Browsing all articles from May, 2007
May
31

US Attorney axed for protecting voters' rights

Minnesota case fits pattern in U.S. attorneys flap
A prosecutor apparently targeted for firing had supported Native American voters’ rights.

By Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writer
May 31, 2007

WASHINGTON – For more than 15 years, clean-cut, square-jawed Tom Heffelfinger was the embodiment of a tough Republican prosecutor. Named U.S. attorney for Minnesota in 1991, he won a series of high-profile white-collar crime and gun and explosives cases. By the time Heffelfinger resigned last year, his office had collected a string of awards and commendations from the Justice Department.
So it came as a surprise – and something of a mystery – when he turned up on a list of U.S. attorneys who had been targeted for firing.
Part of the reason, government documents and other evidence suggest, is that he tried to protect voting rights for Native Americans.

Read more.


May 31, 2007   //   General   //   No Comments   //  
May
31

A party for Mad Hatters' Review!

EXTRA! EXTRA!
SAVE THE DATE: SUNDAY, JUNE 10TH!

The Mad Hatters will present their first
FUNDRAISING EXTRAVAGANZA
at The Gallery Bar, 5 – 11 + PM
120 Orchard Street, The Lower East Side, NYC

Gallery Bar ( http://www.gallerybarnyc.com) is located at 120 Orchard Street, near the corner of Delancey St. (“F” train to Delancey). Tickets for purchase online cost $15 and will be available through June 9th via PayPal (Address PayPal payments to madhattersreview@yahoo.com), or $20 at the door; some kind of proof of dire hardship may earn supplicants a discount.

The event will benefit the Mad Hatters’ Review and its local programs promoting innovative art and literature. Mad Hatters’ Review is a unique online multimedia magazine featuring edgy, experimental, gutsy, socially progressive, thematically broad, psychologically and philosophically sophisticated writings, music, and art, cartoons, columns, and mixed media collages. The magazine specializes in collaborative ventures, bringing writers together with artists and composers to create a full sensory reading experience. Poetry, fiction, non-fiction, dramatic pieces and experimental whatnots are displayed adjacent to images of original artwork and accompanied by musical compositions or authors’ recorded recitations.

The extravaganza will include READINGS BY OFFBEAT PROSE WRITERS & POETS; A SHOWING OF EXPERIMENTAL ANIMATIONS; AVANT-GARDEY IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC; DANCING TO LIVE MUSIC (SWING, WORLD, 60′S ROCK, REGGAE, CALYPSO, ETC.; PERFORMANCESW BY TWO FABULOUS COMEDIANS; A LATE SHOW OPEN MIC; and A SILENT AUCTION OF BOOKS, JOURNALS, AND ARTWORKS DONATED BY MAD HATTER CONTRIBUTORS & FANS. AND AND AND: $4 MAD HATTER FACOCTAILS & FREE EDIBLES.

Please see http://www.madhattersreview.com/events.shtml#june10 for details!

*********

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May 31, 2007   //   General   //   No Comments   //  
May
28

Hey, Holt supporters, let's debate!

From Mary Ann Gould, Coalition for Voting Integrity (PA):

