So now, with the non-story of the New Black Panthers’ mythic “voter fraud” in Philadelphia, the WashPost‘s ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, is doing the same bad job that NYTimes ombudsman Clark Hoyt did with the non-story of the phoney ACORN “exposé” which all but wrecked that outfit.
It’s a bad job because the point of all such propaganda tales is to facilitate the theft of several races this November by the GOP–a crime that will be all the easier not to notice, if the media has everybody seeing the Republicans as victims, and the Democrats as perpetrators, of election fraud and vote suppression, Karl Rove’s two main specialties.
And that bad job is sure to be all that much easier still, what with the media repeating and repeating that the Democrats can’t possibly prevail this fall, and that the Tea-Baggers are flourishing, etc., etc.
I say all this not as a Democrat–as I am not a Democrat, because thatparty is, in its own passive way, complicit in the theft of our elections, as it just keeps on doing nothing whatsoever to reform (i.e., replace) our shockingly defective voting system.
I say this, rather, as a dogged independent, who keeps doggedly believing in democracy– which will be finished in the USA if we don’t somehow get this subject on the national agenda (along with media reform and campaign finance reform).
MCM
WashPost Ombudsman Falls for Fox’s Latest Trumped-Up ‘Outrage’ over ‘New Black Panther Party’ Non-Story
by Brad Friedman
If you didn’t already know that the latest Fox “News” fake “outrage” about the jackass from the New Black Panther Party who was caught on video standing outside a Philadelphia polling place with a nightstick in 2008 was another predictably trumped-up Rightwing scam story, Jamison Foser will help you understand why that is.
Dengue Fever Outbreak Leads Back to CIA & Army Experiments
by Hank P. Albarelli Jr.*, Zoe Martell*
The recent outbreak of dengue fever is being portrayed by the media as a fortuitous reemergence of the disease in Florida and elsewhere in the United States after 75 years. Yet Hank Albarelli’s probe reveals that the US Army and CIA have been experimenting with dengue fever for years with the aim of weaponizing insects to be released against unwitting populations, as was previously done in Florida and elsewhere. Moreoever, Albarelli draws attention to the eerie similarity between dengue fever symptoms and those linked to the toxic emanations in the Gulf of Mexico and warns of the looming disaster that could unfold from the overlap.
With little fanfare on July 13, Florida officials released the findings of a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study conducted recently in the Key West area revealing that about 10 percent, or 1,000 people, of the coastal town’s population are infected with the dengue fever virus.
While the July 13 release made little mention of it, the CDC study was provoked by an earlier 2009 report that a woman in New York State, who had returned from a Florida Keyes visit, had contracted dengue fever. Within a few weeks of this initial report, two additional cases were discovered in people who had returned from Key West. Over the next 3 months of 2009 an additional 26 cases were identified, all tied to visits to the town.
Because of these reported cases, the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District conducted greatly increased aerial spraying to control mosquitoes. Following the spraying a small amount of other cases were reported, including that of a 41-year old Key West man who found blood in his urine and had severely aching joints.
BP Oil Poisons the Gulf of Mexico’s Food Chain
By Dahr Jamail*
NEW ORLEANS, United States, Jul 20, 2010 (IPS/IFEJ) – Shellfish in the Gulf of Mexico grow with drops of petroleum inside them, coyotes eat oil-soaked birds, and sharks suffocate when the oil coats their gills.
Oil droplets have been found beneath the shells of tiny post-larval blue crabs drifting into Mississippi coastal marshes from offshore waters, says Harriet Perry, director of the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.
Many kinds of fish and shore birds feed on those young crabs. And this is just one of the many examples of how the crude oil that began to spill Apr. 20 from British Petroleum’s (PB) Deepwater Horizon well has already taken its toll on the Gulf’s food chain.
Here’s a savvy piece by Richard Charnin, in defense of pollster John Zogby–whose election forecasts have, all along, been absolutely right–from attack by Nate Silver, who, as Charnin points out, has no clue about election fraud, and has therefore helped, unwittingly, to keep it out of sight.
Silver’s take is particularly troubling, since the New York Times will be deploying him to help “explain” the outcome of the next elections, which the GOP is poised to “win” by various and sundry crooked means.
