I'm officially surprised that there weren't more disruptions with the electronic voting machines. A percent or two may have been covertly shifted, possibly even in favor of some Democrats, but I had been expecting intentionally visible hacks from non-Establishment sources.

If that's because the technology was still too new, in 2008 it won't be. I hope it's not because even all the outside hackers were restrained enough to do their work quietly...

I won't be following this blog for much longer, it's pro-democracy but too pro-Democrat. (Hopefully the Democrats will use all their energy on impeachment and minor adjustments like the minimum wage, and not do too much evil.)

435 House Districts were involved in this election ... some of those districts composed from up to 26 chunks out of 26 counties. That is what we call gerrymandering.

Absent that gerrymandering the election would have taken your breath away. Another 50 house seats would have been taken away from the republican dictatorship (now rapidly evaporating) leaving about 150.

Gerrymandering is another anti-democracy evil which, alongwith the evoting machines, must be fixed NOW.

I believe the failure of voting machines, their vulnerabilities and manipulation, is being glossed over in the emotional wave of surprise. The Democratic Party won so overwhelmingly there is a temptation to say "what could be wrong?" What could be wrong is still wrong. The media paid attention to the story only at the last minute and is now, I think, prepared to say it was tantamount to the Y2K scare. I believe this would be a devastating mistake and I hope that Rep Conyers and others decide to keep the issue on the front burner. He is the only guy I can think of in Federal government who bothered to look seriously into the problems. I suspect he is the only one right now who still has an interest, but he will be pulled in a thousand directions now that he has leadership duties in the upcoming Congressional session. I recommend the BradBlog constituency begin assembling its data, honing its presentations, and funneling it to Rep Conyers. If there are others in the Fed who have demonstrated interested in the issue, who are they?

If our newly-elected Congress listens to the clear mandate of the american people, they will not only bring the GOP dirty tricksters to justice via subpoenas, legitimate investigations, and/or definite plans to overhaul our EVM disaster, they will also begin by "policing their own" in the form of Steney Hoyer, co-author of the HAVA bill which set this corruptible system into motion. Thanks to the bi-partisan site (blackboxvoting.org) they've provided much insight into now-indicted Bob Ney & Steney Hoyer's intimate connections to KStreet Lobbyists and the VoteHere organization. Does anyone believe any longer that this was a bill designed to help & protect the rights of the handicapped? I don't think so, as we've seen it usher in a new type of voter fraud via corrupted, hackable voting machines mandated by this HAVA bill.

It would behoove the new Congress to get to the bottom of Hoyer's connections with this erosion of our constitutional rights....his complicity, if any, before they move very much farther. A full-scale investigation needs to occur into this - if the Dems mean what they say about "ridding Washington of corruption". Corruption is not exclusively Republican, as we all know. Protecting "their own" will no longer be tolerated by the american people, if this is what potentially is occurring in this case.

I see a veritable "can of worms" in the appointment of Robert Gates....his connections to VoteHere (largest voting industry lobbyist), Bob Ney and Steney Hoyer....and it smells pretty rotten! And, I suspect that there will be many insiders spilling their guts now that the secret mantle of the neocon regime has been pierced. Bring the info out...the american people deserve absolutely NOTHING LESS. It's Time to truly rid Washington of corruption and that includes both sides of the aisle!! If this does not occur, there will be a third party soon in this country, I'm certain.

And while Pelosi and her cadre of self-aggrandizers continue to "par-tay" hearty, they'd better be rolling up their sleeves soon for the fight of their lives. Repugs aren't rolling over that easily....their bigger fight (and possible win) will be the White House in 08. Forewarned is forearmed, Dems....don't lull yourself into an egomaniacal snooze now....we expect you to dig your heels into some very tough work....there's an avalanche of corruption upon you (some of which is your very own) and, if you do not do the necessary housekeeping and housecleaning, then your reign will be very brief. If the Dems blow the expectations of the american people who have spoken loudly, then it will well be over for them.

Diebolds, ESS, Sequoias! When will it ever stop?

#3 Gtash,
I wholeheartedly agree that , as you wrote,
"...there is a temptation to say "what could be wrong?" ...to say it was tantamount to the Y2K scare.
...this would be a devastating mistake and I hope that Rep Conyers and others decide to keep the issue on the front burner..."

