Help raise money to continue the valuable discovery of privatized electronic vote recording and tabulation problems. If adequate funding is raised immediately, discovery will continue with meaningful machine inspections conducted by academic experts.

There are real and serious problems with the 2004 General Election results. Although we have seen similar issues in other states, the analysis in New Mexico, due to the availability of the data, and thoroughness and manner in which the analysis was conducted, has pinpointed serious problems according to specific machine types at the precinct level. Troubling patterns of unreliability and gross errors in the official election results especially in Native American and Hispanic communities have emerged. Problems include:

* 24,000 "under votes", that is , a ballot cast but no vote recorded, with the highest under vote percentages in Hispanic and Native American precincts - but only when those voters votes on specific electronic paperless voting equipment. These under vote rates in the same precincts dropped when voters used paper ballots.
Every year or so, some right-winger in America lets fly in public with a ripe salvo of racism, and the liberal watchdogs come tearing out of their kennels, and the neighborhood echoes with the barks and shouts. The right-winger says he didn't mean it, the president "distances himself," and the liberals claim they're shocked beyond all measure. Then, everyday life in racist America resumes its even course.

This past week it's been the turn of that conservative public moraliser, William Bennett. He should have known better than to loose off a hypothetical on his radio show. Announce publicly that "if you wanted to reduce crime, you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down," and many Americans reckon that's no hypothesis, that's a plan waiting to happen.

I’ve got to confess, I occasionally yell helpful driving suggestions to others on the road; I often talk back to newscasters and politicians on TV; and I always wish I could add my comments on-line to the letters to the editor.  Polite people say that opinions are like elbows, everybody’s got one (or two.)  While it’s good to be passionate, small, differing opinions can divide an otherwise cohesive populace.  Wedge issues are used by political strategists to splinter us into opposing groups and divert our attention from the big issues that most of us would agree on.  

Thanks for the interesting speculation on Miers on the Supreme Court and analysis of the Plame case, and President G W Bush's likely collusion in it.  

I have a quibble with the statement about Joe Wilson's New York Times Op-Ed piece.  Far from "...expos(ing) as utter nonsense the Bush claim that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium in Africa", Wilson's Op-Ed stated Saddam sought uranium from Niger, but that he was likely to have been unsuccessful.  More importantly, Wilson cited President Bush's avoidance of the likelihood of Hussein's failure to buy yellowcake, while also pointing out the forgery of the documents on which his words in the State of the Union relied, a fact Joe Wilson couldn't have known when he made the trip to Niger, since it wasn't known then.  Whatever Wilson's Op-Ed stated, this was the essence of his report to the CIA.  Bush used the document's assertions in his State of the Union speech  making his case for the Iraq attack by ignoring the results of Hussein's quest for yellowcake (uranium).

Historian Michael Foley said during times of war pacifists often get mugged. As a non-violent activist working to end the war in Iraq and the corporate war profiteering that comes with it, September 2005 has been the most surreal time of my life and I definitely feel like I got mugged by Australian Attorney General Phillip Ruddock and the Australian government.

After three lovely months of traveling through Australia and meeting people, one Wednesday afternoon during the second week of September I was called by the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, or ASIO, and asked to come in for an interview. I asked if I was required to do so and the woman at the other end of the phone said “No, you are not obliged too.” I then asked if this would affect the remaining two weeks of my time in Australia and she said she couldn’t say. I should have listened with closer attention to that non-answer.

I joined a contingent of 12 people from Oregon who went to Washington last week to demonstrate against the Iraq War, and I want to share my experiences with the public because I believe they offer learning opportunities and inspiration to the burgeoning movement to take back our country from the extremists who have taken over our government.

The weekend offered chances to be part of both protest and resistance actions, and we availed ourselves fully of the events. There were many highlights, but perhaps the greatest for me was the honor of being arrested with 45 others at the Pentagon for blocking the entrance as the Pentagon employees were coming in to work at 7 am Monday morning. We also took part in the big march through the center of the nation’s capital with 300,000 others on Saturday; the Code Pink action at Walter Reed Army Hospital on Friday night; the civil disobedience trainings on Sunday; filming of the civil disobedience arrests at the White House on Monday afternoon; and performing our protest music in front of the White House for Hawaii Public TV. We met some truly amazing people, gave our all, and came home with a feeling of hope that the tide is
thank you for making this a big deal, because it really IS, and people just do not seem to be getting it.

"The Free Press calls for an independent investigation" and truly *independent*! yes! thank you!

please let us know what to do how to help make that happen.

you always come though. i love you guys' courage and integrity!

please keep on your vital work!

with deepest admiration, always!!
metta
AUSTIN, Texas -- Uh-oh. Now we are in trouble. Doesn't take much to read the tea leaves on the Harriet Miers nomination. First, it's Bunker Time at the White House. Miers' chief qualification for this job is loyalty to George W. Bush and the team. What the nomination means in larger terms for both law and society is the fifth vote on the court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Aside from that bothersome little matter, the Miers appointment is like that of John Roberts -- could've been worse. Not as bad as Edith Jones, not as bad as Priscilla Owen -- and you should see some of our boy judges from Texas.

Miers, like Bush himself, is classic Texas conservative Establishment, with the addition of Christian fundamentalism. What I mean by fundamentalist is one who believes in both biblical inerrancy and salvation by faith alone.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Sometimes it helps to draw back from what's going on, to see if any patterns emerge from the chaos of daily events. In the news biz, attempts to see the Big Picture are known as thumbsuckers and regarded with appropriate contempt.

On the famous other hand, it's also sometimes the only way to see the much bigger stories that seep and creep all around us without anyone ever calling a press conference, or issuing talking points, or having gong-show debate over them.

Everybody and his dog in the political commentating trade now agrees the Bush administration is experiencing hard times -- the going is getting tough, and Bush is getting testy. Bush always gets testy under stress. This is not news.

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