As you know, I have long been a proponent of public discussion and debate. I have freely offered “Voice of the Voters” radio/internet with even extended time from preceding program if needed….or supported any other venue. None of the big groups supporting 811 will accept though several well respected election integrity advocates who have raised serious concerns are willing to come on the program.
Something is very wrong when one cannot stand up in public and have discussion/debate with those who have differing view.
One of the most well known groups in full favor of 811 said wait till after mark up … well after mark up, comment was “it’s too late”!
When is saving this Country too late …when is honest respectful discussion not accepted in this country? One argument is that it would show divisiveness of EI community and give ammo to enemies … baloney … they already know we’re divided as to more ammo … silence gives greatest weapon.
This is too important an issue to allow silence!
Not only should we have discussion/debate among those of common higher interests but differing on “what” needs to be done … but we should be DEMANDING that Congress have complete open discussion on problems in OUR election system … should be televised and should hear from citizens who have been impacted as well as others. This issue is in fact ABOVE Congress … it about the very right which insure our self governing and their own election by US!
As I have said before … The real purpose of elections and voting is NOT the selection of candidates to represent us …that is a result. The ultimate and true purpose is the exercise of our duty to share together in the process of self governance.
I suggest that we have two prong discussion/debate … first among activists but more important demand that Congress do so before the American people … and before ANY bill is voted upon. I would also ask that there be a discussion of the overarching framework which should spell out core identity/principles about voting ownership etc which in turn should be the framework within which aby action steps are developed and evaluated. Right now we are jumping to sympton fixes … which will lead to more problems!
Here is a letter we previously sent Congress … I suggest it be updated and a major campaign be built around it … the Vote belongs to We the People … it is time we were directly involved in the process overseeing it. Lincoln said that “Elections belong to the people. It is their decision.”
It’s time to make it OUR decision …. or we will get far worse than the rest of Lincoln’s quote: “If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
Open Letter to Congress:
A call for open Congressional hearings before voting on election reform legislation
March 20, 2007
This is the most important challenge you will ever face as a guardian of democracy.
As our elected representatives, you are about to address legislation proposed to resolve the numerous and serious problems with electronic voting and to decide whether United States elections may use electronic ballots to record our votes. But a basic question has yet to be openly and thoroughly explored:
Is democracy served by the use of electronic ballots?
Those who advocate using electronic ballots say that a representation of the votes (a display on a computer screen or a secondary paper printout) gives sufficient proof that the secret internal computer record of the vote contains the voter’s intent.
We disagree. Voter intent can only be assured if the voter is able to verify the ballot that is counted. But no voter can verify an internal computer record. Therefore, we believe that all votes must be cast on paper that has been marked by the voter’s hand or by a non-tabulating ballot-marking device, and that all those paper ballots must be counted by hand or by an optical scanner.

Our ballots are the heart of our democracy, and therefore, determining the form our ballots shall take is the proper business of all citizens. The decision cannot be at the sole discretion of the representatives those ballots are used to elect.
How shall we resolve this issue? We call upon Congress, before taking any vote on any election reform legislation, to hold open hearings to explore this question: Should electronic ballots be allowed in United States elections?
Our nation was founded on principles of open debate and discussion. We call on you to demand televised hearings, in prime time, with public participation, including but not limited to testimony from many election integrity activists and voters who have cast electronic ballots.

Respectfully,

Ellen Theisen
VotersUnite.Org
Washington State
360.437.9922

Mary Ann Gould
CoalitionforVotingIntegrity.org
Pennsylvania
215.357.5206
Sherry Healy
California Election Protection Network
California
415.388.7771

Teresa Hommel
www.wheresthepaper.org
New York
212.228.3803

May 28, 2007   //   General   //   No Comments   //  
May
28

Don't say we didn't warn you

The Holt Bill’s supporters won’t debate about it publicly. Why not?
Because the bill is indefensible, as this important piece makes very clear.
Please read and circulate this sharp analysis–or, if you support the bill,
and find fault with the facts or logic here, please try to persuade someone
in your camp to stand up and make the pro-Holt case in public.
MCM

OpEdNews
Original Content at
May 28, 2007
HR 811 (The Holt Bill): Let the debate begin
By Nancy Tobi
There is a raging and often destructive debate among voting activists. The source of the discord is “The Holt Bill”, a piece of federal election reform legislation named for its primary author, Democratic Congressman Rush Holt from the great state of New Jersey. The destructive nature of the exchanges among activists has led some of us who oppose the bill to propose, in the best of our American democratic traditions, a public debate on the merits of the bill.
We who oppose believe anything that stands to so dramatically transform, and possibly violate, the nature of American democracy deserves robust public debate, based on facts and principle.
Congress has already held its so-called public hearings on the bill, but those hearings were stacked with many pro-811 witnesses, and the few opponents of the legislation were not debating what we oppositional citizens believe are the real issues that need a good, public airing:
  • The bill violates state sovereignty and cements control over the nation’s voting systems in the hands of four white house appointees.

Read more.


May 28, 2007   //   General   //   No Comments   //  
May
25

News org punished by Bush/Cheney's DoD

Note that Robert Gates is no more tolerant of disagreement than Don Rumsfeld was.
MCM
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003588819

NEW YORK Staffers at McClatchy’s Washington, D.C., Bureau — one of the few major news outlets skeptical of intelligence reports during the run-up to the war in Iraq — claims it is now being punished for that coverage.

Bureau Chief John Walcott and current and former McClatchy Pentagon correspondents say they have not been allowed on the Defense Secretary’s plane for at least three years, claiming the news company is being retaliated against for its reporting.