What is the most effective way to do that? I write letters & send emails, which feels like a very puny effort compared to the tireless work done by folks like Brad. I signed the IMPEACH FOR CHANGE petition posted by Kira on an earlier thread, as I hope others did. That feels puny too.
Not complainin', just not feeling terribly effective.

gtash # 3 I think we can forget Congressman John Conyers Jr. Read below:

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, November 10, 2006

The latest Democrat "saviour" to flip flop 180 degrees in light of their victory is Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. Presumed to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in January, Conyers today said that impeachment of President Bush "is off the table."

"In this campaign, there was an orchestrated right-wing effort to distort my position on impeachment," Conyers said in a statement released by his Judiciary Committee spokesman. "The incoming speaker (Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.) has said that impeachment is off the table. I am in total agreement with her on this issue: Impeachment is off the table."

I am just sickened by this news!!

To Joan of #7,

I totally understand your feelings of your "puny" efforts to participate in this current design of governance. I applaud your desire to do more. It is no accident that the majority of citizens really can't do much, save for a few minor things like writing letters, both hand-written and e-mailed, like you, Joan. For the vast majority of citizens, that is the extent of active participation of this "democracy" as currently designed. It is designed this way on purpose.

The entire system has to be scrapped. It cannot be saved in any meaningful way that would transparently reflect the real will of the of the many persons who voted in today's system of governance. The reasons that this is so are so numerous that it would take a book to describe them fully, but I can attempt to highlight one reason a little bit.

Firstly, one essential problem with the current system is that there are very, very few real People who exist--most of the "People" are mere "persons", who are legal-fiction corporate entities that are subject to the jurisdiction of the current "government", per the 14th Amendment of the fatally-flawed Constitution. Anyone who is not a "person" (one is a legal-fiction person through the nexus of SS numbers, voter registration, Driver ID and so on) is, by default, one of the Whole Number of the People that once populated the American Republic and such People cannot vote in any of the current elections because they have to register to vote. In the act of registering to vote, there is always a little box on the registration card that is a legally-enforceable declaration of one's status as a "U.S. citizen"...which is a citizen of a CORPORATION, **NOT** a dejure government. Go check it out--take a look at a voter registration card and see for yourself. If one is born an American, why does one need to "declare" to be a U.S. citizen? And look up the word "person" in the Black's Law Dictionary, the 6th Edition and see for yourself the current meaning of the term, "person".

I will look up the words myself right now...

Current legal definition of "person":

"Person
An entity with legal rights and existence including the ability to sue and be sued, to sign contracts, to receive gifts, to appear in court either by themselves or by lawyer and,..."

Now let's look up "entity":

"entity
n. a general term for any institution, company, corporation, partnership, government agency, university or any other organization..."

Original definition of "person", per the Bouvier's Law Dictionary, the standard by which the original American Republic was based on:

"PERSON. This word is applied to men, women and children, who are called natural persons..."

See the difference? Huge difference.

The US "government" as we know it is, in fact, a CORPORATION. That is a fact. In a true Republic of the People, all corporations are supposed to be subservient to any and all People, but, over time, the powers got flipped around and now it is the persons who are slaves to corporations; most of all, the persons who vote in today's systems are chattel of today's largest corporation, the USA, Inc, per the 14th Amendment.

The original American Republic has long, long been dead (it died on March 27, 1861). In it's place has arisen a CORPORATION, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Inc., that masquerades as a dejure Republic when it is factually the opposite. It is a military "government" by nature, as opposed to being a dejure civil government; the military "government" does NOT obey any civil laws in which the military government operates...but it can masquarade as a civil government until the right time comes when its mask would need to come off and that time is rapidly approaching.

The example of the definition one little, important word, "person", is one example of the problem with the entire system of governance that exists today--the devil is in the details.

Mozart

I think you mean de jure, in law... as compared with de facto, in fact. Maybe you are trying to point out how we think in terms of de facto persons while being treated as de jure persons, but that's only legalese, legal reasoning, not particularly helpful in terms of defining America. While we may be a country of laws, not of men, We The People has never meant "legal entities", de jure persons.

