a U.S. soldier.' And when I said that, he slammed my head again, one more time against the floor. And I groaned out one more time, I said, ‘I’m a U.S. soldier.’ And I heard them say, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,' you know, like he wanted to, he was telling the other guy to stop."

Bloodied and disoriented, Baker somehow made it back to his unit, and his first thought was to get hold of the videotape. "I said, 'Go get the tape,'" recalls Baker. "'They've got a tape. Go get the tape.' My squad leader went to get the tape."

Every extraction drill at Guantanamo was routinely videotaped, and the tape of this drill would show what happened. But Baker says his squad leader came back and said, "There is no tape."

"That was the only time that I heard that a tape had gone missing," says Riley, Baker's platoon sergeant.

"Of all the tapes, this was probably the most important one that we should have kept," adds England.

Baker started having a seizure that morning and was whisked to the Naval Hospital at Guantanamo. "[He looked like] he'd had the crap beat out of him. He had a concussion. I mean, it was textbook," says Riley. "[His face} was blank. You know, a dead stare, like he was seeing you, but really looking through you."

Baker was airlifted to the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center in Virginia, where doctors determined he had suffered an injury to the right side of his brain. He was released after four days, and Baker says he requested to go back to Cuba.

"I wanted to go back and perform my duties," says Baker. "I wanted to be back with my unit."

Baker got back to Guantanamo, and hoped no one would notice he was having seizures, but they got to the point where he says he couldn't hide them: "I was shaking and convulsing around people."

Some days, he says, he was having 10 to 12 seizures per day.

What does he think would have happened if he had been a real detainee? "I think they would have busted him up," says Baker. "I've seen detainees come outta there with blood on 'em. …If there wasn't someone to say, 'I'm a U.S. soldier,' if you were speaking Arabic or Pashto or Urdu or some other language in the camp, we may never know what would have happened to that individual."

Baker was finally taken off Guantanamo and sent to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he was put in a psychiatric ward. His diagnosis: traumatic brain injury. After 47 days, he was ordered to report to a medical hold unit at Fort Dix, N.J. But the seizures continued.

"He was shaking all over his whole body. It just looked like he was -- you ever seen 'The Exorcist?' That’s what it looked like. It was pretty freaky," says Spc. Sean Bateman, who saw Baker. "He had plenty [of seizures]. I can't count them all is pretty much what I'm saying. He had some so often, it was pretty much expected."

But back at Guantanamo, a promised investigation into what happened to Baker wasn’t getting anywhere.

"There was what was called a commander’s inquiry. It doesn’t really tell me anything," says England. "And after that it more or less seemed like, least said the best said. That was my opinion of it."

Riley says he and England approached Capt. Judith Brown, the commander of the Kentucky National Guard at Guantanamo, and asked her what was going on with that investigation. What did the captain say? "I'll paraphrase. It's something like, it's being looked into, but we really don't wanna get anybody in trouble," says Riley.

Nobody got into trouble because the Army didn’t conduct a serious investigation into what happened to Spc. Baker -- not for 17 months. Only then, and only after word of Baker’s beating got leaked to the media, did the Pentagon launch a criminal investigation into how he got so badly hurt that January morning in Guantanamo.

The criminal investigation is still going on. 60 Minutes Wednesday wanted to talk to someone at the Pentagon about the Baker case, but was told no one would talk about it.

Despite repeated calls, Capt. Judith Brown refused to speak to 60 Minutes Wednesday. Crews tried to interview Shaw Locke, the man in charge that night, and Scott Sinclair, the man Baker accused of bashing his head, but they wouldn’t meet with 60 Minutes Wednesday either. Sinclair did write in a sworn statement after the incident that Baker was resisting and that Sinclair merely placed his head back on the floor of the cell.

Meanwhile, Baker was stuck in bureaucratic limbo at Fort Dix for 10 months, long after Locke, Sinclair and the 303rd returned home to Michigan to a celebration in September 2003.

Baker was left to fight the Pentagon for a disability check, and he says it took four months to get his first check. Meantime, he says drew unemployment insurance, about half of what he was accustomed to making, to get by.

"These are our American veterans," says England. "Sean Baker was one that wasn’t taken care of. In my own personal opinion, Sean Baker wasn’t taken care of."

When Baker got home to Kentucky, he didn’t complain. But he needed help just to get his disability check. Attorney Bruce Simpson agreed to help Baker, pro bono. But Baker is unable to sue because of a 1950 Supreme Court ruling that bars members of the military from suing the government.

"He’ll not get a dime from what happened to him through the court system because the doors to the federal courthouse as to Sean Baker are closed," says Simpson, who adds that no one has paid a price for what happened to Baker that night. "He’s been destined to a life of walking in a minefield of unexploded seizures. He doesn’t know when they’re gonna come. And he doesn’t know when they are gonna bring him to his knees."

"It’s as if they just went on living their lives, as if they’ve done nothing. Nothing wrong," adds Baker, who now takes nine medications a day, can't get a job, has put on 50 pounds and has constant nightmares.

At the end of September, Baker went to Columbia University Medical Center in New York to consult with Dr. Carl Bazil, a seizure specialist, and one of the top neurologists in the country.

While undergoing testing, Baker suffered a seizure in front of Bazil, who believes Baker has intractable epilepsy – which means his seizures are difficult to control.

Is it an injury Baker could have received as a result of having his head repeatedly knocked against a steel floor? "Oh, absolutely. That is the kind of injury that would be severe enough to result in epilepsy," says Bazil, who believes that with better treatment, Baker's condition could improve. "If he doesn't get better treatment, that will probably continue indefinitely."

"So, if you got your health back, I take it, after your experience with the Army, you’d never serve again," Simon asks Baker.

"I’d be in," says Baker. "Till the day I die."

Posted by Lisa at 12:33 PM
Bev Harris and Aviel Rubin Interview On Democracy NOW!

This is from the November 8, 2004 program.

Amy Goodman's Interview With Bev Harris from blackboxvoting.org and Aviel Rubin from Johns Hopkins University
(Real Stream) (Ogg (50 MB), MP3 28MB)

Bev Harris is the creator of blackboxvoting.org and the one spearheading a huge Freedom Of Information Act request for election information.

Aviel Rubin of John Hopkins University is the one who wrote the highly respected and virtually unchallenged white paper,
Analysis of an Electronic Voting System
, which detailed the insecurities of electronic voting machines.

(Thanks, Joel!)

Posted by Lisa at 12:14 PM
This Isn't What The Supreme Court Had In Mind: Hasty Military Tribunals For Guantanamo Prisoners

A makeshift double-wide trailer is the "court," and three anonymous military officers constitute the "judge and jury."

Prisoners are not allowed proper representation by attorneys.

Translators seem to be provided, but they are not doing an adequate job. Prisoners who refuse to attend their tribunal hearing are sentenced in absentia.

But no one's listening to what the prisoners have to say anyway. They are not allowed to know the names of anyone on the panel or see any of the "evidence" against them, because it's classified.

The U.S. used to set the bar for humanitarian treatment of P.O.W.'s, now it's setting the standard for modern day fascism.

This is not what the Supreme Court meant when it declared that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president," and said that "enemy combatants" must be allowed to challenge their detention before a "judge" or "other neutral decision maker." (Does anyone have the link to the decision itself?)

The Shrub Administration is arguing that the Supreme Court should reject the numerous petitions filed on behalf of Guantanamo prisoners because these military tribunals satisfy the Supreme Court's requirements. But this quote from Guantanamo's Captain Jamison proves beyond a reasonable doubt that these "administrative procedures" do not qualify as criminal courts:


Captain Jamison said the tribunals were administrative procedures and thus did not have to meet standards of regular criminal proceedings.

These are the kinds of conditions you used to hear about happening in third world countries -- to Americans. These are the situations that the Geneva Convention was created to address. This is a travesty of Justice, to say the least.


Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court

By Neil A. Lewis for the New York Times.


Each day, several shackled detainees are marched by their military guards into a double-wide trailer behind the prison camp's fences and razor wire to argue before three anonymous military officers that they do not belong here.

One, a 27-year-old Yemeni, spent more than an hour on Saturday telling a panel that he was not a member of Al Qaeda or a sympathizer, saying that he had never fought against the United States and should never have been detained here at Guantánamo as an unlawful enemy combatant.

The Yemeni, a scraggly-bearded man bound hand and foot, sat in a low chair, his shackles connected to a bolt in the floor, frustrating his efforts to gesture with his hands to make his arguments. Inside the small, harshly lighted room, he alternated between pleading his case and angrily criticizing the process as unfair. Although he spoke Arabic that had to be translated by a woman sitting beside him, there was no mistaking his contempt for the panel members, who sat on a raised platform about 10 feet away and whose questions he ridiculed frequently.

These briskly conducted proceedings, which have received little notice, constitute the Bush administration's principal answer to the Supreme Court's ruling regarding the rights of detainees who have been imprisoned since the administration began its fight against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks. The court ruled 6 to 3 in June that the detainees had a right to challenge their detentions in federal court, saying that even though the base is outside the sovereign territory of the United States, federal judges have jurisdiction to consider petitions for writs of habeas corpus from those who argue that they are being unlawfully held.

The hearings here have come under heavy criticism because they do not meet the traditional standards of court proceedings. For one thing, the detainees are left to argue their cases for themselves, without assistance from lawyers.

The hearings, formally called combatant status review tribunals, were hurriedly devised and put into place just weeks after the Supreme Court's ruling. The administration, which has been battling to have the military retain as much control as possible over the detainees, told a federal court in Washington last week that the tribunals more than satisfy the Supreme Court ruling. The government argued that because of the tribunals, federal judges should reject the dozens of petitions they have received from defense lawyers asking them to intervene...

The Yemeni who appeared Saturday denied through his translator that he had any affiliation with Al Qaeda. He said the United States had no proof and "should know that a person is innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around." Throughout the hearing, the man, whose name may not be published under the conditions set by the military, complained, sometimes with sarcasm, that "this is like a game."

An officer not on the panel acted as sort of a prosecutor in assembling the charges, while yet another acted as the detainee's personal representative to explain the proceedings but not to serve as a defense lawyer. All the officers had their name tags covered by tape...

Critics have complained that the tribunals are fatally flawed, not only because the detainees do not have lawyers but because they are generally hampered in disputing any charges because they are not allowed to see most of the evidence against them because it is classified...

Captain Jamison said the tribunals were administrative procedures and thus did not have to meet standards of regular criminal proceedings...

The war-crimes trials before a military commission have faced difficulties, including translation problems and complaints from military lawyers that the officers on the panel are unsuitable. Although the war-crimes proceedings are separate from reviews of the detainees' enemy combatant status, the two collided last week. One of the three officers on the military commission trying war crimes asked to see the information from the combatant review tribunal for David Hicks, 29, an Australian who is charged with terrorism and attempted murder and whose case was being considered last week.

Joshua Dratel, a civilian lawyer from New York representing Mr. Hicks, erupted in anger in the courtroom, saying it was outrageous for the commission to consider information from a proceeding with lesser guarantees of due process.

"This man is on trial for his life," Mr. Dratel said. He said that for the military commission to consider accepting evidence from the other proceeding - a proceeding in which the prisoner cannot confront his accuser or see all of the evidence against him - showed that the war-crimes trials were "not just on a different island from the rest of the world but a different planet."...

The administration has asserted that the Guantánamo detainees are not entitled to the prisoner-of-war protections of the Geneva Conventions as they do not meet the criteria of regular soldiers. International lawyers have criticized the United States, saying that the Geneva Conventions require hearings to determine whether they can be deemed other than P.O.W.'s.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/08/national/08gitmo.html

Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court
There are 550 detainees remaining at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Andres Leighton/Associated Press
There are 550 detainees remaining at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: November 8, 2004

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba, Nov. 7 - Each day, several shackled detainees are marched by their military guards into a double-wide trailer behind the prison camp's fences and razor wire to argue before three anonymous military officers that they do not belong here.

One, a 27-year-old Yemeni, spent more than an hour on Saturday telling a panel that he was not a member of Al Qaeda or a sympathizer, saying that he had never fought against the United States and should never have been detained here at Guantánamo as an unlawful enemy combatant.

The Yemeni, a scraggly-bearded man bound hand and foot, sat in a low chair, his shackles connected to a bolt in the floor, frustrating his efforts to gesture with his hands to make his arguments. Inside the small, harshly lighted room, he alternated between pleading his case and angrily criticizing the process as unfair. Although he spoke Arabic that had to be translated by a woman sitting beside him, there was no mistaking his contempt for the panel members, who sat on a raised platform about 10 feet away and whose questions he ridiculed frequently.

These briskly conducted proceedings, which have received little notice, constitute the Bush administration's principal answer to the Supreme Court's ruling regarding the rights of detainees who have been imprisoned since the administration began its fight against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks. The court ruled 6 to 3 in June that the detainees had a right to challenge their detentions in federal court, saying that even though the base is outside the sovereign territory of the United States, federal judges have jurisdiction to consider petitions for writs of habeas corpus from those who argue that they are being unlawfully held.

The hearings here have come under heavy criticism because they do not meet the traditional standards of court proceedings. For one thing, the detainees are left to argue their cases for themselves, without assistance from lawyers.

The hearings, formally called combatant status review tribunals, were hurriedly devised and put into place just weeks after the Supreme Court's ruling. The administration, which has been battling to have the military retain as much control as possible over the detainees, told a federal court in Washington last week that the tribunals more than satisfy the Supreme Court ruling. The government argued that because of the tribunals, federal judges should reject the dozens of petitions they have received from defense lawyers asking them to intervene.

Capt. Charles Jamison of the Navy, who oversees the tribunal proceedings here at Guantánamo, said he expected to have them completed for all 550 remaining prisoners by the end of the year. So far, some 320 detainees have appeared before the tribunals, and so far, the Pentagon has passed final judgment on 104. Of that group, 103 were found to have been properly deemed unlawful enemy combatants and properly imprisoned; one detainee was released.

Those deemed unlawful enemy combatants will have a chance to argue in a separate proceeding that they should be released because they are no longer a threat.

Even without any legal proceedings, the United States has released more than 150 Guantánamo detainees to their home governments, saying they no longer posed a threat, and it is expected that many of the remaining ones will also be released.

The Yemeni who appeared Saturday denied through his translator that he had any affiliation with Al Qaeda. He said the United States had no proof and "should know that a person is innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around." Throughout the hearing, the man, whose name may not be published under the conditions set by the military, complained, sometimes with sarcasm, that "this is like a game."

An officer not on the panel acted as sort of a prosecutor in assembling the charges, while yet another acted as the detainee's personal representative to explain the proceedings but not to serve as a defense lawyer. All the officers had their name tags covered by tape.

page 2


Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court
There are 550 detainees remaining at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Andres Leighton/Associated Press
There are 550 detainees remaining at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.


Published: November 8, 2004

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(Page 2 of 2)

Critics have complained that the tribunals are fatally flawed, not only because the detainees do not have lawyers but because they are generally hampered in disputing any charges because they are not allowed to see most of the evidence against them because it is classified.

Captain Jamison said the tribunals were administrative procedures and thus did not have to meet standards of regular criminal proceedings.

One official said it was apparent from the unconvincing explanations of many detainees as to why they had been carrying a gun or were at a battle site that they were indeed enemy combatants.

Like detainees at all the hearings, the Yemeni was given an unclassified summary of the charges, but the evidence to support the most serious accusations is classified and was considered in a closed session after he was taken back to his cell.

In the public session, an officer told the panel that the man was "a supporter of Al Qaeda" because he had traveled to Pakistan from his home country and had been "recruited by Jama'at al-Tabligh," an organization based in Pakistan that posed as an Islamic missionary group but was really a cover for helping Qaeda terrorists with travel arrangements.

The man asked the panel, "Where's the proof?" He said that if the government was claiming he had a connection to Al Qaeda, "there should be evidence that I support Al Qaeda." The Army colonel who was the panel's president responded, "We're not here to debate these points." She said, "This is what we're given and this is your opportunity to give us your story."

The Yemeni was disdainful of another panel member, a Navy commander, who asked him if he believed in jihad, answering that he did so as all Muslims did but that that did not mean he meant harm to America.

Another detainee, a 33-year-old Afghan who served as a municipal police commissioner in his village, tried to convince a different military panel on Thursday that he was an unwilling member of the Taliban government. The man admitted that he had supervised a ritual stoning to death of three people charged with adultery but said he had not chosen the people or the penalty.

A Tunisian detainee on Thursday decided at the last moment to refuse to attend his hearing. His personal representative, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, said the Tunisian man said he had been told by Allah not to attend. The officer, however, offered the detainee's responses to the charges that he was a member of Al Qaeda and had a Kalashnikov assault rifle when he was captured.

About a third of the detainees decline to attend the tribunals, officials said, and they are then tried in absentia, as was the Tunisian prisoner. The military has established a panel at the Pentagon to hear many of those cases. There are four panels here at Guantánamo.

The detention of hundreds of men at Guantánamo has led to a variety of legal proceedings, some wholly contained within the military and others involving federal courts.

Last week, for example, a military commission heard pretrial motions in the set of war-crimes trials being conducted on a different part of the base. Four detainees have been charged in those proceedings.

The war-crimes trials before a military commission have faced difficulties, including translation problems and complaints from military lawyers that the officers on the panel are unsuitable. Although the war-crimes proceedings are separate from reviews of the detainees' enemy combatant status, the two collided last week. One of the three officers on the military commission trying war crimes asked to see the information from the combatant review tribunal for David Hicks, 29, an Australian who is charged with terrorism and attempted murder and whose case was being considered last week.

Joshua Dratel, a civilian lawyer from New York representing Mr. Hicks, erupted in anger in the courtroom, saying it was outrageous for the commission to consider information from a proceeding with lesser guarantees of due process.

"This man is on trial for his life," Mr. Dratel said. He said that for the military commission to consider accepting evidence from the other proceeding - a proceeding in which the prisoner cannot confront his accuser or see all of the evidence against him - showed that the war-crimes trials were "not just on a different island from the rest of the world but a different planet."

Lt. Col. Sharon Shaffer, the deputy chief judge of the Air Force who is defending another detainee before the war-crimes commission, said it was wrong for an enemy combatant review tribunal to question a detainee who was represented by a lawyer in other proceedings. Colonel Shaffer represents Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan, who is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and terrorism. The colonel instructed Mr. Qosi to demand that one of his lawyers accompany him to the enemy combatant tribunal. She said they simply tried him in absentia and declared him an enemy combatant.

Conversations with senior military officials suggest that there is an informal expectation that after most of the detainees are found to be enemy combatants, the military will start releasing what eventually will be a majority of them after yet another set of proceedings. Those proceedings, called annual review boards, are expected to start as early as next month and are supposed to determine if the enemy combatant remains a threat and may be released. One official said that approach would allow the military to assert that most of the detainees were not wrongfully imprisoned, but it would also provide a solution for the administration's desire not to hold such a large number for years.

The administration has asserted that the Guantánamo detainees are not entitled to the prisoner-of-war protections of the Geneva Conventions as they do not meet the criteria of regular soldiers. International lawyers have criticized the United States, saying that the Geneva Conventions require hearings to determine whether they can be deemed other than P.O.W.'s.


Posted by Lisa at 11:39 AM
Me On BBC Radio From April 2003

I was interviewed by BBC's Maggie Shiels in April 2003 about being a peace blogger, amidst all of the "War Bloggers." She had no way of telling me at the time when the piece was going to air, but she did give me a clip that I could play for my parents -- but I couldn't publish it on my blog or anything.

Well, now that so much time has passed, I wrote to see if it was OK, and she said it was.


Here it is
. (Real File)

(Here's a link to its directory if you need that for some reason.)

Also interviewed are UC Berkeley School of Journalism Professor Paul Grabowitz and blogger Chris Perillo. (Will somebody let them know about this for me? I don't have their emails.)

That's me reading from Salam Pax's weblog too.

The story is about bloggers taking over as reliable sources of news.

Posted by Lisa at 09:25 AM
Shrub On The Next Four Years Of Bloodshed Abroad And Economic Hardship/Loss Of Loved Ones Here At Home: "Gosh, We're Going To Have A Lot Of Fun"

I found the "Political Capital" Shrub speech I and others were looking for (Thanks Hetty).

There are Windows and Real clips available, but nothing you can download.

I'd still prefer a copy from one of you so keep looking everybody, ok?

There's also a transcription available ("More" below).

It's even more frightening to read it in print.

Apparently, he's enjoying himself madly. (Emphasis on madly.)

How can he laugh and crack jokes when he's going Roman on Fallujah, killing thousands of innocents, and sending 10,000 of our troops to their death in the process?

He's also decided that our "Free Press" only needs to have one question answered at a time now.

He also hasn't bothered to figure out how much the war will cost, or how many troops it's going to take to do the job.

Incredible that he hasn't felt the need to do President work while campaigning while we're casually at War on the other side of the globe. The War's like a back drop to him. Like "Made In America."

He's also lying about when he says that he hasn't heard from anyone in the army that they need more troops. They've been saying that since before we made our first attack. The estimates were 200-300,000 soldiers would be needed to do the jjob. (It's all in the Rumsfeld's War program on PBS's Frontline.


Q Would you like it? Now that the political volatility is off the issue because the election is over, I'd like to ask you about troop levels in Iraq in the next couple of months leading up to elections. The Pentagon already has a plan to extend tours of duty for some 6,500 U.S. troops. How many more will be needed to provide security in Iraq for elections, seeing as how the Iraqi troops that you're trying to train up are pretty slow coming on line?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, first of all, the -- we are making good progress in training the Iraqi troops. There will be 125,000 of them trained by election time. Secondly, I have yet to -- I have not sat down with our Secretary of Defense talking about troop levels. I read some reports during the course of the campaign where some were speculating in the press corps about the number of troops needed to protect elections. That has not been brought to my attention yet.

And so I would caution you that what you have either read about or reported was pure speculation thus far. These elections are important, and we will respond, John, to requests of our commanders on the ground. And I have yet to hear from our commanders on the ground that they need more troops...

Q Do you feel more free, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, in terms of feeling free, well, I don't think you'll let me be too free. There's accountability and there are constraints on the presidency, as there should be in any system. I feel -- I feel it is necessary to move an agenda that I told the American people I would move. Something refreshing about coming off an election, even more refreshing since we all got some sleep last night, but there's -- you go out and you make your case, and you tell the people this is what I intend to do. And after hundreds of speeches and three debates and interviews and the whole process, where you keep basically saying the same thing over and over again, that when you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that's what I intend to tell the Congress, that I made it clear what I intend to do as the President, now let's work to -- and the people made it clear what they wanted, now let's work together.

And it's one of the wonderful -- it's like earning capital. You asked, do I feel free. Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the -- after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on, which is -- you've heard the agenda: Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror...

Listen, thank you all. I look forward to working with you. I've got a question for you. How many of you are going to be here for a second term? Please raise your hand. (Laughter.)

Good. Gosh, we're going to have a lot of fun, then. Thank you all.

Here is the full text of the webpage in case the administration decides to alter it in the future:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041104-5.html

President Holds Press Conference

video screen capture
multimedia

President's Remarks
video image
video image
audio image listen

President George W. Bush holds a press conference in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004. White House photo by Tina Hager. 11:17 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Please be seated. Yesterday I pledged to reach out to the whole nation, and today I'm proving that I'm willing to reach out to everybody by including the White House press corps.

This week the voters of America set the direction of our nation for the next four years. I'm honored by the support of my fellow citizens, and I'm ready for the job.

We are fighting a continuing war on terror, and every American has a stake in the outcome of this war. Republicans, Democrats and independents all love our country, and together we'll protect the American people. We will preserve -- we will persevere until the enemy is defeated. We will stay strong and resolute. We have a duty, a solemn duty to protect the American people, and we will.

Every civilized country also has a stake in the outcome of this war. Whatever our past disagreements, we share a common enemy. And we have common duties: to protect our peoples, to confront disease and hunger and poverty in troubled regions of the world. I'll continue to reach out to our friends and allies, our partners in the EU and NATO, to promote development and progress, to defeat the terrorists and to encourage freedom and democracy as alternatives to tyranny and terror.

I also look forward to working with the present Congress and the new Congress that will arrive in January. I congratulate the men and women who have just been elected to the House and the Senate. I will join with old friends and new friends to make progress for all Americans.

Congress will return later this month to finish this current session. I urge members to pass the appropriations bill that remain, showing spending discipline while focusing on our nation's priorities. Our government also needs the very best intelligence, especially in a time of war. So I urge the Congress to pass an effective intelligence reform bill that I can sign into law.

The new Congress that begins its work next year will have serious responsibilities and historic opportunities. To accelerate the momentum of this economy and to keep creating jobs, we must take practical measures to help our job creators, the entrepreneurs and the small business owners. We must confront the frivolous lawsuits that are driving up the cost of health care and hurting doctors and patients. We must continue the work of education reform, to bring high standards and accountability not just to our elementary and secondary schools, but to our high schools, as well.

We must reform our complicated and outdated tax code. We need to get rid of the needless paperwork that makes our economy -- that is a drag on our economy, to make sure our economy is the most competitive in the world.

We must show our leadership by strengthening Social Security for our children and our grandchildren. This is more than a problem to be solved; it is an opportunity to help millions of our fellow citizens find security and independence that comes from owning something, from ownership.

In the election of 2004, large issues were set before our country. They were discussed every day on the campaign. With the campaign over, Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results. I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals. And I'm eager to start the work ahead. I'm looking forward to serving this country for four more years.

I want to thank you all for your hard work in the campaign. I told you that the other day, and you probably thought I was just seeking votes. (Laughter.) But now that you voted, I really meant it. I appreciate the hard work of the press corps. We all put in long hours, and you're away from your families for a long period of time. But the country is better off when we have a vigorous and free press covering our elections. And thanks for your work. Without over-pandering, I'll answer a few questions. (Laughter.)

Hunt.

Q Mr. President -- thank you. As you look at your second term, how much is the war in Iraq going to cost? Do you intend to send more troops, or bring troops home? And in the Middle East, more broadly, do you agree with Tony Blair that revitalizing the Middle East peace process is the single most pressing political issue facing the world?

THE PRESIDENT: Now that I've got the will of the people at my back, I'm going to start enforcing the one-question rule. That was three questions. (Laughter.)

I'll start with Tony Blair's comments. I agree with him that the Middle East peace is a very important part of a peaceful world. I have been working on Middle Eastern peace ever since I've been the President. I've laid down some -- a very hopeful strategy on -- in June of 2002, and my hope is that we will make good progress. I think it's very important for our friends, the Israelis, to have a peaceful Palestinian state living on their border. And it's very important for the Palestinian people to have a peaceful, hopeful future. That's why I articulated a two-state vision in that Rose Garden speech. I meant it when I said it and I mean it now.

What was the other part of your question?

Q Iraq.

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, Iraq, yes. Listen, we will work with the Allawi government to achieve our objective, which is elections, on the path to stability, and we'll continue to train the troops. Our commanders will have that which they need to complete their missions.

And in terms of the cost, I -- we'll work with OMB and the Defense Department to bring forth to Congress a realistic assessment of what the cost will be.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. How will you go about bringing people together? Will you seek a consensus candidate for the Supreme Court if there's an opening? Will you bring some Democrats into your Cabinet?

THE PRESIDENT: Again, he violated the one-question rule right off the bat. Obviously, you didn't listen to the will of the people. But, first of all, there's no vacancy for the Supreme Court, and I will deal with a vacancy when there is one. And I told the people on the campaign trail that I'll pick somebody who knows the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law. You might have heard that several times. I meant what I said. And if people are interested in knowing the kind of judges I'll pick, look at the record. I've sent up a lot of judges, well-qualified people who know the law, who represent a judicial temperament that I agree with and who are qualified to hold the bench.

The second part of your two-part question?

Q Any Democrats to your Cabinet, by any chance?

THE PRESIDENT: I haven't made any decisions on the Cabinet, yet.

Q How else will you bring people together?

THE PRESIDENT: We'll put out an agenda that everybody understands and work with people to achieve the agenda. Democrats want a free and peaceful world, and we'll -- and right away, right after September the 11th we worked very closely together to secure our country. There is a common ground to be had when it comes to a foreign policy that says the most important objective is to protect the American people and spread freedom and democracy. It's common ground when it comes to making sure the intelligence services are able to provide good, actionable intelligence to protect our people. It's not a Republican issue, it's a Republican and Democrat issue. So I'm -- plenty of places for us to work together.

All right, Gregory.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. On foreign policy, more broadly, do you believe that America has an image problem in the world right now, because of your efforts and response to the 9/11 attacks? And, as you talked down the stretch about building alliances, talk about what you'll do to build on those alliances and to deal with these image problems, particularly in the Islamic world.

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. Listen, I've made some very hard decisions: decisions to protect ourselves, decisions to spread peace and freedom. And I understand in certain capitals and certain countries, those decisions were not popular.

You know, you said -- you asked me to put that in the context of the response on September the 11th. The first response, of course, was chasing down the terror networks, which we will continue to do. And we've got great response around the world in order to do that. There's over 90 nations involved with sharing information, finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. That is a broad coalition, and we'll continue to strengthen it.

I laid out a doctrine, David, that said if you harbor terrorists, you're equally as guilty as the terrorists, and that doctrine was ignored by the Taliban, and we removed the Taliban. And I fully understand some people didn't agree with that decision. But I believe that when the American President speaks, he'd better mean what he says in order to keep the world peaceful. And I believe we have a solemn duty, whether or not people agree with it or not, to protect the American people. And the Taliban and their harboring of al Qaeda represented a direct threat to the American people.

And, of course, then the Iraq issue is one that people disagreed with. And there's no need to rehash my case, but I did so, I made the decision I made, in order to protect our country, first and foremost. I will continue to do that as the President. But as I do so, I will reach out to others and explain why I make the decisions I make.

There is a certain attitude in the world, by some, that says that it's a waste of time to try to promote free societies in parts of the world. I've heard that criticism. Remember, I went to London to talk about our vision of spreading freedom throughout the greater Middle East. And I fully understand that that might rankle some, and be viewed by some as folly. I just strongly disagree with those who do not see the wisdom of trying to promote free societies around the world.

If we are interested in protecting our country for the long-term, the best way to do so is to promote freedom and democracy. And I -- I simply do not agree with those who either say overtly or believe that certain societies cannot be free. It's just not a part of my thinking. And that's why during the course of the campaign, I was -- I believe I was able to connect, at least with those who were there, in explaining my policy, when I talked about the free election in Afghanistan.

There were -- there was doubt about whether or not those elections would go forward. I'm not suggesting any of you here expressed skepticism. But there was. There was deep skepticism, and -- because there is a attitude among some that certain people may never be free -- they just don't long to be free or incapable of running an election. And I disagree with that. And the Afghan people, by going to the polls in the millions, proved -- proved that this administration's faith in freedom to change peoples' habits is worthy. And that will be a central part of my foreign policy. And I've got work to do to explain to people about why that is a central part of our foreign policy. I've been doing that for four years.

