Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:00:07 -0400
Ohio Attorney Files Motion to Lift Stay in Ohio Case of King Lincoln Bronzeville v Blackwell
At a press conference this morning in Columbus, Ohio, Cliff Arnebeck, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case of King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell, announced that he is filing a motion to "lift the stay in the case [and] proceed with targeted discovery in order to help protect the integrity of the 2008 election."
Arnebeck will also "be providing copies of document hold notices to the U.S .Chamber Institute for Legal Reform and the U.S. Justice Department for Karl Rove emails from the White House."
This case has the potential to put some of the most powerful people in the country in jail, according to Arnebeck, as he was joined by a well-respected, life-long Republican computer security expert who charged that the red flags seen during Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election would have been cause for "a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn't when it comes to our vote."
"This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody," the expert charged, as Arnebeck detailed allegations of complicity by a number of powerful GOP operatives and companies who had unique access both to the election results as reported in 2004, as well as to U.S. House and Senate computer networks even today.
The presser was attended by some of the corporate-controlled media, including the head of the Ohio AP bureau, the Columbus Dispatch, and IndyMedia. Listening in by phone were ABC News, our friends from RAW STORY, and me, your humble blogger. I recorded the presser, so I have no links for the quotes in this post, but I transcribed them word-for-word and can vouch for their accuracy.
One of the more delightful and interesting quotes comes from Arnebeck, concerning what he expects to discover as the stay is lifted: "[W]e anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio"...
~ snip ~
Arnebeck said "We think [Rove] is an individual who has been at the center of both the use of corporate money to attack state Attorneys General and their elections and candidates for the Supreme Court and their elections in the states, and also in the manipulation of the election process.
~ snip ~
He targeted the Rapp family and the Triad Voting Systems company, who ran the tabulators in a number of Ohio counties in 2004, as those who need to be closely investigated.
"If it's the Rapp family and the programming of the [Triad] tabulators," Arnebeck stated, "we need to know that so that the Rapp family will be closely monitored, if not put in jail, before the 2008 election."
Spoonamore continued, "I am extremely confident in [our] analysis of the 2004 election anomalies because of the way the tabulators were programmed, and all were programmed by the Rapp family on Triad systems. So in my opinion, there should be an investigation launched into exactly what happened.
"There was an enormous number of strange activities in which Triad and the Rapp family were running around the state taking hard drives out of computers, putting in new hard drives, and posting poll results. And the reason all this was going on, I'm quite confident, was that the hard drives they were pulling out had fraudulent coding. Simple as that."
"Certainly if that happened at one of our banks, you could be arrested."
Spoonamore has told Arnebeck and the plaintiffs that there is a clear pattern of fraud. He said the Ohio 2004 election was "a frighteningly un-auditable system."
"When, in the Green Party recount, all of the sudden [people are] driving around the state pulling and swapping hard drives, they should have been in handcuffs that day," argued Spoonamore.
~ snip ~
Spoonamore again: "None of us [the American people] really want to confront the fact that there appears to be an extremely coordinated effort by a very small group of people to rig elections and take control of the executive branch."
"You can spend all day every day looking at this stuff and saying, 'Well that would certainly launch a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn't when it comes to our vote.' Why?"
When asked by a reporter to respond to the fact that both Democratic and Republican Secretaries of State and elected officials will say that our elections are run on a bi-partisan system, Spoonamore responded, "No it's not. It's not a bi-partisan system. This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody. In my opinion, both sides [Democrats and Republicans] have no friggin' clue what they're talking about."
"The person who programs the code inside the machine will decide the results."
Spoonamore was asked, "Are you a Republican?" And his priceless response was "Yes, I've been a life-long member of the Republican party. Sadly." That prompted a burst of laughter from all assembled. ...
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
It is Ohio after all. heh
But, as they say, anything is possible. Maybe things will go the way they should for a change.
Why parents drink
The boss wondered why one of his most valued employees had not phoned in sick one day. Having an urgent problem with one of the main computers, he dialed the employee's home phone number and was greeted with a child's whisper.
'Hello ? '
'Is your daddy home?' he asked.
' Yes ,' whispered the small voice.
May I talk with him?'
The child whispered, ' No .'
Surprised and wanting to talk with an adult, the boss asked, 'Is your Mommy there?'
'Yes.'
'May I talk with her?'
Again the small voice whispered,
'No .'
Hoping there was somebody with whom he could leave a message, the boss asked, 'Is anybody else there?'
' Yes ,' whispered the child,' a policeman '.
