[MCM] Brad Friedman on the propaganda drive attacking Democratic "voter fraud"

[Mark Crispin Miller]

GOP OCTOBER 
'SURPRISE' SPREADS TO OHIO: Coordinated Plan to 
Wreak Havoc, Bring Bogus 'Voter Fraud' 
Allegations Hits Buckeye State
VIDEO: McCain Picks Up Phony ACORN 'Voter Fraud' 
Allegations in Stump Speech Today


From: newsfromunderground@googlegroups.com 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On 
Behalf Of Mark Crispin Miller
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 6:52 PM
To: newsfromunderground@googlegroups.com
Subject: [MCM] GOP attacking Dem votes in Ohio

The GOP's attack on Democratic "voter fraud" is in full swing.

MCM


County officials seeking Ohio voters' records
http://www.ohio.com/news/ap?articleID=904054&c=y



By JULIE CARR SMYTH AP Statehouse Correspondent



Published on Thursday Oct 09, 2008



Law enforcers in a southwest Ohio county rich 
with Democrat-leaning college students are 
seeking information on hundreds of people who 
registered to vote and cast ballots during the 
state's weeklong same-day voting window.



The window was the subject of an unsuccessful 
legal challenge by the Ohio Republican Party.



Greene County Sheriff Gene Fischer, a Republican, 
requested registration cards and address change 
forms Thursday for all 302 people who took 
advantage of the window. He told elections 
officials he had been inundated with phone calls 
from people concerned about possible fraud.



Representing Fischer is County Prosecutor Stephen 
Haller, a former law partner of Mike DeWine. 
DeWine, a former U.S. senator, chairs the Ohio 
campaign of Republican presidential nominee John 
McCain. He grew up in Greene County, seated in 
Xenia, and formerly served as county prosecutor 
there.



McCain's rival, Democrat Barack Obama, launched a 
major voter push to attract new voters during the 
window.



Haller said the records request was not 
politically motivated. He also said he was not 
personally working on the matter.



The county is home to five colleges or 
universities: Wright State, Central State, 
Wilberforce and Cedarville universities and what 
remains of free-thinking Antioch College. 
Cedarville is a Christian college.



The county's deputy elections director Llyn McCoy 
said Thursday that the records request was being 
processed. Names, telephone numbers, and Social 
Security numbers will be blackened out before 
releasing the documents, she said.



"We can't provide unredacted records without a 
subpoena," said McCoy, a Democrat.



In a Wednesday e-mail seeking legal advice from 
state elections officials, McCoy said the sheriff 
wanted nothing blacked out of the records. 
According to McCoy's e-mail, "He has never 
indicated that he has any other information other 
than the phone calls he has received."



Tom Miller, chief of the prosecutor's civil 
division, said Fischer is seeking information so 
that he can prevent voter fraud. He made it clear 
to prosecutors that his concerns were not 
partisan, Miller said, even noting during their 
discussion that students at one of colleges, 
Cedarville, would tend to vote Republican.



Among concerns presented to county officials were 
that college students who voted during the window 
would be able to vote again in their home 
counties on Election Day, and that early voters 
might simultaneously register and vote in Ohio 
and in another state, Miller said.



"There's certain information that the sheriff was 
hoping to appear on that voter registration that 
might enable him to track backward and determine 
whether there was any voter fraud or not," Miller 
said.



He said Fischer had been careful to express 
questions raised only as concerns, not 
allegations.



"No one was alleging that voting fraud was 
occurring," he said. "It seemed to be of concern 
whether safeguards were in place to prevent those 
things from occurring."



McCoy said she assured the sheriff and 
prosecutor's office that county and state 
election officials have practices in place to 
catch duplicate registrations and to prevent 
multiple votes by the same voter. They also will 
send a notice to the election board for the 
voter's old address indicating their registration 
there should be canceled.



"At this point, they're allowed to make the 
public records request," McCoy said. "We'll see 
where they go with it. You have to have something 
more to go on than just that they registered and 
voted on the same day."



Miller said voter registration forms are public 
records and the sheriff _ and any other member of 
the public _ is entitled to the information. He 
said Fischer wanted to submit his request at 
least 21 days before the election, because Ohio 
law gives election boards a reprieve from filling 
records request during the three weeks prior to 
an election.



Miller said he doubted whether the sheriff's 
action would be interpreted as a threat to new 
voters.



"Should somebody learn that the sheriff made a 
public records request, would that constitute 
voter intimidation?" he said. "Just in my 
opinion, you woul

[MCM] "Daily Voting News" for 10/9/08

[Mark Crispin Miller]

 From John Gideon:

"When I finally saw the results of our [EVEREST] tests, I thought I 
was going to throw up. I didn't think it would be that bad. And it 
was - it was awful. I looked at it on a Saturday morning, and that 
night I went to bed and woke up [just before 4:00 on] Sunday morning 
going, "Oh my God." I never wake up on the weekends - trust me."

Jennifer Brunner, Ohio Secretary of State when asked in a recent 
interview about the state's EVEREST evaluation of the voting machines 
used in Ohio. &&& The group of potential voters that has participated 
the least in past years has probably been students. From all reports 
students seem to be engaged in this year's election and will be 
turning out in large numbers. That can only be a good thing. However, 
it seems that some are doing all they can to keep the students away 
from the polls. Our second "Featured" article discusses the actions 
being taken to disenfranchise student voters and the counter-actions 
to enfranchise them.

Featured - OH: Exclusive: OH's SoS Brunner Looks Beyond Todays 
E-Voting Nightmares
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6483

Featured - National: College students facing barriers to voting
http://www.marshallnewsmessenger.com/hp/content/shared/news/stories/2008/10/VOTING_COLLEGE05_1STLD_COX.html

National: States' Purges of Voter Rolls Appear Illegal
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin

National: NYTimes: Thousand of Eligible Voters Illegally Removed From 
Voter Rolls
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6490

National: Are States Illegally Removing Voters From the Rolls?
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=10&year=2008&base_name=are_states_illegally_removing

National: Purges & Provisional Ballots
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/freefair/articles.php?ID=2461

National: Think Again: The Uses and Abuses of "Voter Fraud"
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/10/voter_fraud.html

National: Polling places lack resources, civil rights group says
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-10-08-racevote_N.htm

National: U.S. polling places said to lack resources
http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/9743.html

National: Election Protection Wiki  Registration Concludes in Many States
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1835

National: Elections officials deny illegally purging voters
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jEO59UYwxH2aOTkJJiWyLf7P0slQD93N69C02

National: Democrats Fight Back: Taking On GOP Voter Suppression
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-pelosi/democrats-fight-back-taki_b_133358.html

National: Voters Want Choices. And They Want to Be Heard
That's why Ranked Choice Voting makes so much sense.
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2008-06-11/news/voters-want-choices-and-they-want-to-be-heard/

National: Protecting the Vote
http://egpnews.com/?p=2379

National: Voting concerns persist in Florida and around the country
http://www.wmnf.org/news_stories/6224

AZ: Many Arizona election results could be delayed
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/261506.php

AZ: Early ballots may stall vote results
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2008/10/09/20081009earlyvoting1009.html

CA: Los Angeles County - Surge in voter registration highlights electoral fraud
http://www.malibutimes.com/articles/2008/10/09/news/news6.txt

CO: Coffman to address NYT voter purge story
http://www.denverpost.com/dnc/ci_10678855

CO: Coffman says report wrong on voter purging
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/09/democratic-official-questions-report-voter-purges/?partner=RSS

CO: Ritter scolds Coffman over voter error
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/09/ritter-scolds-coffman-over-voter-error/

CO: Ritter Responds
http://www.csindy.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A31158

CO: Denver - Voter registration forms scrutinized
Election workers find thousands of errors on records
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/09/voter-registration-forms-scrutinized/

CO: El Paso County - Lawmaker calls out El Paso Clerk Balink for 
'12-point strategy' on voter suppression
http://coloradoindependent.com/10844/lawmaker-calls-out-el-paso-clerk-balink-for-12-point-strategy-on-voter-suppression

CO: El Paso County - Springs editor beseeches Gov. Ritter to 
intervene in election 'crisis'
http://coloradoindependent.com/10914/springs-editor-beseeches-gov-ritter-to-intervene-in-election-crisis

FL: Few reliable voting machines in Florida
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/Few-reliable-voting-machines-in-Florida--/111696

IA: Plymouth County - Voters back to pen and paper at the polls
http://www.lemarssentinel.com/story/1468392.html

KY: Voters' fears about tricks understandable
http://www.kentucky.com/139/story/550030.html

LA: Iberia Parish - Electronic voting glitch reported in Delcambre race
http://www.iberianet.com/articles/2008/10/09/news/doc48ee56fed1702965734605.txt

LA: Orleans Parish - State official suggests shakeup at pol

[MCM] Repubs will "challenge" an Obama victory

[Mark Crispin Miller]

As predicted (here and elsewhere), the Republicans are using their 
huge propaganda
apparatus to accuse the Democrats of planning to steal this election. 
To anyone who
knows what's actually been going on these last eight years, the 
charge is laughable--
or would be, if it weren't so dangerous.