But if you do not believe people can be free and can self-govern, then all of a sudden the two-state solution in the Middle East becomes a moot point, invalid. If you're willing to condemn a group of people to a system of government that hasn't worked, then you'll never be able to achieve the peace. You cannot lead this world and our country to a better tomorrow unless you see a better -- if you have a vision of a better tomorrow. And I've got one, based upon a great faith that people do want to be free and live in democracy.

John, and then I'll get to Terry. No follow-ups today, Gregory.

Q Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: I can see one -- yes.

Q Would you like it? Now that the political volatility is off the issue because the election is over, I'd like to ask you about troop levels in Iraq in the next couple of months leading up to elections. The Pentagon already has a plan to extend tours of duty for some 6,500 U.S. troops. How many more will be needed to provide security in Iraq for elections, seeing as how the Iraqi troops that you're trying to train up are pretty slow coming on line?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, first of all, the -- we are making good progress in training the Iraqi troops. There will be 125,000 of them trained by election time. Secondly, I have yet to -- I have not sat down with our Secretary of Defense talking about troop levels. I read some reports during the course of the campaign where some were speculating in the press corps about the number of troops needed to protect elections. That has not been brought to my attention yet.

And so I would caution you that what you have either read about or reported was pure speculation thus far. These elections are important, and we will respond, John, to requests of our commanders on the ground. And I have yet to hear from our commanders on the ground that they need more troops.

Terry.

Q Mr. President, your victory at the polls came about in part because of strong support from people of faith, in particular, Christian evangelicals and Pentecostals and others. And Senator Kerry drew some of his strongest support from those who do not attend religious services. What do you make of this religious divide, it seems, becoming a political divide in this country? And what do you say to those who are concerned about the role of a faith they do not share in public life and in your policies?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, my answer to people is, I will be your President regardless of your faith, and I don't expect you to agree with me necessarily on religion. As a matter of fact, no President should ever try to impose religion on our society.

A great -- the great tradition of America is one where people can worship the way they want to worship. And if they choose not to worship, they're just as patriotic as your neighbor. That is an essential part of why we are a great nation. And I am glad people of faith voted in this election. I'm glad -- I appreciate all people who voted. I don't think you ought to read anything into the politics, the moment, about whether or not this nation will become a divided nation over religion. I think the great thing that unites is the fact you can worship freely if you choose, and if you -- you don't have to worship. And if you're a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim, you're equally American. That is -- that is such a wonderful aspect of our society; and it is strong today and it will be strong tomorrow.

Jim.

Q Thank you, sir. Mr. President, you talked once again this morning about private accounts in Social Security. During the campaign you were accused of planning to privatize the entire system. It has been something you've discussed for some time. You've lost some of the key Democratic proponents, such as Pat Moynihan and Bob Kerrey in the Congress. How will you proceed now with one of the key problems, which is the transition cost -- which some say is as much as $2 trillion -- how will you proceed on that? And how soon?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first, I made Social Security an issue -- for those of you who had to suffer through my speeches on a daily basis; for those of you who actually listened to my speeches on a daily basis -- you might remember, every speech I talked about the duty of an American President to lead. And we have -- we must lead on Social Security because the system is not going to be whole for our children and our grandchildren.

And so the answer to your second question is, we'll start on Social Security now. We'll start bringing together those in Congress who agree with my assessment that we need to work together. We've got a good blueprint, a good go-by. You mentioned Senator Moynihan. I had asked him prior to his -- to his passing, to chair a committee of notable Americans to come up with some ideas on Social Security. And they did so. And it's a good place for members of Congress to start.

The President must have the will to take on the issue -- not only in the campaign, but now that I'm elected. And this will -- reforming Social Security will be a priority of my administration. Obviously, if it were easy it would have already been done. And this is going to be hard work to bring people together and to make -- to convince the Congress to move forward. And there are going to be costs. But the cost of doing nothing is insignificant to -- is much greater than the cost of reforming the system today. That was the case I made on the campaign trail, and I was earnest about getting something done. And as a matter of fact, I talked to members of my staff today, as we're beginning to plan to -- the strategy to move agendas forward about how to do this and do it effectively.

Q If I could, Mr. President --

THE PRESIDENT: Yes -- no, no, you're violating the follow-up rule. It would hurt Gregory's feelings. King.

It's a new --

Q Mr. President, thank you.

Q That's always one of my concerns.

THE PRESIDENT: Hurting Gregory's feelings? He is a sensitive guy. Well centered, though. (Laughter.)

Q I'm not going there. Mr. President, you were disappointed, even angry 12 years ago when the voters denied your father a second term. I'm interested in your thoughts and the conversation with him yesterday as you were walking to the Oval Office, and also whether you feel more free to do any one thing in a second term that perhaps you were politically constrained from doing in a first.

THE PRESIDENT: At 3:30 a.m. in the morning on, I guess, it was the day after the election, he was sitting upstairs, and I finally said, go to bed. He was awaiting the outcome and was hopeful that we would go over and be able to talk to our supporters, and it just didn't happen that way.

So I asked him the next morning when he got up, I said, come by the Oval Office and visit. And he came by and we had a good talk. He was heading down to Houston. And it was -- there was some uncertainty about that morning as to when the election would actually end. And it wasn't clear at that point in time, so I never got to see him face-to-face to watch his, I guess, pride in his tired eyes as his son got a second term.

I did talk to him and he was relieved. I told him to get a nap. I was worried about him staying up too late.

But -- so I haven't had a chance to really visit and embrace. And you're right, '92 was a disappointment. But he taught me a really good lesson, that life moves on. And it's very important for those of us in the political arena, win or lose, to recognize that life is bigger than just politics, and that's one of the really good lessons he taught me.

Q Do you feel more free, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, in terms of feeling free, well, I don't think you'll let me be too free. There's accountability and there are constraints on the presidency, as there should be in any system. I feel -- I feel it is necessary to move an agenda that I told the American people I would move. Something refreshing about coming off an election, even more refreshing since we all got some sleep last night, but there's -- you go out and you make your case, and you tell the people this is what I intend to do. And after hundreds of speeches and three debates and interviews and the whole process, where you keep basically saying the same thing over and over again, that when you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that's what I intend to tell the Congress, that I made it clear what I intend to do as the President, now let's work to -- and the people made it clear what they wanted, now let's work together.

And it's one of the wonderful -- it's like earning capital. You asked, do I feel free. Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the -- after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on, which is -- you've heard the agenda: Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror.

We have an obligation in this country to continue to work with nations to help alleve poverty and disease. We will continue to press forward on the HIV/AIDS initiative, the Millennium Challenge Account. We will continue to do our duty to help feed the hungry. And I'm looking forward to it, I really am.

It's been a -- it's been a fantastic experience campaigning the country. You've seen it from one -- perspective, I've seen it from another. I saw you standing there at the last, final rally in Texas, to my right over there. I was observing you observe, and you saw the energy. And there was just something uplifting about people showing up at 11:00 p.m. at night, expressing their support and their prayers and their friendship. It's a marvelous experience to campaign across the country.

Mike.

Q Mr. President -- thank you, Mr. President. Do you plan to reshape your Cabinet for the second term, or will any changes come at the instigation of individuals? And as part of the same question, may I ask you what you've learned about Cabinet government, what works, what doesn't work? And do you mind also addressing the same question about the White House staff? (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: The post-election euphoria did not last very long here at the press conference. (Laughter.)

Let me talk about the people that have worked with me. I had a Cabinet meeting today and I thanked them for their service to the country and reminded them we've got a job to do and I expected them to do the job.

I have made no decisions on my Cabinet and/or White House staff. I am mindful that working in the White House is really -- is exhausting work. The people who you try to get to leak to you spend hours away from their families, and it is -- the word "burnout" is oftentimes used in the -- in Washington, and it's used for a reason, because people do burn out.

And so obviously, in terms of those who are -- who want to stay on and who I want to stay on, I've got to make sure that it's right for their families and that they're comfortable, because when they come to work here in the White House, I expect them to work as hard as they possibly can on behalf of the American people.

In the Cabinet, there will be some changes. I don't know who they will be. It's inevitable there will be changes. It happens in every administration. To a person, I am proud of the work they have done. And I fully understand we're about to head into the period of intense speculation as to who's going to stay and who's not going to stay, and I assured them that -- today I warned them of the speculative period. I said, it's a great Washington sport to be talking about who's going to leave and who their replacements may be, and handicapping, you know, my way of thinking.

I'll just give you -- but let me just help you out with the speculation right now. I haven't thought about it. I'm going to start thinking about it. I'm going to Camp David this afternoon with Laura, and I'll begin the process of thinking about the Cabinet and the White House staff. And we'll let you know at the appropriate time when decisions have been made. And so, nice try, Mike.

Yes, Ed, and then --

Q What you learned --

THE PRESIDENT: Learned and not learned about the Cabinet?

Q What works, what doesn't.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, well, first I've learned that I put together a really good Cabinet. I'm very proud of the people that have served this government, and they -- to a man and a woman, worked their hearts out for the American people. And I've learned that you've got to continue to surround yourself with good people. This is a job that requires crisp decision-making, and therefore, in order for me to make decisions, I've got to have people who bring their point of view into the Oval Office and are willing to say it.

I always jest to people, the Oval Office is the kind of place where people stand outside, they're getting ready to come in and tell me what for, and they walk in and get overwhelmed in the atmosphere, and they say, man, you're looking pretty. And therefore, you need people to walk in on those days when you're not looking so good and saying, you're not looking so good, Mr. President. And I've got -- those are the kind of people that served our country.

We've had vigorous debates, which you all, during the last four years, took great delight in reporting, differences of opinion. But that's what you want if you're the Commander-in-Chief and a decision-maker. You want people to walk in and say, I don't agree with this, or I do agree with that, and here's what my recommendation is. But the President also has to learn to decide. You take, you know -- there's ample time for the debate to take place, and then decide and make up your mind and lead. That's what the job's all about.

And so I have learned how important it is to be -- to have a really fine group of people that think through issues, and that are not intimidated by the process, and who walk in and tell me what's on their mind.

Ed, and then Stevens.

Q Good morning. Sir, does it bother you that there's a perception out there that your administration has been one that favors big business and the wealthy individuals? And what can you do to overcome that, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Ed, 70 percent of the new jobs in America are created by small businesses. I understand that. And I have promoted during the course of the last four years one of the most aggressive, pro-entrepreneur, small business policies. Tax relief -- you might remember -- I don't know if you know this or not, but 90 percent of the businesses are sole proprietorships or subchapter-S corporations. (Laughter.)

Q We've heard it.

THE PRESIDENT: Tax relief helped them. This is an administration that fully understands that the job creators are the entrepreneurs. And so in a new term, we will make sure the tax relief continues to be robust for our small businesses. We'll push legal reform and regulatory reform because I understand the engine of growth is through the small business sector.

Stevenson.

Q Sir, given your commitment to reaching out across party lines and to all Americans, I wonder if you could expand on your definition of bipartisanship, and whether it means simply picking off a few Democrats on a case-by-case basis to pass the bills you want to pass, or whether you would commit to working regularly with the Democratic leadership on solutions that can win broad support across party lines?

THE PRESIDENT: Do you remember the No Child Left Behind Act? I think there the model I'd look at if I were you. It is a -- I laid out an agenda for reforming our public schools. I worked with both Republicans and Democrats to get that bill passed. In a new term, we'll continue to make sure we do not weaken the accountability standards that are making a huge difference in people's lives, in these kids' lives.

But that's the model I'd look at, if I were you. And we'll -- there's a certain practicality to life here in Washington. And that is, when you get a bill moving it is important to get the votes, and if politics starts to get in the way of getting good legislation through, you know, that's just part of life here. But I'm also focused on results. I think of the Medicare bill -- you might remember that old, stale debate. We finally got a bill moving. I was hoping that we'd get strong bipartisan support -- unfortunately, it was an election year. But we got the votes necessary to get the bill passed. And so we will -- I will -- my goal is to work on the ideal and to reach out and to continue to work and find common ground on issues.

On the other hand, I've been wizened to the ways of Washington. I watched what can happen during certain parts of the cycle, where politics gets in the way of good policy. And at that point in time, I'll continue to -- you know, I'll try to get this done, I'll try to get our bills passed in a way, because results really do matter, as far as I'm concerned. I really didn't come here to hold the office just to say, gosh, it was fun to serve. I came here to get some things done, and we are doing it.

Yes, Big Stretch.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I know you haven't had a chance to learn this, but it appears that Yasser Arafat has passed away.

THE PRESIDENT: Really?

Q And I was just wondering if I could get your initial reaction? And also your thoughts on, perhaps, working with a new generation of Palestinian leadership?

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. My first reaction is, God bless his soul. And my second reaction is, is that we will continue to work for a free Palestinian state that's at peace with Israel.

Yes.

Q Mr. President, as you look at your second term domestic priorities, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you see the sequence of action on issues beyond Social Security -- tax reform, education. And if you could expand a little bit for us on the principles that you want to underpin your tax reform proposal -- do you want it to be revenue neutral? What kinds of things do you want to accomplish through that process?

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. I was anticipating this question; that, what is the first thing you're going to do? When it comes it legislation, it just doesn't work that way, particularly when you've laid out a comprehensive agenda. And part of that comprehensive agenda is tax simplification.

The -- first of all, a principle would be revenue neutral. If I'm going to -- if there was a need to raise taxes, I'd say, let's have a tax bill that raises taxes, as opposed to let's simply the tax code and sneak a tax increase on the people. It's just not my style. I don't believe we need to raise taxes. I've said that to the American people. And so the simplification would be the goal.

Now, secondly, that obviously, that it rewards risk and doesn't -- it doesn't have unnecessary penalties in it. But the main thing is that it would be viewed as fair, that it would be a fair system, that it wouldn't be complicated, that there's a -- kind of that loopholes wouldn't be there for special interests, that the code itself be viewed and deemed as a very fair way to encourage people to invest and save and achieve certain fiscal objectives in our country, as well.

One of the interesting debates will be, of course, in the course of simplification, will there be incentives in the code: charitable giving, of course, and mortgage deductions are very important. As governor of Texas, when I -- some time I think I was asked about simplification, I always noted how important it was for certain incentives to be built into the tax code, and that will be an interesting part of the debate.

Certain issues come quicker than others in the course of a legislative session, and that depends upon whether or not those issues have been

debated. I think of, for example, the legal issue -- the legal reform issues, they have been -- medical liability reform had been debated and got thwarted a couple of times in one body in particular on Capitol Hill. And so the groundwork has been laid for some legislation that I've been talking about. On an issue like tax reform it's going to -- tax simplification, it's going to take a lot of legwork to get something ready for a legislative package. I fully understand that. And Social Security reform will require some additional legwork, although the Moynihan Commission has laid the groundwork for what I think is a very good place to start the debate.

The education issue is one that could move pretty quickly because there has been a lot of discussion about education. It's an issue that the members are used to debating and discussing. And so I think -- all issues are important. And the timing of issues as they reach it through committee and floor really depend upon whether or not some work has already been on those issues.

A couple more questions. Bob.

Q Mr. President, American forces are gearing up for what appears to be a major offensive in Fallujah over the next several days. I'm wondering if you could tell us what the objective is, what the stakes are there for the United States, for the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi elections coming up in January?

THE PRESIDENT: In order for Iraq to be a free country those who are trying to stop the elections and stop a free society from emerging must be defeated.

And so Prime Minister Allawi and his government, which fully understands that, are working with our generals on the ground to do just that. We will work closely with the government. It's their government, it's their country. We're there at their invitation. And -- but I think there's a recognition that some of these people have to -- must be defeated, and so that's what they're thinking about. That's what you're -- that's why you're hearing discussions about potential action in Fallujah.

Heidi.

Q Thank you, sir. Many within your own party are unhappy over the deficit, and they say keeping down discretional spending alone won't help you reach the goal of halving the deficit in five years. What else do you plan to do to cut costs?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I -- I would suggest they look at our budget that we've submitted to Congress, which does, in fact, get the deficit down -- cut in half in five years, and is a specific line-by-line budget that we are required to submit and have done so.

The key to making sure that the deficit is reduced is for there to be, on the one hand, spending discipline, and I -- as you noticed in my opening remarks, I talked about these appropriations bills that are beginning to move, and I thought I was pretty clear about the need for those bills to be -- to be fiscally responsible, and I meant it. And I look forward to talking to the leadership about making sure that the budget agreements we had are still the budget agreements, that just because we had an election, that they shouldn't feel comfortable changing our agreement. And I think they understand that.

And secondly, the other way to make sure that the deficit is -- decreases, is to grow the economy. As the economy grows, there will be more revenues coming into the Treasury. That's what you have seen recently. If you notice, there's been some write-downs of the budget deficit. In other words, the deficit is less than we thought because the revenues is exceeding projections. And the reason why the revenues -- the revenues are exceeding projections -- sometimes I mangle the English language. I get that. (Laughter.)

Q Inside joke.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very inside. (Laughter.)

The revenues are exceeding projections. And as a result, the projected deficit is less. But my point there is, is that with good economic policy that encourages economic growth, the revenue streams begin to increase. And as the revenue streams increase, coupled with fiscal discipline, you'll see the deficit shrinking. And we're focused on that.

I do believe there ought to be budgetary reform in Washington, on the Hill, Capitol Hill. I think it's very important. I would like to see the President have a line-item veto again, one that passed constitutional muster. I think it would help the executive branch work with the legislative branch, to make sure that we're able to maintain budget discipline. I've talked to a lot of members of Congress who are wondering whether or not we'll have the will to confront entitlements, to make sure that there is entitlement reform that helps us maintain fiscal discipline. And the answer is, yes; that's why I took on the Social Security issue. I believe we have a duty to do so. I want to make sure that the Medicare reforms that we've put in place remain robust, to help us make sure Medicare is available for generations to come.

And so there is a -- I've got quite an active agenda to help work with Congress to bring not only fiscal discipline, but to make sure that our pro-growth policies are still in place.

Herman. I'm probably going to regret this. (Laughter.)

Q I don't know if you had a chance to check, but I can report you did eke out a victory in Texas the other day.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, sir.

Q Congratulations. I'm interested in getting back to Steven -- Stevenson's question about unity. Clearly, you believe you have reached out and will continue to reach out. Do you believe the Democrats have made a sincere and sufficient effort to meet you somewhere halfway, and do you think now there's more reason for them the do that in light of the election results?

THE PRESIDENT: I think that Democrats agree that we have an obligation to serve our country. I believe there will be goodwill, now that this election is over, to work together. I found that to be the case when I first arrived here in Washington, and working with the Democrats and fellow Republicans, we got a lot done. And it is with that spirit that I go into this coming session, and I will meet with both Republican and Democrat leaders, and I am -- they'll see I'm genuine about working toward some of these important issues.

It's going to be -- it's not easy. These -- I readily concede I've laid out some very difficult issues for people to deal with. Reforming the Social Security system for generations to come is a difficult issue; otherwise, it would have already been done. But it is necessary to confront it. And I would hope to be able to work with Democrats to get this done. I'm not sure we can get it done without Democrat participation, because it is a big issue, and I will explain to them and I will show them Senator Moynihan's thinking as a way to begin the process. And I will remind everybody here that we have a duty to leave behind a better America, and when we see a problem, to deal with it. And I think the -- I think Democrats agree with that.

And so I'm optimistic. You covered me when I was the governor of Texas. I told you that I was going to do that as a governor. There was probably skepticism in your beady eyes there. (Laughter.) But you might remember -- you might remember, we did -- we were able to accomplish a lot by -- and Washington is different from Austin, no question about it. Washington -- one of the disappointments of being here in Washington is how bitter this town can become and how divisive. I'm not blaming one party or the other. It's just the reality of Washington, D.C., sometimes exacerbated by you, because it's great sport. It's really -- it's entertaining for some. It also makes is difficult to govern at times.

But nevertheless, my commitment is there. I fully -- now more seasoned to Washington, I've cut my political eye-teeth, at least the ones I've recently grown here in Washington. And so I'm aware of what can happen in this town. But nevertheless, having said that, I am fully prepared to work with both Republican and Democrat leadership to advance an agenda that I think makes a big difference for the country.

Listen, thank you all. I look forward to working with you. I've got a question for you. How many of you are going to be here for a second term? Please raise your hand. (Laughter.)

Good. Gosh, we're going to have a lot of fun, then. Thank you all.

END 11:57 A.M. EST

Posted by Lisa at 08:45 AM
November 07, 2004
Letter by Conyers, Nadler and Wexler To The GAO Office Requesting An Investigation Into Election 2004's Voting Irregularities

Thanks to William Rivers Pitt for including this in his latest article.

Here's a Wired News article explaining more of the details behind the letter.


Representatives John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Robert Wexler, all members of the House Judiciary Committee, posted a letter on November 5th to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. In the letter, they asked for an investigation into the efficacy of these electronic voting machines. The letter reads as follows:

November 5, 2004

The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. General Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20548

Dear Mr. Walker:

We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.

In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which we would also request that you review and evaluate for us:

In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush nearly 4,000 extra votes. ("Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Associated Press, November 5)

An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed to record thousands of votes. "South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal," (Id.)

In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold more data that it did. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," (Id.)

In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that resulted in some votes being left uncounted. (Id.)

In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan machines that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms.

The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous reports from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman Wexler's staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush appeared on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states, particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was among over one thousand such problems reported. ("Touchscreen Voting Problems Reported," Associated Press, November 5)

Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. ("All Eyes on Ohio," Dan Lothian, CNN, November 3)

We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will transmit additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler

Ranking Member, Ranking Member, Member of Congress
House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution

cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Chairman

Posted by Lisa at 10:23 PM
William Rivers Pitt: This Election Was Even More Of A Disaster Than 2000


Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster

By William Rivers Pitt for Truthout.

Another point of interest included in this article is the actual letter sent out by John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Robert Wexler (all members of the House Judiciary Committee) that was sent last friday to the GAO office asking for an investigation of several voter irregularities.


Four years later, and none of the Florida problems were fixed. In fact, by all appearances, they spread from Florida to Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan and elsewhere. Worse, these problems only scratch the surface of what appears to have happened in Tuesday's election. The fix that was put in place to solve these problems - the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 after the Florida debacle - appears to have gone a long way towards making things worse by orders of magnitude, for it was the Help America Vote Act which introduced paperless electronic touch-screen voting machines to millions of voters across the country.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110804A.shtml

Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report

Monday 08 November 2004

Everyone remembers Florida's 2000 election debacle, and all of the new terms it introduced to our political lexicon: Hanging chads, dimpled chads, pregnant chads, overvotes, undervotes, Sore Losermans, Jews for Buchanan and so forth. It took several weeks, battalions of lawyers and a questionable decision from the U.S. Supreme Court to show the nation and the world how messy democracy can be. By any standard, what happened in Florida during the 2000 Presidential election was a disaster.

What happened during the Presidential election of 2004, in Florida, in Ohio, and in a number of other states as well, was worse.

Some of the problems with this past Tuesday's election will sound all too familiar. Despite having four years to look into and deal with the problems that cropped up in Florida in 2000, the 'spoiled vote' chad issue reared its ugly head again. Investigative journalist Greg Palast, the man almost singularly responsible for exposing the more egregious examples of illegitimate deletions of voters from the rolls, described the continued problems in an article published just before the election, and again in an article published just after the election.

Four years later, and none of the Florida problems were fixed. In fact, by all appearances, they spread from Florida to Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan and elsewhere. Worse, these problems only scratch the surface of what appears to have happened in Tuesday's election. The fix that was put in place to solve these problems - the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 after the Florida debacle - appears to have gone a long way towards making things worse by orders of magnitude, for it was the Help America Vote Act which introduced paperless electronic touch-screen voting machines to millions of voters across the country.

At first blush, it seems like a good idea. Forget the chads, the punch cards, the archaic booths like pianos standing on end with the handles and the curtains. This is the 21st century, so let's do it with computers. A simple screen presents straightforward choices, and you touch the spot on the screen to vote for your candidate. Your vote is recorded by the machine, and then sent via modem to a central computer which tallies the votes. Simple, right?

Not quite.


A Diebold voting machine.
Is there any evidence that these machines went haywire on Tuesday? Nationally, there were more than 1,100 reports of electronic voting machine malfunctions. A few examples:

* In Broward County, Florida, election workers were shocked to discover that their shiny new machines were counting backwards. "Tallies should go up as more votes are counted," according to this report. "That's simple math. But in some races, the numbers had gone down. Officials found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward."

* In Franklin County, Ohio, electronic voting machines gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in one precinct alone. "Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B," according to this report. "Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said Bush received 365 votes there. The other 13 voters who cast ballots either voted for other candidates or did not vote for president."

* In Craven County, North Carolina, a software error on the electronic voting machines awarded Bush 11,283 extra votes. "The Elections Systems and Software equipment," according to this report, "had downloaded voting information from nine of the county's 26 precincts and as the absentee ballots were added, the precinct totals were added a second time. An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly."

* In Carteret County, North Carolina, "More than 4,500 votes may be lost in one North Carolina county because officials believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes. Officials said 3,005 early votes were stored, but 4,530 were lost."

* In LaPorte County, Indiana, a Democratic stronghold, the electronic voting machines decided that each precinct only had 300 voters. "At about 7 p.m. Tuesday," according to this report, "it was noticed that the first two or three printouts from individual precinct reports all listed an identical number of voters. Each precinct was listed as having 300 registered voters. That means the total number of voters for the county would be 22,200, although there are actually more than 79,000 registered voters."

* In Sarpy County, Nebraska, the electronic touch screen machines got generous. "As many as 10,000 extra votes," according to this report, "have been tallied and candidates are still waiting for corrected totals. Johnny Boykin lost his bid to be on the Papillion City Council. The difference between victory and defeat in the race was 127 votes. Boykin says, 'When I went in to work the next day and saw that 3,342 people had shown up to vote in our ward, I thought something's not right.' He's right. There are not even 3,000 people registered to vote in his ward. For some reason, some votes were counted twice."

Stories like this have been popping up in many of the states that put these touch-screen voting machines to use. Beyond these reports are the folks who attempted to vote for one candidate and saw the machine give their vote to the other candidate. Sometimes, the flawed machines were taken off-line, and sometimes they were not. As for the reports above, the mistakes described were caught and corrected. How many mistakes made by these machines were not caught, were not corrected, and have now become part of the record?

The flaws within these machines are well documented. Professors and researchers from Johns Hopkins performed a detailed analysis of these electronic voting machines in May of 2004. In their results, the Johns Hopkins researchers stated, "This voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We identify several problems including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. We show that voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal software."

"Furthermore," they continued, "we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered and executed without access to the source code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable, showing that not only can an insider, such as a poll worker, modify the votes, but that insiders can also violate voter privacy and match votes with the voters who cast them. We conclude that this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election."

Many of these machines do not provide the voter with a paper ballot that verifies their vote. So if an error - or purposefully inserted malicious code - in the untested machine causes their vote to go for the other guy, they have no way to verify that it happened. The lack of a paper ballot also means the end of recounts as we have known them; now, on these new machines, a recount amounts to pushing a button on the machine and getting a number in return, but without those paper ballots to do a comparison, there is no way to verify the validity of that count.

Worst of all is the fact that all the votes collected by these machines are sent via modem to a central tabulating computer which counts the votes on Windows software. This means, essentially, that any gomer with access to the central tabulation machine who knows how to work an Excel spreadsheet can go into this central computer and make wholesale changes to election totals without anyone being the wiser.

Bev Harris, who has been working tirelessly since the passage of the Help America Vote Act to inform people of the dangers present in this new process, got a chance to demonstrate how easy it is to steal an election on that central tabulation computer while a guest on the CNBC program 'Topic A With Tina Brown.' Ms. Brown was off that night, and the guest host was none other than Governor Howard Dean. Thanks to Governor Dean and Ms. Harris, anyone watching CNBC that night got to see just how easy it is to steal an election because of these new machines and the flawed processes they use.

"In a voting system," Harris said on the show, "you have all the different voting machines at all the different polling places, sometimes, as in a county like mine, there's a thousand polling places in a single county. All those machines feed into the one machine so it can add up all the votes. So, of course, if you were going to do something you shouldn't to a voting machine, would it be more convenient to do it to each of the 4000 machines, or just come in here and deal with all of them at once? What surprises people is that the central tabulator is just a PC, like what you and I use. It's just a regular computer."

Harris then proceeded to open a laptop computer that had on it the software used to tabulate the votes by one of the aforementioned central processors. Journalist Thom Hartman describes what happened next: "So Harris had Dean close the Diebold GEMS tabulation software, go back to the normal Windows PC desktop, click on the 'My Computer' icon, choose 'Local Disk C:,' open the folder titled GEMS, and open the sub-folder 'LocalDB' which, Harris noted, 'stands for local database, that's where they keep the votes.' Harris then had Dean double-click on a file in that folder titled Central Tabulator Votes,' which caused the PC to open the vote count in a database program like Excel. 'Let's just flip those,' Harris said, as Dean cut and pasted the numbers from one cell into the other. Harris sat up a bit straighter, smiled, and said, 'We just edited an election, and it took us 90 seconds.'"

Any system that makes it this easy to steal or corrupt an election has no business being anywhere near the voters on election day.

The counter-argument to this states that people with nefarious intent, people with a partisan stake in the outcome of an election, would have to have access to the central tabulation computers in order to do harm to the process. Keep the partisans away from the process, and everything will work out fine. Surely no partisan political types were near these machines on Tuesday night when the votes were counted, right?

One of the main manufacturers of these electronic touch-screen voting machines is Diebold, Inc. More than 35 counties in Ohio alone used the Diebold machines on Tuesday, and millions of voters across the country did the same. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Diebold gave $100,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2000, along with additional contributions between 2001 and 2002 which totaled $95,000. Of the four companies competing for the contracts to manufacture these voting machines, only Diebold contributed large sums to any political party. The CEO of Diebold is a man named Walden O'Dell. O'Dell was very much on board with the Bush campaign, having said publicly in 2003 that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

So much for keeping the partisans at arm's length.

Is there any evidence that vote totals were deliberately tampered with by people who had a stake in the outcome? Nothing specific has been documented to date. Jeff Fisher, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District, claims to have evidence that the Florida election was hacked, and says further that he knows who hacked it and how it was done. Such evidence is not yet forthcoming.

There are, however, some disturbing and compelling trends that indicate things are not as they should be. This chart displays a breakdown of counties in Florida. It lists the voters in each county by party affiliation, and compares expected vote totals to the reported results. It also separates the results into two sections, one for 'touch-screen' counties and the other for optical scan counties.

Over and over in these counties, the results, based upon party registration, did not come close to matching expectations. It can be argued, and has been argued, that such results indicate nothing more or less than a President getting cross-over voters, as well as late-breaking undecided voters, to come over to his side. These are Southern Democrats, and the numbers from previous elections show that many have often voted Republican. Yet the news wires have been inundated for well over a year with stories about how stridently united Democratic voters were behind the idea of removing Bush from office. It is worth wondering why that unity did not permeate these Democratic voting districts. If that unity was there, it is worth asking why the election results in these counties do not reflect this.

