Another thing I’ve not yet noted as I try to catch up with last week and stay on top of this one is the departure of another high-profile scandal-plagued Republican Congressman, Bob Ney, who announced on Monday that he would not run for re-election. The Stakeholder has the details, so I’ll refer you to him. Note that much like Tom DeLay, Ney started out very defiant about his desire to run and win despite all of the allegations and charges surrounding him – Ney’s top aide has copped a plea to federal conspiracy charges, while Ney himself was fingered, albeit not by name, in the Jack Abramoff plea agreement as a bribe-taker. Josh Marshall predicted a long time ago that Ney would not run in November because of all of this. It took awhile, but Ney eventually came to the same realization.
And via Atrios, Ney’s problems are still ongoing, as this Roll Call story notes.
With the deadline for removing Ney’s name from the Ohio ballot less than two weeks away, the review of his statements to the Indian Affairs Committee could form the basis for a charge of lying to Congress against the Ohio Republican, according to a handful of sources familiar with the transfer of documents to federal prosecutors.
In releasing its report on the Abramoff investigation June 22, the Indian Affairs Committee cited several instances in which Ney’s statements to panel investigators conflicted with the testimony and e-mails of several other figures involved in the case.
The question now is who gets to replace Ney on the ballot – by Ohio law, there’s still time for this. Apparently, his preferred choice (who has some ethical issues of her own, as this Stakeholder link shows), may run into Ohio’s “Sore Loser law” because she lost a primary bid for Lieutenant Governor. Oops!
The fun never ends, does it? I hope you folks in Ohio enjoy this as much as we here have enjoyed the DeLay Follies.
What about the holding in the DeLay case: The State cannot add to the required qualifications of a U.S. Representative set out in the U. S. Constitution (ie no previous losses in this election cycle)?
Edmund – Judge Sparks’ ruling was about residency. He said that when Benkiser ruled DeLay was ineligible because he’d moved to Virginia, that was unconstitutional because the qualification was “resident of the state on Election Day”, and we couldn’t establish that DeLay would not be a resident of Texas at that time. That was the entire scope of his ruling – it was all about imposing an extra residency requirement, which states cannot do.
As such, other things like filing deadlines and qualifications to be a write-in and procedures for replacing someone who has withdrawn are all perfectly within a state’s purview. That’s what the Ney situation is about.
With the fall of Ney can HAVA be far behind? Fitzgerald?
U.S. Rep. Holt’s H.R.550 promoted as saving election evidence (by Hiding Evidence) which HAVA removes outrightly with touchscreen E-Voting, also has the capacity to give the federal government complete control over all the nation’s voting.
Please try to persuade the following large groups of Democrats, Independents and Progressives to put evidence back in elections to prove our Democracy.
from:
http://electiondefensealliance.org/stop_the_executive_branch_from_taking_over_our_elections_amend_or_end_hr_550_0
What’s wrong with the Holt Bill in three easy bullets
Common Cause, MoveOn.org, TrueMajority, VerifiedVoting.org, and many other large election reform groups are pushing – and pushing hard – for passage of HR550 (the Holt Bill), national legislation aimed to amend the Help America Vote Act. The bill is being sold as a way to put “auditable paper trails” into national law. Sounds like a great idea. But many activists disagree with the approach to support “paper trails” that might be audited when what we want are real paper ballots that are – not might be – counted.
The other problem with HR550 is that it is about much more than paper trails. Read below the dangerous details that the groups pushing for passage of HR550 “as written” aren’t talking about.
The democratic processes of the American Republic are based on decentralized power. Centralized power led to the American Revolution. Centralized power is the antithesis of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
1. Centralization of Executive Power–White House Control over Counting the Votes: HR550 extends beyond the existing expiry date the power and authority of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), establishing a Presidential Commission authorized to control the counting of votes in every election–federal, state,and local–in the nation.
