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Big Star-Spangled Lies for War

A lot of people want to believe that the current war on Iraq is some kind of aberration -- a radical departure from the previous baseline of U.S. foreign policy. That’s a comforting illusion.

Yes, the current administration in Washington is notable for the extreme mendacity and calculated idiocy of its claims. But -- decade after decade -- the propaganda fuel for one U.S. war after another has flowed from a standard set of lies.

Some of the boilerplate lies are implicit assumptions about Uncle Sam’s benign and even noble intent. Other deceptions rely on more specific whoppers, endlessly whirling through the news media’s spin cycle. From one war to the next, certain themes are played up more than others -- but the process always involves building an agenda to start a war, trying to justify the war while it’s underway, and then claiming that the war must continue as long as the man in the Oval Office says so.

Sometimes a war begins suddenly, filling the national horizon with a huge insistent flash. At other times, over a period of months or years, a low distant rumble gradually turns into a roar. But in any event, the

Diebold's failure in California

Who approved such a deeply flawed system and what must be done in the future?

On July 29, 2005 it was reported that certification of the Diebold TSx GEMS v. 1.18.22 had been denied by the Secretary of State, Bruce McPherson. The initial report told of a 10% failure rate due to jammed printers and computer “crashes”. [1]

Just 5 days later, the newspapers reported that the failures were twice as bad as originally reported, and the failures were not centered in the printers but were instead software issues. Of the 96 voting machines tested, 19 failed with a total of 21 crashes resulting in a blue screen and messages about an "illegal operation" or a "fatal exception error." Also, 10 machines had a total of 11 printer jams. Nearly one-third of the test machines failed in one way or another. [2]

Solomon's Unspinning of War

Norman Solomon's new book, "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death," opens with a disturbing prologue.  The U.S. media has refused to give serious coverage to the Downing Street Memos on the grounds that they are "old news."  In the initial pages of his book, and supplemented by the rest, Solomon makes a case that both outdoes and undoes that claim. 

The Incredible Blight of TV Punditry

When super-pundit Robert Novak stormed off the set of a live CNN show Thursday -- just after uttering what the New York Times delicately calls “a profanity” -- it was an unusual episode of TV punditry. With rare exceptions, the slick commentators of televisionland keep their cool. But we’d be much better off if they all disappeared.

Novak’s unscripted exit from the telecast may have been a preemptive strike -- a kind of semiconscious work stoppage -- to avoid squirming under the hot lights. “The moderator of the program, Ed Henry, later said on the air that he had warned Mr. Novak that he planned to ask him ‘about the CIA leak case,’” the Times reports. As a bottom-feeding big fish in the pond of political journalism, Novak wants control over the sunlight in his face.

It has become a cliche to complain about the cable news channels. Fox News is notorious -- or revered, depending on one’s political outlook -- for a hard-right style that sometimes resorts to shouting down dissenters or cutting off their microphones. Bombast has become professionally respectable; many TV journalists yearn to be the next Bill O’Reilly.

Response to the editorial cartoon in the Columbus Dispatch newspaper

The POER extends our sympathy to the Bill Moss Family and our organization has you in our daily prayers.

It is a sad day in Columbus, when the largest newspaper in Columbus under the leadership of its editor and owner, John Wolfe, still finds it necessary to show his hatred and his very racist character. A great leader in the Black Community, Bill Moss, has not even been laid to rest but Mr. Wolfe feels it was necessary to disrespect the Black community with a racist and disheartened cartoon.

The POER and our Black Community do not find any humor of trying to mock one of our great leaders. Bill Moss will be remembered for his love for the children in the Columbus Public School System and for the hard work he did while serving on the Columbus Board of Education. When others on the Board of Education were too afraid to speak the truth, Bill Moss shouted the truth for everyone in the Columbus community to hear.

Did the GOP steal another Ohio Election?

The Republican Party has -- barely -- snatched another election in Ohio. And once again there are telltale symptoms of the kind of vote theft that put George W. Bush in the White House in 2000 and then kept him there in 2004.

This time an outspoken Iraqi War vet named Paul Hackett led the charge for a Cincinnati-area Congressional seat, earning 48% of the vote. The spot was open because Bush appointed his pal Rep. Rob Portman to be a trade representative.

Hackett is a rarity among today's Democrats---a blunt, hard-driving truth talker who blasted Bush's attack on Iraq. Hackett labeled W. "a chicken hawk." He's the first Iraqi war vet to run for Congress. He made no bones about the incompetence and cynicism that define the GOP strategy there. In particular Hackett attacked Bush's attacks on veterans benefits while claiming patriotic support of the war.

In return, GOP candidate Jean Schmidt lied about Hackett's war record. Unlike John Kerry, Hackett fought back immediately.

Conyers-Kaptur seek special counsel for Noe probe

The Honorable Alberto Gonzales
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530


Dear Mr. Attorney General:

We write to request that the U.S. Department of Justice immediately appoint an outside special counsel to assume the Department's investigation into alleged illegal contributions by Mr. Thomas Noe to federal and state political campaigns.  In light of recent disclosures that Governor Taft's office, which is a subject of the investigation, made a direct political appeal to Karl Rove for Gregory White, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio to receive his job, there is little doubt that this is a textbook case for the appointment of a special counsel.

Regarding the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965

August 6th marks the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  The Voting Rights Act (as amended), was called “America’s crown jewel” by President Ronald Reagan.  The Act’s prohibition of discrimination and retrogression has facilitated much progress in access to the ballot box by African-Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans.  With several important provisions up for reauthorization in 2007, our constant vigilance and tireless action can make universal suffrage both the law of the land and the practice in every community coast to coast. 

Americans are deeply concerned about the situation in Iraq, but there is yet another crisis.   This country has not been functioning as a just democracy.  As we try to serve as an example to the entire world of what democracy is all about, we simply cannot afford the experiences of the past two presidential elections. Despite vigilance, persuasion, pressure, and even litigation, registration processing and election preparation anomalies persisted in 2004 and were compounded by Election Day irregularities.

Bill Moss's image in the Dispatch

Dear Colleagues,

As part of our mission as a affiliate of the National Association of Black Journalists, we are charged with the job of monitoring how African-Americans are presented in the news media.

I believe the editorial cartoon that appears in the Columbus Dispatch dated, August 4, 2005 is both insensitive, in incredibly poor taste and offensive to the memory and legacy of Bill Moss.

While many of us may have differed with Mr. Moss and some of his tactics, neither his basic honesty nor his commitment to bettering the lives of children in the Columbus Public Schools has ever been called into account.

I noted the day that Moss passed away, WBNS-TV on it's 6:00 pm news program featured in it's report by Maureen Kocot a file tape of Moss wearing military fatigues and banging his shoe on the table during a Board of Education meeting.

I criticized Mr. Moss for that act in a column I wrote, but to make that one act the most significant act of his life by both the Dispatch and WBNS does not seem accidental to me.

Media flagstones along a path to war on Iran

On Tuesday, big alarm bells went off in the national media echo chamber, and major U.S. news outlets showed that they knew the drill. Iran’s nuclear activities were pernicious, most of all, because people in high places in Washington said so.

It didn’t seem to matter much that just that morning the Washington Post reported: “A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis. The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House.”

By evening -- hours after the Iranian government said it would no longer suspend activities related to enriching uranium -- American news outlets were making grave pronouncements, amplifying the statements from French, British and German officials closing ranks with the Bush administration. On television in the United States, a narrow range of

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