It's dangerous because so many of our fellow-citizens still haven't 
learned the facts about
the stolen races in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006, or about the GOP's 
long preparations to
subvert the next election, too. Such facts are still unknown because 
the press has not
reported them, nor have most leading Democrats even acknowledged 
them. That silence
has now made it very easy for the GOP to pose as victims of election 
fraud and vote
suppression--and thereby to suppress more votes, and perpetrate an 
even greater fraud
this time around.

What the party's done thus far is use the myth of Democratic "voter 
fraud" not just to
cloud the issue, but to justify the passage of Jim Crow legislation, 
like the photo ID
law in Indiana, the birth certificate requirement in Pima County, 
Arizona, and other
measures meant to disenfranchise Democratic/Independent voters by the tens of
thousands.

And now the party plans to push that strategy to its ultimate 
expression: an effort to
undo a Democratic victory on Election Day.

On  Wednesday,  Investor's Business Daily posted an editorial, "Is 
ACORN Stealing
The Election?" 
(http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=308358130652174)
The tease: "ELECTION FRAUD: A radical group Barack Obama used to work for
is committing voter-registration fraud in several states, ahead of 
the election. What
does Obama know about this scam?"

The whole piece is a tissue of such shrill crapola, which it would 
take much precious
time to blow away. Suffice it to say (one more time) that ACORN has, 
all along, been
scrupulous in its observance of the laws (necessarily, since every 
move they make is
under hostile scrutiny); and that the outfit has prevailed in every 
lawsuit brought against
them by the GOP. As noted earlier, moreover, these recent ACORN 
"scandals" are a
load of rubbish, patently contrived for propaganda purposes. In 
short, there's nothing
there, as any rational observer will discover right away.

But the GOP is not engaged in rational debate or honest inquiry, but dealing in
sensational canards, so as to lay the groundwork for another stolen 
race--just as
in Florida eight years ago, when Bush/Cheney's men deployed exaggerations, lies
and livid buzzwords (and a telling moment of mob violence) to subvert 
the true result
of that election and install themselves in power. The strategy for 
this election is laid
out explicitly in the last paragraph of the Investor's Business Daily 
editorial: 

"McCain would be wise to start preparing a challenge to voter 
registration rolls
should he lose the race in a close contest. He'd be crazy not to 
contest the results
in light of these events."

And so we would be crazy to allow the GOP to play that trick on us again. It's
therefore time to set the record straight: about what Bush & Co. has done to
our elections in this century, and what they're doing now (the Democrats, as
usual, colluding in such evil by just sitting there). Only by 
aggressively exposing
the Big Lie that the Republicans are pushing can we keep them from reversing
their quite possible defeat on this Election Day--a loss that they apparently
foresee, or they would not be getting ready to "contest" it.
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[MCM] Army, Air Force poised for action HERE

[Mark Crispin Miller]

If, say, thousands of would-be voters, told that 
they aren't registered, don't slink home
on this Election Day, but stick around, their 
numbers growing, and start making noise,
with some of them recording such protests on 
video, and posting them on YouTube--
what might happen, in this nation where, we often 
tell ourselves, elections are quite
orderly and peaceful, and not resolved by "tanks in the streets"?

Be sure to read the harrowing interview with 
David Antoon, reported in Naomi Wolf's
piece, below.
MCM

Flight exercise today around D.C.

The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Oct 9, 2008 7:53:26 EDT

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/10/ap_exerciseflights_100908/

WASHINGTON - The Air Force is planning a one-day 
flight exercise in the Washington area.

Aircraft will perform a series of training 
flights starting early Thursday. The North 
American Aerospace Defense Command and other 
agencies are coordinating the flights.

Civil Air Patrol aircraft and Coast Guard helicopters will take part.

Officials say the exercise, called Falcon Virgo, 
refines the command's interception and 
identification operations. It also helps with 
testing visual warning systems.

Similar exercise flights have been held throughout the country.


Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets 
Ready to Carry Out "Crowd Control

By Naomi Wolf, AlterNet
Posted on October 8, 2008, Printed on October 10, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/101958/

Background: the First Brigade of the Third 
Infantry Division, three to four thousand 
soldiers, has been deployed in the United States 
as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form 
of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing 
"unruly individuals," and the management of a 
national emergency. I am in Seattle and heard 
from the brother of one of the soldiers that they 
are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman 
reportedthat an Army spokesperson confirmed that 
they will have access to lethal and non lethal 
crowd control technologies and tanks.

George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus 
making it legal for military to patrol the U.S. 
He has also legally established that in the "War 
on Terror," the U.S. is at war around the globe 
and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus 
the U.S. is also a battlefield.

He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act 
to give him far broader powers in the event of a 
loosely defined "insurrection" or many other 
"conditions" he has the power to identify. The 
Constitution allows the suspension of habeas 
corpus -- habeas corpus prevents us from being 
seized by the state and held without trial -- in 
the event of an "insurrection." With his own army 
force now, his power to call a group of 
protesters or angry voters "insurgents" staging 
an "insurrection" is strengthened.

U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California said to 
Congress, captured on C-Span and viewable on 
YouTube, that individual members of the House 
were threatened with martial law within a week if 
they did not pass the bailout bill:


"The only way they can pass this bill is by 
creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. Š 
Many of us were told in private conversations 
that if we voted against this bill on Monday that 
the sky would fall, the market would drop two or 
three thousand points the first day and a couple 
of thousand on the second day, and a few members 
were even told that there would be martial law in 
America if we voted no."

If this is true and Rep. Sherman is not 
delusional, I ask you to consider that if they 
are willing to threaten martial law now, it is 
foolish to assume they will never use that threat 
again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly 
election process to resolve this threat. And why 
deploy the First Brigade? One thing the 
deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such 
a threat.

I interviewed Vietnam veteran, retired U.S. Air 
Force Colonel and patriot David Antoon for 
clarification:

"If the President directed the First Brigade to 
arrest Congress, what could stop him?"

"Nothing. Their only recourse is to cut off 
funding. The Congress would be at the mercy of 
military leaders to go to them and ask them not 
to obey illegal orders."

"But these orders are now legal?'"

"Correct."

"If the President directs the First Brigade to 
arrest a bunch of voters, what would stop him?"

"Nothing. It would end up in courts but the action would have been taken."

"If the President directs the First Brigade to 
kill civilians, what would stop him?"

"Nothing."

"What would prevent him from sending the First 
Brigade to arrest the editor of the Washington 
Post?"

"Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq -- send 
a tank down a street in Washington and fire a 
shell into the Washington Post as they did into 
Al Jazeera, and claim they were firing at 
something else."

"What happens to members of the First Brigade who 
refuse to take up arms against U.S. citizens?"

"They'd probably be treated as deserters as in

[MCM] STEALING AMERICA will be on-line 10/21

[Mark Crispin Miller]

Click
 
to view this email in a browser


The new feature documentary
STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote
   will be available online
beginning October 21st

FREE to view, FREE to download!

"STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote does for American democracy what An
Inconvenient Truth did for global warming."
   FILM 
JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL

_










   Why is this film a "must see"?
Inaccurate vote counts, illegal purging,
improbable machine errors, and more
have led millions of people to believe
that recent national elections were stolen.

Look at the evidence in this film
and decide for yourself:


Will the 2008
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
be stolen?
   ___


Watch
STEALING AMERICA
Vote by Vote
by OSCAR-nominated,
EMMY-winning filmmaker
Dorothy Fadiman
Narrated by Peter Coyote
www.stealingamericathemovie.org

___

It's not too late!
Everyone can still take action
to make a difference.