MCM
The real story here is not the photoshoppery per se, but the appalling fact that BP isn’t really doing anything to deal with this catastrophe, other than to make it look like they’re Doing Everything They Can.
Fiddling with an on-line image is no crime. What BP has done, however, is a crime, and one of staggering proportions.
Below, a link to John Aravosis’s excellent blog, which broke this story, and the WashPost‘s piece today.
MCM
BP photoshops fake photo of crisis command center, posts on main BP site
by John Aravosis (DC)
Altered BP photo comes into question
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Apparently BP is no more adept at doctoring photos than it is at plugging deep-sea oil leaks.
A blogger has noticed that the oil giant altered a photograph of its Houston crisis room, cutting and pasting three underwater images into a wall of video feeds from remotely operated undersea vehicles. The altered photo is displayed prominently on the company’s Web site.
From: Garland Favorito
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 11:33 AM
To: Garland Favorito
Subject: South Carolina Proves Statewide Unverifiable Voitng Cannot Be Trusted
VoterGA Supporters,
Mail-in paper ballot election results just received from each South Carolina county under
Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests confirm that there were enough voting
discrepancies in the recent U.S. Senate Democratic primary to have reversed the election
outcome. That race had dramatic, inexplicable discrepancies between the verifiable mail-in
absentee paper ballot results and the unverifiable electronic voting results recorded on Election
Day, June 8.
In that race, Alvin Greene was declared the winner based on a near landslide 60-40% margin in Election Day electronic voting results. However, certified mail-in paper ballot results, received
from the counties after a 15-business-day response period allowed under South Carolina law,
show that Vic Rawl actually won the verifiable mail-in paper ballot absentee voting by a solid 55-45% margin.
The near 30% total point differential among the two candidates is unheard-of in South Carolina election history, and, perhaps, nationally as well. Neither candidate emphasized absentee voting,
so there is no reasonable explanation for such a vast difference.
VoterGA issued the FOIA requests because South Carolina counties do not report separate
absentee totals for mail-in paper ballot votes and in-person electronic votes. While some of this information was previously known, here is what the official replies to the requests revealed:
- In not one county did Alvin Greene win the absentee mail-in vote count and lose the Election Day vote count
- In not one county did Vic Rawl win the Election Day vote count and lose the mail-in absentee vote count
- In 41 of 46 counties, Alvin Greene’s Election Day vote percentage exceeded his mail-in paper ballot absentee percentage;
- In 34 of those 41 counties, Alvin Greene’s Election Day electronic votes exceeded his mail-in paper ballot absentee votes by an abnormal margin of 15%
- In no counties with more than 10 paper ballot casts did Vic Rawl have an abnormal margin of 15% or more (total for both candidates)
The individual county results illustrate the differences between Election Day electronic voting results and mail-in paper ballot absentee voting results much more dramatically:
- In Aiken County, Alvin Greene won the Election Day vote 60% to 40% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 70% to 30%;
- In Barnwell County, Alvin Greene won the Election Day vote 63% to 37% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 75% to 25%;
- In Beaufort County, Alvin Greene won the Election Day vote 60% to 40% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 82% to 18%;
- In Dorchester County, Alvin Greene won the Election Day vote 60% to 40% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 67% to 33%;
- In Florence County, Alvin Greene won the Election Day vote 70% to 30% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 58% to 42%;
- In Greenwood County, Alvin Greene won the Election Day vote 76% to 24% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 51% to 49%;
- In Lancaster County, Alvin Greene won the Election Day vote 59% to 41% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 90% to 10%;
- In Newberry County, Alvin Greene won the Election Day vote 55% to 45% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 84% to 16%;
- In Spartanburg County, Alvin Greene won the Election Day vote 61% to 39% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 72% to 28%;
The differences between absentee in person electronic voting and absentee paper mail-in voting are similarly dramatic:
- In Spartanburg County, Alvin Greene won the absentee in-person electronic vote 62% to 38% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 72% to 28%;
- In Jasper County, Alvin Greene won the absentee in-person electronic vote 56% to 44% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 76% to 24%;
- In Orangeburg County, Alvin Greene won the absentee in-person electronic vote 52% to 48% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 72% to 28%
- In Chester County, Alvin Greene won the absentee in-person electronic vote 71% to 29% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 55% to 45%;
- In Coleton County, Alvin Greene won the absentee in-person electronic vote 58% to 42% but
Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 70% to 33%; - In Berkeley County, Alvin Greene won the absentee in-person electronic vote 59% to 41% but Vic Rawl prevailed in the mail-in paper ballots by 73% to 27%;
A spreadsheet on the voterga.org home page illustrates the discrepancies so that you can review them and make your own decision about the validity of this South Carolina election. However, the spreadsheet still does not take into account the extraordinary differences in the campaigns that were conducted. As you may already know Alvin Greene, an unemployed former military veteran who paid a $10,000 qualifying fee, did not even run a campaign. Greene held no fundraisers, ran no paid advertisements, made no campaign speeches, hired no campaign manager, conducted no state wide tours, attended no Democratic Party county events, printed no yard signs and did not even establish a web site. Vic Rawl, a county commissioner, former judge and four-term state representative, ran a normal, aggressive campaign as his campaign manager, Walter Ludwig, has explained. He personally campaigned in at least half of the counties made radio and TV appearances, attended the state convention, collected official endorsements, had 600 volunteers, printed 10,000 bumper stickers, established 180,000 database contacts, created a 104,000 Email distribution list, had 3,300 Facebook Friends, sent out 300,000 Emails just prior to the election, received 20,000 web site hits on Election Day alone and was more active on Twitter than the other Democratic Party candidates.
So how did this happen? All South Carolina elections are conducted on statewide unverifiable electronic voting equipment manufactured by Election Systems & Software (ES&S). South Carolina’s voting machines have no independent audit trail of each vote cast. This is necessary to audit the accuracy of the vote recording mechanism that transfers the selections the voter sees on the screen to the vote storage areas. All precinct printouts, ballot images and any other forms of paper documents that can be printed are not created independently but produced internally from the machines after the vote was recorded and could have been corrupted. It is technically impossible for anyone in the state to claim that South Carolina’s Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines record accurately on Election Day since there is no mechanism such as a Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) to independently audit the vote recording. No amount of pre-election testing can assure DRE recording accuracy. The Federal Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) Technical Guidelines Development Committee concluded that: “The National Institute of Standards and Testing & EAC Security & Transparency Subcommittee do not know how to write testable requirements to satisfy that the software in a DRE is correct” The reason for such a conclusion is that many electronic voting machines, such as those used in South Carolina, can be programmed in a variety of ways to count differently on Election Day than during testing. As a result, South Carolina voters cannot verify that the selections they see on the screen were electronically recorded, election officials cannot audit the actual vote counts and there is no directly created evidence of voter intent that can be used in a recount.
Vic Rawl understood this and filed an election protest to have his claims heard by the leadership of the South Carolina Democratic Party on June 17. Expert witnesses testified as to the improbability of such results and they methodically eliminated other false explanations for the discrepancies such as ballot positioning, republican crossover voting and racial preferences. None of those excuses would explain the vast difference in absentee paper ballot results and electronic voting results. In addition, the office manager identified reports she had received from voters in a dozen different counties all of whom were impeded in some way from voting for Vic Rawl. One witness testified that Mr. Rawl was not on the ballot. Another witness testified that she successfully selected Vic Rawl in the race but Alvin Greene’s name on the confirmation screen. Still another witness testified that she received a confirmation screen indicating she had voted for Alvin Greene before she voted in the U.S. Senate race and immediately after she cast her vote in the governor’s race. Alvin Greene was not present and no evidence was presented to argue that the results were correct, the leadership denied Mr. Rawl’s request for new election by a count of 38-7. The entire hearing can be seen just by searching for Vic Rawl on Vimeo.com thanks to John Fortuin and Defenders of Democracy.
The hearing revealed that Vic Rawl’s expert witness was denied access to the machines at the county level. In addition, the State Elections Commission denied a petition by State Senator Phil Leventis to impound the machines until they could be checked. The commission claimed that they needed the machines for the run-off. However, they would not have needed all of the machines for the run-of and they would not have needed to impound all of them to run statistically significant tests. A spokesperson for the State Elections Commission said that they have done all that they could do in terms of testing and that they are confident in the results. The commission also issued a statement asserting that the voting machines have always performed accurately and reliably, a claim that is technically impossible to establish since there is no way to independently audit the voting recording mechanism of the machine.