Wondering what a cop would be doing at his employee's home, the boss asked, 'May I speak with the policeman?'
' No, he's busy ', whispered the child.
'Busy doing what?'
' Talking to Daddy and Mommy and the Fireman ,' came the whispered answer.
Growing more worried as he heard a loud noise in the background through the earpiece on the phone, the boss asked, 'What is that noise?'
' A helicopter', answered the whispering voice.
'What is going on there?' demanded the boss, now truly apprehensive.
Again, whispering, the child answered, 'The search team just landed a helicopter .'
Alarmed, concerned and a little frustrated the boss asked, 'What are they searching for?'
Still whispering, the young voice replied with a muffled giggle,
........................ME...............
that the new horizon thing that the criminal in the whitehouse has come up with is them trying to take away Obama's advantage on the withdrawal issue?
That's how politics is played. Another is Bush trying to polish his "legacy" so that he can finally claim "victory" in Iraq. There will be a lot more of this between now and November, I suspect.
Give my apologies to yours too.
"It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and one to hear." - Henry David Thoreau
Penny and Frosty weren't in the room.
We learn. We change. That's progress. If we don't do that, well, we're GWB.
Last July I adopted a pup that came out a shelter in West Virginia -- a litter found abandoned on the side of a road and no clue as to ancestry. The best guess was beagle and something. A year later I have a 30 pound brindle dog with a piercing yodel/bark who cruises on our walks with his nose to the ground. Beagle was believable and I thought there was some terrier mixed in as well.
I splurged on a DNA test for mixed breeds and got the results the other day -- flat-coated retriever/labrador retriever/newfoundland with other breeds present, but that couldn't be indentified.
I see this happy little dog completely differently now!
"It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and one to hear." - Henry David Thoreau
She and I decided I have a "mini-newfie" - extremely rare in brindle!
"It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and one to hear." - Henry David Thoreau
Some former top Hillary Clinton fundraisers have received attention in recent days for thus far declining to help bundle donations for Barack Obama. But none of those figures was actively working against Obama's candidacy. Ricki Lieberman is another matter.
Also a former Clinton "Hillraiser" (meaning she raised more than $100,000 for the campaign), Lieberman is keeping her own private hope alive with a daily email blast to supporters, entitled "Electability Watch," which features a cascade of negative articles and other items about Obama as a means to argue that superdelegates should change their minds in Denver and crown Clinton the nominee instead. A tipster who described them as "disgusting" sent a batch of recent "Electability Watch" emails to the Huffington Post. Their authenticity was confirmed in a phone conversation with Ms. Lieberman, who said her only desire is to "see a Democratic president in the White House" next year.
Any Democrat, perhaps, except Barack Obama -- or "BO aka Bush 3," as Lieberman repeatedly refers to him. The emails sometimes go out of their way to parrot some of the most hardcore attacks on Obama, including comments comparing Obama's planned nomination speech to Nazi-era rallies in Germany. In one email, she quotes messages from apparent Holocaust survivors[...]
[...] A spokesperson for Sen. Clinton implicitly distanced the candidate from Lieberman's effort, telling the Huffington Post: "Senator Clinton fully supports Senator Obama. She continues to urge all of her supporters to get behind him. ... She continues to do everything she can to rally folks behind him. We don't support any effort that doesn't." [...]
[...]Lieberman's emails can also be unintentionally funny. In a recent edition, she advanced a theory that the reason Obama's fundraising operation has started to show some signs of wear is because all those small donors during the primary were, in truth, closet McCain supporters who, instead of donating to his foundering campaign, were trying to destroy the most formidable Democratic candidate (that being Clinton). "And now they do not have to contribute anymore," Lieberman wrote. "Some may have even gone back to funding McCain whose fundraising has gotten better and better. SIGH... Any takers for this theory???"
In her effort to be comprehensive (?), Lieberman once included two mutually exclusive views on one hot story, apparently because both positions reflected poorly on Obama. During the recent Jesse Jackson controversy -- in which the civil rights leader was caught expressing his desire to "cut [Obama's] nuts off" in a hot-mic moment before a television appearance -- Lieberman's email suggested in back to back items that the entire incident was engineered by Jackson and Obama as a cynical bit of propaganda and that the incident was a true reflection of a growing displeasure among key black leaders with his candidacy.
Asked whether her relentless tearing down of Obama could potentially damage her oft-stated goal of seeing a Democratic president, Lieberman refused to concede the point. Ultimately, she described Obama as "unfit to be president."