“It is because our coverage of Iraq policy has been quite critical,” Walcott told E&P. He added, “I think the idea of public officials barring coverage by people they’ve decided they don’t like is at best unprofessional, at worst undemocratic and petty.”

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman called such assertions “absurd,” adding, “There is no basis of fact for that allegation. It is not true. There are always more people who would like to travel with the secretary than seats available.”

Jonathan Landay, a former Pentagon correspondent and one of the co-authors of McClatchy’s pre-war coverage, said he last traveled on the plane with then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2004 to Istanbul, Turkey, for a NATO economic summit. Since then, he says, none of McClatchy’s people have flown. “It is unusual because we get aboard about two out of three trips [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice makes,” Landay said. “They have a different policy at the Pentagon. We are definitely being discriminated against.”


May 25, 2007   //   General   //   No Comments   //  
May
25

BushCo's "guest worker" (slavery) program

“An ownership society is a compassionate society”
–George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002


The Bush Guest Worker/Slavery Program

by William Betz

Since early in his tenure as president, George Bush has promoted the institution of a new “guest worker” program as part of an immigration law overhaul. Similar programs have been tried before in other parts of the United States and its territories. It is a bad idea that simply does not – and cannot, by its nature – work. It creates an economic underclass of foreign workers who are at the mercy of private employers and who are subjected to the same abuses as slaves in societies that still condone and depend on slavery. Now Congress, in deference to Bush, is considering passing an immigration bill containing provisions for guest workers. It should wait. It should wait until the Fall, when a book documenting private labor abuses in the United States, “Nobodies” by John Bowe (Random House), is scheduled for publication. It can teach members of Congress and other Americans lessons about slavery and immigrant abuse that we have learned and relearned throughout our history, but apparently need to learn again.

In the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. Territory in the western Pacific Ocean, a “guest worker” program has been in place for years. Abuses perpetrated against workers from China and Thailand by garment factories in Saipan, the CNMI’s principal island, began to be exposed in the 1990′s. The factories, which were required under local law to pay their employees only $3.05 an hour, far below the federal minimum wage, were charged with holding their employees in almost slave-like conditions, refusing to allow them to leave the “barracks” where they were forced to live, sometimes as many as eight to a room with a single bathroom shared by numerous others, and failing or refusing to pay overtime to employees who worked more than 40 hours a week.

Because of its unique relationship with the U.S., the CNMI is exempt from federal immigration and minimum wage laws, although other labor laws do apply. The Commonwealth’s government controls its own immigration. Because of the low minimum wage and the territory’s exemption from U.S. tariffs for goods manufactured in Saipan and exported to the Mainland, clothing manufacturing seemed like a good idea. Chinese and Korean companies set up shop. The importation of cheap labor from Asia under the guest worker program made the factories virtual cash cows. Promised the opportunity to work in “America,” young women from Asia with no hope of anything better borrowed from their families and paid recruiters thousands of dollars in fees for the chance to work overseas.

Ultimately the labor abuses led to class action litigation brought on behalf of the garment workers against the factories and their customers – clothing companies such as The Gap, Target, J. Crew, Ralph Lauren/Polo, Jones Apparel Group, Lane Bryant, The Limited, Nordstrom; OshKosh B’Gosh, Tommy Hilfiger, Liz Claiborne, Brooks Brothers, Calvin Klein, and others – which litigation was ultimately settled by most of the defendants. The CNMI is now headed for virtually certain federalization of its labor and immigration laws and, as a result, the factories are leaving. But the abuses of the guest worker program in Saipan present a microcosm of the system that the former Republican congressman from Texas, Tom DeLay, glowingly described as “a perfect petri dish of capitalism.”

Even before the garment abuses came to light, the guest worker program in Saipan was problematic, albeit not widely publicized. Locals, seeing an opportunity to relieve themselves of the burden of housekeeping and childrearing, hired live-in maids from the Philippines under the guest worker program. Many of the locals were recipients of federal welfare payments. Still, live-in help was so cheap they were able to afford it, and this, of course, enhanced their social stature and reinforced their notion that they were racially superior to the people who worked for them. They paid the housekeepers far less than the $3 minimum wage, since room and board were a contractual benefit of employment, but ultimately found they were not able to fire them after the novelty of live-in help wore off. Reportedly, several Filipina housemaids were murdered in Saipan in the early 1990′s. This was one way to terminate a contract, people said; and the consequences, due to the low regard in which the unlucky foreigners were held, were non-existent.