2. Centralization of Executive Power–Crony Appointments: The potential for stacking of the EAC is evident in the scenario already played out under the current Administration. In early 2006, the Bush White House made numerous recess appointments, putting political cronies into positions of power and authority without any Congressional oversight or checks and balances. Of the eight recess appointments made on January 4, 2006, three were Commissioners to the Federal Election Commission. Two of those appointed Commissioners are known for their opposition to voting rights and clean elections. The third is a political crony of Senate Minority Leader Reid of Nevada. (Nevada is now positioned to take a lead role in the Democratic presidential nomination process. For this privilege, Nevada has promised to play the nomination process by Party rules, financed by the Casino industry.)
3. Centralization of Executive Power–Regulatory Authority: Federal regulatory authority means the federal entity preempts state and local authorities. The EAC was created as an advisory commission with one exception: it was granted regulatory authority over the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The EAC has been steadily positioning and even suing to assert its regulatory authority in other areas under its domain. Even if it does not succeed through litigation, the EAC could, with the insertion of a single line of text in ANY congressional act, become regulatory. This is how the FEC gained regulatory powers. A regulatory EAC means that a Presidential Commission potentially stacked with political cronies would have legal decision making and enforcement power over the following areas, for every state in the nation:
— Which voting systems are approved for use in our elections
— Who counts the votes in every election
— How votes are counted in every election
— How recounts are administered and how their outcomes are determined
A recent editorial in the New York Times, entitled “Strong Arming the Vote” (August 3, 2006) describes how the Department of Justice under the Bush Administration has been heavily involved in partisan ploys to negate necessary checks and balances in election practices. HR 550, if passed as written, will establish a whole new arm of Executive power with dangerous authority to subvert the entire democratic process of elections that supports our system of government. It would result, in effect, in a bloodless coup.
People often ask, so what DO you support?
Here’s an amended bill that might gain grassroots support:
We, the grassroots, can support the Holt Bill when it is amended to remove those dangerous provisions that centralize Executive power and expand Judicial election decision making authority. A Holt Bill that amends HAVA and provides real solutions to the problems in our election system need only include three items:
— The incontrovertible and legally defensible system of verifiable elections through the use of real, voter-marked and verifiable paper ballots (as distinguished from paper trails)
— The elimination of secret vote counting through the use of black box voting products.
— An extension of all HAVA mandated deadlines pending a complete independent investigation, analysis, and audit of HAVA monies distributed and spent on electronic voting systems, the outcomes thereof, with said investigation including information on the most advanced system of checks and balances for elections: hand counted paper ballots.
What can you do?
Contact your Congressional representatives and tell them to amend or end HR550.
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And, Charles is right when he says that having paper ballots does not fix all the problems. Vigilance is always required.
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http://www.gregpalast.com/we-dont-need-no-stinkin-recount#more-1473
snip
On Saturday, Mexico’s electoral tribunal, known as the “TRIFE†(say “tree-fayâ€) ordered a re-count of the ballots from the suspect July 2 vote for president. Well, not quite a recount as in “count all the ballots†— but a review of just 9% of the nation’s 130,000 precincts.
snip
Here’s the conundrum: The nation’s tens of thousands of polling stations report to the capital in random order after the polls close. Therefore, statistically, you’d expect the results to remain roughly unchanged as vote totals come in. As expected, AMLO was ahead of the right-wing candidate Calderon all night by an unchanging margin — until after midnight. Suddenly, precincts began reporting wins for Calderon of five to one, the ten to one, then as polling nearly ended, of one-hundred to one.
How odd. I checked my concerns with Professor Victor Romero of Mexico’s National University who concluded that the reported results must have been a “miracle.†As he put it, a “religious event,†but a statistical impossibility. There were two explanations, said the professor: either the Lord was fixing the outcome or operatives of the ruling party were cranking in a massive number of ballots when they realized their man was about to lose.
How could they do it? “Easy pea-sy,†as my kids would say. In Mexico, the choices for president are on their own ballot with no other offices listed. Those who don’t want to vote for President just discard the ballot. There is no real ballot security. In areas without reliable opposition observers (about a third of the nation), anyone can stuff ballots into the loosely-guarded cardboard boxes. (AMLO showed a tape of one of these ballot-stuffing operations caught in the act.)
It’s also absurdly easy to remove paper ballots, disqualify them or simply mark them “nulo†(â€null,†unreadable).