Most disturbing of all is the reality that these questionable Diebold voting machines are not isolated to Florida. This list documents, as of March 2003, all of the counties in all of the 37 states where Diebold machines were used to count votes. The document is 28 pages long. That is a lot of counties, and a lot of votes, left in the hands of machines that have a questionable track record, that send their vote totals to central computers which make it far too easy to change election results, that were manufactured by a company with a personal, financial, and publicly stated stake in George W. Bush holding on to the White House.


This map indicates where different voting devices were used nationally. The areas where electronic voting machines were used is marked in blue.
A poster named 'TruthIsAll' on the DemocraticUnderground.com forums laid out the questionable results of Tuesday's election in succinct fashion: "To believe that Bush won the election, you must also believe: That the exit polls were wrong; that Zogby's 5pm election day calls for Kerry winning Ohio and Florida were wrong (he was exactly right in his 2000 final poll); that Harris' last-minute polling for Kerry was wrong (he was exactly right in his 2000 final poll); that incumbent rule #1 - undecideds break for the challenger - was wrong; That the 50% rule - an incumbent doesn't do better than his final polling - was wrong; That the approval rating rule - an incumbent with less than 50% approval will most likely lose the election - was wrong; that it was just a coincidence that the exit polls were correct where there was a paper trail and incorrect (+5% for Bush) where there was no paper trail; that the surge in new young voters had no positive effect for Kerry; that Kerry did worse than Gore against an opponent who lost the support of scores of Republican newspapers who were for Bush in 2000; that voting machines made by Republicans with no paper trail and with no software publication, which have been proven by thousands of computer scientists to be vulnerable in scores of ways, were not tampered with in this election."

In short, we have old-style vote spoilage in minority communities. We have electronic voting machines losing votes and adding votes all across the country. We have electronic voting machines whose efficiency and safety have not been tested. We have electronic voting machines that offer no paper trail to ensure a fair outcome. We have central tabulators for these machines running on Windows software, compiling results that can be demonstrably tampered with. We have the makers of these machines publicly professing their preference for George W. Bush. We have voter trends that stray from the expected results. We have these machines counting millions of votes all across the country.

Perhaps this can all be dismissed. Perhaps rants like the one posted by 'TruthIsAll' are nothing more than sour grapes from the side that lost. Perhaps all of the glitches, wrecked votes, unprecedented voting trends and partisan voting-machine connections can be explained away. If so, this reporter would very much like to see those explanations. At a bare minimum, the fact that these questions exist at all represents a grievous undermining of the basic confidence in the process required to make this democracy work. Democracy should not ever require leaps of faith, and we have put the fate of our nation into the hands of machines that require such a leap. It is unacceptable across the board, and calls into serious question not only the election we just had, but any future election involving these machines.

Representatives John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Robert Wexler, all members of the House Judiciary Committee, posted a letter on November 5th to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. In the letter, they asked for an investigation into the efficacy of these electronic voting machines. The letter reads as follows:

November 5, 2004

The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. General Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20548

Dear Mr. Walker:

We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.

In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which we would also request that you review and evaluate for us:

In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush nearly 4,000 extra votes. ("Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," Associated Press, November 5)

An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed to record thousands of votes. "South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal," (Id.)

In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold more data that it did. "Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes," (Id.)

In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that resulted in some votes being left uncounted. (Id.)

In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan machines that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms.

The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous reports from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman Wexler's staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush appeared on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states, particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was among over one thousand such problems reported. ("Touchscreen Voting Problems Reported," Associated Press, November 5)

Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. ("All Eyes on Ohio," Dan Lothian, CNN, November 3)

We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will transmit additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler

Ranking Member, Ranking Member, Member of Congress
House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution

cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Chairman

"The essence of democracy," wrote the Congressmen, "is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004." Those fears appear to be valid.

John Kerry and John Edwards promised on Tuesday night that every vote would count, and that every vote would be counted. By Wednesday morning, Kerry had conceded the race to Bush, eliciting outraged howls from activists who were watching the reports of voting irregularities come piling in. Kerry had said that 10,000 lawyers were ready to fight any wrongdoing in this election. One hopes that he still has those lawyers on retainer.

According to black-letter election law, Bush does not officially get a second term until the electors from the Electoral College go to Washington D.C on December 12th. Perhaps Kerry's 10,000 lawyers, along with a real investigation per the request of Conyers, Nadler and Wexler, could give those electors something to think about in the interim.

In the meantime, soon-to-be-unemployed DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe sent out an email on Saturday night titled 'Help determine the Democratic Party's next steps.' In the email, McAuliffe states, "If you were involved in these grassroots activities, we want to hear from you about your experience. What did you do? Did you feel the action you took was effective? Was it a good experience for you? How would you make it better? Tell us your thoughts." He provided a feedback form where such thoughts can be sent.

Use the form. Give Terry your thoughts on the matter. Ask him if those 10,000 lawyers are still available. It seems the validity of Tuesday's election remains a wide-open question.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'

Posted by Lisa at 10:20 PM
Not Going On My Trip

I decided that this wasn't a good time to take off for a couple days, birthday or no.

So I'll be right here keeping track of the post-election and shrub war developments going on.

Just a heads up.

Posted by Lisa at 07:04 PM
Greg Palast On The Day Before The Election: 1,000,000 Kerry Votes Already Stolen

This shouldn't technically be in the "Aftermath" category, because it was published the day before. But I feel like it needs to be here to make this category complete.


An Election Spoiled Rotten

By Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, for TomPaine.com.


It's not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is already down by almost a million votes. That's because, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked—overwhelmingly in minority areas, like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, where Hispanic voters have a 500 percent greater chance of their vote being "spoiled"...

Through a combination of sophisticated vote rustling—ethnic cleansing of voter rolls, absentee ballots gone AWOL, machines that "spoil" votes—John Kerry begins with a nationwide deficit that could easily exceed one million votes.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/an_election_spoiled_rotten.php


An Election Spoiled Rotten
Greg Palast
November 01, 2004

It's not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is already down by almost a million votes. That's because, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked—overwhelmingly in minority areas, like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, where Hispanic voters have a 500 percent greater chance of their vote being "spoiled." Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on the trashing of the election.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted. He's also losing big time in Colorado and Ohio; and he's way down in Florida, though the votes won't be totaled until Tuesday night.

Through a combination of sophisticated vote rustling—ethnic cleansing of voter rolls, absentee ballots gone AWOL, machines that "spoil" votes—John Kerry begins with a nationwide deficit that could easily exceed one million votes.

The Urge To Purge

Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson just weeks ago removed several thousand voters from the state's voter rolls. She tagged felons as barred from voting. What makes this particularly noteworthy is that, unlike like Florida and a handful of other Deep South states, Colorado does not bar ex-cons from voting. Only those actually serving their sentence lose their rights.

There's no known, verified case of a Colorado convict voting illegally from the big house. Because previous purges have wiped away the rights of innocents, federal law now bars purges within 90 days of a presidential election to allow a voter to challenge their loss of civil rights.

To exempt her action from the federal rule, Secretary Davidson declared an "emergency." However, the only "emergency" in Colorado seems to be President Bush's running dead, even with John Kerry in the polls.

Why the sudden urge to purge? Davidson's chief of voting law enforcement is Drew Durham, who previously worked for the attorney general of Texas. This is what the former spokesman for the Lone Star State's attorney general says of Mr. Durham: He is "unfit for public office... a man with a history of racism and ideological zealotry." Sounds just right for a purge that affects, in the majority, non-white voters.

From my own and government investigations of such purge lists, it is unlikely that this one contains many, if any, illegal voters.

But it does contain Democrats. The Dems may not like to shout about this, but studies indicate that 90-some percent of people who have served time for felonies will, after prison, vote Democratic. One suspects Colorado's Republican secretary of state knows that.

Ethnic Cleansing Of The Voter Rolls

We can't leave the topic of ethnically cleansing the voter rolls without a stop in Ohio, where a Republican secretary of state appears to be running to replace Katherine Harris.

In Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), some citizens have been caught Registering While Black. A statistical analysis of would-be voters in Southern states by the watchdog group Democracy South indicates that black voters are three times as likely as white voters to have their registration requests "returned" (i.e., subject to rejection).

And to give a boost to this whitening of the voter rolls, for the first time since the days of Jim Crow, the Republicans are planning mass challenges of voters on Election Day. The GOP's announced plan to block 35,000 voters in Ohio ran up against the wrath of federal judges; so, in Florida, what appear to be similar plans had been kept under wraps until the discovery of documents called "caging" lists. The voters on the “caging” lists, disclosed last week by BBC Television London, are, almost exclusively, residents of African-American neighborhoods.

Such racial profiling as part of a plan to block voters is, under the Voting Rights Act, illegal. Nevertheless, neither the Act nor federal judges have persuaded the party of Lincoln to join the Democratic Party in pledging not to distribute blacklists to block voters on Tuesday.

Absentee Ballots Go AWOL

It's 10pm: Do you know where your absentee ballot is? Voters wary about computer balloting are going postal: in some states, mail-in ballot requests are up 500 percent. The probability that all those votes—up to 15 million—will be counted is zip.

Those who mail in ballots are very trusting souls. Here's how your trust is used. In the August 31 primaries in Florida, Palm Beach Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore (a.k.a. Madame Butterfly Ballot) counted 37,839 absentee votes. But days before, her office told me only 29,000 ballots had been received. When this loaves-and-fishes miracle was disclosed, she was forced to recount, cutting the tally to 31,138.

Had she worked it the other way, disappearing a few thousand votes instead of adding additional ones, there would be almost no way to figure out the fix (or was it a mistake?). Mail-in voter registration forms are protected by federal law. Local government must acknowledge receiving your registration and must let you know if there's a problem (say, with signature or address) that invalidates your registration. But your mail-in vote is an unprotected crapshoot. How do you know if your ballot was received? Was it tossed behind a file cabinet—or tossed out because you did not include your middle initial? In many counties, you won't know.

And not every official is happy to have your vote. It is well-reported that Broward County, Fla., failed to send out nearly 60,000 absentee ballots. What has not been nationally reported is that Broward's elections supervisor is a Jeb Bush appointee who took the post only after the governor took the unprecedented step of removing the prior elected supervisor who happened be a Democrat.

A Million Votes In The Electoral Trash Can

"If the vote is stolen here, it will be stolen in Rio Arriba County," a New Mexico politician told me. That's a reasoned surmise: in 2000, one in 10 votes simply weren't counted—chucked out, erased, discarded. In the voting biz, the technical term for these vanishing votes is "spoilage." Citizens cast ballots, but the machines don't notice. In one Rio Arriba precinct in the last go-'round, not one single vote was cast for president—or, at least, none showed up on the machines.

Not everyone's vote spoils equally. Rio Arriba is 73 percent Hispanic. I asked nationally recognized vote statistician Dr. Philip Klinkner of Hamilton College to run a "regression" analysis of the Hispanic ballot spoilage in the Enchanted State. He calculated that a brown voter is 500 percent more likely to have their vote spoiled than a white voter. And It's worse for Native Americans. Vote spoilage is epidemic near Indian reservations.

Votes don't spoil because they're left out of the fridge. It comes down to the machines. Just as poor people get the crap schools and crap hospitals, they get the crap voting machines.

It's bad for Hispanics; but for African Americans, it's a ballot-box holocaust. An embarrassing little fact of American democracy is that, typically, two million votes are spoiled in national elections, registering no vote or invalidated. Based on studies by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and the Harvard Law School Civil Rights project, about 54 percent of those ballots are cast by African Americans. One million black votes vanished—phffft!

There's a lot of politicians in both parties that like it that way; suppression of the minority is the way they get elected. Whoever is to blame, on Tuesday, the Kerry-Edwards ticket will take the hit. In Rio Arriba, Democrats have an eight-to-one registration edge over Republicans. Among African American voters...well, you can do the arithmetic yourself.

The total number of votes siphoned out of America's voting booths is so large, you won't find the issue reported in our self-glorifying news media. The one million missing black, brown and red votes spoiled, plus the hundreds of thousands flushed from voter registries, is our nation's dark secret: an apartheid democracy in which wealthy white votes almost always count, but minorities are often purged or challenged or simply not recorded. In effect, Kerry is down by a million votes before one lever is pulled, card punched or touch-screen touched.


Posted by Lisa at 06:50 PM
Election Day Report From ABC News: A Number Of Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported

Wow. Here's one I missed from ABC News that was published on Election Day (Nov 2, 2004).

Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported

By ABC News.


Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates.

The e-voting glitches reported to the Election Protection Coalition, an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone hotline, included malfunctions blamed on everything from power outages to incompetent poll workers.

But there were also several dozen voters in six states - particularly Democrats in Florida - who said the wrong candidates appeared on their touch-screen machine's checkout screen, the coalition said.

In many cases, voters said they intended to select John Kerry (website - news - bio) but when the computer asked them to verify the choice it showed them instead opting for President Bush (website - news - bio) , the group said.

After 10 minutes trying to change her selection, the Pinellas County resident said she called a poll worker and got a wet-wipe napkin to clean the touch screen as well as a pencil so she could use its eraser-end instead of her finger. Harvey said it took about 10 attempts to select Kerry before and a summary screen confirmed her intended selection. Election officials in several Florida counties where voters complained about such problems did not return calls Tuesday night...

The Election Protection Coalition received a total of 32 reports of touch-screen voters who selected one candidate only to have another show up on the summary screen, Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a coalition member.


Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.whtm.com/news/stories/1104/184856.html

Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported
UPDATED - Tuesday November 02, 2004 11:23pm
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Voting Goes Smoothly for the Most Part103-Year-Old Has Been Voting Since 1920Update On Absentee BallotsFlorida Fixes Voting Machines, Recount RulesPoll Watchers to Crowd Voting Venues
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates.

The e-voting glitches reported to the Election Protection Coalition, an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone hotline, included malfunctions blamed on everything from power outages to incompetent poll workers.

But there were also several dozen voters in six states - particularly Democrats in Florida - who said the wrong candidates appeared on their touch-screen machine's checkout screen, the coalition said.

In many cases, voters said they intended to select John Kerry (website - news - bio) but when the computer asked them to verify the choice it showed them instead opting for President Bush (website - news - bio) , the group said.
abc27 -
Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported (source: AP)


After 10 minutes trying to change her selection, the Pinellas County resident said she called a poll worker and got a wet-wipe napkin to clean the touch screen as well as a pencil so she could use its eraser-end instead of her finger. Harvey said it took about 10 attempts to select Kerry before and a summary screen confirmed her intended selection. Election officials in several Florida counties where voters complained about such problems did not return calls Tuesday night.

A spokesoman for the company that makes the touch-screen machines used in Pinellas, Palm Beach and two other Florida counties, Alfie Charles of Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., said the machines' monitors may need to be recalibrated periodically.

The most likely reason the summary screen showed wrong candidates was because voters pushed the wrong part of the touch screen in the first place, Charles said.

He said poll workers are trained to perform the recalibration whenever a voter says the touch screen isn't sensitive enough.

"Voters will vote quickly and they'll notice that they made an error when they get to the review screen. The review screen is doing exactly what it needs to do - notifying voters what selections are about to be recorded," Charles said. "On a paper ballot, you don't get a second chance to make sure you voted for whom you intended, and it's a strong point in favor of these machines."

The Election Protection Coalition received a total of 32 reports of touch-screen voters who selected one candidate only to have another show up on the summary screen, Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a coalition member.

David Dill, a Stanford University computer scientist whose Verified Voting Foundation also belongs to the coalition, said he wouldn't "prejudge and say the election is going smoothly just because we have a small number of incident reports out of the total population.

"It's not going to be until the dust clears probably tomorrow that we have even an approximate idea of what happened," Dill added.

---

AP Technology Writer Matthew Fordahl in San Jose, Calif., contributed to this report.

Posted by Lisa at 06:39 PM
Dems Seek GAO Investigation Into Voting Irregularities


House Dems Seek Election Inquiry

By Kim Zetter for Wired News.


Three congressmen sent a letter to the General Accounting Office on Friday requesting an investigation into irregularities with voting machines used in Tuesday's elections.

The congressmen, Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Florida, New York and Michigan, cited a number of incidents that came to light in the days after the election. One was a glitch in Ohio that caused a memory card reader made by Danaher Controls to give George W. Bush 3,893 more votes than he should have received. Another was a problem with memory cards in North Carolina that caused machines made by UniLect to lose 4,500 votes cast on e-voting machines. The votes were lost when the number of votes cast on the machines exceeded the capacity of the memory cards.

There were also problems with machines that counted absentee ballots in Florida. Software made by Election Systems & Software began subtracting votes when totals surpassed 32,000. Officials said the problem affected only certain countywide races on one of the last pages of the ballot. Elections officials knew about the problem two years ago, but the company failed to fix the software before the election this year.

Reports from voters in Florida and Ohio also indicated that some of them had problems voting for the candidate of their choice. When they tried to vote for John Kerry, they said, the machine either wouldn't register the vote at all or would indicate on the review page that the vote was cast for Bush instead...

In their letter, representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of Florida asked the GAO to "immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration."

John Doty, spokesman for Nadler, said the congressmen emphasized that they were not seeking a nationwide recount and were not anticipating that an investigation would change the outcome of the election.

"But we do want to make sure that where there are problems they're fixed so that it won't affect other elections in the future," Doty said. "We want to make sure that people can be confident in the system."

Here is the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65623,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3

House Dems Seek Election Inquiry

By Kim Zetter

04:38 PM Nov. 05, 2004 PT

Three congressmen sent a letter to the General Accounting Office on Friday requesting an investigation into irregularities with voting machines used in Tuesday's elections.

The congressmen, Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Florida, New York and Michigan, cited a number of incidents that came to light in the days after the election. One was a glitch in Ohio that caused a memory card reader made by Danaher Controls to give George W. Bush 3,893 more votes than he should have received. Another was a problem with memory cards in North Carolina that caused machines made by UniLect to lose 4,500 votes cast on e-voting machines. The votes were lost when the number of votes cast on the machines exceeded the capacity of the memory cards.

There were also problems with machines that counted absentee ballots in Florida. Software made by Election Systems & Software began subtracting votes when totals surpassed 32,000. Officials said the problem affected only certain countywide races on one of the last pages of the ballot. Elections officials knew about the problem two years ago, but the company failed to fix the software before the election this year.

Reports from voters in Florida and Ohio also indicated that some of them had problems voting for the candidate of their choice. When they tried to vote for John Kerry, they said, the machine either wouldn't register the vote at all or would indicate on the review page that the vote was cast for Bush instead.

In their letter, representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of Florida asked the GAO to "immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration."

John Doty, spokesman for Nadler, said the congressmen emphasized that they were not seeking a nationwide recount and were not anticipating that an investigation would change the outcome of the election.

"But we do want to make sure that where there are problems they're fixed so that it won't affect other elections in the future," Doty said. "We want to make sure that people can be confident in the system."

Doty said, however, that if the GAO does find a lot more problems that haven't yet been reported, then people will at least know about them and be able to decide what to do about them.

"We're hopeful that the GAO does not find such terrible irregularities that it would demonstrate widespread problems," Doty said.

No one was available at the office of the GAO to respond to questions. But a GAO representative told Wired News in September that the agency was planning to produce a report on e-voting after the election anyway.
To read Wired News' complete coverage of e-voting, visit the Machine Politics section.

End of story

Posted by Lisa at 11:46 AM
The "Twilight Zone" Election Continues

Karl Rove is on Meet The Press right now, and I'll have it up around noon today.

I gotta say that it's rather frustrating watching all of these people talk about the Election as if all of these miscount reports didn't exist.

Obama, Illinois' new Democratic Senator, just said that he "shared a million votes with President Bush." There's no way that a million Democrats in Illinois voted for Bush.

We're now finding out that this is exactly what we're supposed to believe: that millions of Democrats took it upon themselves to vote for Bush. This concept is laughable to say the least. (Here's an article that deals with this specifically.)

I just wanted to drop you guys a note and say "no worries." This strange episode of the Twilight Zone will continue, but it may just have a happy ending, eventually. There seem to be a lot of folks paying attention to the facts now, and the hard math is on our side.

The question is: what will the Democrats do when it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the election was faulty. A recount is in order, to say the least, but I don't hear anybody asking for one.

But don't dispair. We're in this together guys. Thanks for sending me all the great links. I'm committed to archiving them here.

It's my birthday on the 10th., and I'm taking a few days off to rest up a bit. So if you don't hear back from me, that's why. But I'll catch up on everything when I get back, and I'm here all day today, so now's a good time to send anything over. I cancelled my trip. I'll be right here :-)

Posted by Lisa at 08:26 AM
November 06, 2004
Computers That Tally Optical Votes Aren't Secure Either


Evidence Mounts That The Vote Was Hacked

By Thom Hartmann for Commondreams.


When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.

"It was practice for a national effort," Fisher told me.

And evidence is accumulating that the national effort happened on November 2, 2004.

The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast and people registered to vote by party affiliation. Net denizen Kathy Dopp compiled the official state information into a table, available at http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm, and noticed something startling.

Also See:


Florida Secretary of State Presidential Results by County 11/02/2004
(.pdf)

Florida Secretary of State County Registration by Party 2/9/2004
(.pdf)

While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios matched the Kerry/Bush vote, and so did the optically-scanned paper ballots in the larger counties, in Florida's smaller counties the results from the optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking - seem to have been reversed.

In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.

In Dixie County, with 4,988 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.

The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the smaller counties where, it was probably assumed, the small voter numbers wouldn't be much noticed. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.

Yet in the larger counties, where such anomalies would be more obvious to the news media, high percentages of registered Democrats equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry.

More visual analysis of the results can be seen at
http://ustogether.org/election04/FloridaDataStats.htm
, and
www.rubberbug.com/temp/Florida2004chart.htm
.

And, although elections officials didn't notice these anomalies, in aggregate they were enough to swing Florida from Kerry to Bush. If you simply go through the analysis of these counties and reverse the "anomalous" numbers in those counties that appear to have been hacked, suddenly the Florida election results resemble the Florida exit poll results: Kerry won, and won big.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

Published on Saturday, November 6, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
Evidence Mounts That The Vote Was Hacked
by Thom Hartmann

When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.

"It was practice for a national effort," Fisher told me.

And evidence is accumulating that the national effort happened on November 2, 2004.

The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast and people registered to vote by party affiliation. Net denizen Kathy Dopp compiled the official state information into a table, available at http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm, and noticed something startling.

Also See:


Florida Secretary of State Presidential Results by County 11/02/2004
(.pdf)

Florida Secretary of State County Registration by Party 2/9/2004
(.pdf)

While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios matched the Kerry/Bush vote, and so did the optically-scanned paper ballots in the larger counties, in Florida's smaller counties the results from the optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking - seem to have been reversed.

In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.

In Dixie County, with 4,988 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.

The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the smaller counties where, it was probably assumed, the small voter numbers wouldn't be much noticed. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.

Yet in the larger counties, where such anomalies would be more obvious to the news media, high percentages of registered Democrats equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry.

More visual analysis of the results can be seen at http://ustogether.org/election04/FloridaDataStats.htm, and www.rubberbug.com/temp/Florida2004chart.htm.

And, although elections officials didn't notice these anomalies, in aggregate they were enough to swing Florida from Kerry to Bush. If you simply go through the analysis of these counties and reverse the "anomalous" numbers in those counties that appear to have been hacked, suddenly the Florida election results resemble the Florida exit poll results: Kerry won, and won big.

Those exit poll results have been a problem for reporters ever since Election Day.

Election night, I'd been doing live election coverage for WDEV, one of the radio stations that carries my syndicated show, and, just after midnight, during the 12:20 a.m. Associated Press Radio News feed, I was startled to hear the reporter detail how Karen Hughes had earlier sat George W. Bush down to inform him that he'd lost the election. The exit polls were clear: Kerry was winning in a landslide. "Bush took the news stoically," noted the AP report.

But then the computers reported something different. In several pivotal states.

Conservatives see a conspiracy here: They think the exit polls were rigged.

Dick Morris, the infamous political consultant to the first Clinton campaign who became a Republican consultant and Fox News regular, wrote an article for The Hill, the publication read by every political junkie in Washington, DC, in which he made a couple of brilliant points.

"Exit Polls are almost never wrong," Morris wrote. "They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state."

He added: "So, according to ABC-TVs exit polls, for example, Kerry was slated to carry Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa, all of which Bush carried. The only swing state the network had going to Bush was West Virginia, which the president won by 10 points."

Yet a few hours after the exit polls were showing a clear Kerry sweep, as the computerized vote numbers began to come in from the various states the election was called for Bush.

How could this happen?

On the CNBC TV show "Topic A With Tina Brown," several months ago, Howard Dean had filled in for Tina Brown as guest host. His guest was Bev Harris, the Seattle grandmother who started www.blackboxvoting.org from her living room. Bev pointed out that regardless of how votes were tabulated (other than hand counts, only done in odd places like small towns in Vermont), the real "counting" is done by computers. Be they Diebold Opti-Scan machines, which read paper ballots filled in by pencil or ink in the voter's hand, or the scanners that read punch cards, or the machines that simply record a touch of the screen, in all cases the final tally is sent to a "central tabulator" machine.

That central tabulator computer is a Windows-based PC.

"In a voting system," Harris explained to Dean on national television, "you have all the different voting machines at all the different polling places, sometimes, as in a county like mine, there's a thousand polling places in a single county. All those machines feed into the one machine so it can add up all the votes. So, of course, if you were going to do something you shouldn't to a voting machine, would it be more convenient to do it to each of the 4000 machines, or just come in here and deal with all of them at once?"

Dean nodded in rhetorical agreement, and Harris continued. "What surprises people is that the central tabulator is just a PC, like what you and I use. It's just a regular computer."

"So," Dean said, "anybody who can hack into a PC can hack into a central tabulator?"

Harris nodded affirmation, and pointed out how Diebold uses a program called GEMS, which fills the screen of the PC and effectively turns it into the central tabulator system. "This is the official program that the County Supervisor sees," she said, pointing to a PC that was sitting between them loaded with Diebold's software.

Bev then had Dean open the GEMS program to see the results of a test election. They went to the screen titled "Election Summary Report" and waited a moment while the PC "adds up all the votes from all the various precincts," and then saw that in this faux election Howard Dean had 1000 votes, Lex Luthor had 500, and Tiger Woods had none. Dean was winning.

"Of course, you can't tamper with this software," Harris noted. Diebold wrote a pretty good program.

But, it's running on a Windows PC.

So Harris had Dean close the Diebold GEMS software, go back to the normal Windows PC desktop, click on the "My Computer" icon, choose "Local Disk C:," open the folder titled GEMS, and open the sub-folder "LocalDB" which, Harris noted, "stands for local database, that's where they keep the votes." Harris then had Dean double-click on a file in that folder titled "Central Tabulator Votes," which caused the PC to open the vote count in a database program like Excel.

In the "Sum of the Candidates" row of numbers, she found that in one precinct Dean had received 800 votes and Lex Luthor had gotten 400.

"Let's just flip those," Harris said, as Dean cut and pasted the numbers from one cell into the other. "And," she added magnanimously, "let's give 100 votes to Tiger."

They closed the database, went back into the official GEMS software "the legitimate way, you're the county supervisor and you're checking on the progress of your election."

As the screen displayed the official voter tabulation, Harris said, "And you can see now that Howard Dean has only 500 votes, Lex Luthor has 900, and Tiger Woods has 100." Dean, the winner, was now the loser.

Harris sat up a bit straighter, smiled, and said, "We just edited an election, and it took us 90 seconds."

On live national television. (You can see the clip on www.votergate.tv.)

Which brings us back to Morris and those pesky exit polls that had Karen Hughes telling George W. Bush that he'd lost the election in a landslide.

Morris's conspiracy theory is that the exit polls "were sabotage" to cause people in the western states to not bother voting for Bush, since the networks would call the election based on the exit polls for Kerry. But the networks didn't do that, and had never intended to. It makes far more sense that the exit polls were right - they weren't done on Diebold PCs - and that the vote itself was hacked.

And not only for the presidential candidate - Jeff Fisher thinks this hit him and pretty much every other Democratic candidate for national office in the most-hacked swing states.

So far, the only national "mainstream" media to come close to this story was Keith Olbermann on his show Friday night, November 5th, when he noted that it was curious that all the voting machine irregularities so far uncovered seem to favor Bush. In the meantime, the Washington Post and other media are now going through single-bullet-theory-like contortions to explain how the exit polls had failed.

But I agree with Fox's Dick Morris on this one, at least in large part. Wrapping up his story for The Hill, Morris wrote in his final paragraph, "This was no mere mistake. Exit polls cannot be as wrong across the board as they were on election night. I suspect foul play."

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann .com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call To Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To Democracy."

Posted by Lisa at 03:33 PM
Did Anyone Get Video Of The Shrub's "Political Capital" A.K.A. I'm The King And I'm Gonna REALLY Start Acting Like One Speech?

Update 11/08/04 - Turns out
it's on the White House site
. There's also a transcription. But, of course, who knows if either one is accurate. I'd feel better if one of you had a copy. (Transcription included in "More" section.)

I didn't get it and many are asking for it.

I'll be happy to host it.

thanks,

lisa

Here is the full text in case the link goes bad or gets altered in the future when it suits the administration (or whatever):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041104-5.html

President Holds Press Conference

video screen capture
multimedia

President's Remarks
video image
video image
audio image listen

President George W. Bush holds a press conference in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building Thursday, Nov. 4, 2004. White House photo by Tina Hager. 11:17 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Please be seated. Yesterday I pledged to reach out to the whole nation, and today I'm proving that I'm willing to reach out to everybody by including the White House press corps.

This week the voters of America set the direction of our nation for the next four years. I'm honored by the support of my fellow citizens, and I'm ready for the job.

We are fighting a continuing war on terror, and every American has a stake in the outcome of this war. Republicans, Democrats and independents all love our country, and together we'll protect the American people. We will preserve -- we will persevere until the enemy is defeated. We will stay strong and resolute. We have a duty, a solemn duty to protect the American people, and we will.

Every civilized country also has a stake in the outcome of this war. Whatever our past disagreements, we share a common enemy. And we have common duties: to protect our peoples, to confront disease and hunger and poverty in troubled regions of the world. I'll continue to reach out to our friends and allies, our partners in the EU and NATO, to promote development and progress, to defeat the terrorists and to encourage freedom and democracy as alternatives to tyranny and terror.

I also look forward to working with the present Congress and the new Congress that will arrive in January. I congratulate the men and women who have just been elected to the House and the Senate. I will join with old friends and new friends to make progress for all Americans.

Congress will return later this month to finish this current session. I urge members to pass the appropriations bill that remain, showing spending discipline while focusing on our nation's priorities. Our government also needs the very best intelligence, especially in a time of war. So I urge the Congress to pass an effective intelligence reform bill that I can sign into law.