Election reform groups to join,
  actions to take, and other resources:
GO TO 
www.stealingamerica.org/getactive

Get started!

* Send this announcement to others

* Invite friends to watch with you

* Look at discussion points online at

www.stealingamerica.org/DiscussionPoints.html

BROACAST OPTIONS!

Would you like to show STEALING AMERICA on
PBS, Cable Access or Community TV stations?

Any person or entity who wishes to broadcast
STEALING AMERICA (starting October 21) can do so.
We will send you a free DVD,
plus whatever permissions you require.
Write to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For immediate inquiries:
650-568-4340

To order DVDs for personal use
GO TO: 
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[MCM] Voter purges likely to cause chaos

[Mark Crispin Miller]

And Team Bush would like nothing better than to have a "crisis" that could then
result in SCOTUS ruling that the whole contest is null and void--so that Team
Bush could then stay on indefinitely, until the "crisis" is 
"resolved." Better that,
from their point-of-view, than having to rule through McPalin.

If you consider this scenario far-fetched, I have a Bridge to Nowhere 
that I'd like
to sell you, cheap!

MCM

Voter Purges Could Cause Florida-like Presidential Recounts

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet
Posted on October 9, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/102374/

With less than four weeks to go before the 2008 presidential vote, new
practices in key swing states to update voter rolls are coming under fire
for mistakes that could involve rejecting tens of thousands of legitimate
voters, suggesting that close vote counts in these states could lead to
legal fights echoing Florida's presidential recount in 2000.

According to a New York Times report on Oct. 9, key swing states --
including Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Missouri -- have been
using federal Social Security data to verify voter registration information
from established and potential voters. The Social Security data, which is
used to authenticate voters' identity but is known to be error-prone, has
been used to purge "tens of thousands" of voters already on voter rolls, the
Times reported, as well as to reject numerous new voter registration
applications.

Of 7.7 million inquiries by states to the Social Security Administration to
verify voter applications in 2008, nearly 2.4 million resulted in "non
matches," according to the agency, which Monday issued a statement urging
election officials in six states -- Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, North
Carolina and Ohio -- to "review their procedures."

This past summer, AlterNet reported that Michigan, Kansas and Louisiana were
using drivers' license databases in a similar manner to purge voters. In
both instances, whether using Social Security or motor vehicle data, it is
difficult to fully know how voter rolls will be affected because different
states and counties have differing procedures on purging and removing
voters, and because this process is often secretive.

What's clear to leading voting rights attorneys, however, is that this
"name-matching" process not only violates the guiding federal law on
removing voters, the National Voter Registration Act, and violates the
guiding federal law on accepting vote registrations, the National Voting
Rights Act, but also creates a new basis to challenge presidential results
in several states if the vote count is close on November 4.

Unless there is litigation to force states to follow these federal laws
before Election Day and restore purged voters and accept registrations from
new voters, a close vote count in swing states could see post-Election Day
legal fights over provisional ballots. These are ballots issued to voters
whose names are not on voter lists and are later validated before they are
counted. Thus, a fight over provisional ballots in 2008 could echo the fight
over hanging chads -- or punches in paper ballots -- in Florida in 2000.

"I think it is a real risk," said Brenda Wright, legal director of The
National Voting Rights Institute at Demos, a public interest law firm. "If
you have a situation where people are showing up who think they are
registered to vote, that is where provisional ballots come in. The question
is will those ballots be counted. If there are thousands of provisional
ballots in a number of states, there's a danger that they may not all be
counted."

"There will be an effort by the civil rights community to figure out what to
do," said Jon Greenbaum, Voting Rights Program director at the Lawyers
Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

"There is the potential the perfect storm is developing," said Gerry Hebert,
executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, another public-interest law
firm. "New voters should be added to the rolls immediately, and then vetted
and sent letters if there are problems."

The scenario of post-Election Day litigation is not speculation. Across the
country, GOP partisans already have filed lawsuits over voter registration
issues or said they planned to pursue polling place challenges of individual
voter registrations in states such as Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan. In
federal court in Ohio, a hearing was held Thursday on a GOP suit seeking to
force the state to use the Social Security data to vet new voters.

"It does add a whole other dimension to the potential debates on what is the
vote," said Kimball Brace, director of Election Data Services, a Washington
consulting firm. "I was Al Gore's expert in Florida on this. ... In 2000, we
were concerned with the voting equipment, and what happened with under- and
over-votes. Now, if you are a lawyer looking at challenges, you don't only
look at that but at the voter side as well."

Roots of the Problem

The name-matching issue has its 

[MCM] The truth about ACORN

[Mark Crispin Miller]

Spread this far and wide.
MCM

The Truth About ACORN's Voter Registration Drive

by Bertha Lewis and Steve Kest
A BuzzFlash News Alert

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alert/492

Election Day is less than a month away, and our efforts to make sure 
that low-income and minority voters have a voice and vote on November 
4 are in full swing. Unfortunately, just as we've seen in previous 
election cycles, the more success we have in empowering these voters, 
the more attacks we have to fend off from partisan forces making 
unfounded accusations to disparage our work and help maintain the 
status quo of an unbalanced electorate. We want to take this 
opportunity to separate the facts of our successes from the 
falsehoods of our attackers.

On Monday, October 6, as voter registration deadlines passed in most 
states, ACORN completed the largest, most successful nonpartisan 
voter registration drive in history. In partnership with the 
nonpartisan organization Project Vote, we helped register over 1.3 
million low-income, minority, and young voters in a total of 21 
states. Highlights of this success include:

-- We collected over 151,000 registrations in Florida, 153,000 in 
Pennsylvania, 215,000 in Michigan, and nearly 250,000 in Ohio.

-- An estimated 60-70 percent of our applicants are people of color.

-- At least HALF of all are registrations are from young people between 18-29.

We are proud of this unprecedented success, and grateful to everyone 
who supported us in this massive effort, from our funders and 
partners to the literally thousands of hardworking individuals across 
the country who dedicated themselves to the cause and conducted the 
difficult work of registering 1.3 million Americans, one voter at a 
time.

And this work is far from over: now begins our effort mobilize these 
new voters around local and national issues, getting them to the 
polls and helping to channel their commitment and conviction into an 
ongoing movement for change in our communities.

As The Nation pointed out recently, ACORN's success in registering 
millions of low-income and minority voters has made it "something of 
a right-wing bogeyman." Though ACORN believes that the right to vote 
is not, and should never be, a partisan issue, attacks from groups 
threatened by our historic success continue to come, motivated by 
partisan politics and often perpetuated by the media without full 
investigation of the facts. As a result, there have been a few recent 
stories about investigations of former ACORN workers for turning in 
incomplete, erroneous, or fraudulent voter registration applications. 
Predictably, partisan forces have tried to use these isolated 
incidents to incite fear of the "bogeyman" of "widespread voter 
fraud." But we want to take this opportunity to set the record 
straight and tell you a few facts to show how these incidents really 
exemplify everything that ACORN is doing right:

Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control 
system in the voter engagement field, but in almost every state we 
are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we 
know to be problematic.

Fact: ACORN flags incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we 
turn them in, but these warnings are often ignored by election 
officials. Often these same officials then come back weeks or months 
later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.

Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card, so there 
is NO incentive for them to falsify cards. ACORN has a zero-tolerance 
policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the 
relatively rare cases where our internal quality controls have 
identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and 
turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.

Fact: No charges have ever been brought against ACORN itself. 
Convictions against individual former ACORN workers have been 
accomplished with our full cooperation, using the evidence obtained 
through our quality control and verification processes.

Fact: Voter fraud by individuals is extremely rare, and incredibly 
difficult. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, 
anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a phony voter 
registration. Even if someone wanted to influence the election this 
way, it would not work.

Fact: Most election officials have recognized ACORN's good work and 
praised our quality control systems. Even in the cities where 
election officials have complained about ACORN, the applications in 
question represent less than 1% of the thousands and thousands of 
registrations ACORN has collected.

