In late October 1968, Beverly Deepe, a 33-year-old Saigon correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, came upon a story that could have changed history. A six-year veteran covering the Vietnam War, she learned from South Vietnamese sources that Richard Nixon’s campaign was collaborating behind the scenes with the Saigon government to derail President Lyndon Johnson’s peace talks.

On Oct. 28, Deepe sent her startling information to her Monitor editors in the United States, asking them to have the Washington bureau “check out a report that [South Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States] Bui Diem had sent a cable to the Foreign Ministry about contact with the Nixon camp,” she told me in a recent e-mail exchange.

At that moment in 1968, the stakes surrounding Nixon’s secret contacts could hardly be higher. With half a million U.S. soldiers serving in the war zone – and with more than 30,000 already dead – a peace deal could have saved countless lives, both American and Vietnamese. Progress toward a settlement also could have meant defeat for Nixon on Election Day, Nov. 5.

Don’t Forget About Vote Purging In Texas and Ohio

Mr. Thomas E Stewart, lobbyist for the Oil and Gas industry and executive director of Ohio Oil and Gas Association based out Granville Ohio, testified before the House Public Utilities Commission on May 22nd, 2012 concerning Governor Kasich’s ‘Energy Bill’, SB 315. Many amendments were offered to SB 315 concerning full chemical disclosure, dye tracers, fresh water well testing, local decision making on well placement and background checks for well operators, that would have added much needed protection for Ohioans, but these were disregarded for the most part in favor of a ‘gag’ rule which ties the hands of first responders and doctors in treating anyone affected by a toxic spill or drill site accident.

What we got tonight, June 5th, in Wisconsin was the same old stench, coming from the same old corner of the room, even more pungent than usual. If it smells a bit acrid to you, that would be the ashes of your democracy still smoldering. To wit, there was a huge turnout (highly favorable to the Democratic candidate Barrett), in fact they're still waiting in line to vote in Milwaukee and elsewhere nearly two hours after poll closing; and the immediate post-closing Exit Polls had it a dead heat, 50%-50%. But the only place those polls were posted was as a Bar Chart in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Not a single network posted any Exit Poll numbers, though they all have been regularly posting them throughout the 2012 primary season within a few minutes of poll closing. But they all called the race "extremely tight," since they were looking at the same 50%-50% Exit Poll that the Journal Sentinel at least had the courage to post in some format.

"It was a great demonstration of democracy, whether you agree or disagree with the outcome," Huffington Post's political reporter Howard Fineman told Ed Schultz on MSNBC late tonight, while discussing the results of the historic Wisconsin recall elections.

Fineman's comment is either accurate or it is not. Just as the results reported by the computers across the Badger State are either accurate or not. Who knows? Nobody in WI does, and that's exactly the problem.

The early Exit Poll results had reportedly predicted the race between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett a virtual tie, leading media to plan for a long night tonight. A second round of Exit Polls results, however, were said to have given Walker a broader lead over Barrett. Even so, we were told, the race based on the Exit Poll data alone was still "too close to call." That data was either accurate or it was not.