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Critical US Supreme Court ruling against Rovian GOP vote meddling may prove temporary

A critical US Supreme Court decision against GOP voter meddling in Ohio may prove temporary.

In its on-going campaign to inject chaos and confusion into the voting process, the GOP has sued Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, demanding that she release to county boards of elections lists of registered voters whose information does not precisely match government data bases. The right to vote of such registrants---by most estimates as many as 200,000 in Ohio alone---could then be challenged on a case-by-case basis. George W. Bush was awarded Ohio's 20 electoral votes in 2004 with an official margin of less than 119,000 votes, though more than 100,000 votes cast in that election remain uncounted.

The 200,000 voters targeted by the Republican Party were all registered since January 1, 2008. News source estimates suggest 75-80% of these newly-registered voters are Obama supporters.

The plunge

http://mattbors.com

Stoning Dubya

I spent the past couple of days hanging out with Vincent Bugliosi who wants Bush killed for his crimes, following a fair trial of course, and who openly pushes the supposed need for retribution while disclaiming much interest in deterrence or restoration. Then I watched Oliver Stone's new movie, "W," which depicts Bush as a poor, sad fool who's just been trying his hardest to please his daddy all these years. If I have to choose, I'm on Stone's side.

I think Bush has been far more sadistic and cynical than Stone's depiction, but I think Stone's work opposes the spread of sadism and cynicism in his audience, while Bugliosi plays to and encourages both. At the same time, I think Bugliosi is doing more good for the world than Stone, because Stone is simply making movies, while Bugliosi is attempting to prosecute Bush for his crimes. The need to prosecute Bush, to my mind, has nothing to do with whether or not I like the man. He needs to be punished in order to deter future presidents from committing similar abuses. Is that too abstract a motivation to build a popular movement around? Is it necessary to play on people's hatred for Bush in

Monitoring the new president

Soon we will have a new president.  It is imperative that we, the members of the peace, anti-war and anti-imperialist movements, scrutinize his actions, starting with his acceptance speech, to determine whether he is taking actions that we believe will lead to real peace and justice in the world. 

Although we may not agree on some of the specifics, I have made a list of possible points below that can used as a starting point to monitor how well he is doing over the course of his term in office.  Even if he initially takes some actions that we agree with we should not let ourselves be misled into thinking that positive changes will continue to occur without continuous pressure from us. Your thoughts are welcomed.  For one thing I may have missed important points.

Has the new President:

    1.   Withdrawn U.S. troops from Iraq?

    2.   Ordered that the U.S. pay restitution to Iraq?

    3.   Withdrawn U.S. troops from Afghanistan?

    4.   Pledged to refrain from carrying out illegal cross border attacks into Pakistan?      

    5.   Stopped the U.S. campaign attack Iran?

Please protect the process!

To the Editor:

As voters in this Great State of Ohio, we demand the following of each and every newspaper in this state:

1. Inform the readers in a non-partisan nature of allegations of voter fraud.

2. Inform the readers in a non-partisan nature of lawsuits filed by each political party, the reason for those suits, and the outcome of those suits.

3. Inform the readers in a non-partisan nature of the reported number of questionable registrants.

4. Inform the readers in a non-partisan nature of how the Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner is intending to resolve those issues of voter fraud and questionable registrants before the election.

5. In light of the recent Supreme Court decision defending Secretary of State Jennifer Bunner’s decision NOT to turn over state databases to county election boards in order to validate registrants, we demand in a non-partisan nature that you report HOW these 88 counties intend to properly determine the validity of each registrant.

Ending the war without end

The three participants in the third U.S. presidential debate last week pretended Iraq didn't exist, but if you go to a rally of supporters for either candidate it's the top issue talked about. Baghdad, a city in ruins, divided into ethnically cleansed fiefdoms of rubble, rats, and open sewage, a place where one risks death by walking outside, is managing major rallies of tens of thousands of people in opposition to the treaty to extend the occupation for three more years (and beyond) that is being negotiated by Bush and Maliki. And yet, the U.S. peace movement is largely hibernating until the November 4th U.S. elections, and the U.S. Congress remains almost entirely comatose.

To a consumer of U.S. corporate media this makes some sense. The occupation is for the benefit of the people of Iraq and, with the help of "the surge", it is "succeeding." President Bush is actually working on an "agreement" to "end" the "war." Peace activists should be celebrating, right?

To begin the reeducation process necessary to recognize such positions as sick jokes, I recommend the best history of the U.S. occupation of

Suppression

The latest polls seem to have created a tidal wave of euphoria among Obama supporters.

Excuse me if I don't get swept away along with it.

I still remember going to bed thinking Gore was elected in 2000 after the networks called Florida for him. In 2004, I read through exit poll numbers the afternoon of the election and discovered that John Kerry would defeat George Bush.

As a political consultant I've been in more campaigns than I would like to count where minority candidates underperformed final polling expectations.

I'm expecting a squeaker on November 4. 

Support for Obama looks too fragile to expect otherwise. We've yet to hear from Osama bin Laden, who weighed in, you'll remember, on the eve of the 2004 election. We've yet to see any last minute action by the White House that could change the national conversation in McCain's favor. 

There are some powerful unplayed cards still in the deck----the most powerful being vote suppression.

Our national juncture

Here’s the difference between vote fraud, which is real, and voter fraud, which, though almost nonexistent, has instantly gripped the popular imagination:

The former is a complex, internal problem of democracy, the acknowledgment of which requires us to face our national contradictions and inner demons, and, applying informed intelligence, demand changes in our system so it restrains our worst impulses and truly serves our ideals; the latter is a simple, mythical problem, a variation of the familiar “us vs. them” scenario that allows “us” to feel righteously threatened and strike at “them” (and their allies) with passion and force.

The two issues — one real and deeply troubling, the other false yet familiar and compelling — define, with what I would call barbed irony, our national juncture, which is headed toward a profound resolution on Election Day, less than three weeks hence.

Terrorist from the 1960s

http://mattbors.com

Lies, damn lies, and polls

David W. Moore, who worked for Gallup for 13 years as managing editor and senior editor of the Gallup Poll, has a new book out denouncing most polls by Gallup or anyone else as useless, and explaining that this became obvious to him when he first began work at Gallup, raising the obvious question of why he stuck around for 13 years. The explanation seems to be that he was trying to fix the problem, and one of the motivations for the book seems to be that he believes he still can fix it.

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