Global
It's been a bad 12 months for American journalism. Given fourth estate gullibility regarding Bush's WMD claims, plus fictioneering at The New York Times and USA Today, I'd been hoping (with the dulled, hopeless hope that people on Death Row clutch to their bosoms) that maybe this year the Pulitzer Board would give its prizes a pass, at least so far as the press is concerned.
But the Pulitzer industry, eternally clubby and corrupt, is designed in part to reassure the citizens that, all available evidence notwithstanding, the press is a vigilant watchdog for our liberties and fully deserves those Constitutional protections that guarantee it a 20 percent rate of return on capital invested.
But the Pulitzer industry, eternally clubby and corrupt, is designed in part to reassure the citizens that, all available evidence notwithstanding, the press is a vigilant watchdog for our liberties and fully deserves those Constitutional protections that guarantee it a 20 percent rate of return on capital invested.
Machines will produce 99.4% of the election results for the upcoming 2004 presidential election. With all the hoopla over voting machine "glitches," porous software, leaked memos, and the creepy corporations that sell and service these contraptions, and with all the controversy that surrounds campaign financing, voter registration, redistricting issues, and the general privatization of the election process - we are missing the boat on the biggest crisis facing our democracy.
Americans aren't really voting. Machines are. Call it faking democracy.
And no one seems to be challenging it. As far as I can tell from my own investigations and from discussions with law professors, attorneys, and others, there has never been a lawsuit that challenges the right of machines to be used in the voting process. Recent lawsuits that have been filed by Susan Marie Webber of California and Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) are based on verification. The plaintiffs want voting machines to produce paper ballots so that voters can verify that the machine's output matched their input. They also want paper ballots for manual audits and recounts.
Americans aren't really voting. Machines are. Call it faking democracy.
And no one seems to be challenging it. As far as I can tell from my own investigations and from discussions with law professors, attorneys, and others, there has never been a lawsuit that challenges the right of machines to be used in the voting process. Recent lawsuits that have been filed by Susan Marie Webber of California and Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) are based on verification. The plaintiffs want voting machines to produce paper ballots so that voters can verify that the machine's output matched their input. They also want paper ballots for manual audits and recounts.
Please get the word out: REQUEST AN ABSENTEE BALLOT!!! Nice,
hardcopy ballot. Re-countable. Easy to obtain. As a temporary
solution.
We can figure out the complex, multi-jurisdictional electronic voting maching problems AFTER THIS CRUCIAL '04 election. There is no time now. PLEASE ALERT PEOPLE to this temporary solution. I'm not saying stop current efforts to change the voting system--watchdogging, challenging, pressuring, seeking legislation, suing, etc. But the Republican Congress is NOT going to fix this before Nov. '04--nor can anyone else.
And we have a built-in solution.
We can figure out the complex, multi-jurisdictional electronic voting maching problems AFTER THIS CRUCIAL '04 election. There is no time now. PLEASE ALERT PEOPLE to this temporary solution. I'm not saying stop current efforts to change the voting system--watchdogging, challenging, pressuring, seeking legislation, suing, etc. But the Republican Congress is NOT going to fix this before Nov. '04--nor can anyone else.
And we have a built-in solution.
The National Day of Silence will be held this year on Wednesday, April 21,
and at Ohio State, the day will conclude with students presenting stories,
poems, essays, and other work about being LGBT, in what is being called the
"Night of Noise." The event will feature a reading by Kevin Kumashiro, the
director of the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education in El Cerrito,
California, and the editor of Restoried Selves: Autobiographies of Queer
Asian-Pacific-American Activists.
Lee Gough won’t be paying her federal income taxes this year.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the artist and part-time temp worker won’t be setting money aside for April 15th – just that the federal government won’t be getting any of it. The 37-year old Brooklynite has decided to make 2004 the year that she takes a stand, a move she’s been working towards for some time now. “I’ve asked the temp agency to increase the number of allowances on my W-4 form, and when I had unemployment I told them not to take any taxes out,” she says. “I’ve also stopped paying the federal excise tax on my phone bill, and when tax time comes along, I’ll take the $13 I’ve collected and redirect it to a more worthy cause.”
