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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...

By John Gideon on 8/8/2008 4:33pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today we are going to have a change of pace and introduce a new word to the vocabulary of some. This is actually a word that I heard for the first time a couple days ago and I like learning new words. Today’s word is “obscurantism”. What does obscurantism have to do with voting issues you ask? Obscurantism (‘tist) is defined as the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known. There are two common senses of this: (1)opposition to the spread of knowledge—a policy of withholding knowledge from the general public; and (2) a style (as in literature or art) characterized by deliberate vagueness or abstruseness. It seems to me that the voting machine vendors are an excellent example of both definitions of obscurantist....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Congressional Candidate/Whistleblower Clint Curtis Says Primary Opponent Suzanne Kosmas Staffers Made Illegal, Deceptive Campaign Calls from Dem Party Offices, Phone Lines
Precinct Captain Email Says Kosmas Staffers Claimed to be from FDP, Deceptive Scheme Revealed by Caller ID...
By Brad Friedman on 8/8/2008 3:22pm PT  

[UPDATED: Florida Democratic Party responds to this report. See bottom of article for details.]

A Democratic candidate running in a contested primary for the U.S. House seat representing Florida's 24th Congressional District has filed an official complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), alleging that his opponent has been making illegal and deceptive campaign calls from within the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) offices, on party phone lines.

In a statement sent to The BRAD BLOG blasting his opponent, Clint Curtis described the tactics being used by the Suzanne Kosmas campaign as "the worst example of Rovian dirty tricks."

Curtis, a Florida computer programmer turned well-known vote-rigging/anti-corruption whistleblower (see BRAD BLOG's years-long coverage of Curtis here) has filed a complaint charging that paid campaign staffers for his opponent in the August 26th Democratic Primary, former state Rep. Kosmas, "have been contacting Democratic primary election voters and fraudulently identifying themselves as calling on behalf of the Florida Democratic Party," according to the campaign's press release.

"The callers then go on to solicit votes for Kosmas in the Aug. 26 Democratic primary," the Curtis camp alleges.

The press release is posted in full at the end of this article, with a link to download the complete FEC complaint. Also at the end of the article is the full text of an email sent to Curtis and campaign manager Jerry Halberg, from a Curtis campaign staffer who also serves as a local Florida precinct captain. The precinct captain claims to have received one of the deceptive phone calls.

The email notes that the Caller ID recorded showed the call as having come from "KOSMAS FOR CONG" with the phone number 407-365-7808. A call made by The BRAD BLOG to that number this afternoon, was answered by someone identifying the number as belonging to "The Campaign for Florida of the Florida Democratic Party."

The Curtis campaign press release, issued yesterday, details the main points of Curtis' complaint to the FEC:

* Kosmas and her committee knowingly misled the democratic primary election voters as to the origination of her telephonic communications and utilized state Democratic Party offices and telephone equipment for her federal campaign.

* The Kosmas campaign claimed the state offices, which are leased by the Florida State Democratic Party, as her campaign offices in public communications with Democratic voters.

* She knowingly led the voters to believe that the communication asking for support in the primary was from the Florida Democratic Party when in fact it was from paid staffers.

"The unlawful calls continued even after the Kosmas campaign was notified of the problem," the release continues, with Curtis adding, "Her campaign was given the opportunity to rectify the violations prior to the submission of FEC charges but apparently chose not to."

The Curtis campaign says photos taken of the Democratic Party offices in Oviedo reveal how the evidence of FDP support for Kosmas was "scrubbed" after they complained. Photos said to have been taken on July 31, before Curtis complained to both the FDP and the Kosmas camp, show campaign signs for Kosmas plastered throughout the local Democratic Party facility. After the initial complaints on Aug 3rd, as the following photos purport to show, the signs were removed...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By John Gideon on 8/7/2008 4:05pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Today we have two “Featured” articles. The Connecticut Office of Veterans Affairs, under threat of a lawsuit, has allowed Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz to enter the Veterans Hospital in West Haven to register voters and to do voter education. Let’s hope this is a small hole that will finally cause the wall between the DVA and veteran’s rights to vote to crumble into dust.

More good news from the US Election Assistance Commission where computer scientist and election integrity advocate Dr Barbara Simons has been selected to fill a seat on the EAC Board of Advisors. This is a good addition as Dr. Simons will add a voice of reason to combat the voices of the vendor’s surrogates who are on that committee....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Is Forced to Agree with Obama, NASCAR, AAA, And Common Sense That It Does Save Gas...
By Jon Ponder on 8/7/2008 3:40pm PT  

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

“There are things you can do individually to save energy,” Barack Obama said last week “… Making sure your tires are properly inflated — simple thing. But we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling — if everybody was just inflating their tires. And getting regular tune-ups. You’d actually save just as much.”