The TRIFE, the official electoral centurions, rejected AMLO’s request to review those precincts that reported the miracle numbers. Nor would the tribunal open and count the nearly one million “null†votes — allegedly “uncountable†votes which totaled four times Calderon’s putative plurality.
snip
The only precincts the TRIFE ordered re-counted are those where the tally sheets literally don’t tally — precincts in which the arithmetic is off. They refuse even to investigate those precincts where ballot boxes were found in city dumps.
snip
In other words, despite the right to paper ballots, the election was fiddled, finagled and fixed.
Does this mean US activists should give up on the fight for paper ballots and give in to robo-voting, computerized democracy in a box. Hell, no! Lopez Obrador has put hundreds of thousands in the street week after week demanding, “voto por voto†— recount every vote. But AMLO’s supporters can only demand a re-count because the paper ballot makes a recount possible. Were Mexico’s elections held on a Diebold special, there would be no way to recount the electrons floating in cyberspace.
Paper ballots make democracy possible, but hardly guarantee it. “Null†votes, not voters, have chosen Mexico’s president. The only other nation I know of with such a poisonously high percentage of “null†votes is the “Estados Unidos,†the USA.
And just as in Mexico, the “null†vote, the trashed, spoiled, rejected ballots, overrode the voters’ choice, so it was north of the Rio Grande in 2000 and 2004. Ballot spoilage, not computer manipulation, stole Ohio and Florida in those elections — and will steal Colorado and New Mexico in the 2008 election.
In other words, my fellow gringo activists, we’d better stop fixating on laptop legerdemain and pledge our lives and fortunes to stopping the games played with registration rolls, provisional ballots, absentee ballots, voter ID demands and the less glamorous, yet horribly effective, methods used to suppress, invalidate and otherwise ambush the vote.
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Thelma Bush and his Louise GOP have made a hugh strategic mistake: as scary as Bush and his GOP are, much scarier still is their extinction level job performance with Global Warming. Bush is a lose, lose risk for all of us.
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Count Kerry’s Votes August 22, 2006.
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PLAN B
Mark Crispin Miller
http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2006/07/call-to-arms-on-this-fourth-of-july.html
A call to arms on this Fourth of July!
Here, friends, is a clarion call from a great new group–the Election Defense Alliance (EDA). I’m proud to say that I am on the board of this endeavor, and can vouch for the integrity, intelligence and patriotic spirit of all those who put the EDA together.
Please send this email far and wide. This a group that really gets it.
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Pardon me and my spelling…
the word should be
“huge”
as in
Thelma Bush and his Louise GOP have made a huge strategic mistake…
…an extinction level job performance for all on the planet.
see:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1191932.ece
5 August 2006 22:44
Amazon rainforest ‘could become a desert’
And that could speed up global warming with ‘incalculable consequences’, says alarming new research
By Geoffrey Lean in Manaus and Fred Pearce
Published: 23 July 2006
The vast Amazon rainforest is on the brink of being turned into desert, with catastrophic consequences for the world’s climate, alarming research suggests. And the process, which would be irreversible, could begin as early as next year.
Studies by the blue-chip Woods Hole Research Centre, carried out in Amazonia, have concluded that the forest cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without breaking down.
Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate global warming with incalculable consequences, spinning out of control, a process that might end in the world becoming uninhabitable.
snip
The research carried out by the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole centre in Santarem on the Amazon river has taken even the scientists conducting it by surprise. When Dr Dan Nepstead started the experiment in 2002 by covering a chunk of rainforest the size of a football pitch with plastic panels to see how it would cope without rain he surrounded it with sophisticated sensors, expecting to record only minor changes.
Snip
…the Amazon now appears to be entering its second successive year of drought, raising the possibility that it could start dying next year. The immense forest contains 90 billion tons of carbon, enough in itself to increase the rate of global warming by 50 per cent.
Dr Nepstead expects “mega-fires” rapidly to sweep across the drying jungle. With the trees gone, the soil will bake in the sun and the rainforest could become desert.
More
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From The Independent UK behind a subscription wall
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article344690.ece
via TruthOut: No longer listed at site
http://www.truthout.org/…
Global Warming: Passing the ‘Tipping Point’
By Michael McCarthy
The Independent UK
Saturday 11 February 2006
Our special investigation reveals that critical rise in world temperatures is now unavoidable.
