After all these years.... answers!

Labels: religion

posted by Stash @ 8:49 AM

2 Comments

Election Live Blog

The Young Turks are leading a great discussion on South Carolina at Brave New Films.

posted by Stash @ 4:06 PM

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John McCain Circus Tricks

Hear that flip? See that flop? What a loser.

Labels: Flip Flop, Hillary Clinton, Iraq War, John McCain

posted by Stash @ 9:15 AM

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Freeheld

If this doesn't move you a bit, check your pulse.



h/t Slog

Labels: Gay Rights

posted by Stash @ 11:38 PM

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One Day in Iraq... or....

Labels: George W. Bush, Iraq War

posted by Stash @ 7:03 AM

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We Can't Make It Here Anymore!

James McMurtry

Labels: George W. Bush, Music

posted by Stash @ 7:39 PM

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Ohio Secretary of State confirms 2004 election could have been stolen

Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman

The Free Press

Ohio's Secretary of State announced this morning that a $1.9 million official study shows that "critical security failures" are embedded throughout the voting systems in the state that decided the 2004 election. Those failures, she says, "could impact the integrity of elections in the Buckeye State." They have rendered Ohio's vote counts "vulnerable" to manipulation and theft by "fairly simple techniques."

Indeed, she says, "the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet and a personal digital assistant."

In other words, Ohio's top election official has finally confirmed that the 2004 election could have been easily stolen.

Brunner's stunning findings apply to electronic voting machines used in 58 of Ohio's 88 counties, in addition to scanning devices and central tabulators used on paper ballots in much of the rest of the state.

Brunner is calling for widespread changes to the way Ohio casts and counts its ballots. Her announcement follows moves by California Secretary of State Deborah Bowen to disqualify electronic voting machines in the nation's biggest state.

In tandem, these two reports add a critical state-based dimension to the growing mountain of evidence that the US electoral system is rife with insecurities. Reports from the Brennan Center, the Carter-Baker Commission, the Government Accountability Office, the Conyers Committee Task Force Report, Princeton University and others have offered differing perspectives that add up to the same conclusion.

Coming in the state that decided the 2004 election for George W. Bush, Brunner's confirmation of the electoral system's vulnerabilities adds huge new weight to the charge that the Buckeye State's vote count was stolen.

In a series of investigative reports dating to well before the 2004 election, the Columbus Free Press and Freepress.org have documented several dozen different means used by the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign to steal the official 2004 vote count.

The final official tally for Bush---less than 119,000 votes out of 5.4 million cast---varied by 6.7% from exit poll results, which showed a Kerry victory. Exit polls in 2004 were designed to have a margin of error of about 1%.

In various polling stations in Democrat-rich inner city precincts in Youngstown and Columbus, voters who pushed touch screens for Kerry saw Bush's name light up. A wide range of discrepancies on both electronic and paper balloting systems leaned almost uniformly toward the Bush camp. Voting procedures regularly broke down in inner city and campus areas known to be heavily Democratic.

In direct violation of standing federal election law, 56 of Ohio's 88 counties have since destroyed all or part of their 2004 election data. The materials were additionally protected by a federal court injunction in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal civil rights lawsuit (in which we are attorney and plaintiff). To date, no state or federal prosecutions have resulted from this wholesale destruction of presidential election records, including 1.6 million ballots, cast and uncast, needed for definitive auditing procedures. However, two Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) election officials have been convicted of felony manipulation of an official recount. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, the state's largest newspaper, recently editorialized that there is "no evidence" the 2004 election was stolen, but omitted mention of the destruction of the electoral records by more than half the counties in the state. The Plain-Dealer and other mainstream media have consistently ignored findings by the Free Press and others indicating widespread manipulation and theft of the kind Brunner has now confirmed was eminently do-able within the Ohio system.

Brunner says "the results underscore the need for a fundamental change in the structure of Ohio's election system to ensure ballot and voting system security while still making voting convenient and accessible to all Ohio voters." Among other things, she advocates replacing touch-screen machines with optical-scan units that include a paper balloting system.