Despite the fact that even NASCAR extols the gas-saving virtues of proper tire inflation on its website, the McCain campaign spent the early part of this week mocking Obama’s assertion that keeping tires inflated conserves gasoline by selling tire gauges, for a $25 donation, labeled “Obama Energy Plan.”

On Wednesday night, however, during a conference call with supporters, McCain did a complete 180 on tire inflation:

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 8/7/2008 9:29am PT  

This story is unfrickin'-believable. Or maybe it isn't. It took place in Thor Hearne country, after all. And though she didn't get arrested and thrown in jail, a similar incident happened to the Missouri Secretary of State during the 2006 election.

A voter in Kansas City on Tuesday --- one I happen to know, because he's an Election Integrity advocate in the Show Me State --- was arrested and sent to jail after he refused to show a driver's license at the polling place before attempting to vote during the state's Primary Election.

The voter is Phil Lindsey of ShowMeTheVote.org and he posted the details of his harrowing tale over at DemocraticUnderground.com, where he posts as "galloglas," after being released on Tuesday night.

He told me, via email late last night, that he's been in close touch with MO Secretary of State Robin Carnahan following the incident, and that both local media and folks such as nationally syndicated radio host Thom Hartmann have been in touch with him since the story broke last night. He was surprised, but pleased, that the incident has received so much coverage already. [UPDATE: Local Fox affiliate now covering here, for example.]

Never mind that requiring a voter to show a driver's license in MO before he or she can vote was found unconstitutional in 2006. Never mind that he showed the pollworkers a perfectly legal and proper precinct-issued voter ID card when he went to vote. Never mind that he had even called to check with the local Board of Elections before going to vote, to make sure that the ID would be acceptable. Never mind that he even brought a copy of the MO law to show the pollworkers who had demanded a driver's license (much as they had done, illegally, in a previous election he'd voted in).

The cops were called, and he ended up going to jail anyway. The charge on the citation: "Did knowingly cause a disturbance/disorderly conduct to wit: acts in a violent or tumultuous manner toward another, placing such person(s) in fear of safety by refusing to show proper I. D. when voting"...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 8/6/2008 11:09pm PT  

Unfortunately, I've been gone all day today, with appointments beginning at the crack of ridiculous, and now, going on about 3 hours of sleep, I'm on deadline for an article elsewhere at the moment. So I'm way behind in reviewing the summary of claims released by the FBI today in the Bruce Ivins anthrax case. They say he's the one, and he acted alone, in the largely circumstantial case put forward today.

For the moment then, I'll simply refer you, without comment, to the NYTimes' initial coverage today, which I was able to check while on the roll.

Likely of much more value are both the actual released documents themselves, and (undoubtedly more valuable still) expert Glenn Greenwald's early, cursory review of their "selective release" in which he does have a comment or two about the NYTimes' report. Beyond that, his caveat, as he began looking through the case today, seems worth sharing:

One critical caveat to keep at the forefront of one's mind is that when one side is in exclusive possession of all documents and can pick and choose which ones to release in full or in part in order to make their case, while leaving out the parts that undercut the picture they want to paint - which is exactly what the FBI is doing here --- then it is very easy to make things look however you want.

Beyond that, as always, I've got an open mind and will share any thoughts --- either way --- that I may have on things, as determined to be of note. Your comments on the information released today, especially since you guys may be way ahead of me, are always welcome.

UPDATE: This NPR article, as recommended in a late update by Greenwald, is very well done, as it offers replies from Ivins' attorney Paul Kemp, offering rebuttal to the main points in the one-sided case put forward today by the FBI.




Think Again. Jesse Jackson, Jr. Continues His Fight for a Constitutional Amendment...
By Mary Mancini on 8/6/2008 6:08pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Mary Mancini of the Uncounted Blog

For some reason our wild and crazy wig-wearing Founding Fathers didn't see the need to build the right to vote into the Constitution. Instead, they decided to leave it up to the individual States to determine who, where, when, and how we vote. Oh sure, some voting rights have been amended into the Constitution in the form of anti-discrimination prohibitions (15th, 19th, and 26th), but the fundamental and very human right of the franchise is nowhere to be found. Zero. Zip. Nil. Nada.

Turns out that while election integrity activists have been busy fighting against systemic disenfranchisement, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., has been introducing House Joint Resolution 28 (H.J. Res. 28) --- legislation calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting everyone the affirmative right to vote --- in every Congress since 2001, noting that "It's time to scrap the states' rights-based system we have now, and place the right to vote alongside the constitutionally-protected right to free speech."