The Federal government addressed the problem by implementing a regulation preventing CNMI residents on welfare from employing live-in maids.

The Senate this week, it its typical mad rush to roll over and play dead for the appointed Boy King, agreed to include a guest worker provision in the new immigration bill, reducing by half the number requested by Bush to 200,000. It should reconsider. In view of the labor abuses perpetrated in DeLay’s perfect petri dish of capitalism and other ongoing abuses still occurring in the mainland United States, abuses affecting farm workers in Florida and elsewhere, women brought in from Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe and sold to the sex trade, and individual cases such as the alleged imprisonment and torture of two Indonesian women uncovered last week on Long Island, a guest worker program is a prescription for a new kind of slavery in the United States. By providing no road to citizenship or permanent residence, it callously denies hope to the workers themselves. By putting the fate of impoverished foreign workers in the hands of greedy private businesses and individuals, it virtually guarantees the abuse of guest workers. It flies in the face of everything this country purports to stand for. It should be forcefully and unequivocally rejected.


May 25, 2007   //   General   //   No Comments   //  
May
25

Busheviks want photo ID's in immigration bill


REPUBLICANS PROPOSE IMMIGRATION BILL AMENDMENT TO REQUIRE DISENFRANCHISING PHOTO ID RESTRICTIONS AT POLLING PLACE!
Sen. McConnell’s Provision Would Amend Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to Include Attempt to Keep Legally Registered Voters from Voting!
GOP Prepared to Stop at Nothing to Undermine Most Basic American Values…Such as Democracy…
Un-believable. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has introduced an amendment to the proposed new Immigration Law that would require disenfranchising Photo ID restrictions on voters at the polling place, according to a press release just out from National League of Women Voters.
The provision tagged onto the immigration bill would amend the horrible Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 that McConnell co-sponsored and pushed through to passage along with his Republican counterpart and lead author in the House, the now-jailed Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-IL).
The key provision in the amendment is as follows:

SEC. 304. IDENTIFICATION OF VOTERS AT THE POLLS.

(a) In General.–Notwithstanding the requirements of section 303(b), each State shall require individuals casting ballots in an election for Federal office in person to present a current valid photo identification issued by a governmental entity before voting.

(b) Effective Date.–Each State shall be required to comply with the requirements of subsection (a) on and after January 1, 2008.

MORE, COMPLETE REPORT:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4595

May 25, 2007   //   General   //   No Comments   //  
May
17

Vote-flipping in '02, '04, '06…

Time for change (1000+ posts) Wed May-16-07 09:23 PM
Original message
Partial Summary of Evidence for Electronic Vote Switching that Swung US Elections from 2002 to 2006

With the proliferation of electronic voting machines in the United States, concern over their accuracy increased steeply in 2004, especially with awareness of substantial discrepancies between national exit polls and the official vote count in the 2004 Presidential election. In that election, John Kerry led in the final Edison-Mitofsky national exit polls by 3.0 %, despite the fact that George Bush won the official vote count by 2.5% – an exit poll discrepancy (henceforth referred to as “red shift”, to indicate official vote counts in favor of the Republican candidate, as compared to exit polls) of 5.5%, a result that could happen only one in a million times by chance. The red shift was especially large in the crucial swing states of Florida (4.9%), Ohio (6.7%) and Pennsylvania (6.5%). All in all, 22 states demonstrated red shifts in excess of the statistical margin of error and not a single state demonstrated an exit poll discrepancy in the other direction (blue shift) beyond the statistical margin of error. Consequently, these surprising results generated much concern about the possibility of systemic nation-wide election fraud.

That concern was magnified by the fact that votes were counted electronically in the good majority of precincts throughout the United States in 2004, as well as by the fact that for many of those precincts no paper trail existed to potentially verify the electronically produced official vote count. In essence, voters simply had to accept on faith the assertion that the machines that counted their votes were programmed to ensure the accuracy of the vote counts and that those machines were not subsequently hacked to corrupt the vote counts. However, subsequent events and analyses seriously threw those assertions into question.

With crucial 2008 elections approaching and with methods of voting in most jurisdictions yet to be decided, I believe it is important to be able to argue the point that electronic voting presents more than just a theoretical danger to our democracy. With that in mind, here is a partial accounting of substantial evidence of stolen national elections, mediated by inaccurate (and probably fraudulent) electronic voting machines, from 2002 to 2006:

Read more.


May 17, 2007   //   General   //   No Comments   //  
May
15

So where is Laura Bush?