Fact: Our accusers not only fail to provide any evidence, they fail 
to suggest a motive: there is virtually no chance anyone would be 
able to vote fraudulently, so there is no reason to deliberately 
submit phony registrations. ACORN is committed to ensuring that the 
greatest possible numbers of people are registered and 

[MCM] Paul Craig Roberts on the meltdown

[Mark Crispin Miller]

CounterPUNCH 
Weekend Edition
October 10 / 12, 2008

A Possible Solution to the Economic Crisis

What is to be Done?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Readers have been pressing for a solution to the financial crisis. 
But first it is necessary to understand the problem. Here is the 
problem as I see it. If my diagnosis is correct, the solution below 
might be appropriate.

Let's begin with the fact that the financial crisis is more or less 
worldwide. The mechanism that spread the American-made financial 
crisis abroad was the massive US trade deficit. Every year the 
countries with which the US has trade deficits end up in the 
aggregate with hundreds of billions of dollars.

Countries don't put these dollars in a mattress. They invest them. 
They buy up US companies, real estate, and toll roads. They also 
purchase US financial assets. They finance the US government budget 
deficit by purchasing Treasury bonds and bills. They help to finance 
the US mortgage market by purchasing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 
bonds. They buy financial instruments, such as mortgage-backed 
securities and other derivatives, from US investment banks, and that 
is how the US financial crisis was spread abroad. If the US current 
account was close to balance, the contagion would have lacked a 
mechanism by which to spread.

One reason the US trade deficit is so large is the practice of US 
corporations offshoring their production of goods and services for US 
markets. When these products are brought into the US to be sold, they 
count as imports.

Thus, economists were wrong to see the trade deficit as a non-problem 
and to regard offshoring as a plus for the US economy.

The fact that much of the financial world is polluted with US toxic 
financial instruments could affect the ability of the US Treasury to 
borrow the money to finance the bailout of the financial 
institutions. Foreign central banks might need their reserves to bail 
out their own financial systems. As the US savings rate is 
approximately zero, the only alternative to foreign borrowing is the 
printing of money.

Financial deregulation was an important factor in the development of 
the crisis. The most 
reckless 
deregulation occurred in 1999, 2000, and 2004.

Subprime mortgages became a potential systemic threat when issuers 
ceased to bear any risk by selling the mortgages, which were then 
amalgamated with other mortgages and became collateral for 
mortgage-backed securities.

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's inexplicable low interest 
rate policy allowed the systemic threat to develop. Low interest 
rates push up housing prices by lowering monthly mortgage payments, 
thus increasing housing demand. Rising home prices created equity to 
justify 100 percent mortgages. Buyers leveraged themselves to the 
hilt and lacked the ability to make payments when they lost their 
jobs or when adjustable rates and interest escalator clauses pushed 
up monthly payments.

Wall Street analysts pushed financial institutions to increase their 
earnings, which they did by leveraging their assets and by insuring 
debt instruments instead of maintaining appropriate reserves. This 
spread the crisis from banks to insurance companies.

Finance chiefs around the world are dealing with the crisis by 
bailing out banks and by lowering interest rates. This suggests that 
the authorities see the problem as a solvency problem for the 
financial institutions and as a liquidity problem. US Treasury 
Secretary Paulson's solution, for example, leaves unattended the 
continuing mortgage defaults and foreclosures. The fall in the US 
stock market predicts a serious recession, which means rising 
unemployment and more defaults and foreclosures.

In place of a liquidity problem, I see an over-abundance of debt 
instruments relative to wealth. A fractional reserve banking system 
based on fiat money appears to be capable of creating debt 
instruments faster than an economy can create real wealth. Add in 
credit card debt, stocks purchased on margin, and leveraged 
derivatives, and debt is pyramided relative to real assets.

Add in the mark-to-market rule, which forces troubled assets to be 
under-valued, thus threatening the solvency of institutions, and 
short-selling, which drives down the shares of trouble institutions, 
thereby depriving them of credit lines, and you have an outline of 
the many causes of the current crisis.

If the diagnosis is correct, the solution is multifaceted.

Instead of wasting $700 billion on a bailout of the guilty that does 
not address the problem, the money should be used to refinance the 
troubled mortgages, as was done during the Great Depression. If the 
mortgages were not defaulting, the income flows from the mortgage 
interest through to the holders of the mortgage-backed securities 
would be restored. Thus, the solvency problem faced by the holders of 
these securities would be at an end.

The financial m

[MCM] Rove's running it

[Mark Crispin Miller]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/23482821/the_return_of_rove

Back to 
The 
Return of Rove

The Return of Rove

John McCain has surrendered his campaign to the 
same political fearmonger who smeared him out of 
the race in 2000

MATT TAIBBI

Posted Oct 16, 2008 7:15 AM

Wayne Slater has known Karl Rove for 20 years. As 
the author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made 
George W. Bush Presidential, he's not easily 
shocked by the Republican strategist's 
Gila-monstroid tactics. But even he's been blown 
away by Rove's latest political comeback.

At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, 
Slater watched Rove address a delegation from 
South Carolina on John McCain's behalf. That 
would be the same South Carolina where Rove 
helped torpedo McCain's campaign in 2000 by 
reportedly spreading rumors that the candidate's 
adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually his 
illegitimate black love child. Addressing the 
convention delegates, though, Rove acted like 
McCain's long-lost friend.

"Karl started talking in this emotional tone 
about how wonderful Cindy McCain was to adopt 
Bridget - eight years after he just took a 
machine gun to the guy," Slater says in an awed 
voice. "He's incredible."

He sure is. Ever since the nomination of Sarah 
Palin, Washington has been abuzz with rumors that 
Rove has been invited to help plot campaign 
strategy for McCain. His rise from the ashes is 
the scariest story of an already scary campaign 
season. Presidents come and go; they sit in a 
place where the law can still touch them, and 
they're subject to the vote once every four 
years. But Karl Rove is a revolutionary, a man 
who can't be stopped by anything except death and 
maybe - maybe - prison. Rove is trying to finish 
the work of Nixon and Bush: to achieve the 
supremacy of a peculiarly American form of 
Leninism, one that involves the drowning of the 
electoral process in idiot witch hunts and dirty 
tricks, the handing over of all policy to anyone 
with a dollar more than the next guy, and the 
total aggrandizement of incumbent power at the 
expense of an entire system of checks and 
balances. With Rove back in the mix, there's now 
a hell of a lot more at stake this November than 
there was when a batty, battle-scarred old 
poll-chaser like John McCain was the darkest 
figure on the ticket. Not to sound too alarmist, 
but Election Day now becomes a referendum on 
democracy itself.

The actual evidence of Rove's newfound influence 
on the McCain campaign is - like so much of the 
history surrounding this uniquely maddening 
personage - scant at best, part vapor and part 
legend, a thing mostly deduced and inferred from 
various factoids and ripples in the informational 
pool.

We know, for instance, that Steven Schmidt, who 
was tapped to be head of rapid response during 
Bush's 2004 campaign, is now a senior strategist 
in the McCain camp. Schmidt assumed a more 
central role in McCain's run in June, shortly 
after the stammering, much-mocked "green screen" 
speech McCain gave near New Orleans on the night 
Obama claimed victory in the Democratic 
primaries. This promotion would put to the test a 
theory that Rove has trained so many subordinates 
in his tactics that his revolution could go on 
forever even without him.

"If Karl were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, it 
wouldn't matter," says Slater. "There are 
hundreds of young Roves out there in the 
political bloodstream, ready to take over."

Sure enough, it was right after that dismal night 
outside New Orleans that McCain - whose campaign 
stumpery until then had been fairly predictable, 
focusing heavily on his personal story, the 
Iranian threat and his experience and patriotic 
bona fides relative to Obama - began a somewhat 
drastic rhetorical overhaul. Under Schmidt's 
guidance, McCain's tactics took on a darker and 
unmistakably Rovian character.

The hallmark of the Rove campaigning method is 
the political act so baldly below the belt that 
it literally staggers you. Even the most hardened 
cynics find themselves continually surprised by 
the ability of Rove and his minions to always hit 
that evasive new low, coming up with things that 
would shock a 60-year-old Greyhound-station 
hooker.

What American doesn't remember Rove, after 9/11, 
saying that liberals wanted to "offer therapy and 
understanding to our attackers"? What Texan 
doesn't recall fondly the "push poll" Rove 
reportedly commissioned for Bush, in which voters 
were asked if they would be less likely to vote 
for Gov. Ann Richards if they knew her staff was 
"dominated by lesbians"? And what veteran doesn't 
remember Rove impugning the patriotism of Sen. 
Max Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam vet, by 
running an ad showing the faces of Osama bin 
Laden and Saddam Hussein fading into the 
wheelchair-bound Cleland's face? Suck on that, 
Mr. Silver Star!