The new Congress that begins its work next year will have serious responsibilities and historic opportunities. To accelerate the momentum of this economy and to keep creating jobs, we must take practical measures to help our job creators, the entrepreneurs and the small business owners. We must confront the frivolous lawsuits that are driving up the cost of health care and hurting doctors and patients. We must continue the work of education reform, to bring high standards and accountability not just to our elementary and secondary schools, but to our high schools, as well.

We must reform our complicated and outdated tax code. We need to get rid of the needless paperwork that makes our economy -- that is a drag on our economy, to make sure our economy is the most competitive in the world.

We must show our leadership by strengthening Social Security for our children and our grandchildren. This is more than a problem to be solved; it is an opportunity to help millions of our fellow citizens find security and independence that comes from owning something, from ownership.

In the election of 2004, large issues were set before our country. They were discussed every day on the campaign. With the campaign over, Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results. I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals. And I'm eager to start the work ahead. I'm looking forward to serving this country for four more years.

I want to thank you all for your hard work in the campaign. I told you that the other day, and you probably thought I was just seeking votes. (Laughter.) But now that you voted, I really meant it. I appreciate the hard work of the press corps. We all put in long hours, and you're away from your families for a long period of time. But the country is better off when we have a vigorous and free press covering our elections. And thanks for your work. Without over-pandering, I'll answer a few questions. (Laughter.)

Hunt.

Q Mr. President -- thank you. As you look at your second term, how much is the war in Iraq going to cost? Do you intend to send more troops, or bring troops home? And in the Middle East, more broadly, do you agree with Tony Blair that revitalizing the Middle East peace process is the single most pressing political issue facing the world?

THE PRESIDENT: Now that I've got the will of the people at my back, I'm going to start enforcing the one-question rule. That was three questions. (Laughter.)

I'll start with Tony Blair's comments. I agree with him that the Middle East peace is a very important part of a peaceful world. I have been working on Middle Eastern peace ever since I've been the President. I've laid down some -- a very hopeful strategy on -- in June of 2002, and my hope is that we will make good progress. I think it's very important for our friends, the Israelis, to have a peaceful Palestinian state living on their border. And it's very important for the Palestinian people to have a peaceful, hopeful future. That's why I articulated a two-state vision in that Rose Garden speech. I meant it when I said it and I mean it now.

What was the other part of your question?

Q Iraq.

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, Iraq, yes. Listen, we will work with the Allawi government to achieve our objective, which is elections, on the path to stability, and we'll continue to train the troops. Our commanders will have that which they need to complete their missions.

And in terms of the cost, I -- we'll work with OMB and the Defense Department to bring forth to Congress a realistic assessment of what the cost will be.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. How will you go about bringing people together? Will you seek a consensus candidate for the Supreme Court if there's an opening? Will you bring some Democrats into your Cabinet?

THE PRESIDENT: Again, he violated the one-question rule right off the bat. Obviously, you didn't listen to the will of the people. But, first of all, there's no vacancy for the Supreme Court, and I will deal with a vacancy when there is one. And I told the people on the campaign trail that I'll pick somebody who knows the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law. You might have heard that several times. I meant what I said. And if people are interested in knowing the kind of judges I'll pick, look at the record. I've sent up a lot of judges, well-qualified people who know the law, who represent a judicial temperament that I agree with and who are qualified to hold the bench.

The second part of your two-part question?

Q Any Democrats to your Cabinet, by any chance?

THE PRESIDENT: I haven't made any decisions on the Cabinet, yet.

Q How else will you bring people together?

THE PRESIDENT: We'll put out an agenda that everybody understands and work with people to achieve the agenda. Democrats want a free and peaceful world, and we'll -- and right away, right after September the 11th we worked very closely together to secure our country. There is a common ground to be had when it comes to a foreign policy that says the most important objective is to protect the American people and spread freedom and democracy. It's common ground when it comes to making sure the intelligence services are able to provide good, actionable intelligence to protect our people. It's not a Republican issue, it's a Republican and Democrat issue. So I'm -- plenty of places for us to work together.

All right, Gregory.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. On foreign policy, more broadly, do you believe that America has an image problem in the world right now, because of your efforts and response to the 9/11 attacks? And, as you talked down the stretch about building alliances, talk about what you'll do to build on those alliances and to deal with these image problems, particularly in the Islamic world.

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. Listen, I've made some very hard decisions: decisions to protect ourselves, decisions to spread peace and freedom. And I understand in certain capitals and certain countries, those decisions were not popular.

You know, you said -- you asked me to put that in the context of the response on September the 11th. The first response, of course, was chasing down the terror networks, which we will continue to do. And we've got great response around the world in order to do that. There's over 90 nations involved with sharing information, finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. That is a broad coalition, and we'll continue to strengthen it.

I laid out a doctrine, David, that said if you harbor terrorists, you're equally as guilty as the terrorists, and that doctrine was ignored by the Taliban, and we removed the Taliban. And I fully understand some people didn't agree with that decision. But I believe that when the American President speaks, he'd better mean what he says in order to keep the world peaceful. And I believe we have a solemn duty, whether or not people agree with it or not, to protect the American people. And the Taliban and their harboring of al Qaeda represented a direct threat to the American people.

And, of course, then the Iraq issue is one that people disagreed with. And there's no need to rehash my case, but I did so, I made the decision I made, in order to protect our country, first and foremost. I will continue to do that as the President. But as I do so, I will reach out to others and explain why I make the decisions I make.

There is a certain attitude in the world, by some, that says that it's a waste of time to try to promote free societies in parts of the world. I've heard that criticism. Remember, I went to London to talk about our vision of spreading freedom throughout the greater Middle East. And I fully understand that that might rankle some, and be viewed by some as folly. I just strongly disagree with those who do not see the wisdom of trying to promote free societies around the world.

If we are interested in protecting our country for the long-term, the best way to do so is to promote freedom and democracy. And I -- I simply do not agree with those who either say overtly or believe that certain societies cannot be free. It's just not a part of my thinking. And that's why during the course of the campaign, I was -- I believe I was able to connect, at least with those who were there, in explaining my policy, when I talked about the free election in Afghanistan.

There were -- there was doubt about whether or not those elections would go forward. I'm not suggesting any of you here expressed skepticism. But there was. There was deep skepticism, and -- because there is a attitude among some that certain people may never be free -- they just don't long to be free or incapable of running an election. And I disagree with that. And the Afghan people, by going to the polls in the millions, proved -- proved that this administration's faith in freedom to change peoples' habits is worthy. And that will be a central part of my foreign policy. And I've got work to do to explain to people about why that is a central part of our foreign policy. I've been doing that for four years.

But if you do not believe people can be free and can self-govern, then all of a sudden the two-state solution in the Middle East becomes a moot point, invalid. If you're willing to condemn a group of people to a system of government that hasn't worked, then you'll never be able to achieve the peace. You cannot lead this world and our country to a better tomorrow unless you see a better -- if you have a vision of a better tomorrow. And I've got one, based upon a great faith that people do want to be free and live in democracy.

John, and then I'll get to Terry. No follow-ups today, Gregory.

Q Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: I can see one -- yes.

Q Would you like it? Now that the political volatility is off the issue because the election is over, I'd like to ask you about troop levels in Iraq in the next couple of months leading up to elections. The Pentagon already has a plan to extend tours of duty for some 6,500 U.S. troops. How many more will be needed to provide security in Iraq for elections, seeing as how the Iraqi troops that you're trying to train up are pretty slow coming on line?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, first of all, the -- we are making good progress in training the Iraqi troops. There will be 125,000 of them trained by election time. Secondly, I have yet to -- I have not sat down with our Secretary of Defense talking about troop levels. I read some reports during the course of the campaign where some were speculating in the press corps about the number of troops needed to protect elections. That has not been brought to my attention yet.

And so I would caution you that what you have either read about or reported was pure speculation thus far. These elections are important, and we will respond, John, to requests of our commanders on the ground. And I have yet to hear from our commanders on the ground that they need more troops.

Terry.

Q Mr. President, your victory at the polls came about in part because of strong support from people of faith, in particular, Christian evangelicals and Pentecostals and others. And Senator Kerry drew some of his strongest support from those who do not attend religious services. What do you make of this religious divide, it seems, becoming a political divide in this country? And what do you say to those who are concerned about the role of a faith they do not share in public life and in your policies?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, my answer to people is, I will be your President regardless of your faith, and I don't expect you to agree with me necessarily on religion. As a matter of fact, no President should ever try to impose religion on our society.

A great -- the great tradition of America is one where people can worship the way they want to worship. And if they choose not to worship, they're just as patriotic as your neighbor. That is an essential part of why we are a great nation. And I am glad people of faith voted in this election. I'm glad -- I appreciate all people who voted. I don't think you ought to read anything into the politics, the moment, about whether or not this nation will become a divided nation over religion. I think the great thing that unites is the fact you can worship freely if you choose, and if you -- you don't have to worship. And if you're a Jew or a Christian or a Muslim, you're equally American. That is -- that is such a wonderful aspect of our society; and it is strong today and it will be strong tomorrow.

Jim.

Q Thank you, sir. Mr. President, you talked once again this morning about private accounts in Social Security. During the campaign you were accused of planning to privatize the entire system. It has been something you've discussed for some time. You've lost some of the key Democratic proponents, such as Pat Moynihan and Bob Kerrey in the Congress. How will you proceed now with one of the key problems, which is the transition cost -- which some say is as much as $2 trillion -- how will you proceed on that? And how soon?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first, I made Social Security an issue -- for those of you who had to suffer through my speeches on a daily basis; for those of you who actually listened to my speeches on a daily basis -- you might remember, every speech I talked about the duty of an American President to lead. And we have -- we must lead on Social Security because the system is not going to be whole for our children and our grandchildren.

And so the answer to your second question is, we'll start on Social Security now. We'll start bringing together those in Congress who agree with my assessment that we need to work together. We've got a good blueprint, a good go-by. You mentioned Senator Moynihan. I had asked him prior to his -- to his passing, to chair a committee of notable Americans to come up with some ideas on Social Security. And they did so. And it's a good place for members of Congress to start.

The President must have the will to take on the issue -- not only in the campaign, but now that I'm elected. And this will -- reforming Social Security will be a priority of my administration. Obviously, if it were easy it would have already been done. And this is going to be hard work to bring people together and to make -- to convince the Congress to move forward. And there are going to be costs. But the cost of doing nothing is insignificant to -- is much greater than the cost of reforming the system today. That was the case I made on the campaign trail, and I was earnest about getting something done. And as a matter of fact, I talked to members of my staff today, as we're beginning to plan to -- the strategy to move agendas forward about how to do this and do it effectively.

Q If I could, Mr. President --

THE PRESIDENT: Yes -- no, no, you're violating the follow-up rule. It would hurt Gregory's feelings. King.

It's a new --

Q Mr. President, thank you.

Q That's always one of my concerns.

THE PRESIDENT: Hurting Gregory's feelings? He is a sensitive guy. Well centered, though. (Laughter.)

Q I'm not going there. Mr. President, you were disappointed, even angry 12 years ago when the voters denied your father a second term. I'm interested in your thoughts and the conversation with him yesterday as you were walking to the Oval Office, and also whether you feel more free to do any one thing in a second term that perhaps you were politically constrained from doing in a first.

THE PRESIDENT: At 3:30 a.m. in the morning on, I guess, it was the day after the election, he was sitting upstairs, and I finally said, go to bed. He was awaiting the outcome and was hopeful that we would go over and be able to talk to our supporters, and it just didn't happen that way.

So I asked him the next morning when he got up, I said, come by the Oval Office and visit. And he came by and we had a good talk. He was heading down to Houston. And it was -- there was some uncertainty about that morning as to when the election would actually end. And it wasn't clear at that point in time, so I never got to see him face-to-face to watch his, I guess, pride in his tired eyes as his son got a second term.

I did talk to him and he was relieved. I told him to get a nap. I was worried about him staying up too late.

But -- so I haven't had a chance to really visit and embrace. And you're right, '92 was a disappointment. But he taught me a really good lesson, that life moves on. And it's very important for those of us in the political arena, win or lose, to recognize that life is bigger than just politics, and that's one of the really good lessons he taught me.

Q Do you feel more free, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, in terms of feeling free, well, I don't think you'll let me be too free. There's accountability and there are constraints on the presidency, as there should be in any system. I feel -- I feel it is necessary to move an agenda that I told the American people I would move. Something refreshing about coming off an election, even more refreshing since we all got some sleep last night, but there's -- you go out and you make your case, and you tell the people this is what I intend to do. And after hundreds of speeches and three debates and interviews and the whole process, where you keep basically saying the same thing over and over again, that when you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that's what I intend to tell the Congress, that I made it clear what I intend to do as the President, now let's work to -- and the people made it clear what they wanted, now let's work together.

And it's one of the wonderful -- it's like earning capital. You asked, do I feel free. Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the -- after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it for what I told the people I'd spend it on, which is -- you've heard the agenda: Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror.

We have an obligation in this country to continue to work with nations to help alleve poverty and disease. We will continue to press forward on the HIV/AIDS initiative, the Millennium Challenge Account. We will continue to do our duty to help feed the hungry. And I'm looking forward to it, I really am.

It's been a -- it's been a fantastic experience campaigning the country. You've seen it from one -- perspective, I've seen it from another. I saw you standing there at the last, final rally in Texas, to my right over there. I was observing you observe, and you saw the energy. And there was just something uplifting about people showing up at 11:00 p.m. at night, expressing their support and their prayers and their friendship. It's a marvelous experience to campaign across the country.

Mike.

Q Mr. President -- thank you, Mr. President. Do you plan to reshape your Cabinet for the second term, or will any changes come at the instigation of individuals? And as part of the same question, may I ask you what you've learned about Cabinet government, what works, what doesn't work? And do you mind also addressing the same question about the White House staff? (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: The post-election euphoria did not last very long here at the press conference. (Laughter.)

Let me talk about the people that have worked with me. I had a Cabinet meeting today and I thanked them for their service to the country and reminded them we've got a job to do and I expected them to do the job.

I have made no decisions on my Cabinet and/or White House staff. I am mindful that working in the White House is really -- is exhausting work. The people who you try to get to leak to you spend hours away from their families, and it is -- the word "burnout" is oftentimes used in the -- in Washington, and it's used for a reason, because people do burn out.

And so obviously, in terms of those who are -- who want to stay on and who I want to stay on, I've got to make sure that it's right for their families and that they're comfortable, because when they come to work here in the White House, I expect them to work as hard as they possibly can on behalf of the American people.

In the Cabinet, there will be some changes. I don't know who they will be. It's inevitable there will be changes. It happens in every administration. To a person, I am proud of the work they have done. And I fully understand we're about to head into the period of intense speculation as to who's going to stay and who's not going to stay, and I assured them that -- today I warned them of the speculative period. I said, it's a great Washington sport to be talking about who's going to leave and who their replacements may be, and handicapping, you know, my way of thinking.

I'll just give you -- but let me just help you out with the speculation right now. I haven't thought about it. I'm going to start thinking about it. I'm going to Camp David this afternoon with Laura, and I'll begin the process of thinking about the Cabinet and the White House staff. And we'll let you know at the appropriate time when decisions have been made. And so, nice try, Mike.

Yes, Ed, and then --

Q What you learned --

THE PRESIDENT: Learned and not learned about the Cabinet?

Q What works, what doesn't.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, well, first I've learned that I put together a really good Cabinet. I'm very proud of the people that have served this government, and they -- to a man and a woman, worked their hearts out for the American people. And I've learned that you've got to continue to surround yourself with good people. This is a job that requires crisp decision-making, and therefore, in order for me to make decisions, I've got to have people who bring their point of view into the Oval Office and are willing to say it.

I always jest to people, the Oval Office is the kind of place where people stand outside, they're getting ready to come in and tell me what for, and they walk in and get overwhelmed in the atmosphere, and they say, man, you're looking pretty. And therefore, you need people to walk in on those days when you're not looking so good and saying, you're not looking so good, Mr. President. And I've got -- those are the kind of people that served our country.

We've had vigorous debates, which you all, during the last four years, took great delight in reporting, differences of opinion. But that's what you want if you're the Commander-in-Chief and a decision-maker. You want people to walk in and say, I don't agree with this, or I do agree with that, and here's what my recommendation is. But the President also has to learn to decide. You take, you know -- there's ample time for the debate to take place, and then decide and make up your mind and lead. That's what the job's all about.

And so I have learned how important it is to be -- to have a really fine group of people that think through issues, and that are not intimidated by the process, and who walk in and tell me what's on their mind.

Ed, and then Stevens.

Q Good morning. Sir, does it bother you that there's a perception out there that your administration has been one that favors big business and the wealthy individuals? And what can you do to overcome that, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Ed, 70 percent of the new jobs in America are created by small businesses. I understand that. And I have promoted during the course of the last four years one of the most aggressive, pro-entrepreneur, small business policies. Tax relief -- you might remember -- I don't know if you know this or not, but 90 percent of the businesses are sole proprietorships or subchapter-S corporations. (Laughter.)

Q We've heard it.

THE PRESIDENT: Tax relief helped them. This is an administration that fully understands that the job creators are the entrepreneurs. And so in a new term, we will make sure the tax relief continues to be robust for our small businesses. We'll push legal reform and regulatory reform because I understand the engine of growth is through the small business sector.

Stevenson.

Q Sir, given your commitment to reaching out across party lines and to all Americans, I wonder if you could expand on your definition of bipartisanship, and whether it means simply picking off a few Democrats on a case-by-case basis to pass the bills you want to pass, or whether you would commit to working regularly with the Democratic leadership on solutions that can win broad support across party lines?

THE PRESIDENT: Do you remember the No Child Left Behind Act? I think there the model I'd look at if I were you. It is a -- I laid out an agenda for reforming our public schools. I worked with both Republicans and Democrats to get that bill passed. In a new term, we'll continue to make sure we do not weaken the accountability standards that are making a huge difference in people's lives, in these kids' lives.

But that's the model I'd look at, if I were you. And we'll -- there's a certain practicality to life here in Washington. And that is, when you get a bill moving it is important to get the votes, and if politics starts to get in the way of getting good legislation through, you know, that's just part of life here. But I'm also focused on results. I think of the Medicare bill -- you might remember that old, stale debate. We finally got a bill moving. I was hoping that we'd get strong bipartisan support -- unfortunately, it was an election year. But we got the votes necessary to get the bill passed. And so we will -- I will -- my goal is to work on the ideal and to reach out and to continue to work and find common ground on issues.

On the other hand, I've been wizened to the ways of Washington. I watched what can happen during certain parts of the cycle, where politics gets in the way of good policy. And at that point in time, I'll continue to -- you know, I'll try to get this done, I'll try to get our bills passed in a way, because results really do matter, as far as I'm concerned. I really didn't come here to hold the office just to say, gosh, it was fun to serve. I came here to get some things done, and we are doing it.

Yes, Big Stretch.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. I know you haven't had a chance to learn this, but it appears that Yasser Arafat has passed away.

THE PRESIDENT: Really?

Q And I was just wondering if I could get your initial reaction? And also your thoughts on, perhaps, working with a new generation of Palestinian leadership?

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. My first reaction is, God bless his soul. And my second reaction is, is that we will continue to work for a free Palestinian state that's at peace with Israel.

Yes.

Q Mr. President, as you look at your second term domestic priorities, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you see the sequence of action on issues beyond Social Security -- tax reform, education. And if you could expand a little bit for us on the principles that you want to underpin your tax reform proposal -- do you want it to be revenue neutral? What kinds of things do you want to accomplish through that process?

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. I was anticipating this question; that, what is the first thing you're going to do? When it comes it legislation, it just doesn't work that way, particularly when you've laid out a comprehensive agenda. And part of that comprehensive agenda is tax simplification.

The -- first of all, a principle would be revenue neutral. If I'm going to -- if there was a need to raise taxes, I'd say, let's have a tax bill that raises taxes, as opposed to let's simply the tax code and sneak a tax increase on the people. It's just not my style. I don't believe we need to raise taxes. I've said that to the American people. And so the simplification would be the goal.

Now, secondly, that obviously, that it rewards risk and doesn't -- it doesn't have unnecessary penalties in it. But the main thing is that it would be viewed as fair, that it would be a fair system, that it wouldn't be complicated, that there's a -- kind of that loopholes wouldn't be there for special interests, that the code itself be viewed and deemed as a very fair way to encourage people to invest and save and achieve certain fiscal objectives in our country, as well.

One of the interesting debates will be, of course, in the course of simplification, will there be incentives in the code: charitable giving, of course, and mortgage deductions are very important. As governor of Texas, when I -- some time I think I was asked about simplification, I always noted how important it was for certain incentives to be built into the tax code, and that will be an interesting part of the debate.

Certain issues come quicker than others in the course of a legislative session, and that depends upon whether or not those issues have been

debated. I think of, for example, the legal issue -- the legal reform issues, they have been -- medical liability reform had been debated and got thwarted a couple of times in one body in particular on Capitol Hill. And so the groundwork has been laid for some legislation that I've been talking about. On an issue like tax reform it's going to -- tax simplification, it's going to take a lot of legwork to get something ready for a legislative package. I fully understand that. And Social Security reform will require some additional legwork, although the Moynihan Commission has laid the groundwork for what I think is a very good place to start the debate.

The education issue is one that could move pretty quickly because there has been a lot of discussion about education. It's an issue that the members are used to debating and discussing. And so I think -- all issues are important. And the timing of issues as they reach it through committee and floor really depend upon whether or not some work has already been on those issues.

A couple more questions. Bob.

Q Mr. President, American forces are gearing up for what appears to be a major offensive in Fallujah over the next several days. I'm wondering if you could tell us what the objective is, what the stakes are there for the United States, for the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi elections coming up in January?

THE PRESIDENT: In order for Iraq to be a free country those who are trying to stop the elections and stop a free society from emerging must be defeated.

And so Prime Minister Allawi and his government, which fully understands that, are working with our generals on the ground to do just that. We will work closely with the government. It's their government, it's their country. We're there at their invitation. And -- but I think there's a recognition that some of these people have to -- must be defeated, and so that's what they're thinking about. That's what you're -- that's why you're hearing discussions about potential action in Fallujah.

Heidi.

Q Thank you, sir. Many within your own party are unhappy over the deficit, and they say keeping down discretional spending alone won't help you reach the goal of halving the deficit in five years. What else do you plan to do to cut costs?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I -- I would suggest they look at our budget that we've submitted to Congress, which does, in fact, get the deficit down -- cut in half in five years, and is a specific line-by-line budget that we are required to submit and have done so.

The key to making sure that the deficit is reduced is for there to be, on the one hand, spending discipline, and I -- as you noticed in my opening remarks, I talked about these appropriations bills that are beginning to move, and I thought I was pretty clear about the need for those bills to be -- to be fiscally responsible, and I meant it. And I look forward to talking to the leadership about making sure that the budget agreements we had are still the budget agreements, that just because we had an election, that they shouldn't feel comfortable changing our agreement. And I think they understand that.

And secondly, the other way to make sure that the deficit is -- decreases, is to grow the economy. As the economy grows, there will be more revenues coming into the Treasury. That's what you have seen recently. If you notice, there's been some write-downs of the budget deficit. In other words, the deficit is less than we thought because the revenues is exceeding projections. And the reason why the revenues -- the revenues are exceeding projections -- sometimes I mangle the English language. I get that. (Laughter.)

Q Inside joke.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, very inside. (Laughter.)

The revenues are exceeding projections. And as a result, the projected deficit is less. But my point there is, is that with good economic policy that encourages economic growth, the revenue streams begin to increase. And as the revenue streams increase, coupled with fiscal discipline, you'll see the deficit shrinking. And we're focused on that.

I do believe there ought to be budgetary reform in Washington, on the Hill, Capitol Hill. I think it's very important. I would like to see the President have a line-item veto again, one that passed constitutional muster. I think it would help the executive branch work with the legislative branch, to make sure that we're able to maintain budget discipline. I've talked to a lot of members of Congress who are wondering whether or not we'll have the will to confront entitlements, to make sure that there is entitlement reform that helps us maintain fiscal discipline. And the answer is, yes; that's why I took on the Social Security issue. I believe we have a duty to do so. I want to make sure that the Medicare reforms that we've put in place remain robust, to help us make sure Medicare is available for generations to come.

And so there is a -- I've got quite an active agenda to help work with Congress to bring not only fiscal discipline, but to make sure that our pro-growth policies are still in place.

Herman. I'm probably going to regret this. (Laughter.)

Q I don't know if you had a chance to check, but I can report you did eke out a victory in Texas the other day.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, sir.

Q Congratulations. I'm interested in getting back to Steven -- Stevenson's question about unity. Clearly, you believe you have reached out and will continue to reach out. Do you believe the Democrats have made a sincere and sufficient effort to meet you somewhere halfway, and do you think now there's more reason for them the do that in light of the election results?

THE PRESIDENT: I think that Democrats agree that we have an obligation to serve our country. I believe there will be goodwill, now that this election is over, to work together. I found that to be the case when I first arrived here in Washington, and working with the Democrats and fellow Republicans, we got a lot done. And it is with that spirit that I go into this coming session, and I will meet with both Republican and Democrat leaders, and I am -- they'll see I'm genuine about working toward some of these important issues.

It's going to be -- it's not easy. These -- I readily concede I've laid out some very difficult issues for people to deal with. Reforming the Social Security system for generations to come is a difficult issue; otherwise, it would have already been done. But it is necessary to confront it. And I would hope to be able to work with Democrats to get this done. I'm not sure we can get it done without Democrat participation, because it is a big issue, and I will explain to them and I will show them Senator Moynihan's thinking as a way to begin the process. And I will remind everybody here that we have a duty to leave behind a better America, and when we see a problem, to deal with it. And I think the -- I think Democrats agree with that.

And so I'm optimistic. You covered me when I was the governor of Texas. I told you that I was going to do that as a governor. There was probably skepticism in your beady eyes there. (Laughter.) But you might remember -- you might remember, we did -- we were able to accomplish a lot by -- and Washington is different from Austin, no question about it. Washington -- one of the disappointments of being here in Washington is how bitter this town can become and how divisive. I'm not blaming one party or the other. It's just the reality of Washington, D.C., sometimes exacerbated by you, because it's great sport. It's really -- it's entertaining for some. It also makes is difficult to govern at times.

But nevertheless, my commitment is there. I fully -- now more seasoned to Washington, I've cut my political eye-teeth, at least the ones I've recently grown here in Washington. And so I'm aware of what can happen in this town. But nevertheless, having said that, I am fully prepared to work with both Republican and Democrat leadership to advance an agenda that I think makes a big difference for the country.

Listen, thank you all. I look forward to working with you. I've got a question for you. How many of you are going to be here for a second term? Please raise your hand. (Laughter.)

Good. Gosh, we're going to have a lot of fun, then. Thank you all.

END 11:57 A.M. EST

Posted by Lisa at 01:47 PM
November 05, 2004
Serious Numbers Comparison Between The Results From Electronic and Optical Voting Machines In Florida

Well, I said I wanted numbers. Here are a lot of them. Now I've got to figure out what all this means. (Yes, I'll update this post.)

Looks like the Repubs have done particularly well in the E-voting districts.

What a surprise.

There are also a number of other links with different perspectives of looking at the data towards the bottom of the page.

Surprising Pattern of Florida's Election Results

Look at the Percent Change columns
Explanation, Sources, and Graphical Plots are Below the Chart
by Kathy Dopp, kathy@directell.com, Wednesday November 3, 2004

Here's a link to my own version of this HTML table page in case the link goes bad:

http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm

My version:
http://video.lisarein.com/election2004/numbers/floridanumbers.html

Posted by Lisa at 05:24 PM
Exit Polls vs. "Actual Results"

I meant to put this up Wednesday. It's from November 3, 2004.

Exit polls and ‘actual’ results don’t match; Evoting states show greater discrepancy

By The Raw Story.


An analysis of the original AP exit polling, which showed Kerry with a tighter margin and leading in myriad states, raises serious questions about the authenticity of the popular vote in several key states, RAW STORY has learned.

Since the actual outcome of the votes have been called, AP has changed nearly all of their exit polling to tighten the margin. A reason has not been given.

The analysis, first conducted by a poster at the popular Democratic Underground, suggests possible voter fraud in states that do not have electronic voting receipts, and those that limit the media’s access to polls.

Two inquiries placed by RAW STORY with the media contact for the six-network exit polling consortium at NBC News has received no response.

The curious result comes after the head of Diebold, which produces much of the nation’s electronic voting machines, told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”


Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=388


11/3/2004
Exit polls and ‘actual’ results don’t match; Evoting states show greater discrepancy
Filed under:

* General

— site admin @ 11:04 am Email This

LATEST: Officials admit machines gave Bush extra votes in two states

An analysis of the original AP exit polling, which showed Kerry with a tighter margin and leading in myriad states, raises serious questions about the authenticity of the popular vote in several key states, RAW STORY has learned.

Since the actual outcome of the votes have been called, AP has changed nearly all of their exit polling to tighten the margin. A reason has not been given.

The analysis, first conducted by a poster at the popular Democratic Underground, suggests possible voter fraud in states that do not have electronic voting receipts, and those that limit the media’s access to polls.

Two inquiries placed by RAW STORY with the media contact for the six-network exit polling consortium at NBC News has received no response.

The curious result comes after the head of Diebold, which produces much of the nation’s electronic voting machines, told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”

An exit poll involves asking someone after they walk out of the election booth who they voted for. While not a guide for proving results, it can be a mechanism for ensuring voting accuracy and flagging potential fraud. Exit polls were recently used in Venezuela to ensure the vote was accurate and legitimate.

Perhaps more importantly, while exit polling is unreliable, the odds of President Bush having gaining an advantage from every exit poll in swing states is an extremely improbable coincidence.

In Florida, Bush led exit polling by CNN’s exit polling consortium by just 5355 votes (when the exit polling information is multiplied by the actual vote). Yet he led by 326,000 in the end result. On Wednesday morning, CNN changed their exit polling to favor Bush, saying that had overweighted African American voters.

In Wisconsin, where exit polls put Kerry up seven percent, Bush has a lead of one percent, an unexplained difference of eight percent.

In New Mexico, Kerry led Bush by 3.8 percent, yet Bush leads Kerry by 3 percent in actual reported voting.

In Minnesota, where a new law sharply restricts reporters’ access to polls, Kerry led 9.6 percent in exit polling. Actual voting counts found that Bush trailed by 5 percent, with a 5 percent discrepancy favoring Bush.

Ohio, which does have paper trail capability but does not mandate receipts, had exits showed Kerry and Bush in a dead heat; in the near-final results, Bush led by three percent.

Exit polls put Kerry up by 8 percent in Michigan; actual results show Bush trailing by just 3 percent.

Nevada, which also has electronic voting – though should have mandated paper trails, had a variance of 4.2 percent. Kerry led the exit polls by 1.2 percent, while Bush led reported votes by 3 percent.

Two states with paper trails for voting were within 0.5 percent margin of error.

New Hampshire, which has electronic voting but provides verified receipts, exit polling is within 0.1 percent of the actual vote. Kerry led by 3 percent in exit polling, and 2.9 percent in the actual vote.