So how should this dilemma be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties? Here is a suggested solution that might satisfy all parties involved:
- Alvin Greene can represent Democrats in November against Sen. Jim DeMint since he rightfully won the election according to the procedures that have been used for the last six years
- The South Carolina Elections Commission and legislature must immediately move to replace their statewide unverifiable voting with auditable electronic or optical scan equipment
- Vic Rawl should be recognized as having done more for South Carolinians than he ever could have ever done if he had been elected to the U.S. Senate
I have sent a letter outlining the lack of credibility in this election to the State Elections Commission. is available on the www.Voterga.org home page. South Carolina federal elections results could impact voters in every other state so even if you don’t live there, take a few minutes and do the same.
The state elections commission can be contacted at elections@scvotes.org.
Thanks,
Garland
voterga.org
REPRINT AND POSTING PERMISSION GRANTED
Obama bans abortion for women in high-risk insurance pools
We need you to act immediately to undo a disturbing decision from the Obama administration. Remember all the hard work you and other ACLU activists did to defeat Rep. Stupak’s draconian abortion coverage ban during the health care debate?
Well now, the White House has decided to voluntarily impose the ban for all women in the newly-created high risk insurance pools. What is disappointing is that there is nothing in the law that requires the Obama administration to impose this broad and highly restrictive abortion ban. It doesn’t allow states to choose to cover abortion and it doesn’t even give women the option to buy abortion coverage using their own money.
Ask President Obama WHY his administration is restricting coverage for vulnerable women.
Unless the Administration reverses this decision, some of America’s most vulnerable women-those with pre-existing conditions who have been denied health care coverage on the individual market-won’t be able to purchase abortion coverage except in the case of rape or incest or to save the pregnant woman’s life.
You and I know that every woman should be able to decide what is best for her health and her family. A pro-choice administration should know that too.
It’s especially discouraging to impose a ban on women participating in a high-risk insurance pool who are particularly vulnerable and may have a special need for abortion. For example, because of the restriction, a woman with heart disease or diabetes might be compelled to carry a pregnancy to term despite its potentially damaging effect on her future health.
Ask President Obama not to stand in the way of vulnerable women’s health care choices.
It’s urgent that you send your message to President Obama right now. When you do, we’ll also forward a copy to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, whose department is putting this unnecessary and harmful restriction into effect.
Thank you for acting on this urgent matter.
Sincerely,
Laura W. Murphy
Director, Washington Legislative Office
Tim Geithner Opposes Nominating Elizabeth Warren To Lead New Consumer Agency
Shahien Nasiripour
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has expressed opposition to the possible nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a source with knowledge of Geithner’s views.
The financial reform bill passed by the Senate on Thursday mandates the creation of a new federal entity charged with protecting consumers from predatory lenders.
But if Geithner has his way, the most prominent advocate for creating the agency may not be picked to lead it.
President Obama’s Most Inexplicable Failure
by: Melvin A. Goodman, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
President Barack Obama has been a major disappointment to a liberal community that rallied to his call for genuine change. His administration has made no attempt to investigate the crimes that were committed by the Bush administration, including torture and abuse, secret prisons and renditions. President Obama rescued Wall Street, but not Main Street. And he has expanded the self-destructive war in Afghanistan, where there is no end in sight. President Obama cannot be blamed for the failure to close Guantanamo, but he continues to favor preventive detention. But the president’s ost inexplicable failure, in view of his Harvard Law School background and commitment to constitutional rights, is his unwillingness to name a statutory inspector general (IG) at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Gulf Oil Spill Altering Food Web Scientists Say, Long-Term Impact Unknown
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Scientists are reporting early signs that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is altering the marine food web by killing or tainting some creatures and spurring the growth of others more suited to a
fouled environment.
Near the spill site, researchers have documented a massive die-off of pyrosomes – cucumber-shaped, gelatinous organisms fed on by endangered sea turtles.
Along the coast, droplets of oil are being found inside the shells of young crabs that are a mainstay in the
diet of fish, turtles and shorebirds.
Orwell Rolls In His Grave, featuring MCM – Buy the DVD
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