So which is it? Does Lieberman want to see a Democratic president no matter what, or does she think it's important to advance the idea of Obama as unfit to lead? [...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/16/clinton-distances-herself_n_113094.html
Smart move, Hillary...for the Clinton Legacy.
(emphasis, mine)
...and don't go lock-step following her suggestions. They will reach their own conclusions about the next step in their political path. Ricki Lieberman is just one in 18 million people, all of whom may choose to go 18 million different ways.
It's democracy in action and democracy is an untidy affair.
I am now awaiting a lecture on how we must all fall in line for the sake of the country because McCain is so bad. Before said lecture, it should be noted that it is the Democrats who have failed to restore our civil liberties or prevent torture because of their own possible criminal liability.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/15/complicity/index.html
What if all 18 million DIDN'T go 18 million ways?
Cindy McKinney won the Green Party's nomination last weekend.
Read her acceptance comments at Seder Blog CYNTHIA MC KINNEY'S ACCEPTANCE SPEECH - POWER TO THE PEOPLE
5% confers on the Green Party major party status. And with that 5%, we can pull up another chair at the table of public policy making. It only takes 5% of those who vote, including the near majority who don’t vote, to come out for a Green Party President and then we will have an official third party in this country, and public policy that truly reflects our values.
Please read the entire speech and blogger comments afterward. You can comment about the speech at the Seder Blog link, too.
Let's remember Congress votes to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, legalize warrantless eavesdropping by a margin of 69-28, meaning 19 DEMOCRATS voted to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment.
5%
Only 5%
Think about it.
www.mccainsfreeride.com
Nader/Gonzales
http://www.votenader.org/index.html
Why have Obama and the New Democratic Party chose to rehabilitate the Republican Party at a time when it and conservatism has proven to be such a failure? Answer: "Because that's where the money is."
I'm voting for Nader. I do hope a lot of Hillary supporters are pushing for the superdelegates to change their support from BO to Hillary at the Convention. I hope they keep the pressure on the superdelegates.
For those of you who say, "You are throwing your vote away"...that "it will help McCain win"... I don't want BO to win. If it's between McCain and BO only - then at this point I'll be voting McCain (even though I don't want McCain to win either).
Of course, there's a bit more time before the Convention and even more time before the General Election.
The minute she gets into the news the media will start with her altercation with the Capitol Hill police and you will never hear a word about what the Green Party stands for.
"It takes two to speak the truth - one to speak and one to hear." - Henry David Thoreau
following Hillary's suggestions is praise worthy for someone like Ricki Lieberman (someone none of us knows), and yet not going lock-step with Wes when he endorsed Hillary was considered treason when Clarkies (who we do know) "thought for themselves" and didn't follow his suggestion.
Strange how that works isn't it?
If we could have taken that attitude from the beginning just think of all the heated words that wouldn't have been written here.
But two wrongs don't make a right. I think we should all treat people the way we'd like to be treated regardless of whether they treated us poorly in the past.
We learn. We change. That's progress. If we don't do that, well, we're GWB.
with that.
The Golden Rule would stand us all in good stead.
Inconsistancy is such a pain in the keister. heh
it wasn't considered treason and as far as I know "thinking for themselves" was not the issue. As the flow of events, statements, misstatements and votes in the last six months have shown, General Clark seems to have been pretty well informed, used his reading of people, and showed good judgment in asking his supporters to work for Hillary Clinton's nomination. Now the DNC has selected a faux-progressive as the presumptive nominee. And no, I am not voting for McCain.
in how we handled things after Wes endorsed Hillary. In the process a lot of harsh words were passed back and forth no matter what the reason actually was.
I don't think any of us would deny that. Of course I've been known to be wrong before.
Wes' good judgement isn't in question. Some didn't agree with his choice but, at least for me, it wasn't a matter of questioning his judgement, it was just that I felt differently.
He's a pragmatist. He stays focused on current realities. The current reality is that Obama will be on the ballot up against McCain.
Based on that reality his judgement has led him to say what he said at Netroots Nation, "We need change in America. I think we've got a candidate for the Presidency who can bring that change if we put him in office."
Regardless of who he may think "selected" what you think of as a "faux-progressive" his judgement says get the Democrat elected.
Good judgement in my opinion.
That's not possible but they can be overcome. Sometimes it takes a lot of deep thought and hard work but it is possible.