Maine, the final state for which analysis of exit polling was conducted before the AP “resampled” their data, was in the Kerry column by 7.5 percent; the end result put Kerry up 8 percent, a variance of 0.5 percent. Maine has no electronic voting.

Kerry does not gain by any significant margin in actual voting in any state for which analysis has been conducted, RAW STORY found.

Exit polling accurately predicted the results in most states with very little error. Where there were discrepancies, they were significant in the +5 percent range, and always favored Bush.

Allegations of voter fraud is not new to President Bush. On November 12, 2000, the Washington Post ran an article suggesting anomalies in the hotly constested state of Florida.

Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official of Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and found that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000 votes. But when she checked the county’s Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore’s count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000 … all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters.

Early returns from Florida showed the Green Party candidate leading President Bush and Sen. Kerry in two Ohio counties. They later appeared corrected, but raised eyebrows among liberal bloggers.

Another site created a graph comparing the exit poll percentages and the end result; click to enlarge.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said CNN had polled more than 3 million voters, based on information RAW STORY received from the original analysis. The actual polling was of several thousand voters, but was multiplied by the actual vote using percentages supporting each candidate to compare the statistical results. The voting difference, 5355, is what the difference would be if the exit polling queried as many voters as actually voted.

Posted by Lisa at 05:12 PM
Meanwhile, A Little Reminder Of Typical Shrub Administration Tactics: Prisoner AbuseAbuse Of Our Own Soldiers Within Military Prisons

I'm taping the 60 Minutes Episode right now. I'll have it up tomorrow sometime.Here's the video.

Abuses found at military prison

By Carol Rosenberg, Free Press Foreign Correspondent for the Detroit Free Press.


CBS's "60 Minutes II" aired a report featuring Spec. Sean Baker, a Kentucky National Guardsman, who said he suffered brain damage while being manhandled by fellow Guantanamo guards during a rehearsal for the forced removal of prisoners from cells.

Baker describes confusion in the drill, during which he acted as a prisoner and wore a jumpsuit, over whether he was a real prisoner and argues that he escaped worse injury by persuading guards that he was a fellow soldier.

Had it been a real prisoner, Baker said in the show, "I think they would have busted him up.

"I've seen detainees come outta there with blood on 'em. If there wasn't someone to say, 'I'm a U.S. soldier,' if you were speaking Arabic or Pashto or Urdu or some other language in the camp, we may never know what would have happened to that individual."

The two most curious cases outlined in the report involved interrogations in April 2003.

Officers discovered a prisoner had bruises on his knees after an interrogator used a so-called fear-up/harsh technique by directing military police to repeatedly bring the prisoner from a standing to a prone position and back, according to the report.

Pentagon officials disclosed the interrogation technique in the aftermath of the abuses in Iraq. They said it was briefly used at Guantanamo Bay.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.freep.com/news/nw/gitmo5e_20041105.htm

Abuses found at military prison

Pentagon study documents 8 cases; critics dispute report

November 5, 2004

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
FREE PRESS FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- How badly have guards behaved at this detention and interrogation center for terror suspects?

In answer to a weeks-old query, the Pentagon has released details of eight confirmed abuse cases. Among them were an instance where a woman soldier took off her uniform blouse during an interrogation, exposing her T-shirt, then climbed onto the lap of a prisoner and rustled his hair; and a case where a medical team found bruises on a prisoner's knees from a now-forbidden interrogation technique.

They stand in contrast to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and allegations by four Britons who sued the U.S. government for $40 million last week, claiming gross abuses while they were held for two years in Guantanamo.

"In every respect, the standard of physical and medical care applied here is fully consistent with the Geneva Conventions. They've not been mistreated, they've not been tortured in any respect," Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the prison commander, said in an interview Wednesday.

That night, CBS's "60 Minutes II" aired a report featuring Spec. Sean Baker, a Kentucky National Guardsman, who said he suffered brain damage while being manhandled by fellow Guantanamo guards during a rehearsal for the forced removal of prisoners from cells.

Baker describes confusion in the drill, during which he acted as a prisoner and wore a jumpsuit, over whether he was a real prisoner and argues that he escaped worse injury by persuading guards that he was a fellow soldier.

Had it been a real prisoner, Baker said in the show, "I think they would have busted him up.

"I've seen detainees come outta there with blood on 'em. If there wasn't someone to say, 'I'm a U.S. soldier,' if you were speaking Arabic or Pashto or Urdu or some other language in the camp, we may never know what would have happened to that individual."

The two most curious cases outlined in the report involved interrogations in April 2003.

Officers discovered a prisoner had bruises on his knees after an interrogator used a so-called fear-up/harsh technique by directing military police to repeatedly bring the prisoner from a standing to a prone position and back, according to the report.

Pentagon officials disclosed the interrogation technique in the aftermath of the abuses in Iraq. They said it was briefly used at Guantanamo Bay.

In the same month, six months before female soldiers were posing with prisoners for snapshots in Iraq, the military noted this episode in Guantanamo:

"During the approach phase of an interrogation, a female interrogator took off her uniform top," though her brown T-shirt was still worn, "ran her fingers through the detainee's hair and sat on his lap," the report said. "A supervisor monitoring the interrogation immediately terminated the session.

"The interrogator was given a written reprimand for her conduct and received additional training before being allowed to continue duties as an interrogator."

Separately, the prison commander said this week that U.S. forces at Guantanamo don't strip prisoners or abuse them physically. "These are not techniques which are beneficial or helpful in the course of interrogations of a strategic nature," Hood said.

Human rights monitors are not convinced.

"We're confident that there's more information out there that hasn't been released," said Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has obtained nearly 6,000 documents about procedures at U.S.-run prisons.

Four British citizens who were held in Guantanamo until earlier this year filed suit last week against the U.S. government, saying they were abused there. The men include Shafiq Rasul, the lead plaintiff in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that granted judicial review to the prisoners.Their suit claims numerous beatings, being exposed to inhumane extremes of temperature, being tormented by unmuzzled dogs and being forced to strip.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Posted by Lisa at 05:04 PM
A Ton O' Voting Irregularities In The South = Mass Voter Disenfranchisement

Don't worry Shrub, most of the disenfranchised don't have the money or resources to sue the government properly.

Group Finds Voting Irregularities in South

By Doug Gross, Associated Press Writer.


A national voting rights group said Friday it documented hundreds of voting irregularities affecting poor and minority voters in seven Southern states — from long lines and faulty equipment to deliberate voter intimidation.

"While the United States of America is a strong democracy, it is also a flawed democracy," said Keith Jennings, director of Count Every Vote 2004, formed after the 2000 election to assure voting rights for "underrepresented and marginalized sectors of the population."

The group sent monitors Tuesday to 700 precincts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. Their goal was to observe such issues as the timely opening of polls, the presence of correct ballots and functioning machines, and the impartiality of elections officials.

Among their preliminary findings, the group listed a shortage of early voting locations in Duval County, Fla., the largest county in Florida in area and voting-age population, the failure of electronic voting machines in three South Carolina counties, and the loss of votes at a North Carolina precinct when too much information was stored on a computer unit.

"In one case, sprinklers came on while people were waiting to vote and the poll workers didn't know how to turn them off," said Alma Ayala, who monitored voting in St. Petersburg, Fla...

Group leaders did not know exactly how many irregularities were cited and could not say which states appeared to have the most. They said those issues will be more fully explored in their final report, to be issued in about two weeks.

But volunteers provided anecdotal evidence of voting problems in every state they monitored.

Randall Tussaint, who helped register voters and monitor polls in an eastern Georgia congressional district, cited a precinct at historically black Savannah State University where the 25 provisional ballots provided were gone by 11 a.m.

Some voters whose registration status was unclear after that time left without voting, he said.

In Florida, monitors said they observed prospective voters leaving polling places when they saw long lines for last week's early voting. Faulty equipment and sub-par facilities in some poor neighborhoods also contributed to possible voter disenfranchisement, they said.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_re_us/voting_report&printer=1

Group Finds Voting Irregularities in South

1 hour, 33 minutes ago

By DOUG GROSS, Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA - A national voting rights group said Friday it documented hundreds of voting irregularities affecting poor and minority voters in seven Southern states — from long lines and faulty equipment to deliberate voter intimidation.

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"While the United States of America is a strong democracy, it is also a flawed democracy," said Keith Jennings, director of Count Every Vote 2004, formed after the 2000 election to assure voting rights for "underrepresented and marginalized sectors of the population."

The group sent monitors Tuesday to 700 precincts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. Their goal was to observe such issues as the timely opening of polls, the presence of correct ballots and functioning machines, and the impartiality of elections officials.

Among their preliminary findings, the group listed a shortage of early voting locations in Duval County, Fla., the largest county in Florida in area and voting-age population, the failure of electronic voting machines in three South Carolina counties, and the loss of votes at a North Carolina precinct when too much information was stored on a computer unit.

"In one case, sprinklers came on while people were waiting to vote and the poll workers didn't know how to turn them off," said Alma Ayala, who monitored voting in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Volunteers with the organization met Friday at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church — where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached — to compile their findings and plan for collecting new information.

Group leaders did not know exactly how many irregularities were cited and could not say which states appeared to have the most. They said those issues will be more fully explored in their final report, to be issued in about two weeks.

But volunteers provided anecdotal evidence of voting problems in every state they monitored.

Randall Tussaint, who helped register voters and monitor polls in an eastern Georgia congressional district, cited a precinct at historically black Savannah State University where the 25 provisional ballots provided were gone by 11 a.m.

Some voters whose registration status was unclear after that time left without voting, he said.

In Florida, monitors said they observed prospective voters leaving polling places when they saw long lines for last week's early voting. Faulty equipment and sub-par facilities in some poor neighborhoods also contributed to possible voter disenfranchisement, they said.

The group's preliminary report made some positive observations.

The report applauded increased voter participation and numerous "get out the vote drives" and called elections throughout the South "relatively well administered."

But members said the fact that the presidential election's outcome is not being challenged — as it was in 2000 — should not obscure problems that still occurred.

"We had an election on Nov. 2 that fell outside the zone of litigation," said Patrick Merloe, an attorney and human rights activist who has observed elections in 27 countries. "That does not mean we had an election that met acceptable standards."

Posted by Lisa at 04:57 PM
Another North Carolina Software Glitch

This is ANOTHER instance of the President getting more votes than were possible. (
Here's the other one I've blogged so far
.)

Election problems due to a software glitch

By Sue Book for the Sun Journal.


A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election.

Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast, a human mistake further delayed accurate totals for the 40,534 who voted.

The glitch occurred Tuesday night as absentee ballot totals for one-stop early voting at three Craven County locations and ballots mailed-in were being entered, said Tiffiney Miller, Craven County Board of Elections director.

The Elections Systems and Software equipment had downloaded voting information from nine of the county's 26 precincts and as the absentee ballots were added, the precinct totals were added a second time. Precincts affected were Havelock East, Havelock West, River Bend, Cove City, Ernul, Fort Totten, Grover C. Fields, Glenburnie and West New Bern.

An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly, Miller said.

"I have redone every (personal electronic ballot) completely and am adding the absentees," she said early Thursday. "Every precinct was redone."

The second set of incorrect numbers came when the total for one of the batches of absentee ballots was not included in the first manual recount.

"That's why we have a week before the votes are official, so if we do find problems we can get them straight before the votes are certified," said Miller, who was in her office before 8 a.m. Thursday, hand-crunching the numbers retrieved from the voting machines.


Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.newbernsj.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=18297&Section=Local

Election problems due to a software glitch
November 05,2004
Sue Book
Sun Journal

A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election.

Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast, a human mistake further delayed accurate totals for the 40,534 who voted.

The glitch occurred Tuesday night as absentee ballot totals for one-stop early voting at three Craven County locations and ballots mailed-in were being entered, said Tiffiney Miller, Craven County Board of Elections director.

The Elections Systems and Software equipment had downloaded voting information from nine of the county's 26 precincts and as the absentee ballots were added, the precinct totals were added a second time. Precincts affected were Havelock East, Havelock West, River Bend, Cove City, Ernul, Fort Totten, Grover C. Fields, Glenburnie and West New Bern.

An override, like those occurring when one attempts to save a computer file that already exists, is supposed to prevent double counting, but did not function correctly, Miller said.

"I have redone every (personal electronic ballot) completely and am adding the absentees," she said early Thursday. "Every precinct was redone."

The second set of incorrect numbers came when the total for one of the batches of absentee ballots was not included in the first manual recount.

"That's why we have a week before the votes are official, so if we do find problems we can get them straight before the votes are certified," said Miller, who was in her office before 8 a.m. Thursday, hand-crunching the numbers retrieved from the voting machines.

New numbers put incumbent Commissioner Leon Staton in front of Republican challenger Tony Michalek for the Craven County Board of Commissioners District 5 seat. It does not appear that any other local races will be affected as a result of the malfunction, even with the results of about 1,000 provisional votes still to be entered Nov. 9.

Joined by her staff when the Craven County Administration Building opened, Miller already had been discussing the problem and remedies with Craven County Board of Elections Chairman Gloria Stanley, Electronic Systems and Software local representative Owen Andrews and North Carolina State Board of Elections Director Gary Bartlett.

Other than the cranking sound of numbers adding and an occasional ring of the phone, the office was dead quiet as they scrutinized the emerging tapes and hand-posted them on notebooks to be added by hand.

Craven County Commissioner Renee Sisk, a Republican who would be in the new majority on the board with Michalek's election, came by to assess the situation, followed by Craven County Manager Harold Blizzard, then Craven County Republican Party Chairman Steve Tyson, who both came in to inquire about the problem and possible solution. Then a national Republican political consultant who had watched the returns and had some concern that other precincts were involved in the problem entered the office.

Andrews arrived and made contact with the ESS home office in Omaha, Neb.

"What she is dong now is the failsafe way to make sure we get it right," said Andrews, of Owen G. Dunn in New Bern.

"When a voter casts the vote, it stays in the memory of the machine, which has redundancy as a safeguard," he said.

While there is no paper ballot, Andrews said "(Miller) has a paper trail. She can print as many paper vote tallies out of the machine as she'd like."

That information remains in the voting machine until the election is decided and it is deliberately removed.

Andrews will work with the manufacturer, Miller and the elections board to correct the problem to ensure it will not happen again, but said "it really has nothing to do with the integrity of the vote as cast or counted."

"We will produce an honest outcome by the time we canvass Tuesday," said Craven County Board of Elections member Walter Leake, who was one of the last to stop by the elections office Thursday. "The poll books will match the machine."

Election difficulties also were reported in a number of other North Carolina counties, including nearby Carteret, where 4,530 early votes were irretrievably lost.

Sue Book can be reached at (252) 638-8101 ext. 262 or sue_book@link.freedom.com.

Posted by Lisa at 04:50 PM
High School Students Stage Protest Direction Of The Country

Hmmm. Seems like these kids understand the direction of the country perfectly.


Worried students spend night in school to protest direction of country

By P. Soloman Banda for the Associated Press.


At least 85 students worried about war, a return of the draft and the future of the environment staged an overnight protest in the Boulder High School library before leaving peacefully Friday morning.

The students said they wanted assurances from political leaders about the direction of the country. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., met with some of the students for about an hour after they left the library at 7 a.m.

''We're worried that in four years we're going to be at war with five countries and we're going to have no trees,'' senior Cameron Ely-Murdock said.

''I know that's an extreme position, but I'm really worried about the draft,'' he said.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.casperstartribune.net/apdata/wire_detail.php?wire_num=40707

Worried students spend night in school to protest direction of country

AP Photos pursuing

pbde

By P. SOLOMON BANDA

Associated Press Writer

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - At least 85 students worried about war, a return of the draft and the future of the environment staged an overnight protest in the Boulder High School library before leaving peacefully Friday morning.

The students said they wanted assurances from political leaders about the direction of the country. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., met with some of the students for about an hour after they left the library at 7 a.m.

''We're worried that in four years we're going to be at war with five countries and we're going to have no trees,'' senior Cameron Ely-Murdock said.

''I know that's an extreme position, but I'm really worried about the draft,'' he said.

President Bush and other administration officials have repeatedly said they have no plans to reinstate a draft, despite concerns about the number of troops needed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Principal Ron Cabrera agreed to let the students spend the night in the library if they would leave in time for Friday morning classes, which they did. A handful of teachers and parents stayed with them.

''It's become a really large learning event about civics and having a political voice. And you can't beat that,'' Cabrera said.

The sit-in began after school Thursday. The students, who brought sleeping bags and food, said they were not protesting Bush's re-election but were worried about the national debt, Iraq and other issues.

The students said they wanted to talk to representatives of GOP Gov. Bill Owens and U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo. Musgrave sponsored the failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

It was not immediately known whether either received a request or responded.

Posted by Lisa at 04:27 PM
CNN Changed Their Exit Poll Data In The Middle Of The Night


Why Did CNN Change Their Exit Poll Data for Ohio After 1:00 AM?

Posted by Lisa at 04:06 PM
E-Voting Machine Errors Starting To Pour In -- This Time It's 3,893 "Extra" Votes For Bush In Ohio

I know it's only 3,893 "extra" votes, but if this kind of thing happened enough times, it would make quite a big difference.

Time to get our calculators out and start doing the math guys. According to this article, Kerry "lost" by 136,000 votes. 3,893 divides into 136,000 around 35 times. There are 88 counties in Ohio. That means this kind of error would only have to take place in less than half of them to provide Bush with a winning result.

One thing I'm wondering is: are there even enough Repubs registered to cast the votes they are claiming to be cast? Or are we supposed to believe that some Democrats voted for Bush? Help me out here guys! Or send me the numbers and I'm happy to do the math myself.

Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes

By John McCarthy for the Associated Press.


An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said. Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Bush's total should have been recorded as 365...

Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after saying that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result...

Kimball Brace, president of the consulting firm Election Data Services, said it's possible the fault lies with the software that tallies the votes from individual cartridges rather than the machines or the cartridges themselves.

Either way, he said, such tallying software ought to have a way to ensure that the totals don't exceed the number of voters.

County officials did not return calls seeking details.

Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch that on one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred when its cartridge was plugged into a reader and generated a faulty number. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred.

Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said...

Other electronic machines used in Ohio do not use the type of computer cartridge involved in the error, state officials say.

But in Perry County, a punch-card system reported about 75 more votes than there are voters in one precinct. Workers tried to cancel the count when the tabulator broke down midway through, but the machine instead double-counted an unknown number in the first batch. The mistake will be corrected, officials say.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_el_pr/voting_problems

Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes

28 minutes ago

By JOHN McCARTHY, Associated Press Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush (news - web sites) 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said. Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites)'s 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Bush's total should have been recorded as 365.

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Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after saying that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result.

Deducting the erroneous Bush votes from his total could not change the election's outcome, and there were no signs of other errors in Ohio's electronic machines, said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.

Franklin is the only Ohio county to use Danaher Controls Inc.'s ELECTronic 1242, an older-style touchscreen voting system. Danaher did not immediately return a message for comment.

Sean Greene, research director with the nonpartisan Election Reform Information Project, said that while the glitch appeared minor "that could change if more of these stories start coming out."

In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost in this election because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did.

And in San Francisco, a malfunction with custom voting software could delay efforts to declare the winners of four races for county supervisor.

In the Ohio precinct in question, the votes are recorded to eight memory locations, including a removable cartridge, according to Verified Voting Foundation, an e-voting watchdog group. After voting ends, the cartridge is either transported to a tabulation facility or its data sent via modem.

Kimball Brace, president of the consulting firm Election Data Services, said it's possible the fault lies with the software that tallies the votes from individual cartridges rather than the machines or the cartridges themselves.

Either way, he said, such tallying software ought to have a way to ensure that the totals don't exceed the number of voters.

County officials did not return calls seeking details.

Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch that on one of the three machines at that precinct, a malfunction occurred when its cartridge was plugged into a reader and generated a faulty number. He could not explain how the malfunction occurred.

Damschroder said people who had seen poll results on the election board's Web site called to point out the discrepancy. The error would have been discovered when the official count for the election is performed later this month, he said.

The reader also recorded zero votes in a county commissioner race on the machine.

Other electronic machines used in Ohio do not use the type of computer cartridge involved in the error, state officials say.

But in Perry County, a punch-card system reported about 75 more votes than there are voters in one precinct. Workers tried to cancel the count when the tabulator broke down midway through, but the machine instead double-counted an unknown number in the first batch. The mistake will be corrected, officials say.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a glitch occurred with software designed by Election Systems & Software Inc. for the city's new "ranked-choice voting," in which voters list their top three choices for municipal offices. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes outright, voters' second and third-place preferences are then distributed among candidates who weren't eliminated in the first round.

When the San Francisco Department of Elections tried a test run Wednesday, some of the votes didn't get counted. The problem was attributed to a programming glitch that limited how much data could be accepted, a threshold that did not account for high voter turnout.

Posted by Lisa at 03:50 PM
November 04, 2004
Charlotte, NC Recount Reveals Some Votes Counted Twice


Samuelson in, Rembert out ... for now

First recount changes county commission result
In The Charlotte Observer.

Nice how the mistakes get "fixed" when it means a Republican keeping her position.


A retally of early voting ballots has changed the result of the tight Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners race, possibly putting incumbent Republican Ruth Samuelson back on the board.

But totals could change again. And elections voting officials can't say yet what caused the problems.

When voting ended Tuesday, Democrats appeared to sweep three at-large seats.

But on Wednesday, Republicans pointed out early-voting discrepancies that showed more votes in the presidential race than people who voted. Elections officials spent today counting the ballots anew. The end result: former school board member Wilhelmenia Rembert, a Democrat, slipped from second to fourth, a mere 28 votes behind Samuelson.

Democrats Parks Helms and Jennifer Roberts were first and second, and Samuelson was third, with 63 fewer votes than Roberts. Elections officials still must rule on whether roughly 6,000 provisional ballots will be counted. That decision could change the close race again.

Posted by Lisa at 08:54 PM
More Than 4,500 Votes Lost In North Carolina


N.C. Computer Loses More Than 4,500 Votes

In the Associated Press.

More than 4,500 votes have been lost in one North Carolina county because officials believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. Scattered other problems may change results in races around the state.

Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.

Expecting the greater capacity, the county used only one unit during the early voting period. "If we had known, we would have had the units to handle the votes," said Sue Verdon, secretary of the county election board.

Officials said 3,005 early votes were stored, but 4,530 were lost.

http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041104/APP/411040876

Posted on November 04, 2004
N.C. Computer Loses More Than 4,500 Votes

The Associated Press

More than 4,500 votes have been lost in one North Carolina county because officials believed a computer that stored ballots electronically could hold more data than it did. Scattered other problems may change results in races around the state.

Local officials said UniLect Corp., the maker of the county's electronic voting system, told them that each storage unit could handle 10,500 votes, but the limit was actually 3,005 votes.

Expecting the greater capacity, the county used only one unit during the early voting period. "If we had known, we would have had the units to handle the votes," said Sue Verdon, secretary of the county election board.

Officials said 3,005 early votes were stored, but 4,530 were lost.

Jack Gerbel, president and owner of Dublin, Calif.-based UniLect, said Thursday that the county's elections board was given incorrect information. There is no way to retrieve the missing data, he said.

"That is the situation and it's definitely terrible," he said.

In a letter to county officials, he blamed the mistake on confusion over which model of the voting machines was in use in Carteret County. But he also noted that the machines flash a warning message when there is no more room for storing ballots.

"Evidently, this message was either ignored or overlooked," he wrote.

County election officials were meeting with State Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett on Thursday and did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

The loss of the votes didn't appear to change the outcome of county races, and President Bush won the state by about 430,000 votes in unofficial returns. But that wasn't the issue for Alecia Williams, who voted on one of the final days of the early voting period.

"The point is not whether the votes would have changed things, it's that they didn't get counted at all," Williams said.

Two statewide races remained undecided Thursday, for superintendent of public instruction, where the two candidates are about 6,700 votes apart, and agriculture commissioner, where they are only hundreds of votes apart.

How those two races might be affected by problems in individual counties was uncertain. The state still must tally more than 73,000 provisional ballots, plus those from four counties that have not yet submitted their provisionals, said Johnnie McLean, deputy director of the state elections board.

Nationwide, only scattered problems were reported in electronic voting, though roughly 40 million people cast digital ballots, voting equipment company executives had said.

Posted by Lisa at 08:51 PM
Greg Palast: Kerry Won

And we're not just talking about "in spirit."

Kerry Won

By Greg Palast for Common Dreams.


I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state...

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio...

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-36.htm

Published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 by TomPaine.com
Kerry Won
by Greg Palast

Kerry won. Here's the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

And not all vote spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here .)

And here's the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday's election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don't go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren't even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz).

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”

But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year's Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it's efforts landed her a seat in Congress.

Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell's office, notably, won't say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss—that's 110,000 votes—overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Impact Of Challenges

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn't punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the 'challenges.' That's a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio's use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws—almost never used—allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots—a kind of voting placebo—which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you've got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.

Enchanted State's Enchanted Vote

Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality—if all votes are counted—is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."

How did that happen? It's the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.

CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, '100 percent' of ballots cast.

New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts—Democratic turf. From Tuesday's vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.

Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush 'plurality.'

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we'd expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves' Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can't make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Now, let's add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.

"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?

Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter's identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.

Your Kerry Victory Party

So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry—if we count all the votes.

But that won't happen. Despite the Democratic Party's pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio's Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris' political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.

What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won't be necessary. My country has left me.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .

Posted by Lisa at 08:43 PM
Daily Show Comedy Clips From November 3, 2004

This is from the November 3, 2004 program.

Jon covers Kerry's concession, Bush's relishing in his glory, and Stephen Colbert's commentary on it all.
Daily Show Clips From November 3, 2004


The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 05:12 PM
Thom Hartmann On What May Turn Out To Be The Most Massive Election Fraud In The History Of The World


The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy

By Thom Hartmann for Common Dreams.


The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that
showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't
erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting
machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more
analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election
fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the
largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing
private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and
boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will
enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through the
efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may well find
out (Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org just filed what may be the
largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in history), and bloggers
and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit
polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate
in touch-screen electronic voting states Even raw voter analyses are
showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed
bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering
their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-38.htm

Published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy
by Thom Hartmann


The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that
showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't
erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting
machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more
analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election
fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the
largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing
private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and
boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will
enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through the
efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may well find
out (Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org just filed what may be the
largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in history), and bloggers
and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit
polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate
in touch-screen electronic voting states Even raw voter analyses are
showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed
bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering
their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said.

But in all the discussion about voting machines, let's never forget the
concept of the commons, because this usurpation is the ultimate felony
committed by conservatives this year.

At the founding of this nation, we decided that there were important
places to invest our tax (then tariff) dollars, and those were the things
that had to do with the overall "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness" of all of us. Over time, these commons - in which we all make
tax investments and for which we all hold ultimate responsibility - have
come to include our police and fire services; our military and defense;
our roads and skyways; our air, waters and national parks; and the safety
of our food and drugs.

But the most important of all the commons in which we've invested our
hard-earned tax dollars is our government itself. It's owned by us, run by
us (through our elected representatives), answerable to us, and most
directly responsible for stewardship of our commons.

And the commons through which we regulate the commons of our government is
our vote.

About two years ago, I wrote a story for these pages, "If You Want To Win
An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines," that exposed how Senator
Chuck Hagel had, before stepping down and running for the U.S. Senate in
Nebraska, been the head of the voting machine company (now ES&S) that had
just computerized Nebraska's vote. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said
Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the
major Republican upset in the November election." According to Bev Harris,
Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black
communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first
Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska, nearly all on
unauditable machines he had just sold the state. And in all probability,
Hagel run for President in 2008.

In another, later article I wrote at the request of MoveOn.org and which
they mailed to their millions of members, I noted that in Georgia -
another state that went all-electronic - "USA Today reported on Nov. 3,
2002, 'In Georgia, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll shows Democratic
Sen. Max Cleland with a 49-44 lead over Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss.
'Cox News Service, based in Atlanta, reported just after the election
(Nov. 7) that, "Pollsters may have goofed" because 'Republican Rep. Saxby
Chambliss defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland by a margin of 53
to 46 percent. The Hotline, a political news service, recalled a series of
polls Wednesday showing that Chambliss had been ahead in none of them.'"
Nearly every vote in the state was on an electronic machine with no audit
trail.

In the years since those first articles appeared, Bev Harris has published
her book on the subject ("Black Box Voting"), including the revelation of
her finding the notorious "Rob Georgia" folder on Diebold's FTP site just
after Cleland's loss there; Lynn Landes has done some groundbreaking
research, particularly her new investigation of the Associated Press, as
have Rebecca Mercuri and David Dill. There's a new video out on the topic,
Votergate, available at www.votergate.tv.

Congressman Rush Holt introduced a bill into Congress requiring a
voter-verified paper ballot be produced by all electronic voting machines,
and it's been co-sponsored by a majority of the members of the House of
Representatives. The two-year battle fought by Dennis Hastert and Tom
DeLay to keep it from coming to a vote, thus insuring that there will be
no possible audit of the votes of about a third of the 2004 electorate,
has fueled the flames of conspiracy theorists convinced Republican
ideologues - now known to be willing to lie in television advertising -
would extend their "ends justifies the means" morality to stealing the
vote "for the better good of the country" they think single-party
Republican rule will bring.

Most important, though, the rallying cry of the emerging "honest vote"
movement must become: Get Corporations Out Of Our Vote!

Why have we let corporations into our polling places, locations so sacred
to democracy that in many states even international election monitors and
reporters are banned? Why are we allowing corporations to exclusively
handle our vote, in a secret and totally invisible way? Particularly a
private corporation founded, in one case, by a family that believes the
Bible should replace the Constitution; in another case run by one of
Ohio's top Republicans; and in another case partly owned by Saudi
investors?

Of all the violations of the commons - all of the crimes against We The
People and against democracy in our great and historic republic - this is
the greatest. Our vote is too important to outsource to private
corporations.

It's time that the USA - like most of the rest of the world - returns to
paper ballots, counted by hand by civil servants (our employees) under the
watchful eye of the party faithful. Even if it takes two weeks to count
the vote, and we have to just go, until then, with the exit polls of the
news agencies. It worked just fine for nearly 200 years in the USA, and it
can work again.

When I lived in Germany, they took the vote the same way most of the world
does - people fill in hand-marked ballots, which are hand-counted by civil
servants taking a week off from their regular jobs, watched over by
volunteer representatives of the political parties. It's totally clean,
and easily audited. And even though it takes a week or more to count the
vote (and costs nothing more than a bit of overtime pay for civil
servants), the German people know the election results the night the polls
close because the news media's exit polls, for two generations, have never
been more than a tenth of a percent off.

We could have saved billions that have instead been handed over to ES&S,
Diebold, and other private corporations.

Or, if we must have machines, let's have them owned by local governments,
maintained and programmed by civil servants answerable to We The People,
using open-source code and disconnected from modems, that produce a
voter-verified printed ballot, with all results published on a
precinct-by-precinct basis.