The first whiff of this kind of tactic in the 
cu

[MCM] Leaders may close world markets, says Berlusconi

[Mark Crispin Miller]

Berlusconi Says Leaders May Close World's Markets

By Steve Scherer

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aP5mpMUORBWM

Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said 
political leaders are discussing the idea of closing the world's 
financial markets while they ``rewrite the rules of international 
finance.''

``The idea of suspending the markets for the time it takes to rewrite 
the rules is being discussed,'' Berlusconi said today after a Cabinet 
meeting in Naples, Italy. A solution to the financial crisis ``can't 
just be for one country, or even just for Europe, but global.''

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much 8.1 percent in early 
trading and pared most of those losses after Berlusconi's remarks. 
The Dow was down 0.5 percent to 8540.52 at 10:10 in New York.

Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers are meeting in 
Washington today, and will stay in town for the International 
Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings this weekend. European Union 
leaders may gather in Paris on Oct. 12, three days before a scheduled 
summit in Brussels, Berlusconi said today, while Group of Eight 
leaders may hold a meeting on the crisis ``in coming days,'' he said.

Berlusconi didn't give any details about what kind of rules leaders 
were looking to change, except to say that leaders are ``talking 
about a new Bretton Woods.''

The Bretton Woods Agreements were adopted to rebuild the 
international economic system after World War II in a hotel in 
Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The aim of the agreements was to 
establish a monetary management system, initially by pegging 
currencies to gold. The IMF was set up later to help manage the 
international financial system.

To contact the reporter on this story: Steve Scherer in Rome at 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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[MCM] NYTimes piece on voter purges nationwide

[Mark Crispin Miller]

Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens For Legitimate Government
09 Oct 2008
http://www.legitgov.org/
All items are here:
http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

States' 
Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal --Coup 
2008 underway: Tens of thousands of eligible 
voters in Colo., Ind., Ohio, Mich., Nev. and N.C. 
illegally removed from rolls, blocked from 
registering 09 Oct 2008 Tens of thousands of 
eligible voters in at least six swing states have 
been removed from the rolls or have been blocked 
from registering in ways that appear to violate 
federal law, according to a review of state 
records and Social Security data by The New York 
Times. Still, because Democrats have been more 
aggressive at registering new voters this year, 
according to state election officials, any 
heightened screening of new applications may 
affect their party's supporters 
disproportionately. The screening or trimming of 
voter registration lists in the six states, 
Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and 
North Carolina, could also result in problems at 
the polls on Election Day.

Afghanistan
 
'in dire peril' 10 Oct 2008 American intelligence 
agencies have warned that Afghanistan is in a 
"downward spiral", casting fresh doubts on the 
viability of the US-led military intervention and 
the prospects of curbing a resurgent Taliban. A 
draft classified report says central authority in 
Afghanistan is breaking down, with rampant 
corruption inside the Government of President 
Hamid Karzai and escalating violence from 
militants.

US 
military admits killing 33 civilians in 
Afghanistan air strike 09 Oct 2008 The US 
military has admitted killing 33 civilians in an 
air strike on a village in Afghanistan in August, 
far more than it has previously acknowledged. 
Until now the US has estimated that that no more 
than seven civilians died in the August 22 attack 
on Azizabad, in Heart province. It launched an 
inquiry after it emerged that film recorded on 
mobile phones showed rows of bodies of children 
and babies in a makeshift morgue. The inquiry 
found that of the 33 dead civilians, eight were 
men, three were women and 12 children. The 10 
others were undetermined. [They lying sacks of 
sh*t at the Pentagon tried to cover up another 
Bush war crime -- knowing that their media 
lapdogs don't cover US war crimes -- but 'mobile 
phones showed rows of bodies of children and 
babies.' --LRP]

Iraq 
must rid itself of US troops, Iran says 10 Oct 
2008 Iran is trying to derail an agreement that 
would allow US and British troops to stay in Iraq 
after their mandate expires at the end of this 
year. In a move that has raised concern among 
senior Iraqi and US officials, Tehran is using 
its influence over its smaller neighbour to 
scupper a Status of Forces Agreement, which must 
be reached by January 1. After the deadline US 
and British troops would have no legal basis to 
remain and, in theory, would have to leave. [LOL! 
Ergo, the table is set for the McBush campaign to 
assert that anyone who wants US mercenaries and 
corpora-terrorists out of Iraq -- say, for 
example, Barack Obama -- is on the 'same side' as 
Ahmadinejad.]

Muqtada
 
al-Sadr calls for anti-US protest 09 Oct 2008 
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has called for a 
delayed [formerly, April 9] anti-U.S. protest to 
take place in Baghdad. A statement posted on 
al-Sadr's Web site says "it has been decided to 
hold the anti-occupation protest on Oct. 18 in 
Baghdad." The Sadrists oppose negotiations for a 
security agreement that would extend the presence 
of U.S. troops in the country beyond the end of 
the year.

'Disgusted' 
to be U.S. soldier --Family's hopes of becoming 
Canadian citizens shattered after deportation 
order 09 Oct 2008 Jill Hart gripped her husband's 
hand yesterday as the two spoke of their hopes of 
becoming Canadian citizens -- just hours after 
the Canadian Border Services Agency denied the 
couple their bid to stay in Canada on 
humanitarian and compassionate grounds. The 
couple was told yesterday by a CBSA officer they 
must leave Canada by Oct. 30 or they'll be 
deported. They are planning to appeal... Patrick 
Hart, who was stationed in Bosnia in the '90s, 
said when he was deployed to Kuwait in 2003, he 
was horrified by tales from other U.S. soldiers 
who boasted about killing Iraqi civilians and 
picking human flesh and hair out of the grills of 
their vehicles after running over Iraqi children. 
"In '95 I had a sense that the U.S. was the good 
guy,

[MCM] ACORN and the GOP: A History

[Mark Crispin Miller]

\Voter Registration Group ACORN Long a Target
of GOP Operatives

By Jason Leopold
The Public Record

http://www.pubrecord.org/nationworld/376-acorn-long-a-target-of-gop-operatives.html

For the past several weeks, Republican operatives have been stepping 
up their efforts in critical swing states claiming voter registration 
groups have been engaged in a massive voter fraud effort in an 
attempt to influence the outcome of November's presidential election.

The allegations took on a new sense of urgency Tuesday when law 
enforcement authorities in Nevada raided the offices of The 
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an 
organization that advocates voter registration and participation 
among low-income people and minorities.

ACORN members denied any wrongdoing and claimed the probe is 
politically motivated by Republicans to suppress voter turnout for 
Barack Obama.

"Today's raid by the Secretary of State's Office is a stunt that 
serves no useful purpose other than discredit our work registering 
Nevadans and distracting us from the important work ahead of getting 
every eligible voter to the polls," said Bertha Lewis, ACORN's 
interim chief organizer.

No concrete evidence of systemic voter fraud in the United States has 
ever surfaced. Many election integrity experts believe claims of 
voter fraud are a ploy by Republicans to suppress minorities and poor 
people from voting.

Historically, those groups tend to vote for Democratic candidates. 
Raising red flags about the integrity of the ballots, experts 
believe, is an attempt by GOP operatives to swing elections to their 
candidates as well as an attempt to use the fear of criminal 
prosecution to discourage individuals from voting in future races.

In March, the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration held a 
hearing and heard testimony from election integrity experts who said 
voter fraud is a "myth" and voter identification laws actually 
disenfranchise legitimate voters.

Indeed, in a column published in the Washington Post last year, 
Justin Levitt, an attorney and expert on voting issues who teaches at 
the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, 
and Jeff Milyo, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia 
department of economics, said "the notion of widespread voter 
fraud... is itself a fraud. Evidence of actual fraud by individual 
voters is painfully skimpy."

ACORN has long been a target of Republican Party operatives dating as 
far back as the 2004 presidential election. But the accusations of 
malfeasance have never been supported by evidence.

Last weekend, investigative reporter Brad Friedman and former Justice 
Department official Hans Von Spakovsky engaged in a heated debate 
over voter fraud in a segment on the Tavis Smiley radio show. [Full 
disclosure: Friedman is a contributor to The Public Record].