It means actual humans.

I wish we'd do a better job of acting like them.

And, if all America is to you is a geographical region with a de jour government, this is not a good sign. That's the kind of awful legal reasoning we've seen coming out of John Yoo and Alberto "El Torturador" Gonzalez.

Hi Agent99,

Firstly, I appreciate all your efforts on behalf of us People (and persons) on this board and other areas.

Secondly, I'd like to point out that it's the other way around in terms of how "we think in terms of defacto persons"; most persons who vote think of themselves in terms of de jure, but the reality is that we are being treated as legal-fiction persons, de facto.

To understand "Legalese" is extremely important, not trivial.

There are three main systems of "law": the 1st is the Ecclesiastical law, which pertains to churches; the 2nd is the "Substantive Law", which is the Common Law and the Organic Constitutional Law, as Lawfully Amended; the 3rd is the "color of law", which is corporate, legal-fiction "law" that is lawfully subservient to Substantive Law, but today, the "color of law" system is the dominant form of "law" and it is this system of "law" that dominates the ENTIRE sphere of governance as we know it--the Legislative, Excecutive, the Judicial branches, as well as the US citizen voters who have been fooled into thinking that they are in charge of the "government" through the nexus of voting.

US citizen = legal-fiction person

A Citizen of a Republic state = one of We the People

Like I say, the devil is in the details and it is in the details--thousands of details--is how We the People have lost our Republic and, over time, have been converted into legal-fiction, citizen/slaves of the current color of law system that governs the voter-persons, de facto. Not de jure.

Yup, I agree that we'd need to do a better job of acting more respectful towards each other.

Mozart

You seem to have missed my point, and I'm sorry I wasn't being clear. We need to quit climbing out to the end of legal limbs, and get back to the true intent and spirit of the founding documents, and of laws. Whatever merit there may be in your assertions, they aren't useful to fixing our country. The neocons have been trying to dismantle it, and using such out-there legalisms to further completely unconstitutional things. While the founding documents are, or have been, used in law, they were not set out for us as a means to make us de jure persons, but to insure we would all end up as fully persons as we can manage to make possible for each other.

That there is a swath of the population working tirelessly in opposition to this, most of whom wave American flags and spew hate, does not mean our country needs a complete overhaul, an entirely new form of government. ANY government, or even powerful group, can, and, clearly, will end up fitting your specs when the people do not take enough interest in preventing it. Do you propose Americans never check a box, that anyone living here can just walk in and cast their vote, that there be no borders, no immigration laws, no civic activities that require us to acknowledge in any way that we are responsible for our behavior, are subject to laws?

What does this have to do with taking the murderous power from the plutocrats and kleptocrats who flout the laws badly enough already? How is that going to make us the kind of nation that supports each and every one of us in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? How in the heck is stripping this country down beyond its foundation to replace it with something else any different than what the neocons, the unitary executive (monarchist) fiends, have been doing?

It seems dirt simple to me. We stop fucking with the planet's wealth and resume making our country work for everyone, and everyone equal under the law, and the truly new and improved America will spring from that. Joan is not impotent in this. Neither are you. Neither am I. We simply have to remember it, and give all of our energy to it, regardless of whether our jobs, social standing and even lives are lost in so doing.

The problem is the priority of selfishness over altruism. The felons who like to be known as Republicans lately know this about us and use it. We are not really too stupid to see through their shtick: We are too unwilling to risk our comfort, too unwilling to stretch our wits and energies to include such large scale demands on our time, we are too ungrateful for all those who have already given their lives so that we might be this comfortable and free.

I once watched a cormorant raid the pond by my house. He was far worse than the proverbial kid in a candy store. He ate himself to abject torpor, couldn't move he was so full, beached himself on the bank of the pond for two hours, completely helpless against predators the while. THAT is what is being exploited to turn America into a third world country. The population is like that cormorant, but the numbers who are hungry enough to drop their fear for themselves are growing exponentially.