As Thomas Paine wrote at this nation's founding, "The right of voting for
representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are
protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery."

Only when We The People reclaim the commons of our vote can we again be
confident in the integrity of our electoral process in the world's oldest
and most powerful democratic republic.

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored
Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated
daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann .com His most recent books
are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of
Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call
To Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To
Democracy."

Posted by Lisa at 04:24 PM
Ashcroft Expected To Resign (a.k.a. Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead)

Not that I wish him dead...or even physically ill. (Even though he's been trying to kill the Constitution for a while now.)

But if he resigns, theoretically, he can't do us any more harm.

It will be only the second Shrub official to hit the road in my "Bye-Bye" series.

This is the best news I've heard all week!


Ashcroft Likely to Leave Post

By Curt Anderson for The Associated Press.


Attorney General John Ashcroft is likely to leave his post before the start of President Bush's second term, senior aides said Thursday.

Ashcroft, 62, is described as exhausted from leading the Justice Department in fighting the domestic war on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Stress was a factor in Ashcroft's health problems earlier this year that resulted in removal of his gall bladder.

Ashcroft is expected to resign before Bush's Jan. 20 inauguration, said aides who spoke only on condition of anonymity. They said there is a small chance he would stay on, at least for a short time, if Bush asked him.

The attorney general has not officially informed his staff of his future plans, spokesman Mark Corallo said.

At a news conference, Bush said he hasn't made any decisions about his Cabinet.

Ashcroft, a former two-term governor and senator from Missouri, has long been a favorite among Bush's base of religious conservatives. He also is a lightning rod for Democrats and other critics on issues ranging from the anti-terrorism Patriot Act, which expanded rules for eavesdropping, to abortion rights and gun control.

Names that have been floated in recent weeks as a possible replacement include Ashcroft's former deputy, Larry Thompson, who would become the first black attorney general. Others include Marc Racicot, who was Bush's campaign manager, and White House general counsel Alberto Gonzalez, who would give Bush a notable Hispanic appointment.

Posted by Lisa at 04:19 PM
New York Is Bummed Out By Shrub Victory


A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America

By Joseph Berger for The New York Times.


Striking a characteristic New York pose near Lincoln Center yesterday, Beverly Camhe clutched three morning newspapers to her chest while balancing a large latte and talked about how disconsolate she was to realize that not only had her candidate, John Kerry, lost but that she and her city were so out of step with the rest of the country.

"Do you know how I described New York to my European friends?" she said. "New York is an island off the coast of Europe."

Like Ms. Camhe, a film producer, three of every four voters in New York City gave Mr. Kerry their vote, a starkly different choice from the rest of the nation. So they awoke yesterday with something of a woozy existential hangover and had to confront once again how much of a 51st State they are, different in their sensibilities, lifestyles and polyglot texture from most of America. The election seemed to reverse the perspective of the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon, with much of the land mass of America now in the foreground and New York a tiny, distant and irrelevant dot.

Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush. (In both Manhattan and the Bronx, Mr. Bush received 16.7 percent of the vote.) Others spoke of a feeling of isolation from their fellow Americans, a sense that perhaps Middle America doesn't care as much about New York and its animating concerns as it seemed to in the weeks immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center.

"Everybody seems to hate us these days," said Zito Joseph, a 63-year-old retired psychiatrist. "None of the people who are likely to be hit by a terrorist attack voted for Bush. But the heartland people seemed to be saying, 'We're not affected by it if there would be another terrorist attack.' "

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

Editor's Note | A centerpiece of the Bush campaign was their claim that Bush was the best man to keep America safe from another terrorist attack. It is worthwhile to note, therefore, the reaction of the city of New York to the election results on Tuesday. This great city, which absorbed the horrific blow of 9/11, did not think Bush was the right man for the job. - wrp


A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America
By Joseph Berger
The New York Times

Thursday 04 November 2004

Striking a characteristic New York pose near Lincoln Center yesterday, Beverly Camhe clutched three morning newspapers to her chest while balancing a large latte and talked about how disconsolate she was to realize that not only had her candidate, John Kerry, lost but that she and her city were so out of step with the rest of the country.

"Do you know how I described New York to my European friends?" she said. "New York is an island off the coast of Europe."

Like Ms. Camhe, a film producer, three of every four voters in New York City gave Mr. Kerry their vote, a starkly different choice from the rest of the nation. So they awoke yesterday with something of a woozy existential hangover and had to confront once again how much of a 51st State they are, different in their sensibilities, lifestyles and polyglot texture from most of America. The election seemed to reverse the perspective of the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon, with much of the land mass of America now in the foreground and New York a tiny, distant and irrelevant dot.

Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush. (In both Manhattan and the Bronx, Mr. Bush received 16.7 percent of the vote.) Others spoke of a feeling of isolation from their fellow Americans, a sense that perhaps Middle America doesn't care as much about New York and its animating concerns as it seemed to in the weeks immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center.

"Everybody seems to hate us these days," said Zito Joseph, a 63-year-old retired psychiatrist. "None of the people who are likely to be hit by a terrorist attack voted for Bush. But the heartland people seemed to be saying, 'We're not affected by it if there would be another terrorist attack.' "

City residents talked about this chasm between outlooks with characteristic New York bluntness.

Dr. Joseph, a bearded, broad-shouldered man with silken gray hair, was sharing coffee and cigarettes with his fellow dog walker, Roberta Kimmel Cohn, at an outdoor table outside the hole-in-the-wall Breadsoul Cafe near Lincoln Center. The site was almost a cliché corner of cosmopolitan Manhattan, with a newsstand next door selling French and Italian newspapers and, a bit farther down, the Lincoln Plaza theater showing foreign movies.

"I'm saddened by what I feel is the obtuseness and shortsightedness of a good part of the country - the heartland," Dr. Joseph said. "This kind of redneck, shoot-from-the-hip mentality and a very concrete interpretation of religion is prevalent in Bush country - in the heartland."

"New Yorkers are more sophisticated and at a level of consciousness where we realize we have to think of globalization, of one mankind, that what's going to injure masses of people is not good for us," he said.

His friend, Ms. Cohn, a native of Wisconsin who deals in art, contended that New Yorkers were not as fooled by Mr. Bush's statements as other Americans might be. "New Yorkers are savvy," she said. "We have street smarts. Whereas people in the Midwest are more influenced by what their friends say."

"They're very 1950's," she said of Midwesterners. "When I go back there, I feel I'm in a time warp."

Dr. Joseph acknowledged that such attitudes could feed into the perception that New Yorkers are cultural elitists, but he didn't apologize for it.

"People who are more competitive and proficient at what they do tend to gravitate toward cities," he said.

Like those in the rest of the country, New Yorkers stayed up late watching the results, and some went to bed with a glimmer of hope that Mr. Kerry might yet find victory in some fortuitous combination of battleground states. But they awoke to reality. Some politically conscious children were disheartened - or sleepy - enough to ask parents if they could stay home. But even grownups were unnerved.

"To paraphrase our current president, I'm in shock and awe," said Keithe Sales, a 58-year-old former publishing administrator walking a dog near Central Park. He said he and friends shared a feeling of "disempowerment" as a result of the country's choice of President Bush. "There is a feeling of 'What do I have to do to get this man out of office?'''

In downtown Brooklyn, J. J. Murphy, 34, a teacher, said that Mr. Kerry's loss underscored the geographic divide between the Northeast and the rest of the country. He harked back to Reconstruction to help explain his point.

"One thing Clinton and Gore had going for them was they were from the South," he said. "There's a lot of resentment toward the Northeast carpetbagger stereotype, and Kerry fit right in to that."

Mr. Murphy said he understood why Mr. Bush appealed to Southerners in a way that he did not appeal to New Yorkers.

"Even though Bush isn't one of them - he's a son of privilege - he comes off as just a good old boy," Mr. Murphy said.

Pondering the disparity, Bret Adams, a 33-year-old computer network administrator in Rego Park, Queens, said, "I think a lot of the country sees New York as a wild and crazy place, where these things like the war protests happen."

Ms. Camhe, the film producer, frequents Elaine's restaurant with friends and spends many mornings on a bench in Central Park talking politics with homeless people with whom she's become acquainted. She spent part of Tuesday knocking on doors in Pennsylvania to rustle up Kerry votes then returned to Manhattan to attend an election-night party thrown by Miramax's chairman, Harvey Weinstein, at The Palm. Ms. Camhe was also up much of the night talking to a son in California who was depressed at the election results.

When it became clear yesterday morning that the outlook for a Kerry squeaker was a mirage, she was unable to eat breakfast. Her doorman on Central Park West gave her a consoling hug. Then a friend buying coffee along with her said she had just heard a report on television that Mr. Kerry had conceded and tears welled in Ms. Camhe's eyes.

Ms. Camhe explained the habits and beliefs of those dwelling in the heartland like an anthropologist.

"What's different about New York City is it tends to bring people together and so we can't ignore each others' dreams and values and it creates a much more inclusive consciousness," she said. "When you're in a more isolated environment, you're more susceptible to some ideology that's imposed on you."

As an example, Ms. Camhe offered the different attitudes New Yorkers may have about social issues like gay marriage.

"We live in this marvelous diversity where we actually have gay neighbors," she said. "They're not some vilified unknown. They're our neighbors."

But she said that a dichotomy of outlooks was bad for the country.

"If the heartland feels so alienated from us, then it behooves us to wrap our arms around the heartland," she said. "We need to bring our way of life, which is honoring diversity and having compassion for people with different lifestyles, on a trip around the country."

Posted by Lisa at 04:11 PM
Video Of My Voting Experience

It seems only fair to document my own voting experience, since I've asked you to document yours and send it to me.

Here's video of me casting my vote for Kerry via the optical voting system used at my precinct in San Francisco, California.

These are the optical voting systems that need to replace the electronic voting machines that are currently in use throughout the country. I believe that electronic voting machines need to either a) implement voter verifiable paper trails or b) be replaced completely by the newest snazzy optical system models. Otherwise we have no control over the outcome. Period.

Also of interest is the Instant Runoff Feature for our local Representatives. I voted for Tom Ammiano, of course. That's why it says "first choice," "second choice," etc.

Lisa Rein's Voting Experience
(Small - 5 MB)

Posted by Lisa at 08:21 AM
November 03, 2004
Dan Gillmour: Four More Years

Dan Gillmour has written his usual classy piece on what another four years of the Shrub will mean for this country.

Except for his agreement that Kerry should have conceded in the beginning of the piece, it's a great one.

Four More Years


The Republicans have an even stronger congressional majority. They have shown how gladly ruthless they can be in using their power. Bush and his allies have never believed in compromise. They have even less incentive to govern from the middle now, even though the nation remains bitterly divided.

There's no secret about what's coming. We don't have that excuse this time.

Here comes more fiscal recklessness -- as we widen the chasm between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else, cementing a plutocracy into our national fiber, we'll pay our national bills on the Treasury Bill credit card for the next few years. Many economists expect a Brazil-like financial crisis to hit the U.S. before the end of the decade. If we muddle our way though the near term, we'll still have left our kids with the bill.

Here comes an expansion of the American empire abroad, a fueling of fear and loathing elsewhere on the globe. This is also unsustainable in the end. Empire breeds disrespect.

Our civil liberties will shrink drastically. This president and his top allies in Congress fully support just one amendment in the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment's right to bear arms. Say goodbye to abortion rights in most states. Roe v. Wade will fall after this president pushes three or four Scalia and Thomas legal clones onto the Supreme Court. Say hello, meanwhile, to a much more intrusive blending of church and state.

The environment? We'll be nostalgic for Ronald Reagan's time in office.

This is not sour grapes. This is reality.

I hope, but doubt, that the Democrats re-discover enough of their collective spine to block the most extreme moves. If they do it'll be a change for a party that stands for so little these days.

People say there are two Americas. I think there are at least three.

One is Bush's America: an amalgam of the extreme Christian "conservatives," corporate interests and the builders of the burgeoning national-security state.

Another is the Democratic "left": wedded to the old, discredited politics in a time that demands creative thinking.

I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse -- by those in power today.

That third America needs a candidate. Or, maybe, a new party.

Here is the complete article in case the link goes bad to:

http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/010986.shtml#010986


November 03, 2004
Four More Years
• posted by Dan Gillmor 07:18 AM
• permanent link to this item

UPDATED

Kerry has conceded, properly so. And now we're onto the next four years.

The Republicans have an even stronger congressional majority. They have shown how gladly ruthless they can be in using their power. Bush and his allies have never believed in compromise. They have even less incentive to govern from the middle now, even though the nation remains bitterly divided.

There's no secret about what's coming. We don't have that excuse this time.

Here comes more fiscal recklessness -- as we widen the chasm between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else, cementing a plutocracy into our national fiber, we'll pay our national bills on the Treasury Bill credit card for the next few years. Many economists expect a Brazil-like financial crisis to hit the U.S. before the end of the decade. If we muddle our way though the near term, we'll still have left our kids with the bill.

Here comes an expansion of the American empire abroad, a fueling of fear and loathing elsewhere on the globe. This is also unsustainable in the end. Empire breeds disrespect.

Our civil liberties will shrink drastically. This president and his top allies in Congress fully support just one amendment in the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment's right to bear arms. Say goodbye to abortion rights in most states. Roe v. Wade will fall after this president pushes three or four Scalia and Thomas legal clones onto the Supreme Court. Say hello, meanwhile, to a much more intrusive blending of church and state.

The environment? We'll be nostalgic for Ronald Reagan's time in office.

This is not sour grapes. This is reality.

I hope, but doubt, that the Democrats re-discover enough of their collective spine to block the most extreme moves. If they do it'll be a change for a party that stands for so little these days.

People say there are two Americas. I think there are at least three.

One is Bush's America: an amalgam of the extreme Christian "conservatives," corporate interests and the builders of the burgeoning national-security state.

Another is the Democratic "left": wedded to the old, discredited politics in a time that demands creative thinking.

I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse -- by those in power today.

That third America needs a candidate. Or, maybe, a new party.

Comments

Posted by: Terry Heaton on November 3, 2004 07:34 AM

Kudos, Dan, on an excellent post. Sign me up for the new party -- seriously.

Posted by: ashusta on November 3, 2004 07:41 AM

"This is not sour grapes. This is reality."
I agree with much of what you say about the current fiscal insanity, and the fact that the middle class is going to get shafted.
However, if the election was clean (and it appears to be better than 2000 so far) then you need to acknowledge that the majority of Americans want all of those things you just decried.
They want the church to be funded by the state. They want to be poor. They want to send our military on foreign expeditions. They want a ruling elite made up of old-boy networks.
And that's fine, because this is after all a democracy and the people should be given what they want.
As for those of us who don't want those things, I guess we just need to move to countries that have parliamentary systems with proportional representation. Or, bide our time until the next election season when people have had a chance to reap the rewards of their choices and see how things stand then.

Posted by: Miles Baska on November 3, 2004 07:49 AM

Since the Repugnants are in control of Congress a Demo president would perhaps restore some balance. I shudder at the thought of Ms. Kerry in the White House, however.

Ben Sargent had a wonderful cartoon four years ago that seems even more appropriate now. Dorothy(the voter), the Scarecrow (Bush) and the Tin Man (Gore) are walking the Yellow Brick Road. Scarecrow says, "I wish I had a brain!"; Tin Man says, "I wish I had a heart!"; and Dorothy thinks, "I wish I had a choice."

Posted by: leon on November 3, 2004 08:06 AM

Something I keep reading in the UK and hearing from friends is that there is nothing that can be done now other than to build a stronger Europe to counter the US. What does everyone think of this idea?

Posted by: anonymous on November 3, 2004 08:16 AM

Face it there is a third nation already. It's capital is somepalce between San Francisco and Hollywood, and it's totally out of touch with the rest of America.

You guys wanted anybody but Bush and look who 51% of the American voters wanted.

And so much for the "get out the vote" strategy - Republican triuph again.

Have a great 4 years!

Sour grapes make bad whine...

Posted by: Al on November 3, 2004 08:24 AM

You're half right, it's not sour grapes, but it's not reality either. On every issue you mention, your statements are wrong or vastly overblown.

Fiscally, Kerry was advocating spending more than Bush. So you should be happy that Bush is in.

As is plainly obvious, we are not conquerers. This empire notion is idiotic. If your goal is for us to yield to the corrupt UN and the bribed Europeans, then I'm proud that we lead the way beyond these people.

ashusta commented about "a ruling elite made up of old-boy networks". Isn't this how the many of the leading countries that liberals look up to operate? In many countries , the government leaders are intertwined with major industries. You guys think it's bad here, go look elsewhere.

As for civil liberties, you guys are like Chicken Little. I agree that we need to be vigilant with regard to government powers, but I think you guys use this issue more for political gain versus it actually being a big problem.

Dan, your comment "Another is the Democratic 'left': wedded to the old, discredited politics in a time that demands creative thinking" is important. If this is what you were thinking, why couldn't you be more transparent and have told us?

At least you see that the Dem's are tied to the old playbook of scare tactics. But you do it yourself: empire building, civil liberties issues, the environment, the evil pharmacuetical companies, Big Oil, etc, etc. Everything you guys come up with is on the negative side of things; you guys have no ideas and offer people no hope. Part of it is because you guys don't seem to have and grounded base of beliefs that you'll stick to.

Another party isn't going to solve the Dem's problems because the Dem's problems are deeper.

Posted by: Rik Gary on November 3, 2004 08:25 AM

Let's take a deep breath folks. Bush has an ok, but not huge, lead in the House and Senate. Seems re-election is all but certain, with another thin margin. These are not the makings of some proto-fascist supermajority. Even if you assume the worst about the Bush administration, there's plenty of opposition out there to blunt any extreme moves.

My thinking is, that after all the trouble in Iraq, the administration has no hunger for more adventures abroad-- or at home. If President Bush tried appointing 1950-era Strom Thurmondites to the Supreme Court he'd have his head handed to him and he knows it.

Second terms are almost always more cautious than the first, and this one's had so much wind taken out of it that I doubt there'll be much appetite for many Horatio Hornblower adventures. Oppose the Bush administration if that's your wish, but working yourself into a lather leads to "Fahrenheit 9-11" styled rhetoric, and inevitable backlash.

Posted by: M1EK on November 3, 2004 08:31 AM

Third party again. Yay.

Until the mechanics of our electoral process are changed, the only thing third parties do is destroy the chances of the major party closest to them in ideology. This isn't the 1800s, where third parties could acquire electoral votes and then engage in horse-trading at the electoral college.

Posted by: David Weinberger on November 3, 2004 08:42 AM

Oprah in 2008.

You want to win with a radical center party that can pull votes from all sides?

Oprah in 2008.

Posted by: Bob B. on November 3, 2004 08:44 AM

This is exactly why Kerry lost - you are way overstating your case, and I think most people know it, and reject what they know to be overblown charges. The US is not creating an "empire". Lack of fiscal responsibility is a bi-partisan trait. We have not really lost any civil liberties, though I too worry abut this while the 'war on terror' is going on. But I doubt a Democrat would be any different.

I think that your rant is indeed sour grapes - we have had worse presidents (remember Nixon?) and we have survived. The pendulum always swings back the other way.

Posted by: Evo on November 3, 2004 08:46 AM

I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly
radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few
years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the
big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse
-- by those in power today.

That third America needs a candidate. Or, maybe, a new party.

Gee... ya think? We need a shake up of the most severe kind, not at the higher eschelons of government, but with ourselves. Dems almost had it with Dean, but then they got scared. Too bad.

We need new ideas, not new programs. Fixing the Democrat party won't help. Candidates need to stand up for what they believe in and say things that not everyone is going to agree on. There are enough of us who would listen... eventually.

Posted by: john on November 3, 2004 08:48 AM

i think you are being a wee bit over dramatic about the end of the world, taliban style-US government in the lurking.

I know you're an editorial writer and you get paid to have opinions, but please try to be a little measured. These things go in cycle's and the one point we can all agree on is that Republicans are good for small businesses (which tend to be more community oriented).

The other issue i think we as a nation need to get more involved in is our communitied, people whine, bitch and complain about national issues (which have little impact on their lives), but then do NOTHING in their communities... Democrats take the next two years as a breather reorganize and figure out what you stand for (NOT against), Republicans enjoy it, but as they said in Rome to Ceasur as he was riding in hie chariot "you are not a god" - please don't let it go to your head...

there are huge issues that need to be tackled:
- social security
- medical insurance
- jobs
- GWOT

we need to fix these as a nation, otherwise we all will loose, j

Posted by: jazmac on November 3, 2004 08:48 AM

I think there's four Americas. I think the Neo-con power mongers use the rest of "Bush's America" as the raw materials to build its empire; but the vast Red State contingent has no clue that's what's happening. They believe the IMAGE of "Bush's America" but are ignorant - some willfully so - of the way they're being played. The neo-cons don't give a rat's patootie for the issues and causes the (apparent)masses believe are being represented by Bush.

Posted by: john on November 3, 2004 08:51 AM

both parties need fixing:
1. fix the gerrymadering problems across states
2. this will increase churn of people in congress (you know some folks have been there for almost 45 years ???? this is shocking) and make them less likely to be in the pockets of special interests
3. we need new ideas and people
j

Posted by: Hiram on November 3, 2004 08:53 AM

'For a successful solution of all these tasks, three conditions are required: a party; once more, a party; again, a party.'
-- L.D. Trotsky, The Revolution in Spain (1931)

A workers' party, that is. A revolutionary socialist party. Kerry lost because he's just another bourgeois with nothing to offer the vast majority of people in the USA.

Posted by: Dave on November 3, 2004 09:00 AM

We've tried third parties--and they don't work with the current electoral college system and with the current structure of the Senate and the House of Reps. Third parties are only viable in a parliamentary system. As to a more radical middle, I agree that the ranks of radicals will grow as things become worse, but they will not be tolerant. If you study the history of the Sixties, you see that when people are ignored after trying EVERY legal method to be heard, they become confrontational and eventually they become violent. Expect more protests and inevitible violence as frustration builds into rage.

Posted by: morden/al franken/question/query on November 3, 2004 09:01 AM

In line at the Ronald Reagan Building, for Bush's acceptance speech. The mood here is jubilant.

Four more years, and 55 Republican senators!

The largest vote for any President in American history.

The talk here is, that every American will get 20% or so of his Social Security taxes put into a investment account that the government can NEVER take away.

We can look forward to a completely recast tax system, with low and flat rates, with dramatic new incentives for savings.

We will all get cheap, affordable "high deductible" health care savings accounts.

Trial lawyer fees will be sensibly capped, and rapacious litigation will fade.

We'll see reinvigoration of free trade.

The Supreme Court will be recast for the next 25 years, putting aside once and for all the pretense that the institution is a group of philosopher kings, who should remake America into a far Left fantasy.

We'll see final victory in Iraq, a real solution to Israeli security, new and secure sources of oil -- enabling us to transition to the future hydrogen economy. There is talk about a renaissance of nuclear power, specifically "micro" generation.

No more demagoguery about WMD, Osama, and "explosives". No more poppycock about "two Americas".

The oppressive boot of Democrat policy on the American throat is history.

Join us.

Posted by: Micah on November 3, 2004 09:02 AM

The majority has spoken. Now you're set up for Hillary in 2008.

Posted by: Mark Crummett on November 3, 2004 09:15 AM

>... look who 51% of the American voters wanted.<

Yeah, but I'd call 49% a pretty significant number of Americans who DIDN'T want him. One percent is not exactly what I'd call a mandate from the people.

Posted by: Joe I. on November 3, 2004 09:16 AM

Bush, increased lead in Senate, House, Republicans take more governorships and state legislatures!! Wow it is a big WIN for the Republicans. All gay marriage ban proposals pass with huge majorities even in liberal Oregon! Talk about a united issue. No longer can people claim it divides American, it unites it apparently. Even in my state of Washington (it is real close by about 1,500 votes) but we are going to probably elect a very right wing governor Rossi. WOW.

Shows that I think the liberal Democrats screwed this for us that wanted Kerry. They needed the centrists like Clinton and me. Liberals and their 527's lost the election for Kerry!!!!

Posted by: Chris on November 3, 2004 09:17 AM

You left out so much. Despite the Dept of Homeland Security, this administration wants to shrink gov't. That's what the unfunded mandate is all about. We can kiss a lot of wonderful programs goodbye. Forget loosing Roe v Wade, look for Social Security to get privatized (Morden, the gov't won't take it away, but an economy in shambles sure as shit will, go ask enron employees,) and affirmative action to disappear. No child left behind will remain underfunded, leaving states and counties to cover the rest (the Bush league may not raise your taxes, but what choice will states and municipalities have?)

The Fed will decrease dramatically, and the replacements in four years will have a lot to fix. Maybe this is sour grapes, maybe it is exaustion mixed with a hangover, but it feels like there's no more energy for patriotism left. I'm going to go join some cheese eating surrender monkeys. At least the food is better over there.

C

Posted by: Sean on November 3, 2004 09:18 AM

We don't need another party: the Democrats need to start learning from the Republicans. What would they do if the roles were reversed?

Start working toward impeachment!

Posted by: Alex on November 3, 2004 09:18 AM

What a nightmare. Yesterday it was unimaginable to me, here in the UK, that you'd do anything less than kick Bush and co. out on their collective ear.

And what did you do? You have given him a mandate to continue butchering his way across the world, in the name of security, to put profit into the rich man's pocket.

I wish I could think of a place to go to try to escape what is going to happen in the next four years: more, and worse, exploitation of poor countries, a greater divide between rich and poor, and more corporate control of your media, resulting in an even more clueless electorate.

God help us.

Posted by: GHDDS on November 3, 2004 09:20 AM

So, does crow taste anything like chicken?

The fact of the matter is Kerry lost because he ran as a populist, never addressed the real issues that voters cared about and let Bush dictate the campaign.

Posted by: George on November 3, 2004 09:21 AM

Hiram, take a pill! I suggest you do NOT go out there and advocate the creation of a revolutionary socialist party, you might just end up disappeared.

It is hard not to be depressed, though. Four more years of Gruppenfuhrer Ashcroft, continuous (and ever-more meaningless) security alerts, emails scanned by government agents, pro-life Supreme Court Justices, deteriorating environmental standards and war with whomever doesn't agree with us. Whew!

But let's not lose sight of the fact that more people voted yesterday than ever before, and that the Supreme Court will not be deciding who will be President. Time for Democrats to do some self-examination. Time to look again at someone like Howard Dean, not afraid to take an anti-war position, not afraid to be called liberal.

Posted by: Ross M Karchner on November 3, 2004 09:22 AM

"The Third America Party" has a nice ring to it, in fact.

Posted by: Tim Robertson on November 3, 2004 09:23 AM

Well, America, you will now get what you deserve. No crying about it, this is what you wanted. Good luck to us all, we WILL need it.

Posted by: Ted Stapleton on November 3, 2004 09:24 AM

"...there is nothing that can be done now other than to build a stronger Europe to counter the US. What does everyone think of this idea?"

That just cracks me up... I can't stop laughing... sorry... build a stronger Europe... mmmmph...

Posted by: M1EK on November 3, 2004 09:24 AM

Republicans good for small bidness? Not from where I sit - no effective benefit from tax cuts, and the worst affected by health-care cost.

Posted by: Chris on November 3, 2004 09:28 AM

President Bush spent the last 6 months talking about what he was going to do if re-elected.

Senator Kerry spent the last 6 months talking about what Bush would do if re-elected.

Is it any wonder Bush won?

Posted by: Stan Krute on November 3, 2004 09:28 AM

Some thoughts:

[1] A 3rd party means GOP wins bigger.

[2] A Democratic party moving to the left
means GOP wins bigger.

[3] The Democrats didn't have anyone this
round who could beat Bush, other than
Edwards, who they would never have nominated.

[4] Simple wins. Subtle doesn't.

[5] People hate homosexuals, and are
unashamed about it.

[6] Supreme Court, environment, Empirism,
and the deficit are the saddest things
coming down the pike.

[7] Democrats need to spend some time
here in red-state-of-mind America, so they
understand what's going on.

Stan

Posted by: Rob on November 3, 2004 09:28 AM

Morden, before you crow too loudly about Bush getting the "largest vote for any President in American history", realize that this is a function of voter turnout. Kerry also got more votes in this election than Reagan did in '84.

As for your fantasy on the events of the upcoming four years, I think someone stayed up too late last night waiting for a victory speech.

Posted by: Voted 3rd Party on November 3, 2004 09:32 AM

"Yeah, but I'd call 49% a pretty significant number of Americans who DIDN'T want him"

And of those 49% who didn't want him, how many actually wanted Kerry?

Posted by: Avi Flax on November 3, 2004 09:38 AM

Count me in on that new party!

Posted by: Bob on November 3, 2004 09:40 AM

morden/al franken/question/query: Based on your predictions, I can only assume that you're already taking advantage of the Republicans' new Free Oxycontin Program.

Posted by: Ann's Cooter on November 3, 2004 09:43 AM

This time, not even Dan "The Sky is Falling" Gilmor can overstate the potential for disaster.

Posted by: Nathan on November 3, 2004 09:52 AM

What we need now, more than a new party, is a new _country_. Let them have this one, it's dead.

Posted by: Dean in Des Moines on November 3, 2004 09:52 AM

I was willing to consider your points, and offer some limited brain-cycles to reason through your claims - you didn't provide any links, proof, or logic so I was going to Google around a bit. But when you said "radical middle", I gave up. That's just nonsence.

Please, please, please give me a link for lawsuits currently filed against Bush or high-ranking cabinet member.

Show me when in our history a divided populace lead to demise.

Radical Middle - nonsence.

Posted by: engineer_scotty on November 3, 2004 09:55 AM

The Apogee of the Republicans

An incumbent president from Texas wins election to his second term in office. His opponent--a prominent Congressmen. His first term was marked by a grave national tragedy, and the involvement by the United States in a controversial foreign war (one ostensibly waged on behalf of the people there, who by and large wanted no part of the US). His party had dominated the Presidenency for an entire generation--other than a two-term administration by a moderate of the opposing party, whose VP subsequently lost a close election--and controls both houses of Congress. The president--whose first term already was marked with sweeping legislation that resulted in great social upheaval--plans even more massive changes in his second term. With control of Congress, it appears the opposition party is unable to stop him. There is talk of an enduring political dynasty being created, and that the other major political party might well be on its way to irrelevance.

George Bush, 2004?

Nope. LBJ, 1964.

What happened four years later? That same president left office in disgrace, and would be dead within five years. The war in Vietnam was well on its way to being the quagmire we all remember. And the unstoppable political juggernaut that was the Democrats in the 60s? Split into two different factions (the blue-dog dems and the "liberals"), who strongly distrusted each other and still do today. The other party, preying on this distrust, began the assimilation of many Democratic faithful into its ranks--a process which has been ongoing until now.