A crucial global warming “tipping point” for the Earth, highlighted only last week by the British Government, has already been passed, with devastating consequences.
Research commissioned by The Independent reveals that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has now crossed a threshold, set down by scientists from around the world at a conference in Britain last year, beyond which really dangerous climate change is likely to be unstoppable.
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And, the republicans in charge are not even trying to do the right thing…
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I had been expecting this Ohio case to come to trial as scheduled for August 22, 2006, but it became incorrect to expect this over two months ago. I should have been looking harder at the challenges to the case which were developing.
Apologies to all. I did not mean to mistakenly get your hopes up nor my own. I was so hopeful that we could at long last start problem solving for global warming (and this hurricane season with a working FEMA) and so save all our families.
Now this means we all have a longer ride in Thelma Bush and his Louise GOP’s careening car.
Here is what I should have found sooner:
http://www.nvri.org/about/ohio_recount.shtml
SEEKING A FAIR DEMOCRATIC PROCESS:
The Ohio 2004 Recount
On Monday November 15, 2004 NVRI issued a joint statement with Common Cause, Demos, the Fannie Lou Hamer Project, and the People for the American Way Foundation, supporting the effort by Presidential Candidates David Cobb (Green Party) and Michael Badnarick (Libertarian) to have a full recount of all votes cast in Ohio. NVRI subsequently agreed to serve as counsel for Cobb and Badnarik in their efforts to have a full and meaningful recount. While the lawsuit brought attention to the serious flaws in the state’s recount procedures, it was ultimately dismissed.
NVRI’s Challenge to Ohio’s Recount Procedures End
NVRI’s challenge to Ohio’s recount procedures for presidential elections has come to an unfortunate end, though not before exposing serious flaws in the recount system. In February, Judge James G. Carr dismissed NVRI’s lawsuit , saying the principle of sovereign immunity bars the lawsuit, and ruling that the kind of errors found in the 2004 recount are not likely to occur again. On behalf of our clients, we asked the Judge to reconsider his opinion, but in early May he issued his opinion declining to revisit his ruling. After consultation with our clients – former presidential candidates David Cobb (Green Party) and Michael Badnarik (Libertarian Party) – we have decided against an appeal. The lawsuit brought to light serious flaws in Ohio’s recount procedures, including violation of requirements for random selection of recount precincts and other threats to the reliability and timeliness of the recount.
(April 6, 2006): Indictments Handed Down in Ohio Recount Foul-ups
The evidence that Ohio’s presidential recounts were not handled fairly keeps popping up. On Wednesday, three Cuyahoga County Election officials were indicted for disregarding rules that were designed to ensure a fair recount. Though the foul-ups leading to the indictment would not have changed the final results, it re-affirms NVRI’s position that the recount system is woefully inconsistent. Though the indictment in this case does not claim intentional fraud, it does strengthen NVRI’s claims. To read about the indictments, see this article. NVRI still awaits a decision on our effort to reinstate the case.
(February 17, 2006): Motion Filed Before Judge Carr Seeking a Reconsideration of His Ruling in the Recount Case
On behalf of our clients, NVRI asked Judge Carr to reconsider his decision to dismiss this case. In his decision, Judge Carr said the problem was not likely to recur. Quite to the contrary, we argue that it is extremely likely to recur, and the complaint should be reinstated, and trial should move forward.
Read the motion here and read some of the exhibits listed below. These exhibits show just how clear it is that recount foul-ups are likely to be a continuing problem.
Exhibits to Motion Seeking Reconsideration:
Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C, Exhibit D
(February 7, 2006): NVRI Disappointed in Dismissal of Vote Recount Lawsuit
On Tuesday, February 7, Judge James G. Carr dismissed NVRI’s lawsuit challenging the manner of Ohio’s presidential recount system. Judge Carr said the principle of “sovereign immunity” bars this lawsuit, and found that the kind of errors found in the 2004 recount are not likely to occur again. NVRI is profoundly disappointed in the ruling and is consulting with cooperating counsel as well as clients David Cobb and Michael Badnarik about whether or not to appeal. The judge’s ruling is attached.
(more)