Producer/Director Babette Hogan is gearing up for a hometown visit with Green Presidential Candidate Kat Swift. Kat is returning from a hectic week of campaigning in Pennsylvania and New York. With the Democratic candidates locked in a "bitter" battle, the Green Candidates, Kat Swift, Kent Mesplay, Jesse Johnson and Cynthia McKinney joined forces in a rally in Philadelphia last week. Later Swift and Johnson met with Greens in the Bronx. Babette will get Kat's take on campaigning and explore how she manages her campaign for the Presidency and ballot access in Texas while holding down a 9-5 job.
Next week Babette and Co-Producer/Director Julie Eisenberg will be visiting with Presidential Candidate Kent Mesplay as he campaigns on the Campo Indian Reservation in Southern California. Stay tuned, and check out Polidoc's YouTube site for some highlights.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Nader's Lawsuit Against DNC Bares New Teeth
Additional Civil Rights Suit Filed in Early April
We all like to win. It feels good and in the case of politics, it can feel so deeply right; on the other hand, losing can hurl one into a catatonic depression. Is an election worth winning at any cost? As citizens, we would rather not have to worry about this question; but, certain conditions over the last eight years have forced us to, whether it is because of missing ballots, disenfranchised voters, faulty touch screens, questionable backend voting software, or in the case of this story, obstructive lawsuits.
Many forces gathered to select George W. Bush as President in 2000; the nonchalant attitude about taking Florida even before the first vote count was in should be enough cause for serious scrutiny of all subsequent elections. This article does not address the less than virtuous strategies that Republican champions and their foot soldiers use throughout the course of a campaign or election. That will endure its own article.
Instead, it is about the right of an individual to run for office and the power held by the two-party system to stop that potential candidate.
In 2001, when power broker Terry McAuliffe took the reigns as Chairman of the DNC, the party had hit bottom, he told Washington Post reporter Thomas Edsall. “This party was demoralized in 2001." said McAullife. "People were madder than heck at the party. 'Why did we allow this to happen?' and 'Why didn't we fight harder?' . . . We went through a very tough time in 2002 after the midterm election."
He said “It was one of the darkest times in our party."
McAuliffe, or the Dem's "Comeback Kid", was returning to a high-ranking position in the center of the Democratic Party after a period of scandal over financial deals with political consequences. As the biggest fundraiser in the party, he intended to fully reclaim his power broker position with the Clintons at hand. He would devise a strategy to take back the White House and fiscally position the Democratic Party for the next 25 years. Desperate times call for desperate measures. DNC leaders committed to secure a win of the White House for the Democrats and specifically John Kerry. This effort included targeting several campaigns, including Al Gore's, as well as the other thorn in McAuliffe's side, Ralph Nader.
At the time, Nader was continuing to rankle the feathers of the Democratic Party by referring to the Democrats and the Republicans as “Tweedle-Dee” and “Tweedle-Dumb”, a sharp critique that stung the former more than the latter. Democrats resented Nader’s homogenization of the two-major parties; they recognized enormous differences between its policies and platform and that of the Republicans.
However, from Nader’s perspective, the Democrats nursed on corporate funds for its campaigns and had become too cautious and unimaginative to form a critical campaign against Bush. Nader had assured the Democratic candidate John Kerry that he would resist running if Kerry would take up at least three of his core issues. However, as the 2004 campaign continued, Kerry pursued a pro-war platform that failed to carry any of Nader's issues to the table or people. Nader felt compelled to run.
Private appeals from McAuliffe failed to dissuade Nader from running and a pre-planned attack on the Nader campaign ensued. His petitioners were harrassed by private investigators and intimidating letters were sent to discourage Nader volunteers, claiming that they would be held on felony charges if their signatures were proven false. After turning in the ballot petitions, the DNC, through operatives, besieged the Nader campaign with a suite of 24 lawsuits in 18 states and 5 FEC complaints, initiated within a 12 week period.
While many of the cases and all the FEC complaints were dismissed, the unfounded suits did succeed in bankrupting and exhausting the resources of the campaign and forced Nader and running mate, Peter Camejo off five state ballots. Assisted by the corporate media, the continuing tar and feathering of Nader as “spoiler” has done immense harm to his public reputation , though Nader himself seems to bare the dent in his armour well.
Pennsylvania is home to the most egregious lawsuit, where, aside from getting kicked off the ballot, the court, without legal precedent, charged a heavy personal legal fee of $82,000 for administration costs of counting signatures to Nader and Camejo. No court has ever allowed the legal fees of the plaintiff to be passed along to a candidate before; it set a dangerous precedent for third party candidates who are generally campaigning on little to no dollars. Additionally, the Pennsylvania legislature has increased the number of signatures required for a third party or Independent candidate up from 27,000 to 67,000 while the Democrats and Republicans are still only required to collect 2000. As each signature costs about a dollar to collect by an independent contractor, this puts the third party and independent candidates at a significant disadvantage.
The fundamental unfairness of such extreme differences in ballot access should shock us, yet it gets little media attention. Even in Naomi Wolf’s recent book “10 Steps Towards Fascism”, ballot access does not emerge as a step towards shutting down our democracy because it happens so invisibly, before dissenting voices can enter the electoral system for public consideration.
Petitions to appear on the ballot have been attacked before, but nothing like what happened to Nader in 2004, according to Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News. Winger, a political scientist, has been closely observing ballot access issues for over 40 years.
“The Democratic Party tried to keep various minor party and independent presidential candidates off at least a few ballots in 1936, 1948, 1976, 1980...but in 4 cases, the targeted candidate never ran for president again.,” Winger said. “Nader's treatment in 2004 was uniquely bad.”
Nader has spent the better part of the last two years recruiting a pro-bono lawyer staff in preparation for his 2008 run. His bold parry? A surprise countersuit against the DNC, the Kerry/Edwards campaign and Kerry personally, in which Nader claims that leaders within the DNC used malicious and frivolous law suits to obstruct his 2004 campaign.
Hall remembers hearing about the DNC led ballot access lawsuits as they began. He felt shocked that a major party used legal maneuvers to attack an individual candidate. He said that the media failed to cover the details of the story. "It’s been a disappointment to me. I work for Ralph Nader. I obviously have a perspective. But look, the facts are out there, if you can’t report that, then there’s a problem." He continued, "It’s really remarkable that every major newspaper covered the story but almost none of them broached the subject."
The point of the counter suit is not so much about extracting money from the DNC leaders, though Nader would put rewards toward fighting for a reasonable nationalized federal ballot access law for third parties and independent candidates. Nader would also return to Peter Camejo, his 2004 running mate the $20,000 portion of the legal fees levied against the campaign. The point of this lawsuit is to bring this issue of ballot access up at a time when his Presidential run provides some spotlight in the mainstream media and helps shield the 2008 campaign from refreshed attacks and there is still time for the Democrats to implement electoral solutions to the "spoiler" effect, like Instant Runoff Voting, an electoral system that allows the voter to rank their votes and thereby reduce the effects of the winner-take-all, less of two-evils system currently in place.
This case is currently being considered by a judge in the Washington DC District Court. “But there's no telling how long that will take,” said Hall. “The status is, we filed the complaint, the defendants filed motions to dismiss (mainly arguing that we failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted), we have opposed those motions, and now the judge has to rule.”
“It’s too late, and too little,” said McAuliffe’s lawyer, John H. Young, who asked the judge to dismiss the case on the grounds that, as the election was over, the case was moot. He argued that the case had gone beyond the statute of limitations and should be dismissed.
Nader’s lawyer, Hall said the statute of limitations should not apply because the defendants conspired beyond the 2004 election to conceal their role in keeping Nader off the ballot. It was not until after the elections, Hall said, that Nader learned about the loose relationship between the Democratic Party and lawyers working with the Ballot Project Inc., an organization directed by Raikin that was formed to keep Nader off state ballots in 2004.
Young said that in the heated atmosphere of the general election it was ridiculous to think that the efforts to neutralize Nader were concealed; the frivolous lawsuits were merely a tactical means to a practical end.
Winger said, “The fact that Peter Camejo did pay over $20,000 to the people who challenged the Nader-Camejo petition in 2004 keeps the Democrats from saying Nader and people associated with his 2004 campaign haven't suffered any concrete harm. I think it will go to trial.”
On April 5, 2008, Hall filed a federal civil rights claims supported by newly discovered evidence that employees of the state of Pennsylvania participated in the DNC leadership effort to keep Nader-Camejo off the ballot in that state. “If so,” said Hall, “that would be illegal, and it would also considerably support the "state action" element of our civil rights claims.” Hall expects there will be a new round of motions to dismiss based on that complaint.
“Nader has upped his tactics. The DNC will do the same,” speculated Cat Woods, a Nader supporter and former Green Party Co-Chair of the National Candidates and Campaign Committee.
Nader seems to be prepared to meet them in this upcoming election, warning the DNC leaders, "Don't try to get into the briar patch of frivolous lawsuits to try to get us to lay off (running), because you're going to get thorns. It's going to backfire."
Should the Democrats try to obstruct Nader's ballot access this time, more trained eyes are watching. And running mate, Matt Gonzalez, who is a civil rights attorney, will be at hand to fight alongside the aged but tireless knight. Gonzalaz oversaw the implementation of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in San Francisco, which has received favorable response from voters. While not in itself perfect, IRV does take away the manipulative power of a winner-take-all system. Though IRV and other ranked voting systems are in place in municipalities and even other countries, Democratic and Republican legislators currently in power in the U.S. are reluctant to approve measures which might increase competition for themselves.
(There are currently 10 pending ballot access lawsuits across the nation, with a few more in the works, according to Winger. Some of these lawsuits represent coalitions between presumed odd bedfellows like Libertarians and Greens, who nonetheless share a value for the Constitution, decentralization, and getting out of Iraq; others are led by individual candidates. )
References:
Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition
McAuliffe is Dem’s Comeback Kid
CNN - Wolf Blitzer interview with Ralph Nader, 11/2/07
Phillyblog.com DNC and Nader
Nader vs. DNC
Civil Lawsuit
ACLU Takes On Montana Ballot Access Bill
Lawyers ask federal judge to approve Nader lawsuit against former DNC chairman
MSNBC - 2004
John Murphy Account
Democracy Now Interview of Nader lawyer, Carl Mayer
We all like to win. It feels good and in the case of politics, it can feel so deeply right; on the other hand, losing can hurl one into a catatonic depression. Is an election worth winning at any cost? As citizens, we would rather not have to worry about this question; but, certain conditions over the last eight years have forced us to, whether it is because of missing ballots, disenfranchised voters, faulty touch screens, questionable backend voting software, or in the case of this story, obstructive lawsuits.
Many forces gathered to select George W. Bush as President in 2000; the nonchalant attitude about taking Florida even before the first vote count was in should be enough cause for serious scrutiny of all subsequent elections. This article does not address the less than virtuous strategies that Republican champions and their foot soldiers use throughout the course of a campaign or election. That will endure its own article.
Instead, it is about the right of an individual to run for office and the power held by the two-party system to stop that potential candidate.
In 2001, when power broker Terry McAuliffe took the reigns as Chairman of the DNC, the party had hit bottom, he told Washington Post reporter Thomas Edsall. “This party was demoralized in 2001." said McAullife. "People were madder than heck at the party. 'Why did we allow this to happen?' and 'Why didn't we fight harder?' . . . We went through a very tough time in 2002 after the midterm election."
He said “It was one of the darkest times in our party."
McAuliffe, or the Dem's "Comeback Kid", was returning to a high-ranking position in the center of the Democratic Party after a period of scandal over financial deals with political consequences. As the biggest fundraiser in the party, he intended to fully reclaim his power broker position with the Clintons at hand. He would devise a strategy to take back the White House and fiscally position the Democratic Party for the next 25 years. Desperate times call for desperate measures. DNC leaders committed to secure a win of the White House for the Democrats and specifically John Kerry. This effort included targeting several campaigns, including Al Gore's, as well as the other thorn in McAuliffe's side, Ralph Nader.
At the time, Nader was continuing to rankle the feathers of the Democratic Party by referring to the Democrats and the Republicans as “Tweedle-Dee” and “Tweedle-Dumb”, a sharp critique that stung the former more than the latter. Democrats resented Nader’s homogenization of the two-major parties; they recognized enormous differences between its policies and platform and that of the Republicans.
However, from Nader’s perspective, the Democrats nursed on corporate funds for its campaigns and had become too cautious and unimaginative to form a critical campaign against Bush. Nader had assured the Democratic candidate John Kerry that he would resist running if Kerry would take up at least three of his core issues. However, as the 2004 campaign continued, Kerry pursued a pro-war platform that failed to carry any of Nader's issues to the table or people. Nader felt compelled to run.
Private appeals from McAuliffe failed to dissuade Nader from running and a pre-planned attack on the Nader campaign ensued. His petitioners were harrassed by private investigators and intimidating letters were sent to discourage Nader volunteers, claiming that they would be held on felony charges if their signatures were proven false. After turning in the ballot petitions, the DNC, through operatives, besieged the Nader campaign with a suite of 24 lawsuits in 18 states and 5 FEC complaints, initiated within a 12 week period.
While many of the cases and all the FEC complaints were dismissed, the unfounded suits did succeed in bankrupting and exhausting the resources of the campaign and forced Nader and running mate, Peter Camejo off five state ballots. Assisted by the corporate media, the continuing tar and feathering of Nader as “spoiler” has done immense harm to his public reputation , though Nader himself seems to bare the dent in his armour well.
Pennsylvania is home to the most egregious lawsuit, where, aside from getting kicked off the ballot, the court, without legal precedent, charged a heavy personal legal fee of $82,000 for administration costs of counting signatures to Nader and Camejo. No court has ever allowed the legal fees of the plaintiff to be passed along to a candidate before; it set a dangerous precedent for third party candidates who are generally campaigning on little to no dollars. Additionally, the Pennsylvania legislature has increased the number of signatures required for a third party or Independent candidate up from 27,000 to 67,000 while the Democrats and Republicans are still only required to collect 2000. As each signature costs about a dollar to collect by an independent contractor, this puts the third party and independent candidates at a significant disadvantage.
The fundamental unfairness of such extreme differences in ballot access should shock us, yet it gets little media attention. Even in Naomi Wolf’s recent book “10 Steps Towards Fascism”, ballot access does not emerge as a step towards shutting down our democracy because it happens so invisibly, before dissenting voices can enter the electoral system for public consideration.
Petitions to appear on the ballot have been attacked before, but nothing like what happened to Nader in 2004, according to Richard Winger, editor of Ballot Access News. Winger, a political scientist, has been closely observing ballot access issues for over 40 years.
“The Democratic Party tried to keep various minor party and independent presidential candidates off at least a few ballots in 1936, 1948, 1976, 1980...but in 4 cases, the targeted candidate never ran for president again.,” Winger said. “Nader's treatment in 2004 was uniquely bad.”
Nader has spent the better part of the last two years recruiting a pro-bono lawyer staff in preparation for his 2008 run. His bold parry? A surprise countersuit against the DNC, the Kerry/Edwards campaign and Kerry personally, in which Nader claims that leaders within the DNC used malicious and frivolous law suits to obstruct his 2004 campaign.
Hall remembers hearing about the DNC led ballot access lawsuits as they began. He felt shocked that a major party used legal maneuvers to attack an individual candidate. He said that the media failed to cover the details of the story. "It’s been a disappointment to me. I work for Ralph Nader. I obviously have a perspective. But look, the facts are out there, if you can’t report that, then there’s a problem." He continued, "It’s really remarkable that every major newspaper covered the story but almost none of them broached the subject."
The point of the counter suit is not so much about extracting money from the DNC leaders, though Nader would put rewards toward fighting for a reasonable nationalized federal ballot access law for third parties and independent candidates. Nader would also return to Peter Camejo, his 2004 running mate the $20,000 portion of the legal fees levied against the campaign. The point of this lawsuit is to bring this issue of ballot access up at a time when his Presidential run provides some spotlight in the mainstream media and helps shield the 2008 campaign from refreshed attacks and there is still time for the Democrats to implement electoral solutions to the "spoiler" effect, like Instant Runoff Voting, an electoral system that allows the voter to rank their votes and thereby reduce the effects of the winner-take-all, less of two-evils system currently in place.
This case is currently being considered by a judge in the Washington DC District Court. “But there's no telling how long that will take,” said Hall. “The status is, we filed the complaint, the defendants filed motions to dismiss (mainly arguing that we failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted), we have opposed those motions, and now the judge has to rule.”
“It’s too late, and too little,” said McAuliffe’s lawyer, John H. Young, who asked the judge to dismiss the case on the grounds that, as the election was over, the case was moot. He argued that the case had gone beyond the statute of limitations and should be dismissed.
Nader’s lawyer, Hall said the statute of limitations should not apply because the defendants conspired beyond the 2004 election to conceal their role in keeping Nader off the ballot. It was not until after the elections, Hall said, that Nader learned about the loose relationship between the Democratic Party and lawyers working with the Ballot Project Inc., an organization directed by Raikin that was formed to keep Nader off state ballots in 2004.
Young said that in the heated atmosphere of the general election it was ridiculous to think that the efforts to neutralize Nader were concealed; the frivolous lawsuits were merely a tactical means to a practical end.
Winger said, “The fact that Peter Camejo did pay over $20,000 to the people who challenged the Nader-Camejo petition in 2004 keeps the Democrats from saying Nader and people associated with his 2004 campaign haven't suffered any concrete harm. I think it will go to trial.”
On April 5, 2008, Hall filed a federal civil rights claims supported by newly discovered evidence that employees of the state of Pennsylvania participated in the DNC leadership effort to keep Nader-Camejo off the ballot in that state. “If so,” said Hall, “that would be illegal, and it would also considerably support the "state action" element of our civil rights claims.” Hall expects there will be a new round of motions to dismiss based on that complaint.
“Nader has upped his tactics. The DNC will do the same,” speculated Cat Woods, a Nader supporter and former Green Party Co-Chair of the National Candidates and Campaign Committee.
Nader seems to be prepared to meet them in this upcoming election, warning the DNC leaders, "Don't try to get into the briar patch of frivolous lawsuits to try to get us to lay off (running), because you're going to get thorns. It's going to backfire."
Should the Democrats try to obstruct Nader's ballot access this time, more trained eyes are watching. And running mate, Matt Gonzalez, who is a civil rights attorney, will be at hand to fight alongside the aged but tireless knight. Gonzalaz oversaw the implementation of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in San Francisco, which has received favorable response from voters. While not in itself perfect, IRV does take away the manipulative power of a winner-take-all system. Though IRV and other ranked voting systems are in place in municipalities and even other countries, Democratic and Republican legislators currently in power in the U.S. are reluctant to approve measures which might increase competition for themselves.
###
(There are currently 10 pending ballot access lawsuits across the nation, with a few more in the works, according to Winger. Some of these lawsuits represent coalitions between presumed odd bedfellows like Libertarians and Greens, who nonetheless share a value for the Constitution, decentralization, and getting out of Iraq; others are led by individual candidates. )
References:
Pennsylvania Ballot Access Coalition
McAuliffe is Dem’s Comeback Kid
CNN - Wolf Blitzer interview with Ralph Nader, 11/2/07
Phillyblog.com DNC and Nader
Nader vs. DNC
Civil Lawsuit
ACLU Takes On Montana Ballot Access Bill
Lawyers ask federal judge to approve Nader lawsuit against former DNC chairman
MSNBC - 2004
John Murphy Account
Democracy Now Interview of Nader lawyer, Carl Mayer
Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW! Covers Ground in Bay Area
Host of "Democracy NOW!" Amy Goodman has been touring Northern California for the last couple of days.
Today's show featured Nader's Vice-Presidential running mate Matt Gonzalez who had some comments on the CBS Democratic Debate held on Wednesday. He hopes that Nader will be allowed into the debates so that issues which are not currently addressed by the two major parties, like living wage, and election reform solutions like Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) would get some attention from the public. He expects that if people could hear Nader, many would be persuaded to consider him.
Also, Lawrence Lessig, law professor at Stanford comments on Net Neutrality and its significance to growing democracy in a corporate media world. He sees the trafficking influence of service providers as a threat to a system that has, until recently, spawned the development of democracy in other nations as well as our own.
Today's show featured Nader's Vice-Presidential running mate Matt Gonzalez who had some comments on the CBS Democratic Debate held on Wednesday. He hopes that Nader will be allowed into the debates so that issues which are not currently addressed by the two major parties, like living wage, and election reform solutions like Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) would get some attention from the public. He expects that if people could hear Nader, many would be persuaded to consider him.
Also, Lawrence Lessig, law professor at Stanford comments on Net Neutrality and its significance to growing democracy in a corporate media world. He sees the trafficking influence of service providers as a threat to a system that has, until recently, spawned the development of democracy in other nations as well as our own.
Calendar Announcement: Green Party Candidates Hit Philly and Bronx
Three of the Green Party's Presidential Candidates, Kat Swift, Kent Mesplay and Jesse Johnson, will campaign together in Philadelphia and the Bronx this coming weekend.
Third Party candidates Forum
When: Fri, Apr 18, 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Third Party candidates Forum
When: Fri, Apr 18, 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Where: Swarthmore Borough Hall 121 Park Avenue, Philidelphia, PA
Description: Delaware County Green Party and Democracy Unplugged present A Third Party candidates Forum on Friday, April 18th at 7:30 at Swarthmore Borough Hall 121 Park Avenue (first floor Council room)
Free Mumia Rally in Philadelphia, PA
Free Mumia Rally in Philadelphia, PA
When: Sat, Apr 19, 11am – 5pm
Where: Federal Courthouse 6th and Market Sts, Philadelphia, PA
Meet the Candidates Event in Bethlehem, PA
Meet the Candidates Event in Bethlehem, PA
When: Sat, Apr 19, 7:15pm – 9:45pm
Where: Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethlehem, PA
Description: public meeting - green party presidential candidates
NYC Bronx Greens Potluck
NYC Bronx Greens Potluck
When: Apr 20, 2008
Place and Time: TBD
For more information
Place and Time: TBD
For more information
Monday, April 14, 2008
Candidates Perform Green Dance to Garner Gore's Favor
Former Vice-President, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, and last but not least, Academy Award winning Al Gore's superdelegate endorsement is the prettiest girl at the dance. Hoping to monopolize that dance card at the Democratic Nominating Convention, Senators Clinton and Obama are talking up Green initiatives.
Nice tight article here from MSNBC with the hopeful conclusion that, regardless of who becomes President, the whole world is expecting a big shift in the United States Energy Policy.
read more | digg story
Nice tight article here from MSNBC with the hopeful conclusion that, regardless of who becomes President, the whole world is expecting a big shift in the United States Energy Policy.
read more | digg story
New Hampshire Libertarians Vote to Impeach Bush and Cheney
Adding to a growing assembly of third parties and independent candidate voices, the Libertarians of New Hampshire are calling for the impeachment of President George W Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Third Party Watch has more.
Third Party Watch has more.
Where are the Students in This Time of War?
by Guest Editorialist, Kevin Gosztola
(Kevin is an active writer for OpEd News and an Associate Producer on the Polidoc documentary: "Seriously Green")
Many older Americans against the Iraq war often ask, "Where are the students?" Compared to the Sixties and the student movements to end the Vietnam War, they just don't understand why students aren't doing more to end this illegal war.
I agree that not enough students are participating in activism to end the atrocities being committed in our name in the Middle East, but I also think that the students are now more than ever at the forefront of the struggle to bring our troops home.
Students are now organizing against military recruitment and engaging in acts of resistance regularly so that the issues surrounding the Iraq war and the need to organize and end it stay at the forefront of the minds of members of the community they go to school in.
Macalester Students for a Democratic Society were able to close recruiting stations non-violently, avoiding arrest while publicizing their demands. They did this on March 27th , which was the Twin Cities Day of Student Action Against the War.
At the University of Florida, a group of student have begun a hunger strike, which they plan to engage in until UF President Bernie Machen agrees to meet with them and discuss investing UF's $1.2 billion endowment in socially responsible entities. The group, Students for a Democratic Society, has been pushing for disclosure of UF's investments for nearly a year.
Six members of the anti-war group "Catholic Schoolgirls Against The War" staged a dramatic die-in during the 11AM Easter mass at Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago's most prominent Catholic parish – and the home of one of the nation's most conservative church leaders, Cardinal George. The group's action was designed to call attention and denounce a meeting held on January 7 this year with U.S. president George W. Bush – the principle public figure responsible for initiating the carnage in Iraq – and the mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley. In fifty seconds, the group had a huge impact on public opinion in regards to the Iraq war.
Since the action, a petition has been circulating. Many Catholics have joined in solidarity with the protesters who are facing bogus felony charges. They and others who are not Catholic are calling on Cardinal George to drop the charges.
The Portland Students for a Democratic Society took city hall on March 20th, which was a day of resistance to the illegal occupation of Iraq for many activist groups. Members climbed the walls of city hall demanding that the mayor come out and confront the military recruitment of students for this war.
Most students involved in the action walked out of high schools in the area in the morning. College students and even students younger than high school students were there. In total, approximately 400 confronted city hall demanding an end to this war.
When Spring Break came around this year, many students all over America and especially from the east coast chose to go to Washington, D.C. to participate in actions led by a youth group called Our Spring Break.
The group started their actions in D.C. by delivering "stop-loss" notices to Congress and demanding them to stay in session until this war ends. Following that, small protests were coordinated with youth peace movement groups like the Campus Anti-War Network and Students for a Democratic Society. Other big protests like the blocking of the exit to the parking garage of the Hart Senate office building and cutting off traffic on Independence Avenue for an hour occurred.
Some students ended their spring break having been arrested twice. Many of those were still willing to continue engaging in acts of resistance that might result in arrest because, as some said, "It's not like 'well, I did my part, now I can go home...This has to continue until something changes."
In November of last year, students were involved in protests in Olympia that were aimed at blocking military shipments from coming into the U.S. The action's intent was to end their community's participation in the illegal occupation of Iraq by stopping the military use of the Port of Olympia."
That same month, students from Morton West High School in Chicago held a peaceful sit-in that resulted in the school's superintendent suspending many of the participants who were not Honors students and even led to threats of expulsion that were later ended by the support of the Chicago community and the attention this protest against the Iraq war received nationally and internationally.
Since then, the Morton West High School students have succeeded, with the help of parents in the high school's district, in getting the military recruiters from staying off their high school campus.
For the past six months, I have been drawing inspiration from actions of this magnitude that occur at least every other week in this country. The actions cited are just some of the student actions that have received press coverage. No doubt, there are probably hundreds of other actions that have taken place in the past six months that are as inspirational as the ones I listed.
In drawing from this inspiration, I have come to believe that in addition to vigorously pursuing the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, the leaders of the most recidivist criminal regime in the history of America, we, the students of America and future leaders of America, must oppose U.S. government-funded military recruitment centers, which target people who cannot afford the increasing costs of living and/or the costs of higher education.
I and other students I have been organizing with believe that taking action against military recruitment throws a wrench into the gears of a system that fails to support its young people (students, workers and such) that are in need of financial assistance.
In addition to the illegalities of this war and the mere reality that this war has looted our economy, led to the deaths and displacement of millions of Iraqis, and supremely violated Iraq's sovereignty, our friends, relatives and classmates are unnecessarily in Iraq along with thousands of other young people. If it is not us who demand that they come home, than how will we be able to morally continue our lives in America?
How will we be able to look parents of soldiers who have died in the face if we have not done our part to challenge the Bush Regime?
Therefore, I ask you for your help in these times of need. As the recession caused by this war becomes more and more severe, the ability for activist groups to collect donations and even for this site that I have been granted permission to ask for donations on will run into problems staying afloat. The recession is yet another reason in a laundry list of reasons (that could probably go for miles if we wanted to stretch it out) why organization, participation, or support for resistance and opposition to the ongoing wars in the Middle East must happen.
For the past few months, I have put together a campaign with the help of others on my college campus that was designed to call attention to a military recruitment center that was not there in our campus' super-dormitory which houses students from three colleges until September 2007. The campaign calls for the military recruitment center to cease operations on campus because the center is recruiting for an illegal war, which they should not have the right to continue.
In May, I will be going to meet with students in Berkeley to hear about what they have been doing about military recruiters in their schools since they have been at the forefront of the battle since the city council resolution labeling the recruitment center in the city was labeled an "unwelcome entity" in February (which was later repealed due to national pressure from Republican groups).
I will be going to the Building a New World conference in Radford, Virginia (May 22-25).
Both meetings will be covered extensively for OpEdNews. They will also be used to form connections between the west and east coast so that the movement to end the Iraq war can go to the next level.
In participating in many antiwar protests, I have seen how the makeup of the people in these actions is often people who were part of the antiwar movement to end the Vietnam War. I have seen how many are from the 1980s and were participants in actions calling for nuclear disarmament. I have seen how students are not present at actions that they must be at because the people from the antiwar movement to end the Vietnam War and other older activists who are primarily taking action for the future generations of America have pointed out the absence of student involvement quite often.
I am a member of the group people commonly refer to as the "future generations of America." I think it would be better to say though that I am a member of the group that should be called the "future leaders of America" because I do not intend to sit back and not have a hand in how America leads in the world in the 21st Century.
I ask that anyone who is still reading help keep the student movement alive by donating money to support my trips to the two national meetings/conferences/convergenc
An educated individual is not the product of just the classroom but rather is the sum of his experiences and activities at all levels of society.
Please help send me on an educational sabbatical for student activism. (Any leftover donations will go to Rob Kall for continuing OpEdNews.)
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Nader Charges Citizens to Tackle Politics Head On, No Seatbelts Required
"How do you satire a satire?" Nader asks in this hour long video address (which starts about half way through the clip), before an applauding crowd at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on April 5. Suffering a little campaign fatigue but showing no intent to let up his opposition to this "Whitehouse marininated in oil" or this Congress, the orator eloquently rises and delivers his impassioned and concerned appeal for greater citizen participation in politics.
"Are we a serious people requiring our members of Congress, 535 members who put their shoes on every monring like we do, to stand tall for the major framework of law and justice in our country, the US Constitution?”
His begins with a call for the impeachment of President George W Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney; Nader has long called for their impeachment. However, he trains his eyes on the Democratic Congress and assails it for abdicating its responsibility to impeach “the most impeachable President.” He remarks, “There’s something deficient in the DNA character of the Democratic Party.”
He then talks about the media, whom he finds to be derelict, more fascinated with interpreting the latest gaff between candidates and manufacturing gossip than in pressing for greater depth.
He also has a word for lawyers, some 800,000 of whom he would like to see out there in droves defending the Constitution, but for one reason or another have excused themselves. “We give lawyers the privilege of monopolizing access to the courts, that privilege comes with a responsibility to defend the public interest, especially in such dire times.”
Finally, Nader calls upon individuals to awaken our civic mindedness and get involved. “Unless we develop the civic personality that gets us really upset to break with our routines, to connect with our neighbors and communities, to do what we didn't think we were capable of doing, to develop our civic talents, we will simply watch this country of ours continue to slide into the abyss under the domination of a two party duopoly that excludes competition and turns our government over to giant corporations. These giant corporations are now THE government.”
He likened the spirit of citizen watchdogs to that of birdwatchers. He hopes that we all turn an eye to our legislators and learn what they are doing and set high expectations on their conduct. If someone in one part of the country sees something, then a whole flock of activists can look at it. And if that bird should land on the Capitol Dome, the watchers will follow.
In conclusion, he quotes the philosopher Cicero, "Freedom is participation in power." As always, go forward.
"Are we a serious people requiring our members of Congress, 535 members who put their shoes on every monring like we do, to stand tall for the major framework of law and justice in our country, the US Constitution?”
His begins with a call for the impeachment of President George W Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney; Nader has long called for their impeachment. However, he trains his eyes on the Democratic Congress and assails it for abdicating its responsibility to impeach “the most impeachable President.” He remarks, “There’s something deficient in the DNA character of the Democratic Party.”
He then talks about the media, whom he finds to be derelict, more fascinated with interpreting the latest gaff between candidates and manufacturing gossip than in pressing for greater depth.
He also has a word for lawyers, some 800,000 of whom he would like to see out there in droves defending the Constitution, but for one reason or another have excused themselves. “We give lawyers the privilege of monopolizing access to the courts, that privilege comes with a responsibility to defend the public interest, especially in such dire times.”
Finally, Nader calls upon individuals to awaken our civic mindedness and get involved. “Unless we develop the civic personality that gets us really upset to break with our routines, to connect with our neighbors and communities, to do what we didn't think we were capable of doing, to develop our civic talents, we will simply watch this country of ours continue to slide into the abyss under the domination of a two party duopoly that excludes competition and turns our government over to giant corporations. These giant corporations are now THE government.”
He likened the spirit of citizen watchdogs to that of birdwatchers. He hopes that we all turn an eye to our legislators and learn what they are doing and set high expectations on their conduct. If someone in one part of the country sees something, then a whole flock of activists can look at it. And if that bird should land on the Capitol Dome, the watchers will follow.
In conclusion, he quotes the philosopher Cicero, "Freedom is participation in power." As always, go forward.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Successful Green Party Candidate Slating in Illinois May Have Catalyzed New Ballot Access Regulation
Illinois Greens have taken their candidate recruitment for this election very seriously. Their success in mounting state and federal level campaigns after the primary may have inspired a recently passed regulation by Congress which would greatly inhibit the ability for third parties to continue recruiting candidates after the primary. The suggested regulation still has to pass the Senate before becoming a new inhibitive ballot access law.
Ballot-Access.org offers a swift analysis along with some commentary follow-up. Richard Winger, its editor, suggests that even if it passes the Senate, the Green Party may have a good case in court. We will both be watching how this regulation hangs in the two-party Senate.
Since the primary, the Illinois Green Party has added 7 candidates for U.S. Congress and 1 candidate for U.S. Senate for a total of 15 federal legislative offices. Sixteen state legislative candidates were added for a total of 19. At the county level, the party recruited 10 new candidates, including 5 in Cook County, to bring the total to 26 county candidates across the state.
This success has drawn the ire of established Democrats and Republicans who lost their assured control over the welcomed parties on the ballot when Rich Whitney won nearly 11 per cent of the vote for governor in 2006 running as a Green. The state's Green Party has been on fire since that triumph, with Phil Huckleberry, and others driving their state to out-perform others, even California, in recruitment of candidates for partisan offices.
So, appalling as it might be, it should be no surprise that blocking tactics have already begun to sprout from a two-party legislature which might inhibit the development of third party candidates. Bare in mind that third parties generally have less money with which to campaign, as well as recruitment issues, which can make a post-primary entry more attractive and likely.Ballot-Access.org offers a swift analysis along with some commentary follow-up. Richard Winger, its editor, suggests that even if it passes the Senate, the Green Party may have a good case in court. We will both be watching how this regulation hangs in the two-party Senate.
The Myth of Verified Voting
Guest Article by Nancy Tobi, Chair of the NH Fair Elections Committee
How GOP strategists & J. Abramoff transformed America's elections & the reform movement
In 1995, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Republican strategist Grover Norquist launched the "K Street Project." (i) Named for the Capital Hill street housing many lobbying firms, the Project gave lobbyists direct access to Washington lawmakers through weekly policy and strategy meetings. The most infamous K Street lobbyist was Jack Abramoff, who worked for the firm Greenberg Traurig. Abramoff, now in prison, took money from his American Indian tribe clients, and laundered it to Congressional Representatives in return for legislative and policy favors aligned with the Project's political agenda.
But this was not just any money laundering enterprise. Abramoff's dry cleaner was converting money to election fraud.
In 2002, the New Hampshire GOP received three $5,000 checks, just in time to pay $15,600 to a telemarketing company that jammed the phone lines of the Democratic Party's get-out-the-vote campaign in the morning hours of the election.
The three $5,000 checks? One each from two separate Abramoff tribal clients and the third from K Street loyalist Tom DeLay's ARMPAC.(ii)
The phone jamming trick, contributing to GOP Senator Sununu's narrow win, shows the magical rabbits that can pop out of a hat when Capital Hill lobbyists focus their attention on elections.
In its heyday, the K Street Project held election "reform" dead center in its crosshairs.
Project activities like New Hampshire's phone jamming, Ohio's "Coingate" and Tom Delay's Texas "PAC-gate", spun lobbyist money into election fraud gold. K Street masterfully laundered funds to influence election campaigns, policies, and processes around the nation. The Project functioned as one big money-laundering-for-election-fraud apparatus. K Street's most influential project was the 2002 sweeping election reform known as the "Help America Vote Act" (HAVA), whose architect, former Congressman Bob Ney, is also now in federal prison. (iii) HAVA was brilliantly subversive, spinning money into a sparkling, rich, complex and intricate golden gateway to perpetual election fraud.
HAVA's most benign outcome was to feed billions of dollars to an unsavory e-voting industry, including Greenberg Traurig's client, Diebold Election Systems.(iv) Its most insidious and dangerous outcome was the creation of the myth of verified voting and the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), a White House agency with unprecedented power over the nation's elections.
Election 2000 – Election Reform 2002
In the aftermath of Election 2000, the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision(v) dealt one terrible blow after another to our nation's democracy. The subversion of the democratic process that began with this decision continued with HAVA and its agency of perpetual subversion: the EAC.(vi)In 2002, the K Street-influenced Congress passed HAVA with great theatrical fanfare. The American people, still reeling from Election 2000, received it with a wholesale willingness to suspend disbelief.
"But when the smoke had cleared, a closer look revealed that HAVA had codified, rather than fixed, Election 2000’s largely unreported but most egregious trespasses of democracy (vii):"
- Electronic voter registration databases: In Florida 2000, up to 94,000 eligible voters – all identified as "Democratic-leaning"- were unjustifiably purged from electronic voter databases and not allowed to vote.
- Electronic voting machines: Florida 2000's electronic voting equipment mistabulated countless votes. In Volusia County alone, computers tabulated for Candidate Al Gore negative 16,022 votes.
- Presidential appointees with powerful authority to influence election outcomes: Florida 2000's vote count was stopped by the Supreme Court, effectively deciding the election for us.
HAVA alchemy transformed these three root causes of the Election 2000 catastrophe into the law of the land:
- Electronic voter registration databases: HAVA required every state in the nation to implement electronic voter registration databases.
- Electronic voting machines: HAVA mandated accessible voting equipment, specifically recommending and funding computerized touch screen machines.
- Presidential appointees with powerful authority to influence election outcomes: HAVA created the Election Assistance Commission, four presidential appointees with broad and ever-expanding powers over the nation's election systems.
Post-HAVA elections have delivered one disaster after another - from e-voting crashes, unequal distribution of expensive computerized equipment, registration database complications and abuse (viii), electoral lawsuits, and the multi-billion dollar e-voting industry's coups over the nation's democratic election processes (ix).
Outsourced Elections and Secret Vote Counting
The Election 2000 media message was filled with butterfly ballots, pregnant chads (x), and video clips of Florida election officials staring at computer punch cards struggling to discern the "intent" of the voter.(xi) In 2002, HAVA's message was that paper ballots caused chaos in Florida, but HAVA would take care of that, distributing nearly $3 billion to the states to buy electronic voter registration databases and paperless touch screen voting machines. The number of American votes counted by computers went from 71.5% in 2000, to 84% in 2004, and 86% in 2006.(xii)This was a cataclysmic change for election systems, and six years later, election officials continue to struggle with the transformation of familiar and manageable low-tech elections to the complex high-tech theatre wrought by HAVA.The destabilizing effect on America's mechanism of democracy has been substantial. Techno-elections have caused shortages of poll workers, who, with an average age of 72 years, are averse to the complexities of e-voting(xiii). America's elections are now plagued by general confusion and the inability of our public officials to independently administer our elections without corporate support services. Corporate employees now appear at our elections to assist poll workers in using their equipment, administer "fixes" for equipment malfunctions, and to hold vote data and election results in their black box secret vaults away from public scrutiny.
Each election cycle county and municipal coffers are emptied to meet the newly enriched and empowered e-voting industry's ever-increasing demands for programming, maintenance, upgrades and training.(xiv)
"What is going on here? A Republican House attorney, involved in the original drafting of HAVA, once remarked to me, “They are trying to complexify our elections to the point where citizens have no idea what is going on.” "
This is more than just a story of greedy corporations.
Swiftboating of Paper Ballots & Launch of Verifiable Voting
The truth behind the corporate media's 2000 "hanging chad" story is that Florida's much maligned "paper ballots" were really just the paper component (the computer punch cards and computer-scannable paper) of a failed computerized voting system, poorly designed and in some cases delivered on intentionally defective paper(xv).Real paper ballots are pieces of paper with candidate names printed on them in legible human-readable letters, on which voters simply mark an "X" by the name of their candidate of choice. Real paper ballots counted by real human beings have no hanging chads obscuring voter intent.
Unlike real paper ballots, the ballots in Florida 2000, designed for computers to read, were confusing to human voters. Additionally, they were intentionally produced on defective paper to conflict with the computer operations.
But the nation remained distracted by hanging chads, and congressional magicians pulled HAVA's multibillion dollar e-voting coups out of their hats. Voila. America's elections were transformed in the blink of an eye.
From "Right to Vote" to "Opportunity to Verify a Voting Machine"
Technology-based elections are the keystone of HAVA. Through HAVA, K Street money modified elections for technology rather than voter needs. This continues to this day in nearly every proposal for post-HAVA federal election reform.Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the now normative vocabulary of election reform: "verifiable voting."
HAVA states that a voting system must "permit the voter to verify (in a private and independent manner) the votes selected by the voter on the ballot before the ballot is cast and counted."(xvi)
HAVA's language is significant. When a voter marks a paper ballot with pen or pencil, he has no need to "verify" his choice. A voter only needs to "verify" his vote when it has been marked and/or counted by a computer.
HAVA intent was to technologize America's elections, even down to the terminology used to define voters' rights, transforming our constitutional right to vote into the opportunity to verify a voting machine's vote, and turning voters and election officials into quality control agents for the e-voting industry. Removing elections from the public domain, verified voting now centralizes power in the hands of technology experts and private corporations using proprietary trade secret software to count our votes.
HAVA initiated an ongoing program of government grants to fund a cottage industry of computer scientists and statisticians devising elaborate protocols to support the "verifiability" and "auditability" of technology-based elections.
HAVA's anti-democratic notion of "verifiable voting" has even diverted many voting rights activists from the fundamental and core principles of democratic elections: publicly owned and operated, fully observable elections with citizen controls over every aspect of the voting system. Many grassroots activists are now fighting for the opportunity to verify and audit voting machines rather than the right for fair and open voting and vote counting.
Despite the inherently false premise of verifiable voting, it has become the clarion call for 21st century election reformers in congress, the EAC, and grassroots movements alike.
Secret Vote Counting: Touch screens & Optical Scanners
After HAVA rolled computerized touch screen machines into roughly 40% of America's polling places, reformers clamored for "voter verified paper audit trails"(VVPAT)(xvii).This reform would send more money to the e-voting industry to attach printers to their touchscreen voting machines. The printers would then display a receipt-like printout to voters, who could look through a window and "verify" their vote.
But VVPAT, corporate controlled and proprietary, denies citizens the opportunity to oversee how their vote is being recorded and counted. Computer scientists remind us that a computer can easily be programmed to display one thing, record another, and count something altogether different. To make things worse, the display window in many of the VVPAT machines is inadequate for voters to even read the print out. Studies soon showed that between 10-20 percent of VVPAT paper records are unreadable and unusable for the purposes of "verifying" the votes in a recount. Other studies showed that only a very small percent of voters "verify" their vote in this manner.(xviii)
Ultimately, many VVPAT reformers abandoned the cause.
Today many reformers would willingly exchange all touch screen voting machines for optical scanners using voter marked paper ballots. I myself have, in the past, advocated for just such a solution as a great way to reintroduce voter marked paper ballots into every polling jurisdiction in the nation, itself a step in the right direction.
But I had to step away from that position. Because optical scan technology, like the touch screens, keeps the count itself secret and proprietary. Citizens and candidates are denied access to the count, even when the computers perform such bizarre tabulations as were seen in Florida 2000's negative vote count for candidate Gore.
Corporate controlled, trade secret optical scanners, like their touchscreen brothers, turn public votes into privatized election data.
Democratic Elections: Core Principles
Many voting activists continue to fight for optical scanners. But the fight for verifiable voting is, in fact, nothing more than a fight to continue the outsourcing of our elections to private corporations using secret vote counting technologies. To fight for verifiable voting is to perpetuate the subversion of our democratic elections. Secret vote counting is the antithesis of democracy. When you rationalize the use of secret vote counting in America, you ignore the core principles of democratic elections as defined by the Founders. These core principles define democratic elections as those with citizen controls, that are publicly owned and operated, in which the entire voting system (with the exception of the secret ballot) is fully observable. You can not inject privately controlled secret vote counting into this equation. It does not add up.I recently asked a national organization supporting voting rights through legal action to help eliminate privatized secret vote counting in New Hampshire. My appeal was rejected because New Hampshire uses paper ballots and optical scanners, and they would never take a case that "prosecutes optical scanners" when they were fighting to replace touch screen machines with optical scanners in so many other parts of the nation.
That same organization sent observers to the New Hampshire 2008 Primary recount, and one has to wonder if they still believe quite as strongly in the myth of verified voting after that experience.
In New Hampshire, many officials and politicians point to the state's accessible recounts to justify the use of secret vote counting technology to count 84% of New Hampshire votes on election night. This is just another manifestation of the myth of verified voting. The logic behind this is that it is somehow excusable to allow secret vote counting on election night because, theoretically, you can always count the paper ballots by hand in a recount. But how does this play out in real life?
In the 2008 Primary recount, as the verified voting teams launched their NH recounts, the citizen voting rights activists decided to test the core principles of democratic elections. National activists came to New Hampshire to observe the recount, focusing on the ballot chain of custody, as the paper ballots were transported from New Hampshire cities and towns to the state capital for the recount. After all, they reasoned, what good is "verifying" the vote, if you can't be sure the vote you are verifying is the actual vote that had been cast on election night?
What the citizen observers discovered was that verifiable voting is as mythological as the unicorn. They discovered they could not, in fact, verify that the votes being verified were the votes that had been cast on election night because there was virtually no oversight on the ballot chain of custody. Boxes of ballots had to be delivered from cities and towns to a central location for the recount. But the state did not allow for citizen controls at all in this process. (xviiii)
The state obstructed citizen observation of the ballot deliveries by transporting the ballots in state vehicles at high speeds that eluded their citizen chaperones. The state delivered the ballots under cover of darkness preventing citizen oversight. The state utilized K-9 police units with fiesty barking police dogs to prevent citizens from approaching as ballots were unloaded from state vehicles to the centralized recount location. And the state broke its own law by not providing secure ballot containers to the cities and towns, resulting in ballots being stored and transported in cardboard boxes, often broken open and unsealed, often cluttered with miscellaneous labels and writing, and for which it was impossible to detect whether or not any tampering might have occured.
And who's to say what might have occured with those torn and abused cardboard boxes of ballots in the days and weeks they were left unattended in the locked but unsecured closets of New Hampshire's old town halls?
The verified voting scenario in New Hampshire's 2008 Primary recount is starkly different from a real democratic election, such as those held in 45% of New Hampshire's polling places, where the votes are counted on election night, by hand, with at least one public observer for every one counter, using proper counting methods to reconcile all the numbers (number of voters checked in, number of ballots cast, number of uncast or spoiled ballots, number of blank ballots started with, etc.).
New Hampshire's e-voting proponents are dead wrong when they claim that verified voting rationalizes secret vote counting. The truth is, nothing rationalizes secret vote counting unless you want to have a form of government that is quite other than the democratic republic that is our American birthright.
Which brings us back to the core principles of democratic elections. Both the New Hampshire and the Massachusetts Constitutions, the two earliest constitutions in the nation, drafted by the nation's Founders and predating the United States Constitution, include a requirement to count the votes in open meeting. In open meeting. That means, where everyone can observe the count. Black box vote counting, where anonymous programmers working for private corporate interests, often with partisan ties, using proprietary trade secret technology, does not meet this constitutional requirement.
Verifiable voting is nothing more than a myth perpetuated by the e-voting industry and locked into place by K Street lobbyists. An audit, a recount, a computer receipt.... None of these are adequate substitutes for the right to vote and to have your vote counted publicly and fairly and honestly.
We could not get any farther from the Founders' vision.
Sources:
(i Think Progress, "If You Don't Know About the K Street Project, You Don't Know Jack", January 13, 2006.
(ii Marshall, Joshua, "Three Years Later, GOP Can't Shake Taint of '02 Tactics," The Hill,, October 20, 2005 and Cohen, Adam, "A Small Time Crime with Hints of Big Time Connections Lights up the Internet," New York Times,, April 17, 2006.
(iii) Rolling Stone, "Editorial, A Call for Investigation," June 1, 2006.
(iv) BlackBoxVoting.ORG, "The Road to Boondoggle was Paved with Good Intentions," January 30, 2007.
(v) Cornell University, Supreme Court Collection, George W. Bush, et al., petitioners v. Albert Gore, Jr., et al.
(vi) Tobi, Nancy, "The EAC Certification Ponzi Scheme" , October 3, 2006.
(vii) Tobi, Nancy, "The Gifts of HAVA to American Democracy: Time to Ask for a Refund", October, 2005.
(viii) Wolf, Richard, USA Today, "Legal Voters Thrown off Rolls," January 2, 2008.
(ix) Fitrakis, Bob and Wasserman, Harvey, What Happened in )Ohio, New Press, October, 2006.
(x) Jones, Douglas, "Chad-From Waste Product to Headline", 2002.
(xi Jackson, Brooks, CNN, "Hanging Chads' often viewed by courts as sign of voter intent", , November 16, 2000.
(xii) Brace, Kimball Election Data Services, Overview of Voting Equipment Usage in United States, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) Voting (.pdf format) and 2006 Voting Equipment Study.
(xiii) Drinkard, Jim, USA Today, "Panel Cites Poll Workers' Age as Problem", August 9, 2004.
(xiv) Myerson, Rosemary , "Comparison of Operating Costs", February 8, 2005, and Voting Machines ProCon.org, Voting Machine Issues, Costs, click here
(xv) Breslauer, Alan, BradBlog, "Dan Rather Reports Video: 'The Trouble with Touch Screens' Will be Huge Trouble for Sequoia, ES&S and Maybe the Republicans from the 2000 Election!" , August 15, 2007.
(xvi) Help America Vote Act of 2002 Public Law 107-252, Section 301
(xvii) Hall, Joseph Lorenzo, UC Berkeley School of Information, "Design and the Support of Transparency in VVPAT Systems in the US Voting Systems Market," , 2006.
(xviii) Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project, May 2005, and Lehto, Paul, "Ultimate Nightmare for Democracy, High Confidence Yet Total Fraud" , May 21, 2007.
(xviiii) BlackBoxVoting.ORG
Nancy Tobi is co-founder, former Chair, website editor for Democracy for New Hampshire (DFNH), and Chair of the NH Fair Elections Committee. Nancy is the author of numerous articles on election integrity, including "The Gifts of HAVA: Time to Ask for a Refund," "What's Wrong with the Holt Bill," "We're Counting the Votes: An Election Preparedness Kit," and "Hands-on Elections: An Information Handbook for Running Real Elections, Using Real Paper Ballots, Counted by Real People". Her article about election reform fallacies is included in the April 2008 book "Losers Take All" edited by Mark Crispin Miller.
Nancy believes in the principles embodied in our Constitution, and that groups like Election Defense Alliance and DFNH can play a unique role by empowering ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Democrats Ready to Ride the Green Wave?
Democratic leaders want to ride the Green wave into this year's election. Will the Dems shoot the curl or are they just skimboarding?
At the last convention, going green meant focusing on recycling trash and reducing waste during convention week. Now DNCC officials have paid professional greeners to guide them before and after the convention to the next baby step in going green.
"It's not about PR," assured House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "It's about substance."
But amongst Green Party leaders, the co-opting of the Green brand poses a threat to the party's membership and future growth and greenwashes the urgent issues at hand.
Co-founder of the Green Party and high ranking San Francisco elected official, Ross Mirkarimi fears that liberal Democrats who have adopted green lifestyle like a cloak, will significantly impact the ability to attract new voters into the Green Party. "Ecological disaster has become so mainstream. We've become so successful at influencing the other parties on agenda, that they don't even have to credit the source." He said he feels the lament of a parent who wonders if their child will survive.
"The Democrats have the rhetoric but not the substance," retorts another co-founder, Howie Hawkins.
For Greens, shooting the Green wave would include:
At the last convention, going green meant focusing on recycling trash and reducing waste during convention week. Now DNCC officials have paid professional greeners to guide them before and after the convention to the next baby step in going green.
"It's not about PR," assured House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "It's about substance."
But amongst Green Party leaders, the co-opting of the Green brand poses a threat to the party's membership and future growth and greenwashes the urgent issues at hand.
Co-founder of the Green Party and high ranking San Francisco elected official, Ross Mirkarimi fears that liberal Democrats who have adopted green lifestyle like a cloak, will significantly impact the ability to attract new voters into the Green Party. "Ecological disaster has become so mainstream. We've become so successful at influencing the other parties on agenda, that they don't even have to credit the source." He said he feels the lament of a parent who wonders if their child will survive.
"The Democrats have the rhetoric but not the substance," retorts another co-founder, Howie Hawkins.
For Greens, shooting the Green wave would include:
- immediate overhaul of sustainability practices throughout government
- immediate withdrawal from Iraq with diplomatic solutions supsported and varying degrees of military presence in out-lying regions to support humanitarian concerns.
- creation of a single-payer health reform such as in Canada
- reform of the drug laws and the prison system
- targeted Reconstruction efforts
- ecological and environmental justice
- social justice and equal rights
- decentralize government and return to local control, keeping tax money closer to home
- electoral and ballot access reform
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Third Party Watch Gazes at the Green Party
This read from Third Party Watch is fascinating for its comments. Third Party Watch, a mostly, but not wholly Libertarian authored site, has been turning its eye to the Green Party lately. The author of this article will be a delegate to the party's convention in the summer.
Briefly, the story reports Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney's substantial win of Wisconsin delegates, with Ralph Nader, Kent Mesplay, Kat Swift and Jesse Johnson following.
To clarify some of the concerns of the readers and commenters, Ralph Nader is not seeking the Green Party nomination, according to many sources including the man himself. However, he would have sought it had Cynthia McKinney not committed to the run, says fomer Candidates and Campaign co-chair, Cat Woods; as late as January, some were unsure if McKinney would sustain her campaign.
There's little reason to expect that Nader will suddenly appear on the Green Party's Convention doorstep to wrest the nomination. For one, his running mate, Matt Gonzalez has stated point-blank that he has no intention of going. For another, (being frugal and frustrated) many of the Nader delegates who are from California and the East Coast have said that they will not be going to the convention. They find it difficult to justify the $1000 for travel/room and board expenses when they feel that their draft candidate was unrepresented on many state party's ballots. State officers on the other hand, feel that they only wanted to represent people on their ballots who had declared an intention to run which Nader did not do until late February. Some of the Nader delegates have branched off to support Nader's Independent run, while others, like early founding member, Howie Hawkins will support both Nader and McKinney campaigns to the degree possible - stopping at the polling booth.
In the meantime, Nader appears regularly in the press while McKinney has garnered a complimentary mainstream piece in Essence Magazine and a nice interview with Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW. Getting press is not all there is to campaigning, but being a household name is something any national politician must succeed in doing; something the lesser known grassroots candidates (Kent Mesplay, Jesse Johnson and Kat Swift) are learning to do.
Perhaps the parallel Progressive campaigns will bring new voters to the table for both the Green Party and for the newly forming parties sprouting up to support Nader's state-by-state ballot access campaign. However, it is more likely at this point that the campaigns will snag, not tear at the Democratic Party fabric.
Briefly, the story reports Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney's substantial win of Wisconsin delegates, with Ralph Nader, Kent Mesplay, Kat Swift and Jesse Johnson following.
To clarify some of the concerns of the readers and commenters, Ralph Nader is not seeking the Green Party nomination, according to many sources including the man himself. However, he would have sought it had Cynthia McKinney not committed to the run, says fomer Candidates and Campaign co-chair, Cat Woods; as late as January, some were unsure if McKinney would sustain her campaign.
There's little reason to expect that Nader will suddenly appear on the Green Party's Convention doorstep to wrest the nomination. For one, his running mate, Matt Gonzalez has stated point-blank that he has no intention of going. For another, (being frugal and frustrated) many of the Nader delegates who are from California and the East Coast have said that they will not be going to the convention. They find it difficult to justify the $1000 for travel/room and board expenses when they feel that their draft candidate was unrepresented on many state party's ballots. State officers on the other hand, feel that they only wanted to represent people on their ballots who had declared an intention to run which Nader did not do until late February. Some of the Nader delegates have branched off to support Nader's Independent run, while others, like early founding member, Howie Hawkins will support both Nader and McKinney campaigns to the degree possible - stopping at the polling booth.
In the meantime, Nader appears regularly in the press while McKinney has garnered a complimentary mainstream piece in Essence Magazine and a nice interview with Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW. Getting press is not all there is to campaigning, but being a household name is something any national politician must succeed in doing; something the lesser known grassroots candidates (Kent Mesplay, Jesse Johnson and Kat Swift) are learning to do.
Perhaps the parallel Progressive campaigns will bring new voters to the table for both the Green Party and for the newly forming parties sprouting up to support Nader's state-by-state ballot access campaign. However, it is more likely at this point that the campaigns will snag, not tear at the Democratic Party fabric.
Faith Before Science Leaves Greens In the Cold
While presidential frontrunners Clinton and Obama have refused to debate over matters of Science at the Science Debate 2008 on April 18, the Democratic candidates are eager to address issues of Faith at the Forum on Faith Issues on April 13. McCain has not yet committed to either. Logistical conflict has been cited, but given the importance of Science, why does it get the short shift?
Green Party Presidential Candidates would love to take this seriously, but they were not invited, nor even responded to when inquiries were made, according to Green Party Presidential candidate Kent Mesplay, Ph.D. of Science. He along with fellow Grassroots Presidential candidates Kat Swift and Jesse Johnson will stage their own debate in Pennsylvania mid-April, both to discuss their deep concerns related to Science and to protest their non-representation at a forum where they feel they have some stake in being heard.
The supporters of the Science Debate 2008 include a list of prominent institutions, company executives and politicians. It has been planned for months, but what do you do if you throw a debate and no one shows up?
Depending upon what happens to Clinton in the next few primaries, perhaps after Pennsylvania's, the organization will hope to have a debate in Oregon before the state's primary in May.
resources:
Science Debate 2008
Forum on Faith
Plan B for the Science Debate
"This is not a niche debate, the future economic success of the United States depends on out-performing the competition with smart people and smart ideas. Without the best education system and aggressive investments in basic research and development we will become a second rate economic power. We hope the candidates for president take this very seriously."-Craig BarrettChairman, Intel
Green Party Presidential Candidates would love to take this seriously, but they were not invited, nor even responded to when inquiries were made, according to Green Party Presidential candidate Kent Mesplay, Ph.D. of Science. He along with fellow Grassroots Presidential candidates Kat Swift and Jesse Johnson will stage their own debate in Pennsylvania mid-April, both to discuss their deep concerns related to Science and to protest their non-representation at a forum where they feel they have some stake in being heard.
The supporters of the Science Debate 2008 include a list of prominent institutions, company executives and politicians. It has been planned for months, but what do you do if you throw a debate and no one shows up?
Depending upon what happens to Clinton in the next few primaries, perhaps after Pennsylvania's, the organization will hope to have a debate in Oregon before the state's primary in May.
resources:
Science Debate 2008
Forum on Faith
Plan B for the Science Debate
Bloomberg Flourishes Green as a Sustainable Practicality
Big business is turning green with opportunity. It's part of every corporations' marketing campaign, including the oil business.
Mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg stood before guests of Newsweek's second annual ‘Global Environment Leadership Conference' and urged big business leaders gathered that sustainable businesses cannot only thrive in, but improve the environment.
Hopefully, environmental activists and inventors who have long sought business reforms, can take some pleasure in this greenwashing, though it's unlikely that much gratitude will come their way for their decades of efforts. While it might take a great leader to extract sacrifices from the voters, it will take a humble activist to stop from saying, "I told you so."
Mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg stood before guests of Newsweek's second annual ‘Global Environment Leadership Conference' and urged big business leaders gathered that sustainable businesses cannot only thrive in, but improve the environment.
“Now, for far too long, environmentalism has gotten pitted against economic development. But that’s a myth that ought to be laid to rest. Arnold (Schwareznegger) talked about that at last year’s conference. He spoke about how we can protect the environment and also protect the economy.“Today, I’m not only going to second that idea, but take it one step further. Because the fact is that we can actually improve our environment while growing our economy. Certainly, growing our economy is a major concern in Washington, and throughout the nation, too. It’s not going to be easy or simple. It’s going to require leadership in the public and private sectors and change in our public and private lives.
“One thing that I’ve learned in government is that there’s always a good reason to do nothing. But business – and government, too – both increasingly recognize that going green is the best – indeed the only – pro-growth strategy, not just for the long term, but in the short run as well.
“The other participants in today’s conference can vouch for that, too. Let’s start with the private sector, where today green business is clearly good business. Just ask the representatives here today from Starbucks, Saatchi & Saatchi, Stoneyfield Farms, and Fetzer Vineyards, who will be on a panel entitled ‘Profitability through Sustainability.’
“They’ll tell you that going green helps the bottom line by reducing energy consumption and lowering energy costs. It’s also a plus in recruiting and retaining top employees – men and women who are often very environmentally conscious and active. And in today’s highly competitive economy – where the best people can and will go where they feel most comfortable – that’s an increasingly, and even overridingly, important factor.
“Cities are intensely competitive with one another, too. Increasingly, quality of life provides the winning edge in that competition. It’s often what separates the front runners from the also-rans in the global economy. Believe me, I know where I want New York City to be in that race. And I know that – as big as the benefits of environmentalism are, and as big as the risks of climate change if we don’t act – a lot of people would still rather do nothing.
“It takes courage to ask people to change – even if it won’t really cost them much. Political leaders today are afraid of their constituents. As Evan Thomas notes in this week’s Newsweek, ‘it takes a very great leader to extract sacrifice from the voters, but if we wait until the water starts lapping over Manhattan to really do something to affect climate change, it will be too late.’
Hopefully, environmental activists and inventors who have long sought business reforms, can take some pleasure in this greenwashing, though it's unlikely that much gratitude will come their way for their decades of efforts. While it might take a great leader to extract sacrifices from the voters, it will take a humble activist to stop from saying, "I told you so."
Friday, April 4, 2008
Scientists Want Issues Debated but Candidates Won't Commit
The Pennsylvania state primary is looming, and scientists are planning for presidential candidates (polling at 15%+) to hold a debate on science-related issues on April 18 at the Franklin Institute (http://www.sciencedebate2008.com). Unfortunately, none of the candidates have agreed to attend, according to a press officer for the organization.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
It's not News, It's History
In memory of Dr. Martin Luther King
We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now
Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as the war hawks. As they spread the propaganda of war, we must spread the propaganda of peace. We must combine the fervor of the civil rights movement with the peace movement. We must demonstrate, teach and preach until the very foundations of our nation are shaken. We must work unceasingly to lift this nation that we love to a higher destiny, to a new plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humaneness."...There is an element of urgency in our re-directing American power. We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today.
Let the crooked places be made straight.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Calendar Announcement: Matt Gonzalez on KALW
KALW, Pacifica RadioWednesday, April 2
Call In:
415-841-4134 (Bay Area)
866-798-TALK (Toll-Free)
Listen to the show online
Tune into KALW 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Program Note:
Why is Matt Gonzalez running for vice president? On the next Your Call we speak with the former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and current Independent Party running mate of Ralph Nader. Since leaving the Democratic Party in the middle of an election in 2000, Gonzalez has charted his own path through electoral politics. Why has he come back now, and what does he hope to accomplish? Is this a model for how you make peace with your idealism and your practicality? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.
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