With two felony convictions already in its wake, Ohio's spreading stolen 2004 election scandal has claimed another victim---Michael Vu, the controversial executive director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

Hired in 2003 with the support of the Democratic Party, Vu was in charge of administering the electoral process in Ohio's biggest county.  Centered in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County regularly gives huge majorities to Democratic candidates, and was expected to help put John Kerry into the White House in 2004.  

But as chaos ensued on election day, long lines, malfunctioning machines, suspiciously low turnouts in inner city precincts, lost ballots and dubious vote counts turned Democrats against Vu.  Independent researchers calculate that the irregularities may have cost Kerry thousands of votes.

Vu also supervised the purchase of some $20 million in electronic voting equipment, a decision bitterly opposed by grassroots activists, and featured in a major documentary film recently broadcast nationwide on HBO.  Upon installation for the 2006 election, much of the equipment malfunctioned. 

Democrats on Capitol Hill see the world through bureaucratic shades and have been circulating this self-congratulatory Email:

"Over the last four years,the Republican Congress failed to conduct oversight on the Iraq war and failed to hold the Administration accountable for the conduct of the war. In contrast to this dismal record, in the last five weeks, the new Democratic-led Congress is already exercising vigorous oversight and demanding accountability from the Administration on the Iraq war. Attached is a list of 52 House and Senate hearings that have already occurred on issues related to the Iraq war. There will be numerous other hearings by both House and Senate committees on issues related to the Iraq war over the next several months."

Review of Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Southern Theater
Columbus, Ohio

If music be magic, the hypnotizing harmonies of Ladysmith Black Mambazo manage to go even a step beyond.

Performing before a packed house of devoted fans who braved last night's deep snows, these eight magnificent South African men warmed a lot of hearts. Led by Joseph Shabalala, who founded the group 46 years ago (but who looks way too young for that), the deep, exquisitely soft acapello tones filled the theater with a sound that is hauntingly spiritual and entrancing.

Mixing their show with simple, good-natured humor and some high-stepping calesthenic dancing, the evening quickly took on the aspect of a friendly visit with a very nice group of people from a country recently---miraculously---liberated from the very Hell of the world's most bitterly entrenched racism.

At the House Judiciary Committee hearings on Bush's use of signing statements on Wednesday, two exchanges at the end were quite revealing.  Four hours into a hearing interrupted by several votes (thanks, Nancy!) the corporate media had all departed.  Broadcast media never showed in the first place.  Only a few bloggers and a bunch of citizens and staffers hung behind.  Most of the Congress Members had left for good.

Through most of the hearing, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Elwood and Associate Professor of Law at Georgetown Nicholas Rosenkranz had maintained that Bush's signing statements were mere words and that Bush has obeyed to the letter each law he has signed, even if he's added a "signing statement" maintaining his right not to obey sections of that law.  Elwood even claimed that if the President were to act contrary to the original law, he would notify Congress that he was doing so.

Peace is a chant, a vibration, a leap of the human spirit into the 21st century and beyond. It's also HR 808 - radical common sense crafted into a bill and introduced this week into the new Congress by Dennis Kucinich.

Let me describe for you, as best I can in this brief space, the heave of emotion this piece of legislation and the campaign to support it have set off in me the past few days. For this I thank and blame the Peace Alliance, which held a conference in D.C. over the weekend in support of the bill - well, it was half conference, fact-dense and nitty-gritty, brimming with info on bullying and suicide and war; and half revival, alive with music and global religion, full of God and Buddha and the spirit of the Founding Fathers and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Jane Addams and Susan B. Anthony and many others.