What does this have to do with 2004? It's amazing how many of the mistakes of LBJ have been repeated by this administration. From the machine politics, to the foreign misadventures, to the gross disregard of the opposition party's concerns, to the mistaken belief that being feared equates to being loved, George Bush is well on his way to being the Republican equivalent of LBJ. Of course, all could go well for Dubya--the Iraqi resistance could be smashed, the economy might boom, and Osama bin Laden's head might be mounted on a pike in the Oval Office. In which case this analogy would fail spectacularly. But I doubt it.

This election, due to the constant overreaching of this administration, might well mark the end of the current Republican era of dominance in US politics, just as the second Johnson administration was the apogee for the Democratic machine that was launched in 1932 with the election of FDR. The excesses of LBJ (many of which I agree with, but which prompted a huge backlash nonetheless) launched a rightward shift in US politics that has continued unabated since.

In short, if the Republicans are not careful, this election could be the end of the current conservative era; not the beginning. But you wouldn't know it from reading the paper (or the blogs, or listening to talk radio or watching the TV) today in 2004.

Just like you wouldn't have known what was about to come in 1964.

engineer_scotty

Posted by: Tony on November 3, 2004 09:56 AM

"They have even less incentive to govern from the middle now, even though the nation remains bitterly divided."

Dan, you forgot that Daschle was thrown out of office. Now, we finally have conditions to increase unity.

"This is not sour grapes. This is reality."
No,no,no... it's sour grapes

Posted by: stevesgt on November 3, 2004 10:01 AM

People like "morden/al franken/question/query" always fail to mention the one area in which Bush's policies have done by far the most damage: the environment.

They're leading us, in blissful ignorance, to life on a poisoned, uninhabitable rock within our children's lifetime.

Think that's overly dramatic?

The latest word on climate change is that with the uncovering of sequestered carbon in the arctic by melting ice sheets, the rate of climate change will increase, not decrease. There's a positive feedback loop in place now, and it will take even more to counteract it. Without added forests, greenbelts, and estuaries, there won't be adequate photosynthetic activity to counteract the increased burning of fossil fuels. We could see 20 foot rises in ocean level in 50 years. Dan could be going to his office in San Jose by boat.

Ask yourself this: Why has the Bush administration fired scientists who won't write biased papers to support the administrations pro-industry agenda? Why have lobbyists for energy and chemical companies been put in charge of our environmental protection, our public lands, especially our parks and precious remaining wilderness areas?

A: The large corporations, who owe no aliegance to any particular people of the world, are perfectly willing to corrupt the political system to boost their short-term profits, with no regard for our long-term welfare. You don't have to work for any multi-national corporation for very long to see how that happens.

Perhaps the religeous right foolishly believe that god will take their faithful to heaven in the next four years, leaving the rest of us rot in a planet increasingly like Venus. It appears that their blissful ignorance, their reliance on one ancient book as the source of all truth, has made them sheep, lead by myopic executives with only quarterly profits in mind. They've blissfully carried us closer to our own destruction.

What we really need in technology policy is the principle that no costs be externalized. Companies and individuals must be responsible for the polution they create, the resources they extract, the health risks they cause. Tech policy should be based on true capitalism where products and services actually have to include the costs to the commons, not government subsidies to extractive and environmentally exploitive industries.

Posted by: Dewayne Hendricks on November 3, 2004 10:07 AM

Very well said, Dan! You did a great job at expressing how I find myself thinking this morning. While I didn't get any sleep any sleep last night, I arose this morning with a new perspective on things and ready to start a journey to find that undiscovered country we now find ourselves in.

See you at the 'Accelerating Change' conference at Stanford later this week. Perhaps we can really make some real progress on just what changes out there need to be accelerated.

Posted by: Steve K on November 3, 2004 10:08 AM

9/11 was obviously an inside job. It's time to try Bush and co. for crimes against this country.

Posted by: sbw on November 3, 2004 10:12 AM

Dan,

Please don't give up in despair. There may yet be hope:

"While some see this election as a continuation of the deep cultural and ideological divides which surfaced in the 2000 race, that is not necessarily so. Reflecting on the near 50-50 split election, people can view the country two ways: 1) Voters gathered around the poles at the left and right extremes, or, 2) Voters gathered near the center seeing problems similarly but differing about how to solve them."

See: http://blogs.rny.com/sbw/stories/storyReader$197 , 2004 Election Aftermath, for an outside the valley analysis.

Regards/Stephen

Posted by: Will on November 3, 2004 10:31 AM

History is full of examples where decisions based on fear will lead to fearful, unintelligent results. I think Dan is right that we'll see drastic changes in four more years with the "Patriot" act being an indication of how civil liberties will be treated (perhaps "discarded" is the better word). Questions arise as to if or how long it will take for the environment to recover from the plundering it will sustain. Unfortunately, we'll see this in the short term while the longer term multi-trillion dollar bill will be left to our children and grandchildren. The nation has failed their future... The hope lies in them being wiser than those who will have handed them these problems. After all, the nation has seen "true" uniters at key times in our history. Who knows, perhaps another Abraham Lincoln is being born today. There is always hope...

Posted by: DonnieBnyc on November 3, 2004 10:37 AM

I blame everything on Lincoln. He should have let the south secede.

Posted by: Max on November 3, 2004 10:46 AM

Dan talked of a "third america" ... yes indeedy, there IS a Third America:

http://www.culturalcreatives.org/

http://www.lightparty.com/Misc/DiscoveringCultural.html

http://members.aol.com/wrfr/why.htm

http://wrir.org/x/modules/xoopsfaq/index.php?cat_id=1#q7

And I think that the progressives of today are in exactly the same position that the Right was in the 1960s ... the question is, will Progressives learn the lessons of what worked for those Retroactives in the 1960s ? A thirty year effort to come back in from the Wilderness has paid off BIG yesterday. Will the progressives learn? I believe one way we will know is if TV watching by progressives drops dramatically. TV literally takes less energy and imagination than eating ... TV sucks people into a kind of SOMA so if someone doesn't like the current mess and then sits down in front of a TV to veg instead of DOING SOMETHING, then they have no-one to blame. The Retros in the 1960s took a long view 'no prisoner' attitude and girded themselves to have discipline and think how they could resist the Federal Government intrusions into their lives, and now its the Progressives turn to feel the same way.

Posted by: Dan Wood on November 3, 2004 10:46 AM

Lets start talking...
http://thenewparty.blogspot.com
newparty@gmail.com

Posted by: Camilo on November 3, 2004 10:47 AM

O agree with you, Jon: a new party definitely needs to arise: The promise of the Dems has gotten thin, its actual ability almost nonexistent. Four more years of Bush were unthinkable a few months ago, and right now the future looks grim. You can kiss goodbye your civil liberties, your advanced thinking, your uncompromised science: Under Bush, we will have theologically appointed doctrine instead of knowledge, and ideology and opinions instead of facts.
The USA has become a dictatorship and its people do not even notice.

Posted by: Al on November 3, 2004 10:48 AM

Voted 3rd Party: remember that Clinton never got 50% of the vote. He was close, but no cigar.

As for now, 51.5% of the vote was for Bush and it was a 3.5 million vote spread.

If Bush had received a few more percentage points, it could be called a rout by historic terms. (I think Reagan had 58% of the vote against Mondale.)
In any event, it's a convincing victory.

Posted by: Al on November 3, 2004 10:52 AM

One other thing, even in lefty California, Bush got 44% of the vote and Kerry got 55%. I thought Kerry would get 60%.

Posted by: Bob on November 3, 2004 11:03 AM

Al writes: If Bush had received a few more percentage points, it could be called a rout by historic terms.

And if a frog had wings, he wouldn't bump his tuchas.


Posted by: M. Mortazavi on November 3, 2004 11:06 AM

I'm afraid you may not be seeing or taking in the full picture. See http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/MortazaviBlog/20041103#moral_values_economy_and_war , particularly the link to the radical analysis http://www.counterpunch.com/cockburn11032004.html , and it may clear matters a bit. What we have in America is a one-sidedness and an atrophy of moral discourse in politics, testified by the fact that the major contender dares not speak of the immorality of a war of aggression but criticizes only its execution. Democrats' main objection to Bush has always been formulated in utilitarian terms (familiar to the left-liberals). However, large numbers of people voting for and against Bush are doing so because of their moral values, which have nothing to do with utilitarianism.

Posted by: Marianne Mueller on November 3, 2004 11:14 AM

I suggest we call it the Resistance.

Posted by: Jim M on November 3, 2004 11:23 AM

We need a Tommy Douglas. http://www.weyburnreview.com/tommydouglas/welcome.html

You can listen to him telling the story of Mouseland here http://www.saskndp.com/history/mouseland.html.

It's the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.

They even had a Parliament. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.

Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada for last 90 years and maybe you'll see that they weren't any stupider than we are.

Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws--that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds--so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort.

All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats.

Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: "All that Mouseland needs is more vision." They said:"The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we'll establish square mouseholes." And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn't take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat.

You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.

Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea. And he said to the other mice, "Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don't we elect a government made up of mice?" "Oh," they said, "he's a Bolshevik. Lock him up!" So they put him in jail.

But I want to remind you: that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can't lock up an idea.

Posted by: axel maser on November 3, 2004 11:26 AM

today i am glad not to be american.
glad to be an old european, and looking forward
to regime change in the us, one way or the other.

americans can no longer claim they didn't know
what they were in for.

america has to change itself radically or others will do the changing for it.

americans beware, bring a flak-jacket when you leave the
land of the formerly free, you will have no choice than be brave
and no one to blame but yourselves.

seasons greetings axel maser

Posted by: RIGHT coast on November 3, 2004 11:32 AM

Hey Dan - ever consider the fact that YOU MIGHT BE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY? Just asking...

Enjoy the next 4 years. I know I will!

Posted by: MD on November 3, 2004 11:36 AM

"At least you see that the Dem's are tied to the old playbook of scare tactics"

WHAT? The GOP's ENTIRE campaign was based on scare tactics. Bush had nothing to run on, so Rove and Co. had to resort to scaring people away from Kerry. For a Bush supporter to accuse the Dems of scare tactics would be funny if it weren't so frighteningly out of touch with reality... which seems to describe a lot of Bush supporters.


"we have had worse presidents (remember Nixon?) and we have survived."

Nixon worse? If you take the criminal acts of Watergate out of the equation, there's no comparison -- Bush has been one of the worst presidents this country has ever had. NOTHING is better off in the U.S. than it was four years ago. The economy, national security, the environment, foreign relations, health care, education... you name it, it's worse now than it was then. Yet people buy into the GOP's scare campaigns about terrorism, higher taxes, etc. -- most of it flat-out false -- and re-elect the guy who has screwed up more things in four short years than anyone thought possible.


"Dan, you forgot that Daschle was thrown out of office. Now, we finally have conditions to increase unity."

Exhibit #1 in why Bush won: people who buy the GOP's rhetoric hook, line, and sinker. Daschle has been portrayed by the GOP as a "divider" and as someone who has created gridlock. But the facts are (1) He's nowhere NEAR as bad in these areas as the GOP was under Clinton (which was the worst it's been in modern times); and (2) these accusations are mainly the same old Rovian "exaggerate your opponent's flaws and create a false image about them" tactics. For any GOP supporter to claim that a Democrat is a divider or responsible for Congressional gridlock is the height of hypocrisy.

Posted by: FEAR on November 3, 2004 11:37 AM

Homophobia, Xenophobia, Racism. Fear won, as it usually does.

Posted by: Ross M Karchner on November 3, 2004 11:39 AM

Maybe this is a good starting point?

http://www.ibiblio.org/spc/tp96/cgd.html

Posted by: theodore on November 3, 2004 12:04 PM

America is screwed. Part of me really does not care that Bush won. Luckily I have the type of skill set that makes me employable internationally. Sure someone may argue to me, "Go ahead leave". Such a response makes my point. Many of those who voted for Kerry are some of the most highly skilled workers of this country, who can be employed outside the US, while many of those who suppported Bush don't have such a skill set. I would rather make my fortunes abroad than wait for a Brazil style economic collapse to hit the US. I love this country, but we are headed down a road that, in my opinion, the majority of the US has not fully considered the ramifications of following.

Good Luck!!

Posted by: JamesJayToran on November 3, 2004 12:08 PM

"I suspect there's a third America: members of an increasingly radical middle that will become more obvious in the next few years, tolerant of those who are different and aware that the big problems of our times are being ignored -- or made worse -- by those in power today."

As tolerant as the power-mavens and thoughtless-leaders in Tech?

Like Shelley Powers, who rarely comes outta her shell except to do her Joan of Arc shtick..

Like you, in this post.

You wouldn't know the middle if it hit you in the face, which I just did... I'll spare you the additional post I was going to do over @The Scobleizer, because you are so deluded you couldn't even understand the words..

..let alone the point(s) I was getting at.

You would need to learn some no small number of things about BEING TOLERANT, before you'd even be able to RECOGNIZE it, as well as IT.

Posted by: JamesJayToran on November 3, 2004 12:11 PM

Link to The Scobleizer: http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/11/02.html#a8566

Btw, you should update your picture, Dan Gillmor. The cognitive dissonance is palpable. As is Shell's post at Doc W's, who is apparently NOT too depressed to blog.

Like he COULD stop even if he actually wanted to.

Posted by: mossholderm on November 3, 2004 12:12 PM

What the Dems need is a breeding and brainwashing program. Then they can have just as many members are the Republicans! ;)

Posted by: engineer_scotty on November 3, 2004 12:36 PM

Changing demographics...

One issue for the Democrats, whichever way they decide to lean, is that there has been a significant population shift to the red states. In 2000, Gore got 265 or so EVs. The same set of states would have been only worth 260 EVs to Kerry, due to restricting. A majority of the US population, it seems, is conservative or has conservative leanings. There still remains a set of swing voters that can be persuaded to go either way; but they have increasingly voted for Republicans--or third parties (ie the Reform Party in 92 and 96).

Unless some major demographic shift brings them new voters, Democratic (or 3rd-party) prospects at the national level will require bringing some of the Republican core back into the Democratic fold. Clinton had some success appealing to economic conservatives with the "new democrat" agenda, but he was aided a great deal by the presence of Ross Perot. And--he thorougly enraged the left wing of the Democratic Party, many who responded by going for Nader in 2000. Kerry tried the opposite tactic; of appealing to the economic self-interest of lower-income Republicans, but that didn't work either (many of them considered moral issues, as well as terrorism, more important concerns than jobs and healthcare). The left didn't much like Kerry either, but jumped on his bandwagon anyway because they thought W was so awful. Expect much debate within the Democrats wherein the various factions blame each other for losing the election. Some will accuse Kerry of moving too far to the right (and not firmly challenging Bush in issues like Iraq); others will respond that a Dean-like candidate would have been beaten by a wider margin. (Both arguments have merit).

So, given that... what to do? A couple of ideas.

1) Wait. Bush now has a green light to continue his policies; if they are as ruinious as the Dems claim (i.e. continuing gap between rich and poor, more bodybags coming home from Iraq), I suspect the Republicans will experience a major correction in 2008 (see previous post). Bush was given the benefit of the doubt this time around; but the public is already growing restless of the war in Iraq.

2) Work on dividing the religious right/big business axis. During the Civil Rights Movement, the "liberal" churches were a major social force in advancing and articulating public morality; today that role seems to have been abdicated to the conservative church, which ignores issues of social justice altogether and instead focuses on issues like gays and abortion. But there is much in the Bible which denounces (indirectly) the economic and foreign policies of the current regime.

3) Recruit new leaders from places other than the Senate. Daschle losing may have been a blessing in disguise; it means one less retread Senator worrying about his next Presidential run as opposed to voting his conscience. (Daschle's political career is probably over--though expect Gephardt, Harkin, and a few others to try again in '08). The Republicans have had great success turning actors into politicians; surely the Dems could do better than Reagan and Ahnold?

4) Reclaim the liberal legacy. Right now, the "l" word is a profanity in American political discourse. It conjures up images of wishy-washy pseudo-intellectuals, more interested in abstract political theory than in the lot of ordinary Americans. It should conjure up the image of someone who will fight for the common man. After all, commen men and women dominate the electorate.

5) Go into hostile territory. Both candidates largely ignored states not considered "in play". But what would happen were Kerry (or another Democratic nominee) to actually go to Idaho or Mississippi and talk to the voters? At a minimum, such would reduce the ability of the Republicans to carciture Democrats as effectively as they do now.

6) Strategy, not tactics. Democrats seem to worry about the next election--and whenever they lose, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth (and pointing of fingers). The Republicans have demonstrated much greater ability to plan long term.

Posted by: j. Huntress on November 3, 2004 12:39 PM

Thanks for your fine comments. The third party must be formed by the young with a vision of how to better lives in the 21st Century. Truly hoping we don't have another Bush ruler so that next election we can learn to recognize the problems of the entire world and HELP.

Posted by: Ankur Vakil on November 3, 2004 12:51 PM


Word! It really hasnt settled in yet....

Posted by: step back on November 3, 2004 01:00 PM

U.S. Democrats are in shock.
How did this happen?
We won all the intellectual arguments.
We won all three debates.
And yet 51% of America pulled the lever the other way.
How did this happen?

Europeans be aware.
You are next.
Karl Rove (Bush's campaign manager) has proven that mind control works over the mass media.

The Mixed Messages Machine succeeded. Rove plucked all the strings like a master musician. Some call it "the politics of fear". They understand a small part, but not the whole thing. The battle field is not at the intellectual level but rather at the level of the lower brain folds: the limbic brain and the reptilian brain.

Step #1: Create an amorphous enemy.
(They are everywhere. I see them all the time. They want to harm you. They have weapons of mass destruction.)

Step #2: Threaten the children.
(Mothers be afraid. Be very afraid. The amorphous enemy wants to harm your children)

Step #3: Build artificial cages.
(They hate our freedoms.)
(Homeland defense will protect you.)

Step #4: Flash colorfull lights.
(Code Orange, code red, spin & off balance)

Step #5: Cast yourself as the only true savior.
(Who ya gonna trust? Only I am strong and steadfast enough to save you and the children, the babies, the embryos from the harm that is out there. I have God's blessing on me.)

Step #6: Use repetition and harmonic resonance to drill those mixed messages deep down to the limbic and reptilian levels. Bypass the cerebral cortex. What it thinks, matters not.

cc: Compassionate Conservative
ff: Flip Flop
hh: Harbor Hate
hh: Heart of Hearts
ll: Love Life
bb: Bunker Busters
mm: Mixed Messages
ss: Shifting Sands
tt: TerrorisT ThreaT

Got a cerebral cortex? Try turning it back on.

It's too late. You are the Manchurian Voter.

Posted by: Sina on November 3, 2004 01:01 PM

Today,I weep for America,Not only America,I weep for our planet.

Posted by: wah on November 3, 2004 01:08 PM

Nice post, Dan.

One is Bush's America: an amalgam of the extreme Christian "conservatives," corporate interests and the builders of the burgeoning national-security state.

Just think how happy we will all be when we pay taxes to corporations instead of the government. Woohoo fixing social security by dumping taxes into the market will work great, because corporations REALLY want us to be FREE.

It's on their charter...isn't it?

Posted by: engineer_scotty on November 3, 2004 01:10 PM

One more thing....


The way to convince the Bush voters to vote for progressive causes is **NOT** to tell them they are stupid. As cathartic as it may be, suggesting that the red-state voters cast ballots because they did because they are mindless sheep, etc... is about as productive as the claims from the right that progressives are traitors/agents of Satan/etc.

Posted by: wah on November 3, 2004 01:25 PM

---The way to convince the Bush voters to vote for progressive causes is **NOT** to tell them they are stupid.---

This is true. Do what Bush has done. Lie to them. But do it with a smile and an Orwellian edge.

Ugg, not much of a solution, IMHO. Personally I prefer EXPLAINING why Christ said that attacking people who didn't attack you or pose a real threat to your life never makes anyone safer.

Posted by: eli on November 3, 2004 01:30 PM

Hoy es un d�a triste me acabo de enterar de la "victoria" de Bush en las eleciones.

Posted by: standa on November 3, 2004 01:47 PM

from http://www.andrewsullivan.com

A MANDATE FOR CULTURE WAR: What we're seeing, I think, is a huge fundamentalist Christian revival in this country, a religious movement that is now explicitly political as well....As blue states become more secular, and red states become less so, the only alternative to a national religious war is to allow different states to pursue different options. That goes for things like decriminalization of marijuana, abortion rights, stem cell research and marriage rights. Forcing California and Mississippi into one model is a recipe for disaster. Federalism is now more important than ever. I just hope that Republican federalists understand this. I fear they don't.

Posted by: engineer_scotty on November 3, 2004 01:48 PM

The Good News:

And now, the good news from the election:

1) The turnout was amazing. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the turnout was amazing for both sides. But an interested electorate is always better than a disinterested one.

2) It is highly unlikely that any new foreign misadventures will be embarked on. Barring an attack on US soil, there isn't going to be support in Congress for invading anybody else. Even many in the President's own party are regretting the decision to authorize force.

3) Had Kerry won--Iraq would have become the Democrat's problem. (And unfortunately, I don't think Kerry had a better plan then "maybe France and Germany will help my administration, because unlike Dubya, I haven't spent the last four years giving them the finger".) Now, it remains a Republican problem; if the quagmire continues there will be nobody else to blame.

4) Three fewer Democratic senators worrying about their next presidential run. Part of the reason that the Dem's have been such a feckless opposition party is that far too many of them were worrying about how their votes would play in swing states--Kerry's votes on Iraq being a prime example. Many of them, I think, voted for war precisely because a vote the other way would have doomed instantly their chances at the White House. (Compare that with Ted Kennedy, who having lost to Carter in 1980 is no longer considered a White House prospect--and thus is in a position to vote however he pleases).

5) Barak Obama. (How soon before some right-wing talk-show host starts replacing the "b" in his last name with an "s"?)

6) The Dems did fight back, unlike 2002 when they hid in the corner. They still lost, but looked much more impressive in their effort.

Posted by: Abandoned by both parties on November 3, 2004 01:48 PM

This nation needs some statesmen and few politicians ... in both of the major parties.

Both parties pander to their fringes. And neither one represents most Americans' views. So we're left choosing between the lesser of two evils.

Until that happens, my vote will go to third party candidates as a form of protest.

Posted by: standa on November 3, 2004 01:53 PM

How could Zogby's exit polling show a CONSISTANT MISS of 3 - 6% ( or higher ) in ALL 20 Battleground states except for 1 PA ?

Clue: when Karen Hughes appeared on CNN and began spinning that the exit polls being done by their people showed what the results would later be and they were different from those everyone else had. In other words it was get it out front that the Republicans had the only polls that mattered and everyone else was wrong. Amazing it was best exemplified in the 2 states where Diebold and Jeb Bush 'guaranteed' victory. All that was needed in "hacked" or "gamed" machines is a margin for Bush - who would be the wiser.

BTW, in Nevada (the ONLY state with across-the-board verifiable paper records) the exit polling most closely matches the actual vote.

Battleground States from http://www.zogby.com and final results from CNN.com.

Arizona
Zogby had it +6% for Bush
Final +11% for Bush

Arkansas
Zogby had it +3% for Bush
Final +9% for Bush

Colorado
Zogby had it too close to call
Final +7% for Bush

Florida
Zogby had it +.1% for Kerry and trending Kerry
Final +5% for Bush

Iowa
Zogby had it +5% for Kerry
Final +1% for Bush

Michigan
Zogby had it +6% for Kerry
Final Result +3% for Kerry

Minnesota
Zogby had it +6% for Kerry
Final +3% for Kerry

Missouri
Zogby had it +3% for Bush
Final +8% for Bush

Nevada
Zogby had it too close to call
Final +3% for Bush

New Hampshire
Zogby had it +5% for Kerry
Final +1% for Kerry

New Mexico
Zogby had it +3% for Kerry
Final +1% for Bush

North Carolina
Zogby had it +3% for Bush
Final +13% for Bush

Oregon
Zogby had it +10% for Kerry
Final Result +5% for Kerry

Ohio
Zogby had it +2% for Bush but trending Kerry
Final +2% for Bush

Pennsylvania
Zogby had it trending Kerry
Final Result +3% for Kerry

Tennessee
Zogby had it +4% for Bush
Final +14% for Bush

Virginia
Zogby had it slight edge for Bush
Final +8% for Bush

Washington
Zogby had it +10% for Kerry
Final +7% for Kerry

West Virginia
Zogby had it +4% for Bush
Final +14% for Bush

Wisconsin
Zogby had it +6% for Kerry
Final +1% for Kerry

FINAL THOUGHTS ?

1. Could Karl Rove have pulled off a well disguished evoting fraud without a paper trail ) across ALL BATTLEGROUND STATES ?

2. Could a scenario like this have been even was considered by Kerry/Edwards ?

3. If so, Karl Rove can simply say says PROVE IT or concede and perhaps we'll work something out.

ps: also see http://tinyurl.com/3q99r

A poster at Democratic Underground did the SCREEN CAPTURES of the now missing exit poll data from the CNN site both before and after they "altered them". He then constructed a clever MATH PROOF how the eVoting FRAUD was done in the battleground states with out paper audit trails. There is a consistant 5% edge for GWB.

Posted by: jirji biernvel on November 3, 2004 01:55 PM

It is official now.
America is the enemy.

The rest of the world
will act accordingly.

Posted by: conrad on November 3, 2004 01:57 PM

i've thought during the recent campaign that a party restructuring was imminent. the center of the democrats and the republican "realists". parties die and are born in america. remember the whigs? in retrospect, if kerry had chosen gephardt as running mate, might he have carried missouri and perhaps ohio?

Posted by: Bob McKeand on November 3, 2004 02:16 PM

In the name of Gandhi and MLK: RESIST

Or, leave the usOFa like I will be doing!

Posted by: nondezkrypt on November 3, 2004 02:20 PM

I doubt this would ever happen, but with many old-guard Republicans having been left behind after their party was hijacked by fundamentalist religious zealots and neocons, it would be interesting to see the Repubs fragment. There are many fiscally conservative Republicans who are very at odds with the administration. A new Conservative party would be palatable to many run-of-the-mill Republicans and likely be well financed.

Posted by: Amentoraz on November 3, 2004 02:21 PM

It is a dreadful day.

How many Polands will the United States invade before we notice?

Posted by: Pat on November 3, 2004 02:32 PM

Should we not use the energy generated by this emotional and divisive election to act on one issue upon which all can agree-the securing of the nuclear weapons in the former soviet union? From what I understand, the legislation is in place, but it has not been funded. Perhaps Move On and some of the internet communities could begin a campaign to force our legislators to get this done.

Posted by: Markle on November 3, 2004 02:46 PM

I was very struck by this comment on /.:

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=128217&cid=10709464 It summarises the intense polarization we currently have. Read it if you have the patience.

Posted by: owen on November 3, 2004 02:49 PM

The historian in me appreciates the parallels to LBJ and laments the parallels to 'tween-wars Germany. The election showed that pandering to the lowest elements in our national character -- fear, prejudice and greed -- can be successful if brilliantly packaged. As many have noted, all the elements of Kerry's failure to convince America were predicted months ago...complexity, intellectualism, elitism, party orthodoxy, lack of a positive alternative.

Where I part company is the suggestion of a third party. The two party system is so fundamentally part of our legislative, political and historical foundations that I doubt a third party can ever be more than a distraction that divides opponents of the status quo. To defeat the unholy alliance of greedy industries, conservative Christian churches and powerful right-wing demagogues can only be accomplished if the Democratic party regains vision and courage, and if the disaffected moderate elements of the Republican party can begin bringing it back towards its roots of economic prudence, limited central government, respect for individuals and rule of law.

The damage that will be done to the legal, natural and economic environments in the next four years will take generations to undo unless thoughtul Americans move from handwringing to positive change to restore America to greatness, which is a far different thing from power.

It will not be sexual misconduct or lack of wealth that will bring down the American version of the Roman empire...it will be an excess of power and a shortage of wisdom and character.

Posted by: mike arauz on November 3, 2004 02:50 PM

there is indeed a third alternative.

the problem is that we don't realize how many of us there are and how powerful we can be.

check out this paper by sociologist Paul H. Ray, author of Cultural Creatives.

go here -
http://culturalcreatives.org/thoughts.html

and click on - 'The New Political Compass'

unfortunately it's pretty outdated, but i think that the most fundamental arguments still hold true.

we've got to spread the word.

Posted by: JamesJayToran on November 3, 2004 02:57 PM

"It is official now.
America is the enemy."

"The rest of the world
will act accordingly."

Thanks for getting this word out, Dan Gillmor, Dave Winer, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Halley Suitt, BurningBush, Seth Godin, Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, (what they call a True Repugnantcan...;-), Britt Blaser, the Sifry Brothers, and NOT the least the last but not least AKMA, Unka Frankie the Pseudo-Pascifists and Liz Lawley and Mr. John Perry Barlow and all your all's friendz at the EFF protecting our Freedoms, meaning their own freedoms while they exclude those like mine, a True semi-Liberal...

Btw, I didn't mean (and didn't) imply that ALL of these folks have banned me from replying to their inanities... Perhaps coincidently, perhaps not, most have.

To name a few of the bloggers who got all-a us right where we are.

Problem is, that word already WAS out.

It's called scapegoatism, and the sheep buy in.

"Engineer_Scotty" @ 12:36pm

You got a name?

1) Right. Excuse me, I guess that'd be left, now... Anyhoo, yup, the Republicans have enough rope to hang themselves. What happens?


2) There is no such axis. The axis would be between EU and the UN and the profitably semi-aligned and the "Third World" countries.

Problem there is there are fluid boundaries, between these, and the consumer debt off-shore labor, off-shore high-tech labor (which even STATE and LOCAL governments won't give up, because home-shoring it costs too much, btw)..

..well, whether and/or when the U.S. becomes/became Third World is not yet apparent.

Btw, the Libertarian-fascist Churches already TOOK over the Dem platform.


3) "Recruit new leaders from places other than the Senate."

Yeah, the Oprah for President Movement... Points out problems with movements, left there at the altar, so to pun... I think running large organizations is a benefit, but the Oprah show may not signify... Used to watch, so semi-fan, but she's buddies with the likes of Mr. Bezos and I'm not a big fan due to the patent squeeze.

However, as you noted, stranger things have happened.

At the same time, I think we ALL have enough strange things going on, so do we need any MORE even STRANGER things...? I mean, figuring the Bosox win and the Redskins loss implies...

?


4) I HIGHLY recommend any-a you with an honest interest look at John Palfrey's write-up on discussion revolving around some honest skepticism of blogs.

Crap, kind find link I visited today, nor by search...

Outstanding, except the line demarcating the positive and negative effectives of blogs was slightly skewed. (I wonder why...;-)

This "Empowerment of the Individual" is what was DIRECTLY CAUSAL of all the items on the Blue State side of the issue. Meaning, the negatives of blogs are DUE to this scam called "We're here to empower the individual, and it's NOT.. repeat NOT for our OWN BENEFIT, primarily... Iow, we aren't trying to build our OWN POWER-BASES, by claiming falsely you'll be empowered, hope ya know.. You can trust me, I blog...!!!"