Today, Rep. Jackson furthered his cause by releasing a statement to the press citing a new report by the Advancement Project (which "details a dizzying array of Election Day meltdowns), as well as the documentary Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections (which offers "evidence of how voting machines themselves can create problems"). Both the report and the film, he says...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By John Gideon on 8/6/2008 4:41pm PT  

Today Jennifer Brunner, the Ohio Secretary of State, announced that she has filed a counterclaim in a lawsuit with Premier (Diebold) Election Solutions. The counterclaim asks for damages, including punitive damages, against the vendor for voting machine malfunctions and for the company’s claims that warranties on equipment have expired. Brunner is arguing that problems with the voting systems caused votes to be “dropped” when memory cards were uploaded to the server. There is evidence that this happened in at least 11 of the 43 counties that used Diebold DREs in past elections. The company, apparently, agrees there was a problem, as they issued a product advisory on this problem in May. One question is outstanding now: How many counties in how many states had the same problem and never realized it? It’s time to cut our loses and get rid of those damn machines....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




As The Media's Case Against Bruce Ivins Seems to be Going from Bad to Worse...
By Brad Friedman on 8/5/2008 7:46pm PT  

-- Brad Friedman

The case against the supposed "Anthrax Killer," Bruce E. Ivins, a researcher who worked at the Army lab confirmed by the government as being the source for the dry, powdered anthrax used in the letters targeted mainly at Democrats and other perceived "liberals," is going from bad to worse. At least the coverage of it from mainstream outlets such as AP is.

We noted, when we first jumped into this horrendous beat last Friday, that AP and many of the other corporate outlets failed to even bother noting the perceived "liberals" who made up the targets of the post-9/11 terrorist attacks. Today, Glenn Greenwald (who's been doing yeoman's work on this beat) notes AP's latest unnamed government source-based buffoonery.

Offering a fresh new bizarre angle in the anthrax case --- as per their wont, from "Multiple U.S. officials," all unnamed and all who "spoke on condition of anonymity" --- AP purports to explain Ivins' supposed seven-hour round-trip drive from Frederick, MD, to Princeton, NJ, to mail his letters, by describing a long-term obsession he supposedly had with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.

"The bizarre link to the sorority," AP's report proffers based on leaks from those unnamed officials, "may indirectly explain one of the biggest mysteries in the case: why the anthrax was mailed from Princeton, 195 miles from the Army biological weapons lab the anthrax is believed to have been smuggled out of."

Oookay...we'll bite. But then, with the unsubstantiated genie out of the bottle, a few problems appeared as AP's initial report then morphed shortly thereafter, and an update was filed...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By John Gideon on 8/5/2008 4:25pm PT  

In Kansas it appears that poll workers are not responsible to ensure a voter is voting on the correct ballot. Today’s featured article relates an issue that happened in the polls today. At least 4 voters checked-in at their poll site and were assigned a machine. The voters went to the open machine and selected the WRONG ballot which kept them from voting on an important bond issue. County election officials blame the voters. However, in most states the poll workers ensure the voter will vote on the correct ballot. What the reporter doesn’t tell us, probably because she didn’t ask, is how many voters chose the wrong ballot and voted, incorrectly, on the bond issue....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Party Affiliation of the Now-Deceased Bruce Ivins, as Confirmed by His Local County Board of Elections, Adds Yet Another Curious Question to the Increasingly Troubling Investigation into the Post-9/11 Terrorist Attacks on American Soil...
By Brad Friedman on 8/4/2008 6:13pm PT  

-- Brad Friedman

Bruce E. Ivins, reportedly on the verge of being indicted for capital murder in the anthrax killings, was a registered Democrat, according to the Fredrick County, MD, Board of Elections. He had been registered there since 1982 and records indicate that he voted in "every election since 1996," including Democratic primaries, according to the official who responded to a request from West Virginia-based radio host Bob Kincaid.

The party affiliation of the bio-terror researcher who worked at U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) adds a notable twist to the ever increasing questions surrounding the bizarre case following Ivins' reported suicide last week. He was, according to media reports, soon to be indicted for charges related to the post-9/11 terror attacks that rocked the nation and, as Salon's Glen Greenwald has very effectively argued, served as a crucial influence in marching the country towards war with Iraq.

Last week, as the story of Ivins' reported suicide was breaking, The BRAD BLOG excoriated the corporate mainstream media for failing to note that the targets of the multiple post-9/11 terror attacks on American soil were primarily powerful men, perceived as "liberals" by the Republican right wing. Nonetheless, despite two senior Democratic U.S. senators, Tom Daschle of SD and Patrick Leahy of VT, having been the only known governmental targets in the deadly letter campaign which also included perceived "liberal" media figurehead Tom Brokaw, the MSM coverage --- almost uniformly --- failed to note the obvious correlations in the attacks. Most even failed to even mention the names of those who were directly targeted in what was clearly meant to appear as a follow-up attack from Muslim extremists.

Furthermore, as we also noted on Friday, despite a parade of reporters who had contacted Ivins' oldest brother Thomas that day for comment, not one of them --- until us --- bothered even to inquire about Bruce's political leanings or affiliations.

