Elections

Read this.

By Philip A Farruggio, Populist Party

You know, guess what? Yeah, I am ' mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore ' to quote the character Howard Beale from the film Network . So, I write columns like this one ( 4 or 5 a month ) , I write letters to the editor, and I do the single most important thing I do with my life: I stand on the street corner of my town in peaceful protest.

Sadly, after 5 years of this travesty in Iraq , at a cost of over 600 billion of our tax dollars, I am lucky to attract 4 or 5 to stand with me each week. For the rest of the ( literally ) thousand drivers that cruise by our corner protest........ Silence!

From http://www.usalone.com

We made a commitment to you that when the time came, we would do everything we could to help Cindy Sheehan. That time is now.

Cindy Sheehan is making a courageous run for the Congressional seat in San Francisco, to challenge Nancy Pelosi, who has done nothing but cave in to the Bush/Cheney criminal war agenda, while the approval rating of Congress drops into single digits for the first time ever.

But FIRST Cindy needs to get on the ballot, and to do that as an independent she still needs another 6,000 petitions signatures in the next couple weeks.

Even with her many valiant volunteers, you can really help now by making a donation to put more paid signature gatherers for Cindy Sheehan on the street to give the voters of San Francisco a pro-courage choice. Help put Cindy safely over the top with enough margin of petition signatures that they cannot keep her off the ballot.

Iraq, U.S. agree on 'general time horizon'
USAToday

The United States and Iraq have agreed to seek "a general time horizon" for deeper reductions in American combat troops in Iraq despite President George W. Bush's once-inflexible opposition to talking about deadlines and timetables.

Iraqi officials, in a sign of growing confidence as violence decreases, have been pressuring the United States to agree to a specific timeline to withdraw U.S. forces. The White House said Friday that the timeframe being discussed would not be "an arbitrary date for withdrawal."

Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki talked about the timing issue as part of discussions over a broader security agreement to keep American troops in Iraq after a U.N. mandate expires on Dec. 31.

By Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane, Raw Story

A leading cyber-security expert and former delegate for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections.
Steven Spoonamore is the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies. At a little noticed press conference in Columbus, Ohio Thursday, he discussed his investigation of a computer patch that was applied to Diebold Election Systems voting machines in Georgia right before that state's November 2002 election.

Spoonamore is one of the most prominent cyber-security experts in the country. He has security clearances from his work with the intelligence community and other government agencies, as well as the Department of Defense, and is one of the world's leading authorities on hacking and cyber-espionage.

By Bruce Gagnon

I had a phone call from a friend in Maine yesterday. He was very upset about the recent passage of the FISA surveillance bill in the Senate and wanted to know what should be done about it. He cares very much about civil liberties issues. He mentioned that he was disappointed that Obama had voted in favor of the bill.

I listened to him for some time. When I finally spoke I told him that I was losing patience with my progressive friends who keep complaining about how the Democrats performed (on Iraq occupation, possible Iran attack, no impeachment hearings, civil liberties, etc) and then turn right around and vote them back into office without a mumbling word.

He acknowledged that he, like many, has donated to Obama and volunteered for his campaign. He said he fears that John McCain would be a dangerous president - after all just look what McCain had said when he spoke at the recent AIPAC convention........

by Linda Milazzo

Today on CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, responded to a viewer who asked why she took the impeachment of George W. Bush off the table. Pelosi's response (below in video and text), is categoric proof of her incompetence, dereliction of duty, disdain for the Constitution and disregard for the people of this nation. It underscores why she should NOT continue as Speaker of the House and why she should NOT be reelected in November.

By not going forward with her Constitutionally mandated requirement to impeach George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for their high crimes and misdemeanors, Mrs. Pelosi has cemented her legacy and secured her "BUT" forever. Let me be clear - I don't mean the double "TT" derriere kind of "BUTT." I mean the single "T" conjunction kind of "BUT." The proviso. The disclaimer. The tiny word that will ever be the prefix to her legacy. The "BUT" her grandchildren will hear from those who know history and politics - and who care about humanity - when they mention that Pelosi is their grandmother. The "BUT" like:

"BUT" wasn't your grandmother the one who wouldn't impeach George W. Bush?

"BUT" wasn't your grandmother the one who let Bush get away with murder?

"BUT" why did your grandmother do that?"

By David Scribner, BERKSHIRE RECORD

From Stockbridge attorney Robert Feuer’s home office on Prospect Hill there is a view toward South County where in 1786 followers of Shay’s Rebellion seized the courthouse in Great Barrington in frustration over the burdensome taxes and subsequent foreclosures endured by struggling Berkshire farmers to pay the nation’s war debt.