The study was managed by the Battelle Corporation, and conducted by Columbus-based MicroSolved Inc., SysTest Labs of Denver along with a consortium of academic subcontractors. It was reviewed by a dozen county officials, and included scrutiny of voting systems produced by Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Hart Intercivic and Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold).

Brunner is the Democratic successor to Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell, who administered the 2004 election as Secretary of State while also serving as state co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. The report comes as part of her pledge to guarantee a fair and reliable vote count in the upcoming 2008 presidential election.

Under Blackwell, Ohio spent some $100 million installing electronic voting machines as part of the Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress in the wake of the scandals surrounding the 2000 election. Former Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, HAVA's principle author, now resides in a federal prison, in part for illegalities surrounding his dealings with voting machine companies.

Blackwell, who was defeated in a 2006 race for the Ohio governorship, outsourced web hosting responsibilities for the 2004 vote count to a programming firm that also programmed the web site for the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign. Blackwell's chosen host site for the state's vote count was in the basement of the Old Pioneer Bank Building in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the servers for the Republican National Committee, and the Bush White House, were also located.

Brunner has now recommended that all Ohio's voting be done on optical scan ballots, with reliance on central tabulation. Voters with disabilities could use AutoMark touchscreen machines with built in audio systems that allow the marking of ballots with little or no additional assistance.

"It's a testament to our state's boards of elections officials that elections on the new (federally) mandated voting systems have gone as smoothly as they have in light of these findings," Brunner said.

Conversely, it is also a testament to the ease with which the 2004 election was stolen by election officials who had clear conflicts of interest aimed at keeping George W. Bush in the White House.

Labels: Bush, Election 2004, Ohio

posted by Stash @ 1:10 AM

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MLK

Labels: Bill Clinton, Coretta Scott King, Huckabee, Martin Luther King, Shirley Franklin

posted by Stash @ 8:29 AM

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Mike Huckabee is one scary sombitch!

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And thats what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.”

link

Labels: Christianity, Constitution, God, Huckabee

posted by Stash @ 10:00 PM

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A must-see for every classroom!

It took a Canadian to say what every American should know:



Salon - Greenwald

posted by Stash @ 12:30 PM

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With speeches like this, Yuck-Yuck Huckabee might think about running for Miss Teen USA.

Labels: Huckabee, Miss Teen South Carolina

posted by Stash @ 1:28 PM

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Heritage

True story:

I'm in a meeting and a gentleman says, "My wife is half Czech and half Romanian."

I deadpanned, "My wife is half Check and half Credit Card."

I hope Mrs. Stash starts speaking to me before the week's out.

Gotta luv it!

posted by Stash @ 1:20 PM

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Run, Mitt! Run!

Medical marijuana

It seems Mitt, like all the others, would continue our illogical and failed Drug War.

Labels: Drug War, Medical Marijuana, Mitt Romney

posted by Stash @ 12:02 PM

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Kucinich: Out of the Debates, Threatens Legal Action Against ABC

Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich slammed ABC News for excluding him from the nationally televised debate from New Hampshire on Saturday, January 5. On Friday, Kucinich filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against ABC.

Said Kucinich: "ABC will be called to an accounting. We are not through with them — I'm looking at various types of legal action, that are going to go long after this election, and ABC is going to be challenged. And they're gonna find out that they've met the one person in this government who isn't going to back down from them. They don't own the airwaves."

"The other candidates have essentially agreed on everything," Kucinich said. "I'm the only one who voted against the war in Iraq, and then voted against funding it every time." He referred to the other candidates as "ditto-heads".

Links HERE and HERE.

It seems that mainstream media outlets just can't deal with the permutations resulting from too many presidential candidates. They just can't seem to get out of the sports model mindset that pits one contestant against another. This presidential nomination process started out last year as "Hillary against the Seven Dwarfs". Now it's the "Obama vs Clinton Grudge Match". (Um, didn't Hillary come in third in Iowa?)

Kucinich is the soul of the Democratic Party, and I while I'm an Edwards supporter, I want Dennis to be heard. He's the progressive voice on all the issues: Single-payer health care, against run-away globalization, steadfast for peace. ABC did the nation a disservice by excluding him.

Labels: Democrats, Dennis Kucinich

posted by bleeding blue @ 2:23 PM

2 Comments

Best Lines of the New Hampshire Republican and Democratic Debates

Senator McCain: "Well, I really have to agree with Mitt. Governor, you really are the candidate of change." To which, the habitual flip-flopper Romney just shook his head and said, "This personal stuff isn't nice."

Senator Clinton: "Senator Obama's New Hampshire Chair is a lobbyist for the drug companies". To which, Obama said absolutely nothing... nothing... zilch... nada.

Obama's co-chair in New Hampshire, Jim Demers, is a state based lobbyist for the pharmaceutical and financial services industries amongst others. Michael Bauer, a member of Obama's LGBT steering committee, is a state based lobbyist in Chicago. And in Nevada, Obama's campaign also has three state based lobbyists who play senior advising roles in August last year.

When asked by reporters on the call why Hodges could work with the campaign even though he is a lobbyist, campaign manager, David Plouffe, said the campaign's policy for limiting lobbyists' influence applied to taking money only from federal registered lobbyists and PACs.
Link

We're certainly not fans of Hillary in The Whirlpool, but a zinger is a zinger.

Obama! You got some 'splanin' to do!

Labels: Hillary Clinton, John McCain, New Hampshire, Obama, Romney

posted by Stash @ 10:12 AM

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Newest poll: Obama soars to a 10-point lead

From the Union Leader.

A major national pollster says that Hillary Clinton has fallen well behind in New Hampshire after her third-place finish in Iowa, while John McCain now has a five-point lead over Mitt Romney.

Rasmussen Reports, in a telephone survey of 510 likely Democratic voters on Friday, found 37 percent backing Barack Obama, 27 percent for Clinton, 19 percent for John Edwards and 8 percent for Bill Richardson.

In Rasmussen's last New Hampshire polling, before Christmas, Clinton led Obama by 3 percent. Romney had a narrow lead over McCain.

Rasmussen now projects that 40 percent of the Democratic ballots and 32 percent of GOP ballots will be cast by independents, not registered party members.

This week's survey shows McCain with 31 percent, Romney at 26, Ron Paul rising to third place with 14, Iowa winner Mike Huckabee at 11, Rudy Giuliani 8, Fred Thompson 5, others 2. Three percent are undecided.

The poll's admitted margin of error is 4.5 percent.

Labels: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, New Hampshire, Obama, Rasmussen Reports

posted by Stash @ 5:35 PM

2 Comments

F.. F.. F.. Huckabee Wins! Gives Union the Stiff

Arkansas Governor and Wrong Wing fundamentalist preacher, Mike Huckabee walked away with the Iowa Republican caucus.

This is the day after he crossed the Writer's Guild picket lines in California. As is becoming a common occurance this season, he pretended not to know they were on strike.

What a doofus! Can America stand two dim wits in a row?

h/t to Blue Gal for the picture.

Labels: Caucus, Huckabee, Iowa, Leno, Republicans, Strike

posted by Stash @ 10:09 AM

0 Comments

In Defense of Our Country

Labels: America, Bush, Randy Newman

posted by Stash @ 2:37 PM

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Real Change News

The Whirlpool came across a unique project in the Seattle area: Real Change News. Taking our weekly look at our friends at Princes of Peace, we read as one of our potential action items, "Buy Real Change from a vendor". Of course, we wondered if that meant exchanging dollars for coins or getting some sort of script. But, a little research led us to Real Change News.

This project offers an opportunity for homeless members of our society to work out of their current situation and develop "real change" in their lives.

Worthy project. Check it out.

Labels: homeless, poverty, Real Change

posted by Stash @ 10:10 AM

0 Comments