Author Archives: Lisa

Seven Reasons From MoveOn To Vote Tomorrow

Here’s a message from MoveOn about why it’s sooooo important for you to vote tomorrow in the California Recall Election.
I’ve rearranged them a bit because I still believe that Arnold’s connection to the energy crooks (here’s Greg Palast’s Info on this issue) is the most important reason to not trust this guy as governor.

Dear Friend,
Please forward this email to anyone you think should read it — this is once again a very close race and tomorrow every single vote will count. Also keep in mind that many usual polling places will be closed this election. You can click here to look up your polling place. And forward this to your friends so they can look up their polling places as well.
Seven Reasons Why You Absolutely, Positively MUST Vote on Oct. 7:
Ed note: I’m putting #7 first because I still feel it’s most important:
7. Because Schwarzenegger STILL hasn’t explained why he met with Enron’s Kenneth Lay at the height of the energy crisis. Schwarzenegger attended a meeting of top business leaders and Republican politicians on May 17, 2001 that was apparently held to thwart a Davis-Bustamante plan to recover $9 billion from energy companies. He still hasn’t explained why he was there or whether his candidacy for Governor was discussed at that meeting. And he’s refusing to talk to reporters in these last days of the campaign. (San Mateo Times, FTCR)
1. Your vote matters. If you don’t vote, Schwarzenegger becomes your governor. It’s that simple. A poll conducted Wednesday through Saturday showed support for the recall and Schwarzenegger dropping fast. This election could be decided by a very small number of votes. We can win this, but your vote is absolutely necessary. (
The Mercury News
)
2. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Pete Wilson sequel. Governor Pete Wilson grew state spending much faster than Gray Davis ever has. Worse, he championed energy deregulation and in 1996 signed the bill that deregulated energy in California. Wilson opened the gates to let his energy pals rob the state blind. And now he and his former team are running Schwarzenegger’s campaign and choosing his policies. Even more troubling: Schwarzenegger seems to be in bed with the same energy interests as Wilson (See #7). We want to see Terminator 4, not Wilson 2. (Horowitz, Conason)
3. We have no idea what Schwarzenegger is going to do with California, and neither does he. He doesn’t have a plan to balance the budget. He hasn’t said what cuts he’ll make or what taxes he’ll raise. California needs a real leader, not someone who plays one in the movies. You may be frustrated with the way things are now — but if Schwarzenegger had a plan to make them better, don’t you think he would have told us about it?
4. He lied about taking money from special interests. The night he announced his candidacy on the Jay Leno show he told us, “As you know, I don’t need to take money from anyone. I have plenty of money myself.” He then turned right around and accepted over $10 million not from “special” interests, but rather, as he explained it, “business and individuals, absolutely. They’re powerful interests who control things.” (Saramento Bee,
CNN)
5. Arnold Schwarzenegger might belong on the sex offender registry, but not in the governor’s mansion. So far 15 credible women have come forward with stories of being physically assaulted by this man — some only a few years ago. He has not denied some of the stories (in fact, he said “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”). He has tried to chalk his mistakes up to “rowdiness.” But these incidents constitute a string of crimes that would land anyone except a multi-millionaire actor in jail and on the sex offender registry. (Los Angeles Times, Newsday)
6. The Nazi stuff is serious. Who care’s how long ago it was that Arnold Schwarzenegger said that he wanted to have an experience, “like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium, and have all those people scream at you and just being in total agreement with whatever you say.” That’s scary! And now nuns are being roughed up at Schwarzenegger rallies. A film maker who worked closely with Schwarzenegger in the 70’s says he saw him playing, “Nazi marching songs from long-playing records in his collection at home.” At his 1988 wedding Schwarzenegger toasted a confirmed Nazi war criminal, Kurt Waldheim, saying “My friends don’t want me to mention Kurt’s name, because of all the recent Nazi stuff and the U.N. controversy, but I love him and Maria does too, and so thank you, Kurt.” Where there’s smoke, there’s fire! (New York Times, Slate, Sacramento Bee, Los Angeles Times)
Thank you,
— Carrie, Eli, James, Joan, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn PAC Team
October 6th, 2003

A New And Even Better Reason To Vote Against The Recall And For Cruz Bustamante On Tuesday: Arnold’s Direct Involvement In A Plot To Sabotage The Lawsuit Against The California Energy Crooks

Reminder: NO on the Recall. Yes on Cruz Bustamante. (No on Prop 54.)
As I suspected, this Recall is more about trying to quash a lawsuit against the crooks that took the people of California for 9 Billion dollars than anything else.
Greg Palast has done his homework again. Read on.

Arnold Unplugged – It’s hasta la vista to $9 billion if the Governator is selected

By Greg Palast.

It’s not what Arnold Schwarzenegger did to the girls a decade back that should raise an eyebrow. According to a series of memoranda our office obtained today, it’s his dalliance with the boys in a hotel room just two years ago that’s the real scandal…
It turns out that Schwarzenegger knowingly joined the hush-hush encounter as part of a campaign to sabotage a Davis-Bustamante plan to make Enron and other power pirates then ravaging California pay back the $9 billion in illicit profits they carried off.
Here’s the story Arnold doesn’t want you to hear. The biggest single threat to Ken Lay and the electricity lords is a private lawsuit filed last year under California’s unique Civil Code provision 17200, the “Unfair Business Practices Act.” This litigation, heading to trial now in Los Angeles, would make the power companies return the $9 billion they filched from California electricity and gas customers.
It takes real cojones to bring such a suit. Who’s the plaintiff taking on the bad guys? Cruz Bustamante, Lieutenant Governor and reluctant leading candidate against Schwarzenegger…
But Bush’s boys on the commission have a problem. The evidence against the electricity barons is rock solid: fraudulent reporting of sales transactions, megawatt “laundering,” fake power delivery scheduling and straight out conspiracy (including meetings in hotel rooms).
So the Bush commissioners cook up a terrific scheme: charge the companies with conspiracy but offer them, behind closed doors, deals in which they have to pay only two cents on each dollar they filched.

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Shrub to U.N. About Iraq: We Were Right. You Were Wrong. Give Us Money.

This is from the September 23, 2003 program.
This is more information than I saw on the “traditional” news channels last week about the Shrub’s plea to the U.N. for more money for his Shrub War.
Jon Stewart sums it up nicely: “We were right. You were wrong. Give us Money.”
I mean it’s only fair, right? Why should only Americans die in this senseless occupation?
There are also some bizarre references to “sex tourism” that I don’t fully understand, and some interesting information about the Iraqi police force that isn’t forming as quickly as hoped. They’re trying to build a police force of 40,000, and so far they’ve got 800!

Daily Show On Shrub Plea To U.N. For Soldiers and Money
(Small – 10 MB)



The Daily Show
. (The best news on television.)

Won’t Be Around Much The Next Few Days

Hi guys. I’m off to Seattle for a few days to record the theme song for the sequel to Monsturd, The “RetarDEAD.” So I probably won’t be posting as much ’till I get back on Monday night.
FYI, I have already loaded up a bunch of new Daily Show clips that I’ll try to get around to posting individually on the blog should I get a hold of a good connection up there. (The “new” clips are dated from 9-17-03 on.)
You can always peruse my archive for yourself to see what I’ve got going in there. Often, I upload stuff that I don’t get around to blogging for days, so feel free to poke around and link to whatever you like.
Anyway, have a great weekend!

Info On The Department Of Defense’s SERVE Voting System

Someone sent me this interesting thread about the Department of Defense’s SERVE program. I’m still digesting this myself, but it seemed worthy of passing on to you.

When you recall that military absentee ballots were a critical factor in the Florida election of 2000, the scrutiny the SERVE project should attract a great deal of attention. But it has been running well below the radar since it was announced on June 2nd and and, as Slashdot pointed out, it will be a Microsoft Windows-only election.
In addition to military stationed overseas, citizens of Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah and Washington will be able to vote using SERVE. All the voters need to do is submit a form and they’ll be registered.
The troubling aspect of the SERVE program is that it appears to have no security features that will allow voters to check their votes were correctly recorded. The privacy statement on the SERVE site suggests that changing information is illegal and that connections will be monitored, but the ability for citizens to have oversight on the process is entirely absent. Say what you will, but hanging chads were important because they constituted a physical record. A vote intercepted and changed on the Internet or changed later by corrupt officials, which the 2000 election demonstrated is a potential factor in presidential elections.

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More About Filesharers Coming to Brianna’s Aid


C-notes for Brianna

Outpouring of donations in download suit
By Helen Kennedy for the NY Daily News.

Furious music lovers nationwide flooded 12-year-old Brianna LaHara of Manhattan with donations yesterday to help pay off her debt to the recording business.
From $3 pledges for the Help Brianna fund to $1,000 offers, hundreds of people wanted to help pay the $2,000 settlement between Brianna and the Recording Industry Association of America.
“The whole deal with going after the actual consumer – and the fact that it’s a 12-year-old girl with a single mother who lives in the projects – well, these people have no decency,” said Taylor Finley, a California film student who started the Help Brianna fund.

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