An analogous frustration with the conduct of government is driving Feuer’s decision to challenge eight-term District ! Congressman John Olver of Amherst in the Sept. 16 primary.

“I am born and bred a Democrat,” Feuer explains, noting that he has twice served as chair of the Town Democratic Committee. “I support the hope that Barack Obama has brought forth, and I hope the changes he foresees will occur. And in the past I’ve supported Congressman Olver but I think we need a new direction.”

Pelosi: Bush 'a total failure'
CNN

Note: Wolf Blitzer's complete, exclusive interview with Speaker Pelosi will air this Sunday evening; check your local listings for time and channel.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called President Bush "a total failure" on Thursday, among the California Democrat's harshest assessments to date of the president.

"God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States -- a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject," Pelosi told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an exclusive interview.

'04 OH Election Case Revived: Expert Alleges Massive Fraud, Rove Named at Press Conference!

Ohio Attorney Files to Lift Stay on '04 Election Case, Cites Allegations, Evidence of Massive Fraud by a Number of GOP Operatives

Leading Data Security Expert Joins Press Conference, Case, Notes Fraudulent Patterns That Should Have Triggered Investigation

Motion to Proceed with Targeted Discovery in Case Explained as Effort to Help Protect Integrity of '08 Election...

By Steve Heller
Special to The BRAD BLOG [1] by Steve Heller of Velvet Revolution [2]
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6189

At a press conference this morning in Columbus, Ohio, Cliff Arnebeck, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case of King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell [3], announced that he is filing a motion to "lift the stay in the case [and] proceed with targeted discovery in order to help protect the integrity of the 2008 election."

By BAR executive editor Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report

"The overarching necessity for Black America - and therefore, for the entire nation - is the rebirth of a Black-led mass movement for peace and fundamental social change."

"The Green Party was against the war when it started, is against the war now, and is against any military action against Iran that might take place tomorrow," declared former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, accepting the Green Party's presidential nomination, in Chicago, this weekend. "The Green Party is a peace party. A Green vote is a peace vote."

www.fair.org

The Washington Post reported on July 15 that the public is evenly split between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama's positions on ending the Iraq War. But the paper arrived at that conclusion based on a deceptively worded poll question.

Under the headline "Poll Finds Voters Split on Candidates' Iraq-Pullout Positions," the Post reported that their new poll "finds the country split down the middle between those backing Sen. Barack Obama's 16-month timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and those agreeing with Sen. John McCain's position that events, not timetables, should dictate when forces come home."

One possible use of the power handed to the Bush administration as a result of this law would be for election fraud. This would be done through manipulation of vote counts as they’re transmitted over the phone lines, under the guise of attempting to intercept communication between terrorists. This is how Eliot D. Cohen explains it in a recent article posted at the Election Defense Alliance: READ MORE.

By Kim Zetter, http://www.wired.com

New York state is in the process of replacing its lever voting machines with new voting equipment, but the state revealed recently that it has found problems with 50 percent of the roughly 1,500 ImageCast optical-scan machines (shown in the video above) that Sequoia Voting Systems has delivered to the state so far -- machines that are slated to be used by dozens of counties in the state's September 9 primary and November 4 presidential election.

Douglas Kellner, co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections, expressed frustration with the vendor, saying it appeared that Sequoia was using the state's acceptance testing process to find problems with its machines in lieu of a sound quality-control process.

Election '08: Herbert Hoffman, a vocal war opponent, pursues a U.S. Senate seat from Maine.
By DIETER BRADBURY, Portland Press Herald

Herbert Hoffman may not wear his heart on his sleeve, but he has his conscience stuck to his lapel.

That's where Hoffman placed a white sticker last Friday, with the number 4,118 carefully hand-lettered in purple ink -- announcing the updated death toll for U.S. servicemen and women in the Iraq war.

"I've been wearing these numbers since 2005," he said. "Not a huge proportion of people ask about it, but it's becoming more frequent."

That kind of commitment is what drove Hoffman to collect enough signatures to get his name on the Nov. 4 ballot as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate, alongside Republican incumbent Susan Collins and her Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Tom Allen.

There had to be one.

By Marc Ash, t r u t h o u t

Dear Senator Obama, I just slogged through a lecture by The New York Times about how it is the "far left" that is most offended by your vote to ratify retroactive immunity for the US telecommunications companies that provided aid and comfort to George W. Bush's illegal program of domestic spying. Further, The Times implied, "mainstream Democrats" take a more mature and pragmatic view. The piece seemed to read like public relations material. But that's silly - it was news, of course.

In fairness, the political center moves around more than a set of goalposts on the White House lawn. So, the relevancy of the Times's argument has a limited shelf life regardless. The real issue is twofold.

Trust and the Law