It just depends on if the broken fences are worth mending. I think the fences here would be worth it. :)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Bush administration plan to define several widely used contraception methods as abortion is a "gratuitous, unnecessary insult" to women and faces tough opposition, Sen. Hillary Clinton said on Friday.
The former Democratic presidential candidate joined family planning groups to condemn the proposal that defines abortion to include contraception such as birth control pills and intrauterine devices.
It would cut off federal funds to hospitals and states where medical providers are obligated to offer legal abortion and contraception to women.
"We will not put up with this radical, ideological agenda to turn the clock back on women's rights," the New York senator told a joint news conference with New York Rep. Nita Lowey, also a Democrat, at Bellevue Hospital.
"Women would watch their contraceptive coverage disappear overnight," said Clinton.
/snip/
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1843863720080718
...is on top of this.
Where is the presumptuous nominee? Not even mentioned on his web site.
Why have Obama and the New Democratic Party chose to rehabilitate the Republican Party at a time when it and conservatism has proven to be such a failure? Answer: "Because that's where the money is."
Hillary needs to get on every Sunday political show and talk about this. I wasn't even aware of it. I sort have kept away from political news ever since BO was selected.
Americans need to realize who is fighting bush jr on this.
Clark After Dark Poetry Corner 7-19-08 3:30 edt
◊Clinton supporters think for themselves...
◊Not the same...
◊July 18: Phil Gramm steps down as McCain’s co-chair
◊A New American Patriotism: A New Call to Service
◊Barack Obama: Call to Service
◊Clinton distances herself from Lieberman's "Electability Watch"
◊The world as you know it has never existed
◊Thanks Reg & Kat!
◊And that's exactly the problem I have with it too. We already
◊Excellent point - and you're absolutley right!
◊I am so tired of playing...
* * * *
There are currently 5 cool people and 16 of their cool friends online.
Online users
* Kathy B.
* richsezclark4prez
* Stan4Clark
* Defoliate Bush <--- bobdole joke coming up soon
* Marla
TURN IT UP!
trolling around the vastness of u toob i found a very bizzare show
used to be on CBS called
30 Minutes
(I'm not kidding! Raise yer hand if you remember this show!)
These clips must be from around 1980 (I saw the BOC tour shown in part 2)
I believe on the back of the "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" LP jacket
it said
"To be played at maximum volume"
part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylc6decFiDw&feature=related
part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrfWgT28gZ4&feature=related
Bizarre.
www.mccainsfreeride.com
.....just about Hillary. It has gone way beyond that. This is a fight for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. We see the Party rushing right and using Rove tactics to do so. We are fighting to wrestle it from the hands of the NeoLibs and return it to the Party of FDR.
Why have Obama and the New Democratic Party chose to rehabilitate the Republican Party at a time when it and conservatism has proven to be such a failure? Answer: "Because that's where the money is."
If you get arrested protesting at the Democratic National Convention in August, have no fear, the DNC People's Law Project will have your back.
The People's Law Project will provide pro-bono attorneys to help jailed protesters during the convention. The group will also staff a hotline where protesters can call for help and will field teams of neutral legal observers who will attend rallies and videotape protesters' interaction with police.60 lawyers willing to volunteer their services met at the University of Denver today for a training session on how to defend arrested protesters.
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/7/18/22132/1580
I'll bet this p*sses Richie Daily off no end.
Why have Obama and the New Democratic Party chose to rehabilitate the Republican Party at a time when it and conservatism has proven to be such a failure? Answer: "Because that's where the money is."
I don't think the Party is rushing right. I think Obama is. He's a rotten candidate. I think it ought to be made clear to him that he won't get away with the crap he's pulling. I think his feet should be held firmly to the fire. Protesting in Denver is a good way to do that. Let him know that we're not going to support him if he continues to act like an asshole.
But I really don't think the Party itself is the problem. In a way, the problem is smaller than that -- Obama himself. And in a way, the problem is bigger than that -- the people who fell for his smile and voice and supported him -- and even bigger than just the Dems who were tricked but all the American public who've been tricked by Rove's tactics for years now.
I don't think we should fight the Party. I think we should fight the attitudes in the American public that brought us here. I think we need to find a way to encourage people to think again. I think we should delve heavily into issues, not necessarily advocating a side, but discussing them, in depth, pros and cons, honestly, without fear of saying something that the "other side" will use against us. I think we should start that trend. Forget about taking a side. Forget about convincing people. Bring the facts out and show them the light of day, even the facts that don't support our positions. We're right, you know. If we could only get people to pay attention. Well, maybe, just maybe, what we do could catch on, make the news even.