That it now turns out Ivins was a registered Democrat adds yet another curious twist to a story which is already revealing bizarre and potentially exculpatory evidence and other cracks in the government's reported (though, as yet, not publicly disclosed) case against him. Today, the New York Times noted, as we similarly did yesterday, that the FBI's case against Ivins appears to be almost entirely circumstantial, at least based on the information so far available...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By John Gideon on 8/4/2008 4:26pm PT  

Today’s featured article begins: “Although the United States prides itself on its commitment to democracy, its electoral system hardly qualifies as world-class. Putting aside the well-documented problems with electronic voting, hanging chads, and inept ballot designs—we are a country that does not even ensure that its polling places have sufficient ballots, adequate staff or enough space to avoid lengthy lines on election day. During this past Democratic primary season, state after state was “surprised” by larger than expected voter turnouts; it was as if the only people who were not aware of heightened interest in the elections were those in charge of ensuring enough ballots. We are now three months from the November elections. Have cash-strapped states further consolidated precincts so as to virtually guarantee long waits to vote? Is anyone ensuring that enough ballots will be printed to address a likely historically large turnout? If past experience is a guide, unless focus is placed on these issues now, expect what happened in Ohio in 2004 to be replicated across the nation this November.” ...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By John Gideon on 8/3/2008 4:50pm PT  

Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org

Our featured article today is an editorial from the New York Times who have correctly labeled the Feinstein-Bennett Bill, S.3212, as a BAD electronic voting bill. In their opening graf the Times Editorial Board says, “Congress has stood idly by while states have done the hard work of trying to make electronic voting more reliable. Now the Senate is taking up a dangerous bill introduced by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Robert Bennett, Republican of Utah that would make things worse in the name of reform. If Congress will not pass a strong bill, it should apply the medical maxim: first, do no harm.” Do no harm indeed. This bill is bad legislation and will do a lot of harm. It needs to be plowed under. Read more about the bill HERE And then call your Senators and demand they say NO to this BAD legislation....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




Then Returns to Similar Questions About Ivins' Lack of Access to 'Dry, Powdered Anthrax' in Sunday Article
New WaPo Story Begs Additional New Questions in Feds' Purported Case...
By Brad Friedman on 8/3/2008 3:01pm PT  

-- Brad Friedman

We're glad it's the Washington Post, and not just us "bloggers," asking questions about this anthrax case. Had we been the ones pointing to the questions that WaPo is now pointing to, we'd have been accused of forwarding "just another conspiracy theory" and the notable questions raised might have been relegated to the trash-bin of history.

Since it's WaPo raising the questions, on the other hand, the trash-bin will take an extra day or two to fill up, but we suspect the results may eventually be the same: Legend will have it that the lone "Anthrax Killer," Bruce E. Ivins, killed himself just before he was to be indicted on capital murder charges. Case closed on the previously-unsolved deadly series of terrorist attacks that occurred on American soil since 9/11.

That said, it's certainly odd the way that WaPo has been covering this story. While their top story on page A1 today is headlined "Scientists Question FBI's Probe of Anthrax Attacks" and sub-titled "Ivins Could Not Have Been Attacker, Some Say," the paper nonetheless managed to scrub from their website --- or at least completely replace --- a story they ran originally on Friday afternoon questioning the same points (whether Ivins had the means, ability, or access to the dry, weaponized anthrax used in the attack letters against senior Democratic Senators and other perceived "liberals") with another that greatly softened concerns about those questions.

No retraction or correction notice --- unethically, in our opinion --- was given for WaPo's odd swaperoo. The Friday WaPo story we linked to that day --- which was dated "Friday, August 1, 2008; 5:46 PM" and reported that that the purported "Anthrax Killer," Bruce E. Ivins, "had no access to dry, powdered anthrax" at his U.S. Army bioweapons lab in Fort Detrick, MD --- was simply swapped out with a completely different story in its place on the matter, dated Saturday, August 2, 2008. The same URL was used for both stories, but the Saturday story didn't have the bulk of the reporting which quoted named experts and colleagues questioning Ivins' ability to even carry out such an attack.

After noticing the swap/excising of the original Friday story (hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter Bruce Sims), we were set to run a story focusing on the spiked report, when we then checked today's paper to see that they were leading the Sunday edition with a story that raised many of those same questions from the Friday story again.

Fortunately, we cached the original Friday story here, before it was disappeared and replaced, and have done the same for today's story, should that one go missing as well. Comparisons between WaPo's (disappeared) Friday, Saturday, and Sunday coverage is curious enough, however, --- and offers some fresh, additional unanswered questions --- that it seems worth noting all of it, and the differences in each days' coverage, for the record...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---




By Brad Friedman on 8/2/2008 11:23pm PT  


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