5) Uhhhhh... I been doing that, and it's not as much fun as it sounds. You gotta either just PRETEND TO LISTEN the way bloggers have perfected, or you hear some-a THE STUPIDEST crap posing as wisdom....


6) Strategy *AND tactics not being mutually exclusive.. you'll also note my comments are Party agnostic... Helps with the listening part, but I alreadly know you all can't read anything longer than a cut-and-run job, so you either didn't get this far or have already zoned out, or already have corrected me in my delusion so many times, mentally, that it don't matter none ta me, either way...

Btw, this was NOT the link to John Palfrey:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/

However, if you gotta ask, "Do we only browse to what we agree with?" then I'd suggest a course in applied listening. You can only PARTIALLY UNDERSTAND what you agree with, AT BEST.. the rest, mess with their best..

..blogger buddy-near-mind-clones, while SAYING what a diverse crowd I have around ME, ME, ME!!!

Posted by: JamesJayToran on November 3, 2004 03:02 PM

That was a fly-by, obviously, as heading out the door and didn't have time to preview.

Posted by: George on November 3, 2004 03:04 PM

Conservatives are already bridling at the policies of the Bush admin. The New York Times writer David Brooks yesterday wrote one of the best denunciations of their policies...before implying he was still voting for Bush. Mother Jones has a series of interviews with conservatives who don't support Bush that is very interesting. Maybe it's time for progressives and real conservatives to start a dialog about how to suppress the growing influence of religious fundamentalists in American politics. Republican are already fragmenting, and the longer this war goes on, the more it reminds me of Viet Nam. Stay tuned for a continuing spiral downward in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Posted by: JamesJayToran on November 3, 2004 03:08 PM

Should-a reviewed this, before prior comments:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/palfrey/2004/10/16

May later.

To cut the Dem Leadership to a short list (maybe GOP, too, I dunno), eliminate the early vultures, it'd be my best guess.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&ncid=536&e=7&u=/ap/20041103/ap_on_el_pr/eln2008

And the "conservatives" I've read bridle at anything they didn't author, mainly.

Suppressing influence, that part of the Gnu Democrat Party, as I've already gathered elsewhere? Stay tuned to the future, but knowing what is currently going on would help, im(ns)ho..

Posted by: llcoolJJ on November 3, 2004 03:40 PM

The aneurisms have popped.

If I would have known that the deluded, conspiracy theorist, Bush haters were going to go stark raving mad if Bush won, I wouldn�t have deliberated so long before I cast my vote for him.

But in all seriousness people, get a grip.

Grab this page, print it out, and stash it away till a few months before the election of 2006 or 2008. Read it and compare your world then with your fears and ranting of today.

If just 10% of the negative events occur, then you have the right to call for a revolution.

If you feel a bit silly as you read b

Posted by Lisa at 06:42 PM
Video Of Provisional Ballot Discussion On CNN

This post goes with this one.

This is from the CNN election broadcast of 11/03/04 at about 12:30 am.

Wolf Blitzer actually did an OK job during the middle-of-the-night broadcast. I was surprised.

Here's Harvard Law Professor
Laurence Tribe
explaining the nuances behind last night's Provisional Ballot situation.

CNN Legal Panel On Provisional Ballots

Quote from Laurence Tribe:


I'm told that as of now there was a Federal injunction that required that people who stood in the rain for five hours and learned that there were no machines there be allowed to vote on paper ballots and I'm told that they weren't.

Posted by Lisa at 03:08 PM
Reports Of Disenfranchisement Heard Yesterday On KPFA Radio

My pal Maura just emailed me this list she put together of voter disenfranchisement cases that were being covered yesterday on KPFA Radio, in Berkeley, CA.

After listening to them for a good part of the morning, she started writing some of them down. The reports continued into the afternoon, and so did her note taking.

When she told me about this list today, I asked her to email it over so I could tell you about it.

Maura's List:


milwaukee-
people in minority communities recevied flyers saying
not to vote if they havent payed parking tickets or
child support cause they will be arrested.

madison, wi - flyers distributed saying if anyone in
your family has been convicted of a crime, youre not
allowed to vote. also, calls and doorhangers saying
"remember to vote nov 3rd"

ohio- people didnt receive absentee ballots. Some are
going to polls to get provisional ballot, on orders of
mr. blackwell, being denied provisional ballot saying
that they cannot use a provisional ballot.

restaining order eventually placed on polling
officials saying they cannot enforce mr. blackwell's order.

one woman, went to 3 polling places, had been trying
to vote since 6:30am this morning, finally voted at
2pm requesting a provisional ballot, said she wasnt
leaving until she received one, however, since she
didnt vote in her correct polling place, her ballot
too might be called in to question. this is happneing
all over.

florida -
people's names just arent on registrar's list, being
denied right to vote.

voters being told by election officials that their
provisional ballots wont be counted, therefore, why
bother.

south dakota:
republicans working for john thume writing down native
american license plates at polling places-intimidation
effort claimed to determine if
they're legal voters.

colorado -
one woman reported that she was called and told she
could vote early at a local baptist church. She went
there, voted, and was told today by her co-workers
that early voting ended last friday. what?

arizona-
reports of automated calls telling voters they're
polling place had changes. they drove 20 miles across
town to find out that it wasnt true.

alameda county - electronic machines
breaking all over, error messages, one woman was
denied a paper ballot and given a provisional ballot.
this in our county, not even a swing state, think of
how many times this could have happened to those who
were ignorant.

Posted by Lisa at 01:47 PM
Day-After Florida Report From Steve Shapiro And The Election Protection Team

I just talked to Steve Shapiro again in Florida. He's understandably depressed and wasn't really in much of a talking mood.

Questions in bold are from me. Answers are from Steve.

Were there any problems yesterday?

None that were apparent or significant. There weren't even long lines. The pattern had always been crowded from 7-11am and 4-7pm and only half of that was true yesterday. Nobody showed up in the afternoon.

So your project was a success? They had all voted early?

Yes. When we got back tothe church that night. Everyone said it was the same pattern. I mean it was steady, but the early voting really seems to have made a big difference in reducing the number of mishaps.

Were there a lot of Provisional Ballots used that you could see?

No, actually. Not many Provisional Ballots that we could tell. But we weren't inside the polls, but we were talking to the lawyers inside the polls and they were sort of giving us updates. It didn't seem like there were many Provisional Ballots being used, or at least certainly not in numbers that were out of the ordinary.

There was only one "challenge," and it was a legit one. Somebody really did try to vote twice.

How exactly was it that all the lawyers were allowed to be inside the polls?

Each candidate, party, or ballot initiative is allowed to have one there on their behalf. In many cases, there were committies of lawyers there on behalf of the various campaigns.

We talked to some of them who noted that, for the most part, there didn't seem to be any kind of Republican strategy or anything. Conflicts between lawyers and citizens/poll workers/volunteers really seemed to depend on the personality of the lawyers.

For instance, at one of the precincts we were at, the Republican lawyer was a really nice guy, and the Democrat lawyer was really a jerk!

Posted by Lisa at 01:38 PM
Story About Ohio Situation In the LA Times


Ohio Takes Election-Night Spotlight

By Henry Weinstein and Elizabeth Shogren for the Los Angeles Times.


If it is necessary to count the provisional votes and the margin narrows, that could precipitate a recount. Under Ohio law, if the candidates are separated by one-quarter of a percentage point or less, there automatically would be a recount.

In Columbus, Daryll Judge, 44, a satellite technician, and his wife Michelle got in line at New Salem Baptist Church to vote at 5:30 p.m. It was raining steadily. By 7 p.m., they finally let the people wait inside the church. It wasn't until 9:50 p.m., more than four hours later, that he finally voted...

As the clock struck midnight in Gambier, Ohio, Lauren Gray, 18, waited in line to vote at a precinct near Kenyon College, where she is a sophomore. An electronic voting machine broke down earlier Tuesday, creating long, slow-moving lines of hopeful citizens waiting hours to cast their ballot.

"When it's coming down to having Ohio be the deciding state, everyone at the college and in the town knows we could be the next Florida," Gray said.

After a day of nerves wearing thin from mechanical delays, hurried legal challenges and the adrenaline fatigue that comes from dashed hopes, Ohio found itself in the unwanted spotlight. As the count of the presidential vote moved into this morning's early hours, Ohio emerged as the key big state to decide who becomes president.

Despite several projections that President Bush had defeated John Kerry in Ohio, the challenger's campaign insisted the count was too close to concede. In some areas, the voting was still under way.

"The vote count in Ohio has not been completed," campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement. "There are more than 250,000 remaining votes to be counted. We believe when they are, John Kerry will win Ohio."

Mark Weaver, the chief Republican attorney in Ohio, said he was pleased that it appeared that Bush had prevailed in the Buckeye State. However, he quickly added that it appeared that the president's margin of victory would be less than the number of provisional ballots that have been cast, which would mean that the result would not be finalized for at least 10 days.

Both sides agreed it would take a while for Ohio to straighten out the vote.

According to Cincinnati attorney Phyllis Bossin, the southwestern Ohio legal coordinator for Kerry, there are still thousands of votes to be counted in Cuyahoga County, the state's largest county, where Al Gore trounced Bush in 2000. She said some polls had just closed in Columbus. Perhaps most significant, Bossin said, "The whole provisional ballot thing is a nightmare."

Cincinnati attorney Daniel J. Hoffheimer, the chief lawyer for the Kerry campaign in Ohio, said at 1:45 a.m. Wednesday that "this is the situation we all feared" - where the margin was the less than the number of provisional ballots, creating the possibility of further litigation.

Joe Rugola, the Ohio AFL-CIO's political chairman, said the outcome in Ohio could become clear in a couple hours or not for weeks.

"If Kerry's margin in Cuyahoga County is in line with historic margins, we could end up with a difference (between the candidates) that could be smaller than the number or provisional ballots outstanding."

The provisional ballots would then become a "supercharged" legal issue because there was so much legal wrangling over who could cast a provisional ballot and where they could cast it leading up to the election.

Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said on CNN that if the margin of victory in Ohio is less than the number of provisional ballots, "everyone should take a deep breath and relax" because those provisional ballots won't be counted for at least 10 days under Ohio law.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-ohio3oct03,1,533537.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Posted by Lisa at 09:04 AM
Damn. Kerry Conceeds.

I can't believe he gave up without a full investigation of yesterday's events, but CNN is saying that Kerry called Bush and conceeded, and will be making a speech today to officially do so at 1pm eastern.

I can't even imagine the horrible things that this President is going to do to hurt our own country and the rest of the world over these next four years.

Sure. Hilary will come save us in 2008, but what will be left of our country by then?

Well, I'm not convinced, actually. It's hard to believe that with a 70% voter turnout, the Shrub was able to squeak ahead. I think they cheated. Between the electronic voting machines, purge lists, and the various other illegal methods consistently employed by this administration, they've managed to pull another fast one on us.

It's up to all of us to continue to document whatever we can about the election -- while the trail is hot.

I'm not looking forward to what will inevitably be another four years of Election 2004 horror stories...trickling out little by little, with little or nothing that can be done about them when they finally surface.

I'm a bitter loser. But I'm a bitter loser with my eyes open.

We'll have to stick together more than ever over these next four miserable years. The Shrub will continue to attempt to drive us farther apart. We can't let him.

Also, for those of you with children of draft age, I'd suggest moving away to another country, and fast. Seriously.

Posted by Lisa at 08:55 AM
CNN's A Flutter With Discussion Of Provisional Ballots

What perfect timing. I was putting up the last post when I realize that CNN had a little panel of legal professors talking about Provisional Ballots and their legal implications.

The tricky part, apparently, lies in the processing of those ballots, which is left to the States' discretion in the Help America Vote Act.

All of the guests agreed that these people deserve to have their vote counted and that their votes could make a difference in the outcome. Especially in Ohio. But really in all states, and that it was fairly irresponsible for networks to claim any victories at this point.

Posted by Lisa at 12:02 AM
November 02, 2004
One Paper Ballot, Please

This just in from Joseph Sickel:


here's my little voting story...

When I arrived at our polling place in Southern California, about 300 people had voted. I asked for a paper ballot, saying I didn't trust the DREs.
The volunteers asked, "Why?"
I said, "I'm a programmer."
We laughed.

But it was an old joke for them. They said nearly all of the 20 or so people requesting a paper ballot gave the same sort of answer.

Posted by Lisa at 11:17 PM
Something Fishy's Going On In Ohio

First of all, there are 1,000s of people who, as of an hour or two ago, were still lined up waiting to vote. (People who had already vote were starting to bring refreshments to those still waiting in line.)

Then a friend just sent me an email reminding me about Walden "Wally" O'Dell. The chairman of the board and chief executive of Diebold - the company who manufacturers the electronic voting machines used in Ohio. He promised to deliver Ohio to Bush.

They better count every last vote this time around! In Ohio, and everywhere else. (Including all
Provisional Ballots
.)

We can't let the Repubs use the existing buraucracy under their control to throw out millions of Democrat votes in the states where it suits them. (They've already done it again in Florida.)

Karl Rove will stop at nothing.

We have to stand up to them this time around. No quick forfeits.


http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html


For years, O'Dell has given generously to Republican candidates. Last September, he held a packed $1,000-per-head GOP fundraiser at his 10,800-square-foot mansion. He has been feted as a guest at President Bush's Texas ranch, joining a cadre of "Pioneers and Rangers" who have pledged to raise more than $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign. Most memorably, O'Dell last fall penned a letter pledging his commitment "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President.

Posted by Lisa at 11:13 PM
A Nice, Uneventful Report From A Reader

This just in from Benjamin:


Here in West Des Moines, Iowa it went like clockwork, just like every
other time. I walked in, filled out a little piece of carbon paper
stating who I was and signed it, walked to the next person who checked
the paper against her big book o' people, and then to the next for a
ballot. After receiving my nice paper ballot I completed the arrow
pointing at the candidates I was voting for, checked it over a couple
times, and stuck it in the machine. According to the LEDs on the
machine, I was number 812 for my precinct.

Posted by Lisa at 04:59 PM
Report From Michael Moore's "Protect The Vote" Video Crew

This in from Dave Pentecost of Michael Moore's "Protect the Vote" video team in Cleveland. (I offered to host clips for them.):


I am with the Michael Moore protect the vote video team in Cleveland. I expect we will have clips of voters being challenged or sound bites after they leave the polls.

We are starting to hear about more incidents of challengers and dirty tricks and are sending crews to those locations. I'll let you know when I've uploaded anything.

This is typical right now: we got a report that there were 5
challengers where they are only allowed 2, old couples being allowed
only one vote between them, cops around and telling our crews to turn
off the cameras (even though they were the proper distance). Rebecca
Perl who is organizing things called for a lawyer, he went over and
got the challengers to leave. I'll see what gets on tape, but that's
what we are here for - rapid response.

I shot the Michael Moore press conference this afternoon. He's good
but you can see him on TV. I'm still looking for the clips you can't
see elsewhere. And after the presser, the "real" media went off
trailing behind our teams, who've been out in the rain all day.

Just got a call that they are sending some tapes back. We'll see what's up.

And then later:


Looks like no video clip today. some good
anecdotal interviews. Good determined folks at the polls. Surprisingly
little conflict considering all the waiting lines. But we know how
great all Americans are!

Posted by Lisa at 04:49 PM
Report From Sunday's Early Voting In Dade County, Florida


Here's the introductory post
that goes with this one.

Here was Steve Shapiro's report from Sunday on his "Election Protection" assignment in Florida.

Here are some photos from fellow Election Protection member Gail.

Steve says:

We are at the caleb center in the Model City neighborhood -- a community center that was built after the 1980 riots - has become the center of a lot of activity. This is one of the early voting places. The poll is officially closed at 5pm -- but there are still 2-3 hours of people.

Yesterday there were about 600 people in line when the polls closed at 5pm.

Voting is taken extrordinarily seriosly - peole are on a mission to make sure that their vote counts.

So they give numbers and call for people to vote. so they just stop giving out numbers at 5. It works like the priority ticket system for music concerts. Once people get their number, that can move about. So people were sitting in no particular order, and there were a lot of kids and families around.

We're working today with the Miami Dade Election Reform coalition -- another non-partisan coalition to learn about the electronic voting machines. They got a small grant to organize people to go out and witness the closing up procedures.

It's inspiring. They've given up their whole day to do this. The Election Protection people were taking complaints from people. The only complaint is that it takes too long. It's just that there are so many people.

Florida law says that they have to ask you for ID, but you don't have to supply it unless you're a first time voter who has never voted before. You can sign an affadivit. Every state has a different law as far as that goes.

We haven't had any incidents in the last three days AT ALL -- so everybody that showed up to vote has been allowed to - their names has been on the list.

On Tuesday they will be run by different people. The people running the early voting

Early voting can take place at any one of the 14 regional centers in Dade county, but on Tuesday you have to go to your correct precinct, which are smaller. There's only two places where the precinct your registered with doesn't matter -- and those are official county offices.

They lost a lawsuit by the AFLCIO among others that would have made it OK to use a provisional ballot if you go to the wrong precinct. But they lost, so you do need to go to the correct precinct.

These "early voting" folks are working from a comprehensive list of all eligible. The list Tuesday will be the same list with "eligible, voted absentee, voted early, etc." noted so there won't be any duplicate voting.

The Broward county to the north have had more problems - not enough sites, not enough machines - more problems at the polls. Broward county is the same county that lost 58,000 absentee ballots -- people never received them. Said it was the post offices problem. They supposedly re-mailed them out -- friday -- so anyone out of state won't get theirs in time. Just for tonight, (Sunday) we will be there to montior with the election reform coalition.

Posted by Lisa at 02:24 PM
The Deal With Provisional Ballots

The Republican spin doctors have done a bang up job clouding the issues surrounding Provisional Ballots.

Provisional Ballots are a good thing, not a bad one. They are the last fail safe to protect rightfully-registered voters from not having their votes counted.

The point is, if you show up for the wrong precinct, you can still be given a provisional ballot if you ask for one, that should be counted when voting administrators confirm your registration after closing time. (Yeah, the jury's still out on how well these will be counted. Browne addresses this issue in the video clip.

There are some things you need to know about Provisional Ballots, Here's a really great piece from Bill Moyers which explains all about Provisional Ballots. (I've also included the whole interview with Judith Browne, Senior Attorney for the Advancement Project. She explains the other forms of voter intimidation that her organization has filed lawsuits over.)


Judith Browne Explains Provisional Ballots


This is from the October 17, 2004 program of Bill Moyers NOW!
(I know the directory says Oct 29, but I just realized it now, and I don't want to break the other links. So I'll have to fix it later.)

Posted by Lisa at 01:49 PM
G.O.P. Can Challenge Voters at Ohio Polls, Court Rules


G.O.P. Can Challenge Voters at Ohio Polls, Court Rules

What a bunch of crap.

Posted by Lisa at 08:46 AM
First Reports Of Early Voting And Massive Turnout


Lines of Voters Try to Cast Ballots Early
By Roger Petterson for the Associated Press.


Voters trying to beat the rush turned out early to cast ballots in many precincts as Election Day opened, forming long lines that snaked out the doors, waiting in rain and even taking along chairs for expected long waits.

Umbrellas and raincoats were needed Tuesday from Texas to the lower Great Lakes, and snow-covered roads were a problem in the Texas Panhandle. In some places, voters were standing in line before the polling place doors opened.

Besides the presidency, voters were filling 34 Senate seats, 11 governorships and all 435 House seats.

Both parties had pushed to increase turnout among their supporters, and even with early voting in many states, tens of millions were to head to the polls before the long Election Day wound to a close.


Here is the full text of the story in case the link goes bad at:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041102/ap_on_el_pr/eln_america_votes

Lines of Voters Try to Cast Ballots Early
By Roger Petterson
The Associated Press

Tuesday 02 November 2004

Voters trying to beat the rush turned out early to cast ballots in many precincts as Election Day opened, forming long lines that snaked out the doors, waiting in rain and even taking along chairs for expected long waits.

Umbrellas and raincoats were needed Tuesday from Texas to the lower Great Lakes, and snow-covered roads were a problem in the Texas Panhandle. In some places, voters were standing in line before the polling place doors opened.

Besides the presidency, voters were filling 34 Senate seats, 11 governorships and all 435 House seats.

Both parties had pushed to increase turnout among their supporters, and even with early voting in many states, tens of millions were to head to the polls before the long Election Day wound to a close.

"I've never had to wait in line before," Fred Flugger, 72, said at his polling place on Pittsburgh's South Side, where dozens of people were already waiting when he arrived shortly after polls opened. "Usually, if I had to wait, it would be three to four minutes. There's just a lot of interest in this election."

Turnout at another Pittsburgh precinct clearly was exceeding that of the Bush-Gore race four years ago, said Jay Troutman, the judge of elections at the polling place.

"A good clip is one (voter) per minute, and we've exceeded that," Troutman said about 90 minutes after the polls opened.

"We wanted to come out early to vote but we never expected such a heavy turnout," Linda Russell said as she stood in line before polls opened in Raleigh, N.C.

Elsewhere in North Carolina, lines of voters snaked down sidewalks and across a street at a Durham precinct, where one man brought a chair to ease the wait.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate E.J. Pipkin had to wait in a line that wound out the door before he voted at about 7:20 a.m. at an elementary school in Stevensville, Md.

Pipkin said it was exciting to see such a large turnout. "We've been pushing the message that voting matters, who's in office matters, and I think we're seeing a direct result of that today with this kind of turnout," Pipkin said. "It bodes well for our democracy."

One Baltimore County precinct reported it didn't have enough electrical cords, but they soon turned up. "It's all very small stuff," Elections Director Jackie McDaniel said Tuesday morning. "Everything is going fine so far. It's early yet."

About 100 people were already in line when Macomb County Clerk Carmella Sabaugh went to cast her own ballot shortly after the polls opened in Warren, Mich.

"I'm predicting up to 75 percent (turnout) in Macomb County," she said. "Every indication I have ... is that this is the election for people. It still seems very polarized - they're either going to support the president or get him out of there."

Polls opened without incident in West Virginia's Wayne County, despite a chemical spill last week that closed two schools that were to serve as polling places, said County Clerk Robert Pasley.

"We even had people waiting in line before we opened at 6:30 a.m. In some places, there was more than a dozen people waiting and that's heavy," Pasley said.

A poll worker in Charleston, W.Va., accidentally closed a ballot box that was not supposed to be shut until the polls close. Kanawha County Registrar Vera McCormick said a worker in her office was sent to reset the box by 7:15 a.m.

"The locks are in place but they can't close the box," said voter Hattie Johnson. "I brought my sister because she has never voted before and she has to work this morning and now may not be able to vote."

Voters at three precincts in Williamstown, W.Va., cast ballots by flashlight because of a power outage, said Wood County Deputy Clerk Jay Day.

Up to 7 inches of snow fell in the Texas Panhandle, and Randall County Clerk Sue Bartolino warned voters to be careful on the roads. A winter weather advisory was posted.

In nearby Texas County, Okla., the earlier arrival of the wintry conditions had led many older voters to turn in absentee ballots Monday.

The parking lot was crowded at Dent Middle School in Columbia, S.C., and about 200 people were waiting in line when the polls opened at 7 a.m.

"It's not normal," said 75-year-old Timothy Evans Sr., a longtime poll worker. "Four years ago we had a little over 100 voters. It's really almost double that amount."

Robert Thomas, 21, was among about 150 people in line when the polls opened in Miami at the Mount Zion AME Church, but he said he wished there were more young people there.

"We need to get more young people to vote, like myself," said Thomas, voting in his first presidential election. "I looked around and you see some, but it should be a stronger crowd."

Cell Phone Picture Of An E-voting Machine's Fatal Error

This isn't the first email I've received since I asked you to send me your accounts of voting experiences. This is the email I received last night that gave me the idea in the first place.

From Brian Nicks:



Want to know what this image is? It's a picture I took with my cellphone-camera of an electronic voting machine screen. I took it today when I went down to vote for the next President of the Unites States in Santa Clara California. The screen says "Vote Save Error #9. Use the Backup Voting Procedure." A news crew was on hand to film Californians using the voting machines. I pointed to this particular screen and said "There's your story - right there. I just took a picture of the screen and plan to share it with 6.4 billion of my closest friends on the Internet tonight. I suggest you do the same." To my astonishment, the cameraman did shoot some footage of the screen, though I don't know what was shown later on television.

Now that I've told you the story behind the picture, I need not mention the maelstrom of thoughts that go through my head whenever I look at it - the picture is testament enough. The next revolution will not be televised. The next revolution will be blogged.

Posted by Lisa at 03:42 AM
Daily Show Comedy Clips From November 1, 2004 - Including An Interview With Fox News' Chris Wallace

These clips are from the November 1, 2004 program.

Daily Show Comedy Clips and Interviews For November 1, 2004

Included in these (6) clips:

Jon Stewart Telling Us To Get out there and VOTE!

A two part interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace
(where he explains that Fox has a four person panel now that has to decide unanimously before a winner can be declared.)

Kerry and Bush respond to Bin Laden's new tape

Cheney, Chelsea, Bruce and Arnold On The Campaign Trail

A voting report from Ed Helms and Stephen Colbert


The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 03:31 AM
Send Me Your Voting Experiences

I'll try to keep up with these as best I can. I'd like to keep a record of as many personal experiences as possible. It will help others reading about this day in the future understand the emotionally-charged nature of the whole thing.

Or, hell, what do I know. Maybe tomorrow (today) will just be like any other day...

Posted by Lisa at 03:09 AM
Use mypollingplace.com To Find Your Local Precinct

If you're a new voter or have just moved into your neighboorhood (or just can't remember where you voted last time), or would just like to know more about what methods will be used by your precinct this year, My Polling Place.com
can help.

Just enter your street address and zip code, and you can find your polling place, learn on what type of machine you will use to cast your vote, and get instructions on how to use that machine.

Thanks Josh!

Posted by Lisa at 01:52 AM
November 01, 2004
Democrats vs. The Repubs On Raising The Minimum Wage

This is from the October 29, 2004 program of Bill Moyers NOW!

This clip goes with this one.

This is part of a larger piece about single women and the low wages they're paid and how that affects their voting patterns, ultimately.


The Democrats are all for a raise in the minimum wage. John Kerry has stated more than once during countless speeches and, I believe, during all three debates, that raising the minimum wage would be one of the first things he does in office.

The Republicans, as usual, choose to blame the victim -- and have been fighting a minimum wage increase for quite some time now.

Democrats vs. Repubs On Raising The Minimum Wage
(6 MB)

Posted by Lisa at 09:33 PM
Daily Show Comedy Clips From October 28, 2004 - Including An Interview With John Zogby, Uber Pollster

These clips are from the October 28, 2004 program.


Daily Show Clips and Interviews from October 28, 2004


Mirror of these clips

(Thanks to Internet Veterans For Truth)

Included in these (6) clips:

-Arafat's fall
-A Red Sox Moment For Rob
-An Interview with poll taker John Zogby (with some good news :-)
-AN EXCELLENT PIECE where Stewart skillfully uses the Shrub's own words against him (shrubisms.mov)
-A film documenting attitudes toward the election in a small town
-Stephen Colbert's "This Week In God"


The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 09:24 PM
Daily Show Comedy Clips From October 27, 2004 - Including An Interview With Jesse Jackson

These clips are from the October 27, 2004 program.

Daily Show Clips and Interviews from October 27, 2004


Mirror of these clips

(Thanks to Internet Veterans For Truth)
Included in these (3) clips:

-Lewis Black on "the undecideds" (a.k.a. "the idiots")

-Another voting fiasco preview highlighting the Repubs strategy on voter fraud
(The Mary Poppins' etc. I mentioned in an earlier post.)

-An interview with Jesse Jackson


The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 06:07 PM
Daily Show Comedy Clips From October 26, 2004 - Including An Interview With Bob Kerrey From The 911 Commission

This is from the October 26, 2004 program of the Daily Show.

Daily Show Clips and Interviews from October 26, 2004


Mirror of these clips

(Thanks to Internet Veterans For Truth.)

In these (4) clips:

-Interview with Bob Kerrey of the 911 Commission
-The first of several "Fiasco Previews" of the Upcoming Election
-Another Messopotamia episode
-A bit featuring The Shrub and Kerry have pandering to the minority vote


The Daily Show
(The best news on television.)

Posted by Lisa at 03:21 PM
Report From Florida From "Bay Area People For Election Protection"

A friend of mine, Steve Shapiro, called in this report to me last Saturday (10/30/04). (Report from Sunday 10/31/04 to follow.)

He's been in Florida for the past few days working in one of the "Election Protection" teams that have been organized by Bay Area People for Election Protection, a group of citizens that have come together to help people vote in various "trouble spots" across the nation. In the 2000 election, Dade county, Florida, was one of the biggest "trouble spots." (To say the least.)

This time around, citizens of Dade county, which is largely african american and hatian, are taking advantage of the opportunity to vote early.

People are waiting in line for three to sometimes 6 hours in the hot sun just to vote. For the most part, they are happy to do it. (Yeah right!) No seriously; They are quite relieved that their vote will be counted this time around.

The Election Protection team has been working out of the local NAACP office in the local church. (The New Birth Vision To Victory Baptist Church, in North Miami.)

On Saturday, at the precinct where Steve was working, voting was open from 1-5 pm. The way things worked at that precinct, at 5pm, the Elections Clerk goes and gets in line. Everyone in front of Clerk gets to vote. It provides an easy means of protecting those who got there in time to those trying to sneak in after the deadline. (Note: Other precincts are using a priority ticket system -- just like a rock concert ticket line. Numbered tickets are handed out to the line and the numbers are called out later. This allows people to sit down and hang out. Or go get some food and come back, or whatever. Remember, it can take hours for your turn to come up.)

Steve described what he called a "festival atmosphere." The law in Florida is that you can't bother voters within a 50 ft radius of the precinct (note: in California, it's 100 ft). So immediately outside of that 50 ft radius, people are gathering, people are singing songs, music is blaring, people are dancing, performing circus tricks (seriously), giving speeches, playing games with their kids -- you name it. It's a feel good kinda atmosphere. These people aren't taking their votes for granted. They appreciate being counted this year, and they appreciate all of the people that came out of the woodwork to monitor the process to ensure that their votes would be counted this year.

Steve and his team (5 from San Francisco and 1 person from Seattle) have been driving buses of lawyers and voters around, delivering water, and doing whatever else is needed using a fleet of 20 vans that have been rented from the airport.

Posted by Lisa at 03:12 PM
Single Women -- Especially Single Moms - If You Turn Out In Numbers, You Will Decide This Election

This is from the October 29,2004 program of Bill Moyers NOW!

This clip goes with this one.

This is only the opening clip. You can see the whole thing on the NOW website if you're interested. But I wanted to make sure you saw this part of it. It explains how single women are not only the largest demographic of potential voters, they are the largest demographic of people who don't vote.

Bill Moyers Now On Single Women Voters

Posted by Lisa at 02:06 PM