If we don't snap out of it pretty soon, you might get your chance to redo our country, or someone quicker and nastier than you, more likely. It's rarely the good guys who fill the vacuum left by revolution. I really wish you'd put your mind to strengthening our new Democratic Majority instead of do-overs of the Constitution. Our government isn't obsolete; it's just broken. We can fix it. All that takes is putting our asses on the line. Something we USED to be famous for.

We need to face it: There is no decent government, no freedom, for people who will not overcome their complacency, selfishness and reluctance to be plucked out of the herd. That way only lies fascism, totalitarianism. Period.

Brilliant, 99!

We need to use our excellent Constitution - restore it & use what's there to make our country better than it ever was before. Put the bullies in Time Out and show them we won't let them wreak anymore havoc without serious punishment. That will curtail their ability to usurp.

Right on, sistah.

You know, there was a time when i could read all the articles posted on "Daily Voting News". But recently, i have to pick and choose because there are so many.
The Sarasota mess was on the front page of the PBPost yesterday,Jenning's lawyer wants experts to come in and test the machines.The elections supervisor is Republican, denies any evidence of malfunction of any of the voting machines.Oh dear, time to blame the voter, again. 18,382 of them.

These e-voting machines must go, and election reform must get here quick. My hope is with the new Dem majority, someone will listen, and read the letters and e-mails.It's annoying to get those electronic responses from Senators and Reps responding to "voter fraud" instead of election fraud. You just know nobody read your message right, if they read it at
all.

There must be a way to get them to listen to the experts like Brad, and not the salespeople for the companies that make these illegal machines.

99~

A lot of good stuff that you said in your #12 post.

Not at all. What I have in mind is a highly-interactive governmental structure that would allow a maximum of Sovereign Citizen (note the capitalized "C") involvement for the best possible benefit for all who exist on American land...and the rest of the world, wherever peacefully possible. Anarchy is not a viable solution; co-operation is.

Interesting Cormorant story. I love nature-based allegorical stories. Most of what you said in the bulk of your #12 post is good stuff--can't disagree there.

I agree that we need to put our asses on the line. Ok, here's where getting really clear as to what we (the People and persons) are talking about--our perceptions and actions taken based on perceptions.

99, you use the term "Our government"--exactly whose "government" are you talking about that is "fixable"?

How can a "government" that is fueled, powered and directed by the Powers That Be ('PTB'...who are the owners of the major fiat banks of the western world) who direct this de facto "government" be subject to the will of the voting persons who are under the jurisdiction of such a government? Who is in charge of the printed money that is the lifeblood of this PTB-powered government? The People? Not the People, no way--witness the many TRILLIONS of dollars that have been invested in the miliary-industrial complex alone over the objections of many persons? Who was really in charge of the oversight of the disbursement of those trillions of dollars of supposedly "People's" money? Who?

I'd just love to have the Original Constitution, as Lawfully Amended, to be used in a revival of America, despite the fatal flaws in said Constitution, but the vast majority of the persons who vote in America do not truly understand the fundamentals that undergird the Organic Constitution, do not truly understand the real history of the founding/destruction of the original Republic and have no means of making meaningful changes in the current "governmental" structure other than voting and other mildly-direct democractic action.

I'd love to "fix" the current form of this "government" and use it as it is, with a number of changes that would favor the People, but what chances are there of fixing this current form of "government" if the People are not in charge of the issuance and control of the currency that is created by the Federal Reserve?

Forget "laws" and Laws; forget voting; forget democracy; forget Constitutions; forget "government"...think of the one central thing that is the very lifeblood of power. The ONE thing that makes power work, that directs the flow of resources all over the globe, that causes wars to happen, that supports the various war-based industrial complexes. And what is that ONE thing?

It is: money.

Who controls the money controls the world.

It's like voting--its the counting of votes that really counts, not the voting itself, right? So, given today's current governmental structure, how do you propose for the persons in America take control of the Federal Reserve? How on earth can that happen?

In todays world as currently stuctured, a defined medium of exchange that is widely used with national borders is the most common form of distribution of resources. The how, why, where, when, what of the distribution of resources is the job of governance to ensure that the use of the resources is done with the highest good for all participants (this is the ideal version), including earth herself. The WHO of the controlling the issuance of the accepted currency is **the key** in controlling the governmental structure that is set up to handle the governance of the People.

S/he who controls the issuance of currency, controls what happens in the nation. So how can today's persons gain control of the Federal Reserve so that they could control all the existing governments and corporations?

Any effort to change in America's current form of "government" must include real change in WHO controls the Federal Reserve (or another institution that creates the money to be used by Americans) if you want *REAL* change in today's form of government.

Says Thoreau: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil for every one who is striking at the root."

The root of any power--beit government, military or People--is money and who controls the money controls the nation.

Says M. A. Rothschild: "Let me issue and control a nation's currency and I care not who makes the laws."

M. A. Rothschild was a key player in the Rothschild dynasty, the most powerful bank-owning family in the world...I think that he knew exactly what he was talking about. I rest my case on his quote alone.

Mozart

Well, now you are talking about the shadow government as opposed to the one we, ostensibly, when it is fixed, control. Part of fixing it is rooting out that shadow government, along with repairing the "legislation" that has nullified the constitution. Butts on the line. Serious work. Not for the faint of heart. The bankers get their butts kicked right along with the other traitors.

You will probably like this a lot. I've been listening to it all night. Plan to keep listening.

You will probably also like this a lot too. I've watched it a couple of times.

Our system of government is supposed to include taking care of this sort of thing. It has not been, and it has not been in a long time, but it CAN and we CAN fix it. You can't legislate altruism (co-operation) and how about Paris Hilton or Britney Spears for Sovereign Citizens to co-operate with... or Rick Santorum... or some of dem gangsta rappas...? No. Government is good when it is afraid of us. We are not supposed to be afraid of it. A lot of people have to put their butts on the line, or it's all over. ALL over... even with our new Congress.

Thanks for that 2nd link, Agent 99 #16 - a new one for me.

Hey, Kira... Yer welcome. The links on Winter's sidebar really rock.

I say this because the more we know about what's really going on in the world, the better chance we have of saving it. The people are going to get a lot more interested in stopping the electoral fraud when they start getting an idea about what has really been at stake while their votes were being ripped off. The meme about how it doesn't matter who you vote for --- they're all crooked --- is literally killing us.

My parents came to visit this weekend. I managed to get it through to them that 9/11 cannot, by the laws of physics themselves, have been anything but an inside job, a self-inflicted wound, a false flag operation. My dad, 79, said, "Oh, man. When enough people find out about it, these guys are in trouble." That's my out of touch old poppa talking. The one who worked his fingers to the bone to raise me.

99, my folks [80] caught on with me as I shared my research with them back in 2004. It was hard to accept, but we aren't just anybody's fools. We've devoured every piece of information we can find in our search for the truth. My dad has an engineering background so he understands the work of Prof. Steven Jones. I don't have the training, but I do have a brain & I do use it sometimes

Operation Northwoods is a powerful document and so are the PNAC docs. Now we know about many False Flag Ops., thanks to The History Channel's "Declassified" series. Kudos, History Channel!

I descend from a full-blood Native American and even though several generations separate us, I always tried to see things through my ancestor's eyes as well as mine. The attempted genocide of the Native American people by the settlers who landed on Turtle Island is a painful clue.

Manifest Destiny was written in an attempt to ease the guilty conscience. It reminds me of Dick Cheney trying desperately to convince us that torture is not really torture. At least, not when you've convinced yourself that God is on your side and not on theirs. And that makes them sub-human. It's the only way to handle the burden of hypocrisy and malevolence generated by selfishness & greed. That sort of shoots the "oh they wouldn't do that" argument right in the foot.

I'm grateful to David Ray Griffin, Ray McGovern, Craig Paul Roberts, Prof. Steven Jones, Martin & Charlie Sheen, Sibel Edmonds, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Webster Tarpley and a host of others who have published much information the 9/11 Commission simply ignored.

So, as I research this difficult subject, I like to remember something Sherlock Holmes famously said. "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Agent 99 #18

You said:

The meme about how it doesn't matter who you vote for — they're all crooked — is literally killing us.

That is indeed a huge stumbling block, but now that the Democrats have a chance to disprove it...

Well, lets just say, THEY BETTER NOT BLOW IT!

Yep, Kira, and yep, Larry.