Von Spakovsky, Friedman wrote on his blog Wednesday, 
"was...instrumental in bringing phony "voter fraud" charges, such as 
those against ACORN workers in Missouri, filed just days before the 
razor-thin 2006 Senate election, in violation of the DoJ's own 
written rules against bringing such indictments just prior to 
elections where they are likely to affect the race."

ACORN and U.S. Attorney Firings

In fact, two of the nine U.S. Attorneys who were fired in 2006 were 
targeted because they refused to bring criminal charges against 
individuals affiliated with ACORN, according to interviews and a 
Justice Department report issued last week on the circumstances 
behind the federal prosecutor firings. The firing of another U.S. 
Attorney was due, in large part, to his refusal to convene a grand 
jury and secure an indictment against individuals for voter fraud.

But it's the firing of former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias 
and the accusations of voter fraud leveled against ACORN by GOP 
operatives in that state that appeared to be the most egregious case 
of partisan politics, according to the DOJ report.

Even President George W. Bush said he was concerned about widespread 
voter fraud, despite the fact that evidence of such crimes was 
virtually non-existent. Bush, according to the DOJ report, "spoke 
with Attorney General Gonzales in October 2006 about their concerns 
over voter fraud in three cities, one of which was Albuquerque, New 
Mexico."   

In the months leading up to the 2004 presidential election, 
Bernalillo County in New Mexico had been the target of a massive 
grassroots effort by ACORN to register voters.

The effort apparently paid off as registration rolls in the county 
increased by about 65,000 newly registered voters.

But Sheriff Darren White, who was New Mexico chairman of the 
Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, intended to challenge the integrity of 
some of the names on the voter registration rolls. Mary Herrera, the 
Bernalillo County clerk, told White that th

[MCM] McPlain's new ad: "ACORN"

[Mark Crispin Miller]

As for counter-propaganda efforts, so far I've 
seen only BuzzFlash's News Alert (which
I sent out earlier).

Where are the Democrats? Where's the media?

MCM


Nathan Henderson-James
Director, Strategic Writing and Research Department
Citizens' Services, Inc.
3655 S. Grand Ave #250
Los Angeles, CA 90007
213-747-7202 phone, 213-747-4221 fax, 510-213-1970 cell
<>[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
www.citizensservices.org 
<http://www.citizensservices.org>

MCCAIN-PALIN 2008 LAUNCHES NEW WEB AD: "ACORN"


   For Immediate Release   Contact: Press Office   
   Friday, October 10, 2008   703-650-5550  

ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, McCain-Palin 2008 
released its latest web ad, entitled "ACORN." The 
ad highlights Barack Obama's involvement with 
ACORN, a group now accused of widespread voter 
fraud across the country and accused of 
advocating for the very type of home loans that 
have led to today's financial crisis. For ACORN, 
Barack Obama was a critical organizer, and this 
year, client to the tune of $800,000. As the 
spotlight turns to ACORN's efforts to defraud our 
electoral process, Barack Obama owes the American 
people the truth about his involvement in this 
group.
VIEW THE WEB AD HERE: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dlnt9maBJA
 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dlnt9maBJA>

Script For "ACORN" (WEB :90)
JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.

ANNCR: Who is Barack Obama?

A man with "a political baptism performed at warp speed."

Vast ambition.

After college, he moved to Chicago.

Became a community organizer.

There, Obama met Madeleine Talbot, part of the Chicago branch of ACORN.

He was so impressive that he was asked to train the ACORN staff.

What did ACORN in Chicago engage in?

Bullying banks.

Intimidation tactics.

Disruption of business.

ACORN forced banks to issue risky home loans.

The same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today

No wonder Obama's campaign is trying to distance 
him from the group, saying, "Barack Obama Never 
Organized with ACORN."

But Obama's ties to ACORN run long and deep.

He taught classes for ACORN.

They even endorsed him for President.

But now ACORN is in trouble.

REPORTER: There are at least 11 investigations 
across the country involving thousands of 
potentially fraudulent ACORN forms.

ANNCR: Massive voter fraud.

And the Obama campaign paid more than $800,000 to 
an ACORN front for get out the vote efforts.

Pressuring banks to issue risky loans.

Nationwide voter fraud.

Barack Obama.

Bad judgment. Blind ambition.

Too risky for America.

AD FACTS: Script For "ACORN" (WEB :90)
JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approve this 
message. ANNCR: Who is Barack Obama? A man with 
"a political baptism performed at warp speed." 
Vast ambition.

· Barack Obama Has Had "A Political Baptism 
Performed At Warp Speed." "Obama declined to be 
interviewed for this article, but conversations 
with more than a dozen friends and colleagues 
portray his time in Springfield as a political 
baptism performed at warp speed, engineered by 
Obama's vast self-confidence and ambition." (Eli 
Saslow, "From Outsider To Politician," The 
Washington Post, 10/9/08)

ANNCR: After college, he moved to Chicago. Became 
a community organizer. There, Obama met Madeleine 
Talbot, part of the Chicago branch of ACORN. He 
was so impressive that he was asked to train the 
ACORN staff.

· Barack Obama Was Invited By Madeleine Talbot To 
Help Train Her Staff At ACORN. "Several community 
organizers and Altgeld Gardens tenants confirmed 
Johnson was working on asbestos but said Obama 
organized residents to act. 'He got people to 
vote with their feet' on the issue, organizer 
Madeleine Talbot said. At the time, Talbot worked 
at the social action group ACORN and initially 
considered Obama a competitor. But she became so 
impressed with his work that she invited him to 
help train her staff." (Letta Tayler And Keith 
Herbert, "Chicago's Streets Obama's Teacher," 
Newsday, 3/2/08)

· In 1992, Barack Obama Was Hired By ACORN To Run 
A Voter Registration Effort. "Indeed, Mr. Obama 
has extensive connections with the granddaddy of 
activist groups, Acorn (Association of Community 
Organizations for Reform Now), which has gotten 
millions in government grants for its low-income 
housing programs. In 1992, Acorn hired Mr. Obama 
to run a voter registration effort. He later 
became a trainer for the group, as well as its 
lawyer in election law cases. Acorn's political 
arm has endorsed Mr. Obama while its 'voter 
education' arm has pledged to spend $35 million 
to register people this fall -- despite a history 
of vote fraud scandals that have led to guilty 
pleas by many Acorn employees." (John Fund, 
"Obama's Liberal Shock Troops," The Wall Street 
Journal, 7/12/08)

ANNCR: What did ACORN in Chicago engage in? 
Bullying banks. Intimidation tactics. Disru

[MCM] Bill Kristol picked Palin: Scott Horton

[Mark Crispin Miller]

The Daily Beast, Oct. 10, 2008

Palin's Talent Scout

by Scott Horton

No wonder Bill Kristol has remained so positive about her while other 
neocons have fled. He helped push her to the veep ticket-and won out 
against Karl Rove.

In June 2007, a cruise liner sponsored by the political journal The 
Weekly Standard set anchor in Ju neau, Alaska. Editors and guests of 
the publication were then treated to a reception with Governor Sarah 
Palin. It was a moment of discovery to equal Hernando Cortez's 
landing at Veracruz. A writer for London's Daily Telegraph 
interviewed
 
one of the participants in the Juneau junket about the meeting with 
Palin:

"She's bright and she's a blank page. She's going places and it's 
worth going there with her." Asked if he sees her as a "project," the 
former official said: "Your word, not mine, but I wouldn't disagree 
with the sentiment."

On June 30, 2008, Kristol confidently predicted that McCain would 
select Sarah Palin and as a public display of support, oil prices 
would miraculously fall.

A key organizer and participant in the Palin meeting was Weekly 
Standard editor Bill Kristol, who can fairly lay claim to having 
"discovered" Palin for Washington politi cal circles. Palin's name 
appeared in fifty-seven Weekly Standard articles since the Juneau 
meeting-starting with a paean entitled 
"The
 
Most Popular Governor" that ran right after the reception.

Indeed, Kristol, who was a loyal McCain supporter in 2000 and is 
often thought to have suffered exclusion from Bush's inner circle as 
a result, may have played a key role in McCain's decision to tap 
Palin as his running mate. A McCain campaign insider described to me 
a tight three-way competition between Palin, Joe Lieberman, and Mitt 
Romney in the final days. McCain himself, it was no secret, wanted 
Lieberman to be his running mate, but his senior advisors were 
adamant that Lieberman could not be sold to the Republican base. A 
Lieberman nomination might risk exposing serious fissures in the 
party at the convention in Saint Paul.