We learn. We change. That's progress. If we don't do that, well, we're GWB.
...I meant the "party leadership"...... Pelosi, Hoyer, Dean, Brazile.....and on down.
THEY chose him. THEY broke rules in order to get him. THEY ok'd the DNC move to the Chicago where the Daily Combine rules....which is already embedded in the O campaign and taking over the DNC as we speak. State workers are being told to shut up and go home and leave everything to said Combine operatives. ALL moneys have to go through O. He doesn't want any outside groups. Complete control!
These people represent the Party. If they win in November, the lurch to the Right will become permanent. We are fighting to stop that from happening.
I now know how the true conservatives felt when the NeoCons took over the GOP. The same thing is happening here but with Neo Libertarians.....which is why Markos loves the new party. He has always said he is a Libertarian Democrat....whatever the F that is, cuz it bears no resemblance to a true Democrat. It's really Republican Lite.
So when I mention the Party, I'm NOT talking about the rank and file grassrooters.
Why have Obama and the New Democratic Party chose to rehabilitate the Republican Party at a time when it and conservatism has proven to be such a failure? Answer: "Because that's where the money is."
I don't think we'd be in this mess if the people were paying attention. I think it's more effective to try to fight that than to fight the Party leadership. The leadership is just doing what they think it takes in the Rovian era to "win." Rove changed the paradigm. We need to change it back. The leadership can't do that. The people have to do that. I think that's where we should expend our energy. That way, we fix not just the Democrats, but the Republicans as well.
In other words, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, etc. are not the problem. They are merely symptoms. We can't fix things by treating the symptoms. We have to fix the problem. And the problem is that the people are not paying attention.
We learn. We change. That's progress. If we don't do that, well, we're GWB.
....the people have is to not vote for him. We have no power other than our vote.
And we'll have to agree to disagree on the culpability of Pelosi, Dean, Brazile etc.
Why have Obama and the New Democratic Party chose to rehabilitate the Republican Party at a time when it and conservatism has proven to be such a failure? Answer: "Because that's where the money is."
But I don't think working on them is where the solution lies.
We have more than our vote. There's our support, money, boots on the ground, and even what we say around the water cooler. We can and should withhold ALL of that until they straighten up.
In the meantime, I think we should be using the resources we're withholding from them in an effort to get people thinking again.
We learn. We change. That's progress. If we don't do that, well, we're GWB.
If Americans were more committed to our democracy, if they understood their role in it, if they realized that democracy does not just happen but requires constant attention and work, then the DNC and the RBC in particular would not have been able to select the Democratic Party's nominee.
BO's team has used Rove type tactics to win the primaries/caucuses. The Democratic leadership have caved into pressure by some Liberal leaning political show anchors and by some extremely loud BO supporters/surrogates.
Yes, we need to get back to a FDR Democratic type Party. The type who has specific solutions to the problems of the American People.
The Republicans that switched parties to try to vote out Hillary (since they knew McCain had it sewed up early) and won't vote for BO in the GE are going to have a huge impact.
I was at a wake in northeastern PA last Sunday. I was talking to a couple (approximately 65 years old). They were asking if that was my car in the parking lot with the HIllary and WES CLARK bumper stickers on the front and back of the car. I proudly answered, "Yes." They asked me who I was voting for. I told them as of now I'm hoping the superdelegates change their minds at the convention and get Hillary in as our nominee. Then I'll vote for HIllary. Otherwise, I'm voting for Nader.
I went on to say that "the election will be closer than a lot of people think because a lot of Republicans switched over in the primaries to vote out Hillary. They won't be voting for BO in the ge." This couple, (who happens to be Conservative Religious Right. The husband is a Pediatrician - one who does care a lot about kids and people in general... These are genuinely good, good people) said that they switched from the Republican Party to vote for BO so Hillary wouldn't win the Democratic nomination. They are hoping McCain will win. They will be voting for McCain in the GE. They also said that many people they know switched parties to vote for BO, but they won't be voting for him in the GE.
My late father told me that this was his favorite song during his service in the Pacific:
"I'll Be Seeing You"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8R4hZk-1fpo
ETA: Singer and radio star Jo Stafford dies at 90
July 18, 2008, 8:46 PM EST
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Jo Stafford, the honey-voiced band singer who starred in radio and television and sold more than 25 million records with her ballads and folks songs, has died. She was 90.
- more at the link:
http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx/?news=323529>1=28102
Proud to be an American.
on the Netroots’ nation of bloggers.: