Will All The Votes Be Counted In The Next Primaries?

March 3rd, 2008 - by: danny

BRAD BLOG: WILL THERE BE MORE VOTING IRREGULARITIES IN OHIO?

New Voting Equipment Fails Testing in Cleveland in Advance of Tuesday’s Primary in Ohio

United Technologies Makes Bid for Diebold

Diebold, of course, is the Republican dominated company that makes electronic voting machines and at the center of many election controversies.

Jerry Policoff explains United Technologies: “This is really interesting, and scary. United Technologies is a big time defense contractor and war profiteer. They did $22.5 billion dollars in defense contracts between 2002 and 2006, ranking them 7th among all defense contractors just behind KBR. and they have been involved in a lot of controversy and shady bookkeeping, especially with their Blackhawk helicopters. Its CEO made $70 million in salary and options in 2003. The company is also a major GOP campaign contributor. Its Board has included Howard Baker former Undersecretary of the Air Force, Charles Duncan, Jr., former Secretary of Energy, Jamie S. Gorelick, former Deputy United States Attorney General, William J. Perry, former Secretary of Defense, Christine Todd Whitman, former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Richard Myers, former head of the Joint Chiefs.’

Election integrity analyst Mark Crispin Miller adds: “We’ve had foretastes of this move, with companies like Accenture providing “felons lists” to Jeb’s machine in Florida, to help him fix the vote for brother George, and then moving on to help Bush/Cheney fight the “War on Terror” here on the domestic front. And, of course, GE played a big role in declaring
Bush the winner of that race in Florida on Election Day, 2000, When “Neutron Jack” Welch, GE’s CEO, personally dropped into NBC’s newsroom to order all hands to second FOX News’s (bogus) call that Bush had “won.”

Considering the Framers powerful aversion to the notion of a “standing army” in the new Republic, and Eisenhower’s last speech warning us against the toxic influence of “the military-industrial complex,” this disastrous bid should forbidden by an Act of Congress.”

CRISIS ERUPTS IN SOUTH AMERICA

VENEZUELA SENDS TANKS TO THE BORDER

AS COLUMBIA REBEL LEADER KILLED

BUSH AID QUITS, ADMITS PLAGIARISM

WASHINGTON — (AP) A White House official who serves as President Bush’s middleman with conservatives and Christian groups has resigned after admitting to plagiarism. Timothy Goeglein, who has worked for Bush since 2001, acknowledged that he lifted material from a Dartmouth College publication and presented it as his own work in a column about education for The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Ind.The White House said Goeglein has apologized for not upholding the standards expected by the president.

WATCH: AFGHAN WOMEN GIVE KIDS OPIUM

RABBI ARTHUR WASKOW ON KILLINGS IN GAZA

On Saturday, March 1, the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that — “Sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Less than one-third (28 percent) still opposes such talks.”

Ignoring the desires of the people, the Israeli government has rejected such talks when offered (as recently as six weeks ago) by Hamas. And so Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli bombing and strafing of Palestinians continue. This weekend, one Israeli civilian and more than 50 Palestinians – many civilians, including children – died.

To people of all religious beliefs and communities and to all people of ethical commitment wherever they derive their views, this situation is intolerable. Muslims everywhere who honor the Quran’s prohibition of attacks on civilians have a special responsibility to demand that Hamas end these attacks on Israelis; Jews everywhere who honor the Torah’s teaching that all human beings are made in the Image of God have a special responsibility to demand that the Israeli government end its attacks on Palestinians.

WAS OBAMA BACKING PALESTINIAN TERROSISTS

Part of the charge: “The co-founder of the Arab group in question, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, also has held a fundraiser for Obama. Khalidi is a harsh critic of Israel, has made statements supportive of Palestinian terror and reportedly has worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization while it was involved in anti-Western terrorism and was labeled by the State Department as a terror group.”

Heres’ a debunking.

I was in touch with Khalidi, a brilliant academic, and as I already reported he said this is not true and sees it as more swiftboating.

He told me that Former Ambassador Joe Wilson was one of those behind the smear on him. At least one reader took me to task for reporting this. But Now Wilson is attacking Obama directly:

An Israeli journalist writes about the Israeli media in the London Review of Books:

A year ago I applied for the job of Occupied Territories correspondent at Ma’ariv, an Israeli newspaper. I speak Arabic and have taught in Palestinian schools and taken part in many joint Jewish-Palestinian projects. At my interview the boss asked how I could possibly be objective. I had spent too much time with Palestinians; I was bound to be biased in their favour. I didn’t get the job. My next interview was with Walla, Israel’s most popular website. This time I did get the job and I became Walla’s Middle East correspondent. I soon understood what Tamar Liebes, the director of the Smart Institute of Communication at the Hebrew University, meant when she said: ‘Journalists and publishers see themselves as actors within the Zionist movement, not as critical outsiders.’

This is not to say that Israeli journalism is not professional. Corruption, social decay and dishonesty are pursued with commendable determination by newspapers, TV and radio. That Israelis heard exactly what former President Katsav did or didn’t do with his secretaries proves that the media are performing their watchdog role, even at the risk of causing national and international embarrassment. Ehud Olmert’s shady apartment deal, the business of Ariel Sharon’s mysterious Greek island, Binyamin Netanyahu’s secret love affair, Yitzhak Rabin’s secret American bank account: all of these are freely discussed by the Israeli media.

When it comes to ‘security’ there is no such freedom. It’s ‘us’ and ‘them’, the IDF and the ‘enemy’; military discourse, which is the only discourse allowed, trumps any other possible narrative. It’s not that Israeli journalists are following orders, or a written code: just that they’d rather think well of their security force.

SONG: FORECLOSE ON THE HOUSE OF LOVE

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The News Dissector