The inner circle broke down between two choices. Those close to Karl 
Rove united around Romney. Rove engaged in heavy lobbying in an 
effort to get McCain to embrace Romney. Others, of whom Kristol was 
the most prominent, pushed Sarah Palin-arguing that she was young, 
popular, vigorous, unknown and had the righ t connections to the 
Religious Right bloc which had proven so important to Republican wins 
in 2000 and 2004. Karl Rove himself recognized, with typical insight, 
that Palin was the real challenger. 
He
 
attacked Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as an ill-suited candidate for 
the vice presidential slot on the Democratic ticket. Kaine, of 
course, had a resume almost identical to Palin's-he had been a small 
city mayor and then had served, for less than two years, as 
governor-and McCain campaign insiders understood the swipe 
differently from others. Did Rove really care about Kaine's darkhorse 
candidacy for the Democrats, or was he launching a cloaked attack on 
Palin? (In a recent appearance, Rove was asked if he thought Palin 
would make a good president. "I don't know" was his 
unenthusiastic
 
answer.)

Kristol, in any event, was quick to press the campaign for the Palin 
candidacy with the party's faithful. Taking a cue from the Straussian 
handbook, Kristol appeared on Fox News on June 30, 2008, confidently 
predicting that McCain would select Sarah Palin and as a public 
display of support, oil prices would miraculously fall.

And indeed, weeks after the Palin pick, oil prices did tumble-though 
analysts link this to concerns about the crisis in20financial 
institutions and not Sarah Palin.

After the nomination, conservative columnists have been very critical 
of the Palin candidacy. Some have openly distanced themselves from 
it, such as 
National
 
Review's Kathleen Parker, who called on Palin voluntarily to quit the 
ticket. David Brooks referred to Palin as a "cancer on the Republican 
Party." Peggy Noonan was overheard grumbling about the choice as 
"political bullshit" on an open mike on MSNBC. George Will 
told
 
a gathering of Senate aides that Palin was "obviously not qualified" 
to be vice president. Former presidential speechwriter David Frum 
called
 
the choice a gamble and 

[MCM] GOP going to town on ACORN

[Mark Crispin Miller]

This is what the party's sending out.

You got to hand it to 'em. Those animals know how to do war-propaganda!

MCM



Who Am I?  

"[ACORN Is] A Housing Advocacy Group That Also 
Helps Lead Ambitious Voter-Registration Efforts 
Benefiting Democrats." (Elizabeth Williamson and 
Brody Mullins, "Democratic Ally Mobilizes In 
Housing Crunch," The Wall Street Journal, 7/31/08)

ACORN Was Founded By Wade Rathke, Who Also Was 
The Founder And Chief Organizer Of SEIU Local 
100. (Wade Rathke Website, 
www.waderathke.com, 
Accessed 7/14/08)

ACORN Conducts Its Voter Registration Activities 
Through Project Vote, Which Uses "Local ACORN 
Offices To Collect Registrations." ("Officials 
Question Error-Filled Voter Registrations 
Collected By Paid Workers," The Associated Press, 
6/2/04)

Public Disclosures Showed Large Sums Of Money 
That Were Misappropriated From ACORN. (Stephanie 
Strom, "Funds Misappropriated At 2 Nonprofit 
Groups," The New York Times, 7/9/08)

"Acorn Chose To Treat The Embezzlement Of Nearly 
$1 Million Eight Years Ago As An Internal Matter 
And Did Not Even Notify Its Board." (Stephanie 
Strom, "Funds Misappropriated At 2 Nonprofit 
Groups," The New York Times, 7/9/08)
ACORN Used "In Your Face" Tactics Like Disrupting 
Hearings, Bursting Into City Council Meetings, 
And Protesting Mayor's Homes. (Stanley Kurtz, 
Op-Ed, "Inside Obama's Acorn," National Review, 
5/29/08)

"ACORN Has Been Accused Of Voter Fraud In 13 
States Since 2004 And Was Convicted Of Falsifying 
Signatures In A Voter Registration Drive Last 
July, Drawing A Fine Of $25,000 In Washington 
State." (Editorial, "George Soros: The Man, The 
Mind And The Money Behind MoveOn," Investor's 
Business Daily, 9/21/07)

"ACORN Has Been Implicated In Similar Schemes In 
14 Other States - Including Ohio, Where A Worker 
Traded Crack Cocaine For Fraudulent 
Registrations." (Editorial, "Another ACORN 
Scandal," New York Post, 7/13/08)
Facts About Me and Barack

Chicago ACORN Leader Toni Foulkes Referred To 
Obama In The 2004 US Senate Primary As "The 
Candidate We Hold Dear." (Toni Foulkes, "Case 
Study: Chicago-The Barack Obama Campaign," Social 
Policy, 10/18/04)

"[W]e Have Invited Obama To Our Leadership 
Training Sessions To Run The Session On Power 
Every YearŠ" (Toni Foulkes, "Case Study: 
Chicago-The Barack Obama Campaign," Social 
Policy, 10/18/04)

"Acorn's Political Arm Has Endorsed Mr. Obama 
While Its 'Voter Education' Arm Has Pledged To 
Spend $35 Million To Register People This FallŠ" 
(John Fund, Op-Ed, "Obama's Liberal Shock 
Troops," The Wall Street Journal, 7/12/08)

"Sen. Obama Is Especially Reliant On Registration 
Drives, Such As Acorn's With Project Vote, To 
Help Him Win The White House." (Elizabeth 
Williamson and Brody Mullins, "Democratic Ally 
Mobilizes In Housing Crunch," The Wall Street 
Journal, 7/31/08)
"In 1992, Acorn Hired Mr. Obama To Run A Voter 
Registration Effort. He Later Became A Trainer 
For The Group, As Well As Its Lawyer In Election 
Law Cases." (John Fund, Op-Ed, "Obama's Liberal 
Shock Troops," The Wall Street Journal, 7/12/08)

"When Obama Returned To Chicago From Harvard, He 
Put Off His Legal Career For Six Months To Take A 
Position Directing A Voter Registration And 
Education Campaign Targeting Chicago's Low-Income 
Blacks."  (David Mendell, Obama: From Promise To 
Power, 2007, p.103)
"Representing The Association Of Community 
Organizations For Reform Now (ACORN), Obama And 
Other Attorneys Sued The State Of Illinois, 
Forcing It To Implement Federal "Motor Voter" 
Legislation That Makes It Easier For The Poor And 
Minorities To Register To Vote." ("Some Cases 
Obama Worked On In His Career As An Attorney," 
The Associated Press, 2/20/07)

"[O]bama's Side Won, Even Without Him Talking."  
(Abdon M. Pallasch, "Strong, Silent Type," 
Chicago Sun-Times, 12/17/07)
The Chicago ACORN Received Grants Of $45,000 
(2000), $30,000 (2001), $45,000 (2001), $30,000 
(2002), And $40,000 (2002) From The Woods Fund. 
(Donors Forum Website, 
ifs.donorsforum.org, 
Accessed 6/10/08)

NOTE: From 1993 To 2002, Barack Obama Served On 
The Board Of Directors For The Woods Fund. (Tim 
Novak and Fran Spielman, "Obama Helped Ex-Boss 
Get $1 Mil. From Charity," Chicago Sun-Times, 
11/29/07)




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[MCM] Rove using ACORN to change the subject

[Mark Crispin Miller]

An absolutely crucial piece.
MCM

How afraid is Karl Rove about Ohio 2004 election fraud evidence coming out?

by Larisa Alexandrovna

http://www.atlargely.com/2008/10/how-afraid-is-k.html

John McCain's tech guru is the same technician who helped fix the 
facts around the Ohio 2004 election results. Mike Connell has been a 
Rove tool for ages, and has even recently been subpoenaed to testify 
about his involvement in Ohio's vote rigging during the 2004 election 
cycle. Following in the steps of Rove, Connell has refused to honor 
the subpoena. Before we get to the latest Rove dirty trick, let's do 
a quick run-through of the allegations against Connell:

 COLUMBUS -- A high-level Republican consultant has been 
subpoenaed in a case regarding alleged tampering with the 2004 
election.

 Michael L. Connell was served with a subpoena in Ohio on Sept. 22 
in a case alleging that vote-tampering during the 2004 presidential 
election resulted in civil rights violations. Connell, president of 
GovTech Solutions and New Media Communications, is a website designer 
and IT professional who created a website for Ohio's secretary of 
state that presented the results of the 2004 election in real time as 
they were tabulated.

 At the time, Ohio's Secretary of State, Kenneth J. Blackwell, was 
also chairman of Bush-Cheney 2004 reelection effort in Ohio.

 

 The case took on fresh momentum earlier this year when Arnebeck 
announced in July that he was filing to "lift the stay in the case 
[and] proceed with targeted discovery in order to help protect the 
integrity of the 2008 election." The new filing was inspired in part 
by the coming forward as a whistleblower of GOP IT security expert 
Stephen Spoonamore, who said he was prepared to testify to the 
plausibility of electronic vote-rigging having been carried out in 
2004.

 

 The interest in Mike Connell stems from his association with a 
firm called GovTech, which he had spun off from his own New Media 
Communications under his wife Heather Connell's name. GovTech was 
hired by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to set up an 
official election website at election.sos.state.oh.us to presented 
the 2004 presidential returns as they came in.

 Connell is a long-time GOP operative, whose New Media 
Communications provided web services for the Bush-Cheney '04 
campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National 
Committee and many Republican candidates. This in itself might have 
raised questions about his involvement in creating Ohio's official 
state election website.

 

 However, the alternative media group ePlubibus Media further 
discovered in November 2006 that election.sos.state.oh.us was hosted 
on the servers of a company in Chattanooga, TN called SmarTech, which 
also provided hosting for a long list of Republican Internet domains.

 "Since early this decade, top Internet 'gurus' in Ohio have been 
coordinating web services with their GOP counterparts in Chattanooga, 
wiring up a major hub that in 2004, first served as a conduit for 
Ohio's live election night results," researchers at ePluribus Media 
wrote.

 A few months after this revelation, when a scandal erupted 
surrounding the firing of US Attorneys for reasons of White House 
policy, other researchers found that the gwb43 domain used by members 
of the White House staff to evade freedom of information laws by 
sending emails outside of official White House channels was hosted on 
those same SmarTech servers.

So, now that we know what the issues are here (Rove, Chamber of 
Congress, and Watergate-like dirty tricks), let's examine the latest 
developments.

Brad Friedman tells us all about it:

 The latest Republican assault on democracy began earlier this 
week with a 'stunt' raid in (swing state) Nevada, then 
unsubstantiated allegations in (swing state) Missouri last night 
(raid coming soon, no doubt), and just hours ago as AP reports, it's 
(swing state) Ohio.

 

 Of course, the GOP's ACORN "Voter Fraud" Scam was picked up today 
by John McCain on the stump (and, mercilessly, on Fox "News" all 
morning, naturally).  Here's McCain putting the scare tactics first, 
and democracy and country second, if even that high on his list.

In addition, the GOP has "located" a man who claims to have been 
bribed by ACORN:

 CLEVELAND - A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal 
told The Post yesterday he was given cash and cigarettes by 
aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 
72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.

 "Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or 
they'll give me a dollar to sign up," said Freddie Johnson, 19, who 
filled out 72 separate voter-registration cards over an 18-month 
period at the behest of the left-leaning Association of Community 
Organizations for Reform Now.

Here is my questi

[MCM] MCM to speak in Baltimore on Thursday evening, 10/16!

[Mark Crispin Miller]

I'll be speaking on this next election (if any), the media's coverage 
of our politics (talk
about lipstick on a pig!) and Bush & Co.'s "Plan B" (if they can't 
steal it for McPalin).

It could go either way, my fellow prisoners, so try to come and hear 
me if you can, as
it will all depend on you.

Also you can get yourself a copy of Loser Take All, which I will 
gladly sign for you!

MCM

http://baltimore.metromix.com/events/performance/mark-crispin-miller-canton/653116/content
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[MCM] "Daily Voting News" for 10/10/08

[Mark Crispin Miller]

 From John Gideon:

I'm 61 years old. I've been doing this work full-time for nearly the 
last five years. I long for the days, before I learned so much, when 
I was ignorant about dirty tricks, phony voter fraud accusations, 
voter list purges, voter suppression, poorly designed and inaccurate 
voting machines, absentee paper ballots that have the voters 
political party on the mail-in envelope (Yes, Broward Co Florida does 
that and strips privacy away from the voters and state law allows 
them to do it), long lines at the polls, and every other attempt to 
keep voters from voting and votes from being counted accurately, if 
at all. It was kinda nice not knowing about all of those issues. Oh, 
maybe someone would bring up the old story about ballot boxes 
floating in the bay. What bay was that? San Francisco? Lake Michigan 
off of Chicago? The Hudson River? The location seems to have changed 
with the person telling the story. It was nice thinking our democracy 
actually worked the way our founding fathers envisioned it would. It 
was nice thinking that, no matter for whom I voted, the majority 
voice was heard. Now, it just feels dirty and somewhat depressing. I 
know way too much. It was nice being ignorant.

National: US Election: Malfunctioning voting machines
http://senderodelpeje.com/sdp/contenido/2008/10/09/52930

National: Update from Black Box Voting: Trouble with straight party 
voting and how you can help on Election Day
http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2008/10/update-from-black-box-voting-trouble-with-straight-party-voting-and-how-you-can-help-on-election-day/

National: Investors agree to sell Hart InterCivic to management team
http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2008/10/06/daily48.html?ana=from_rss

National: ACLU: Justice Department Should Enforce Voting Law
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0810/S00217.htm

National: College students face barriers to voting
Registration problems, ID requirements, long lines at polls cited as 
discouraging factors.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081010/POLITICS01/810100312

National: Clearing Up The Issue Of Provisional Ballots
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0810/S00163.htm

National: Voter Purges Could Cause Florida-like Presidential Recounts
http://www.alternet.org/democracy/102374/voter_purges_could_cause_florida-like_presidential_recounts/

National: Election 08: The Difficulty Stealing It This Time
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0810/S00164.htm

National: Professor examines voting misconceptions
http://spectrum.buffalo.edu/article.php?id=37421

National: Our Hackable Democracy
http://www.forbes.com/technology/personaltech/2008/10/09/hacking-electronic-voting-tech-security_cx_ag_1010hack.html

National: Report: Voter Purging Process Is Shrouded in Secrecy, Prone 
to Error and Vulnerable to Manipulation
http://i3.democracynow.org/2008/10/9/report_voter_purging_process_is_shrouded

National: Voter Fraud, Voter Suppression
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/voter-fraud-vot.html

National: Questions and Challenges Surround Voter Registration Process
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/politics/September-October-08/Questions-and-Challenges-Surround-Voter-Registration-Process.html

National: Briefing: Bracing for another Election Day mess
http://www.theweek.com/article/index/89621/3/3/Briefing_Bracing_for_another_Election_Day_mess

National: Opinion - Who's the Fraud?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/whos-the-fraud/?ref=opinion

National: Voter Registrations Spark Testy Exchange
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/10/10/voter-registrations-spark-testy-exchange/?mod=googlenews_wsj

AZ: Pima County - Pima officials: More than 350 residents tried to 
vote twice in primary
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/99161.php

CA: Los Angeles County - Surge in voter registration highlights electoral fraud
http://www.malibutimes.com/articles/2008/10/10/news/news6.txt

CA: San Joaquin, Sacramento counties expect record voter turnout
http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2008/10/10/news/4_election_081010.txt

CO: State disputes voter purge
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10682767

CO: Colorado to Review How It Purges Voters' Names
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/us/10voting.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

CO: Coffman disputes voter-purge report
http://www.chieftain.com/articles/2008/10/10/news/local/doc48ef14d420898206871936.txt

CO: No vote for you: Coffman responds to NYT voter purge story
http://coloradoindependent.com/11004/no-vote-for-you-coffman-responds-to-nyt-voter-purge-story

CO: Clerks to voters: Bring a sack lunch to the polls
http://coloradoindependent.com/11037/clerks-to-voters-bring-a-sack-lunch-to-the-polls

CO: El Paso County - State Senator Accuses Clerk of Suppressing Votes
http://www.krdo.com/Global/story.asp?S=9155567

CO: Moffat County - Test election extended to today
Public participants not worried about errors
http://www.craigdai