That doesn’t mean, however, that the artist and part-time temp worker won’t be setting money aside for April 15th – just that the federal government won’t be getting any of it. The 37-year old Brooklynite has decided to make 2004 the year that she takes a stand, a move she’s been working towards for some time now. “I’ve asked the temp agency to increase the number of allowances on my W-4 form, and when I had unemployment I told them not to take any taxes out,” she says. “I’ve also stopped paying the federal excise tax on my phone bill, and when tax time comes along, I’ll take the $13 I’ve collected and redirect it to a more worthy cause.”
Lee Gough won’t be paying her federal income taxes this year.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the artist and part-time temp worker won’t be setting money aside for April 15th – just that the federal government won’t be getting any of it. The 37-year old Brooklynite has decided to make 2004 the year that she takes a stand, a move she’s been working towards for some time now. “I’ve asked the temp agency to increase the number of allowances on my W-4 form, and when I had unemployment I told them not to take any taxes out,” she says. “I’ve also stopped paying the federal excise tax on my phone bill, and when tax time comes along, I’ll take the $13 I’ve collected and redirect it to a more worthy cause.”
That doesn’t mean, however, that the artist and part-time temp worker won’t be setting money aside for April 15th – just that the federal government won’t be getting any of it. The 37-year old Brooklynite has decided to make 2004 the year that she takes a stand, a move she’s been working towards for some time now. “I’ve asked the temp agency to increase the number of allowances on my W-4 form, and when I had unemployment I told them not to take any taxes out,” she says. “I’ve also stopped paying the federal excise tax on my phone bill, and when tax time comes along, I’ll take the $13 I’ve collected and redirect it to a more worthy cause.”
AUSTIN, Texas -- Iraq. What. A. Mess.
As Cousin Eddie Faulk used to say during Vietnam, "If those folks don't like what we're doin' for 'em, why don't they just go back where they come from?"
Eric Alterman sums up the position of the "We told you so" crowd thusly:
-- The invasion of Iraq will cause, not prevent terrorism.
-- The Bush administration was not to be trusted when it warned of the WMD threat.
-- Going in without the United Nations is worse than not going in at all.
-- They were asleep at the switch pre-9/11 and have been trying to cover this up ever since.
-- And they manipulated 9-11 as a pretext for a long-planned invasion of Iraq.
As Cousin Eddie Faulk used to say during Vietnam, "If those folks don't like what we're doin' for 'em, why don't they just go back where they come from?"
Eric Alterman sums up the position of the "We told you so" crowd thusly:
-- The invasion of Iraq will cause, not prevent terrorism.
-- The Bush administration was not to be trusted when it warned of the WMD threat.
-- Going in without the United Nations is worse than not going in at all.
-- They were asleep at the switch pre-9/11 and have been trying to cover this up ever since.
-- And they manipulated 9-11 as a pretext for a long-planned invasion of Iraq.
Richard Clarke was right. So was Paul O'Neill. During the six months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks the Bush administration paid little attention to the threat from al-Qaeda and instead set the stage for a war with Iraq.
Two weeks before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, national security wasn't even a top priority for the Bush administration. Security-job security, health security and national security-was last on a list of major issues Bush planned to deal with in the fall of 2001, according to a transcript http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010831-3.html of a speech Bush gave on Aug. 31, 2001 to celebrate the launch of the White House's new website.
National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, who is scheduled to testify Thursday before the commission investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks, says Clarke, President Bush's counterterrorism specialist, is a liar after Clarke told the commission two weeks ago that the Bush administration failed to deal with al-Qaeda seriously before 9/11.
Two weeks before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, national security wasn't even a top priority for the Bush administration. Security-job security, health security and national security-was last on a list of major issues Bush planned to deal with in the fall of 2001, according to a transcript http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/20010831-3.html of a speech Bush gave on Aug. 31, 2001 to celebrate the launch of the White House's new website.
National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, who is scheduled to testify Thursday before the commission investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks, says Clarke, President Bush's counterterrorism specialist, is a liar after Clarke told the commission two weeks ago that the Bush administration failed to deal with al-Qaeda seriously before 9/11.
Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Ridge, Rumsfeld, Scalia, Rove
PRESIDENT BUSH: Tony! Tony! Tony! Great to have you here.