Remember how, way back in late 2001, both George and Laura waxed publicly indignant at the misogynistic cruelty of the Taliban? Remember how the two of them were popping off almost like feminists, so as to get us in the mood for war?
Well, they got their war against the Taliban (although those feisty pricks are on the rise again); and then they got their war against Iraq. And look what’s happened to the women there. Will Laura speak out soon?
MCM


Women’s Rights Under Occupation

Earlier this month the Daily Mail of London published the following dispatch from Iraq: “A 17-year-old girl has been stoned to death in Iraq because her boyfriend was from a different religious faith. Du’a Khalil Aswad, from a minority Kurdish religious group, Yezidi, was condemned to an ‘honour killing’ by men in her family and hardliners due to her relationship with a Sunni Muslim. She had taken shelter in the house of a Yezidi tribal leader in Bashika, near the northern capital, Mosul. Eight or nine men stormed the house and dragged Miss Aswad into the street where they hurled stones at her for half an hour. Reports said a local security force saw the attack, but did not try to stop it. Now her boyfriend is in hiding.” Human rights groups say this honor killing is just the latest news to emerge from Iraq that shows how the condition of women in Iraq has rapidly deteriorated since the U.S. occupation began. Some have described it as the Talibanization of Iraq.

Yanar Mohammed on Iraq “Honor” Killings
Honor killing is becoming something to celebrate in Iraq now, and this did not happen before these last years. When a young woman is killed — actually, it was more than eight to nine males around her. It was hundreds of males standing around. None of them helped, but they were very keen on photographing the scene, on videotaping it on their cell phones, on their mobile phones. And on top of that, the part, the information that’s missing in the report is that some of our codes, the penal codes, which is part of our laws, they support the killing of women if they are “dishonorable.”

So what happened in this new Iraq, the so-called liberation of Iraq has turned women into refugees inside their country. Millions of us are vulnerable to be killed, and all our lives are threatened, and there is nobody to secure our lives for us. The policemen were standing and watching, and actually they helped to get the young girl back to the place where she was killed. So by constitution, we have lost our rights. Honor killings are on the rise. Kidnappings of women are getting more now. Our organization’s work proves that human trafficking is still rising, and not much is being done about it.

Read more.


May 15, 2007   //   General   //   No Comments   //  
May
15

Poll-watching banned in Troy, NY

Troy School Elections Update 5/13/07

Citizen Poll Watching Effort Banned by Troy City School Board

One day prior to the Troy City School District elections, the Board of Education halted an effort by citizens groups to observe the polls during Tuesday’s controversial School District Election. The election will use uncertified electronic voting machines and be overseen by the LibertyVote DRE vendor. The Board of Education informed the League of Women Voters of Rensselaer County on the day before the election that no poll watchers would be allowed due to “security concerns”.

NYVV and the local and state Leagues had planned the poll watching effort for several weeks and were in the final stages of preparations when the School Board banned any poll watchers. On Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at 11:00 AM the groups will hold a press conference at Superintendents Office Building Entrance, 2920 Fifth Avenue in Troy responding to the ban on independent observation of a public election.

Here’s a breaking news report.

Following are updates on the Troy School District Election.

Check out NYVV’s Troy Election Resource Page.

Troy Election – Media Coverage

We’ve worked hard at getting the truth out about this back door effort to use untested DREs. The local media has reported on our efforts challenging the use of uncertified LibertyVote DREs in the Troy School District elections.

Troy Record Editorial – Reconsider plan to use DREs

Oversight of school voting sought

Critics wary of new voting devices

Warning Letter Delivered to state School Boards

On May 2 NYVV and the League of Women Voters of NYS sent a joint letter to all 716 School Boards in New York State notifying them of our concerns about the use of unapproved voting machines in School Board Elections.

Read the NYVV/LWVNYS letter here.

Donate

New Yorkers for Verified Voting continues to fight for voting integrity and transparency in New York State, just as we have in the past and as we are doing today in Troy, NY.

In order to fund this ongoing work, we depend on private donations from concerned citizens. Please help by donating today.

New Yorkers for Verified Voting is a program of International Humanities Center, a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code.All donations are tax deductible.

New Yorkers for Verified Voting

Bo Lipari

Executive Director

contact@nyvv.org


May 15, 2007   //   General   //   No Comments   //  
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Orwell Rolls In His Grave, featuring MCM – Buy the DVD

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