COLORADO SPRINGS- How’s this for polling place trouble, and it happened to our own Dennis Apuan. The peace community’s own Apuan, Filipino-American and Democratic candidate for state House District 17, (1) hadn’t receive his absentee ballot in the mail, so (2) was given a provisional ballot on election day. When he discovered HIS NAME WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, election workers eventually noticed (3) they were using ballots for District 19.
Expect the cheers of delight to begin tonight, as many Americans begin to celebrate what the corporate media tomorrow will call a historic event. However, they will be wrong. There will have been no major change in America at all.
In July 2000 I was in Mexico, and got to see the jubilation as Mexicans were celebrating what they thought would be the final end of the world’s longest running dictatorship over them. They believed that all Mexico’s problems had been merely the product of having this one capitalist ruling party in place, and that by implementing 2 capitalist ruling parties that all would soon turn into a rainbow road ahead for Mexico. Wrong they were, and it should have been self evident to them at the time. However, the corporate media of that country began to bombard all Mexicans with nonstop commentaries that all had the same refrain… Mexico had now become a new country! Wrong they were.
Similarly today we will see the same delusions spread by corporate media talking dead heads and Democratic Party voting delusionary souls alike, who often like to call themselves ‘Progressives’. Wrong. They simply are not that at all, and can only marginally be called much improvement over the typical Republican voting clowns they always oppose so fanatically. And just like the Mexicans who were taken in by the believe that Mexico had turned some sort of corner in the year 2000, so too will they initially spread that very same false optimism throughout the general population. A crescendo of optimism will be built up between now and January as the Republican President is allowed to do his final corrupt actions in virtual silence from this new ‘hero’, Barack Obama.
Like Mexicans today, 8 years later from their election of 2000, we in the US will soon see how meaningless this meaningless election day actually will be for the US. Real Change must come from the furious anger of people down below and not from the manipulations of rich people up high, as certainly will be the case with Barack Obama’s cruise into power. We’re getting Obama because the US super rich finally begin to just get fed up with the poor results of what continuing to keep Dubya-like clowns in the White House for all of another 4 years would actually bring to them.
COLORADO- The unions mounted a very visible opposition to the proposed Colorado Amendments 47, 49 and 54. Vote NO, their posters and stickers urged, in support of Colorado’s firefighters, police and teachers. I might have agreed more if they’d mentioned better reasons.
I was accosted in Pueblo by someone asking people to wear stickers which said NO ON 47, 49 & 54 for the sake of the firefighters. I told him that I had nothing against firefighters, but don’t they get plenty of recognition already? I would wear the sticker in support of UNIONS in general. That’s who the ballot amendments are targeting, and that’s who need our support. His face lit up appreciatively.
It’s too bad that the Colorado public can’t be trusted with the real argument about what’s at stake. Especially coming from such strong unions as protect the firefighters, police and teachers. What about the other unionized vocations? Especially those not yet, or no longer, protected by unions? I would have liked to see labor use this opportunity to bring the issue of collective bargaining into the public discourse. That would mean the stronger unions looking out for their weaker comrades.
I’m reminded of friends I had at UPS, who apologized for belonging to the Teamsters. What’s wrong with that picture? Or how about the USPS workers, paid good wages owed entirely to a strong union, who otherwise vote as anti-labor conservatives?
I would also like to have seen the NO ON 47, 49 & 54 group throw another number on their clipboard. Why not oppose Amendment 46, which attacked Affirmative Action? That’s a jobs related issue that would show solidarity with minority workers.
Can American voters be expected only to look out for themselves? Each of the presidential candidates seemed to campaign like they were buying votes. Did Obama have to promise he wouldn’t tax 95% of the populace? Did McCain have to argue for the reverse? Is there no room for altruism in American politics? Maybe the pundits are right to have talked about “socialism” like it was a dirty word.
Can WE THE PEOPLE really undo the NeoFascist coup of 2000, or will the electoral farce just continue?
Was “Maverick” McCain’s goal the utter destruction of the Republican Party? Because that’s the ony way I can see him “winning.”
Evidence the election is already being stolen.
Her Imperial Highness Sarah Palin claims the media criticising her violates her First Amendment rights.
Canadian radio show hosts prank-call Sarah Palin, impersonating the French President, and get her to admit she thinks killing baby seals from a helicopter would be fun. [audio]
You know your country is worse than Nazi Germany when…
Did the CIA warn corporate executives prior to 9/11 attacks?
Lest anyone forget, McCain is NOT a natural born citizen, as required of the President in the United States Constitution. He was born in the Panama Canal Zone, before such births were legally “natural born.” The law that later made such births “natural” did not include those already born, they only became “naturalized citizens,” thus disqualifying McCain for the office of President. Not that anyone gives a damn about the Constitution anymore.
Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff endorses Obama.
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Nov 3rd notes, thomasmc.com.
EL PASO COUNTY, COLO.- I visited the Board of County Commissioners today to seek their intervention with problems developing with the upcoming election. They’d already voiced their support for Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink’s voter intimidation of Colorado College students. In light of national criticism of vote suppression tactics such as the fewer early-voter stations, longer wait times, and the possibility of running out of paper ballots, I wanted to give the commissioners a chance to reassure voters of El Paso County. Long lines? They’re all for them. In their own words:
While disadvantaged citizens are particularly burdened by the prospect of long lines at the polling stations, this was not a concern shared by the commissioners. They saw long lines as a sign of greater voter participation. In particular, for that reason, Commissioner Sallie Clark said “I hope there are long lines.”
Two other commissioners also up for reelection on Tuesday held the same view. Commissioner Amy Lathen said “Long lines mean people are getting out and voting … I don’t think that’s a problem.” Commissioner Dennis Hisey added “Waiting to vote is an American tradition.”
County Treasurer Sandra Damron felt compelled to stand up and add that she thought “casting aspersions” was unwarranted. Damron reminded me of a typical small town administrator bucking at the oversight of Federal supervisors whose job it is to know better.
“I’m really angry that outside organizations, feel that they can come into our community, and try to cast aspersions, when there are none that are deserved. … Last time I looked, there is no constitutional right to avoiding long lines. They just happen.“
Commissioner Jim Bensberg put the blame for long lines on voters who come to the polls “without having done their homework” in view of the lengthy ballot initiatives. Commissioner Wayne Williams thought that those who criticized our local election were “ignorant” and of “questionable judgment.”
Commissioner Hisey answered the criticism of no early polling location for the South East part of town, where there are more African American, Hispanic, and military families. He explained that the Citadel Mall early-vote facility was targeted for them. “We put a polling place in the heart of where the minorities live, shop and work.”
News reports reflect the turnout at the Citadel Mall has been primarily white.
Every commissioner wanted to admonish any complainants with the reminder that they had their opportunity to mail in their ballots. No one addressed the reports of many who’ve yet to receive such ballots, nor those who await confirmation that they are registered.
The County Attorney answered a concern about Absentee ballots sent in without photocopies of personal IDs. Even he was unsure if sufficient warning was given that such photocopies were required, but he consulted with a colleague before admitting that all such ballots would be considered provisional, and then duly discarded as insufficient.
By the way, every board member took the occasion to make an opening statement at today’s meeting. Each was a Republican partisan reminder to vote for the candidates who promise smaller government, etc, etc. Commissioner Bensberg ended with this anecdote.
“One of my constituents called me yesterday with a suggestion. He was concerned that there might be a long line at the polling place, and he came up with an idea that I think is worth pursuing. I’d like to pass this along to our Clerk and Recorder, and that is, that all Republicans should vote on Tuesday, and all Democrats should vote on Wednesday.“
To which Commission Hisey said “I’ll leave that one alone.” I’d say Commissioner Bensberg was trying to be humorous, but if you wonder why that disinformation tactic reemerges every election, and has been reported recently in numerous precincts around the country. We can certainly question whether elected officials should be joking about it, without a preface, or explanation. In light too of the many serious violations that the El Paso County Board of Commissioners appears to be adamant to overlook.
You can observe the complete statements on Comcast Channel 17 tonight at 7PM or later at 10PM. Otherwise the audio file becomes available at this link on the El Paso County website.
Jim Bensberg also suggested that complaints about voting irregularities always came from the “other side,” suggesting questionable motives on their part. I paraphrase: Perhaps accusations of partisanship could be dropped only when complaints come from both sides.
Well, I do not wish for either. But maybe Bensberg should let us know the minute a phony “November 5” notice emerges which instructs REPUBLICANS to vote the day after. An example I doubt we’ll ever see. Number one, because believers in democracy don’t want to disenfranchise anyone, but two, Republicans don’t dare make a fake flier to discredit the Dems, because it would mean risking their own voters falling for the ruse. An entirely likely outcome.
A fake notice distributed in Virginia:
Voter fraud? Maybe it’s those officials that block high turn outs for elections that are the real frauds and felons here? People like Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman who was just caught trying to throw off more than 10,000 voters from the Colorado voting lists, for just one local example?
In New York State, Pardon John O’Hara now and stop throwing people off US voter lists for stupid reasons. For more of an explanation of what John O’Hara’s case is about see the Counterpunch article of today… Voter Lockdown By JOHN KENNEDY O’HARA
MONDAY NOV. 3RD brings another chance to see Sarah Palin. Can we pray it please be the last? Palin will hold court to the Colorado Springs’ Holy War freaks in the same private airplane hanger she used before, so that her campaign can splice footage from the previous rally.
Jet Center Aviation,
1575 Aviation Way.
Event starts at 5:15pm,
doors open at 3:30pm.
(Meet outside earlier.) Let’s bid them ALL best success with their God/guns/greed elsewhere.
As we learned from the Palin Sky Sox rally, wear RED because that’s what Palin’s supporters are being urged to wear. They will be dressing to look like a team, and they’ll arrive feeling like they’ve unwittingly donned YOUR colors!
At right is a black & white version you can print on red card-stock, as large as your printer can handle. Then use White-Out to brighten the eyes and teeth. Or visit A Frightening Prospect to download a PDF of the original color version.
Another depressing lesson from the previous rallies was how many supporters brought their kids. School day or not. From their cars, and in front of traffic cops, many held their tongue, attributing it to their children being present. Standing in line, with younger ones or without, the insults flew fast and furious.
I’m still unclear whether it’s cricket to mock Palin supporters in front of their children. What -they should save face in front of offspring who without our help will grow up as ignorant as their parents?
What do you say to parents who are going to raise bigots?
No seriously. Here are some ideas to target the Fundamentalist crowd which PRAYER FORCE ONE wll be busing to the rally. Let’s speak their language!
Or
For the more well behaved, there’s this great election flier. On Monday, meet at NOON at TOONS for the plan.
PUEBLO, COLO- Here are pictures of Saturday’s Obama campaign rally in Pueblo, which his family wedged in between appearances the same day in Nevada and Missouri. Our peace contingent positioned early at the rally entrance on Main and C Street and greeted absolutely every of the over 25K attendees, from the Orange Pass-holders to the public whose line extended over the horizon.
We stood near a facilitator who barked this instruction to folks who’d arrived to the entrance from the wrong direction, with very likely an unconscious lack of warmth, “Obama welcomes you! [Go to the] back of the line!” Another volunteer warned attendees to please remove their campaign pins, empty their pockets of change, and leave their cell-phones and cameras on for the security inspection. These lines offered us a great opportunity to add our own admonitions. Don’t let them take your voice, for example. In addition to forbidding bags and non-disposable water bottles, participants were forbidden to bring signs.
Department of Homeland Security officers wore their strange black gloves.
A group of anti-abortion protesters managed to sneak through the preliminary security cordons and were summarily ousted. It was tempting to weigh in on what of course should have been their right to political expression in a public area, regardless their extremist views, except that they make such creepy bedfellows. Angry white idiots demonstrating against women’s rights. Even the woman who held the Catholic Vote sign was not a Catholic.
Wherever the anti-abortion “bad change” white guys next attempted to raise their signs, Obama volunteers blocked their visibility with pro-Obama placards. The Obama enthusiasts even borrowed our PLEASE OBAMA NO MORE WAR poster for the purpose. If you count the rally holders themselves as protesters of the current administration. The anti-abortion disruptors would be the counter-demonstrators, as would we. Which means the counter-counter-demonstrators used our counter-demonstration poster, and the who’s who gets cloudy.
The Pueblo police force were in constant communication with each other.
Tony brought a Halloween costume to represent another disenfranchised minority.
The DHS officer pictured in the middle accosted me immediately after I took this photograph. He threatened me with arrest if I did not put down my camera. If I was neither coming nor going, he forbid me from documenting the security area in the interest of protecting the country from terrorism.
We walked around the perimeter of the secured area in order to reach our car. This is the view we had of the press recording the rally.
This is the main stage from which the Democratic candidates were speaking.
Attempting to cross Union Street, north of the Historic District, our crossing was blocked by a security detail amidst a scene so quiet it seemed to be anticipating an important arrival.
Sure enough, within minutes the Obama motorcade arrived. Michelle Obama waved to everyone as their vehicle passed.
The SUVs disgorged their passengers. Secret Service agents exited from every door.
Remember this, from the Onion:
ISN’T THIS JUST SO EMBARRASSING? On Monday Sarah Palin returns for a third engagement in Colorado Springs. The Republicans have no safe haven for their “rogue” governor but America’s bastion of militant evangelism we call home. Obviously in their eyes we’re a beacon of nothing brighter than idiocy. And McCain’s campaign strategists dare not expose Palin in a public venue, but in a private airplane hanger located well within military contractor grounds. On election eve, the GOP needs to show Palin with a crowd of supporters who won’t be booing or laughing or trying to slip out in horror. We need to tell Palin to go back to Wasilla, and take her new fans with her.
Frankly, I’m not sure whether the subject of Sarah Palin is fodder for laughter more than it has become a painful embarrassment. I couldn’t listen to the Canadian CKOI prank phone call without cringing for Palin’s awful creepiness. It’s not only unimaginable that she command a position of authority, would you want to have to make polite conversation with her, if only to ask about her wild ride?
Alright, one last exploitive laugh.
COLORADO SPRINGS- Mark Lewis continues to document vote suppression in El Paso County. Half as many early voting facilities as 2006, wait times of 2-4 hours. Videos being compiled at videothevote.
Memorable moments from the 2008 presidential debates? After not making eye contact with Obama for the entirety of the first debate, McCain refused Obama’s outreached hand, directing his opponent to shake hands with his wife Cindy instead.
Out of the blue, McCain made an off-hand complaint about his pen being old. Prompting this graphic.
McCain’s self-parody of a previous debate, when he didn’t know in which direction to walk, yielded a hilarious photograph, which inspired this diagram.
Sarah Palin is now pointing out that what she’s wearing is from her “favorite consignment shop in Anchorage Alaska.” Are GOP campaign stylists now stocking the store in Alaska? Stocking it for Sarah Palin? Couldn’t a consignment collection be the ultimate slush fund in miniature, a wardrobe based on the soft money concept? It’s literally political rally wardrobe-laundering!
Purchased from Neiman Marcus, the item can be put on the books at the consignment store for a nominal consignment price. The paper trail can go through the favorite shop, but the clothes can go straight from the GOP personal shoppers in Sarah Palin’s entourage, to Sarah Palin’s steamer trunk.
The infamous 150 thousand dollar shopping isn’t above par for a television wardrobe. Isn’t that figure but a fraction of what Cindy McCain wore in one RNC appearance? The $150K brouhaha masks the larger story, that Sarah Palin is no more a Washington outsider than George W. Bush. Though she plays a western territory governor risen from small time mayor, in reality Palin courted the Republican elite and charmed the GOP Neocons who are looking for another good-ol-boy figurehead to pitch their anti-democratic agenda.
The photo at top was taken of Sarah Palin as she was being ferried from Alaska to Minnesota for her unveiling at the RNC. While the newspaper caption read, Sarah Palin and unidentified male, in fact that figure is Steve Schmidt, head of the McCain campaign, who coached Palin for the entirety of her trip.
I’ve been fantasizing for decreasingly brief moments of late, about the outcome of this election. There’s still time to make a wish. Join me! It’s one thing to win the lotto, and another to have everyone win.
Let’s assume a Democratic landslide. It’s not improbable. In the wake of the Bush deluge, the economic and moral collapse of a once diffident cultural hegemony, in light of the investment bank highway robbery and the American legacy plunged into permanent war, couldn’t it be imagined that Americans might have wised up about Republicans? What are these Republicans after all but thieves? How can conservatism be taken to represent anything anymore but ignorant apologists for entrenched corruption?
I think it’s a lovely thought to imagine P.T. Barnum’s adage proving trump, that all Americans can’t stay fooled all the time. And so, what then? How to dispose of Republican stragglers intent on making a last stand with their authority?
We ride them out of town on a rail. Send them to Iraq with personal instructions to stand in for the boys coming home. Make them rebuild Iraq with their bare hands. Make them do, as we forced the Germans to do as we liberated Europe, to help clean the mass graves of the concentration camps. Grind their noses into their immoral mess. Hope they contract a conscience and die of it. That’s for starters.
The smug pencil pushers, GOP operatives who paid the lip service to tolerating torture, condoned what the other imbeciles about them didn’t realize was legislated against already in common law. My sympathies will run insufficient you dopey fiends.
Mine is a bloody fantasy. Blind complicity to mass murder, mass ignorance, mass apathy, amoral immorality, the norm slacker. No more.
It’s time for righteous indignation to stomp on the banal serial injustice minions. We don’t want them crowding our pursuit of happiness, constraining us with conservative red tape which is just administrativ-ese for chicken-shit cheese place-holding.
Republicans deserve foreshortened lives. Not the noose for most, of course, but a doctor’s prognosis that, by measure of how much life they’ve sucked out of other people, how much spirit they have wasted, how much suffering they have caused, how many rights they’ve denied, how much they’ve taken from others, that much should be debited from what they have been banking as their due for their patriotic allegiance.
An eye for an eye. A tooth for a denture denied to an uninsured American. That simple.
We used to damn just the Neocons, but they rode on the shoulders of the Republicans, among others. Isn’t it the hour of reckoning for the Red Blue Meanies?
Fantasy Option Two:
Speaking of Blue Meanies, What if the Republicans win next Tuesday? What then? Cancel the champagne, hold the tar and feathers.
If the Republicans and their anti-democry programs escape the tether of the public’s grasp, it’s curtains most certainly for the land of liberty. But as we fall into post-industrial decay, I wish this fate for the Dems. Every last ordinary registered Democrat must repudiate their pseudo-party. Make their representatives don the lapel pins of their masters. Democrat and Republican politicians are the same.
It pains me to imagine being told that the Republican machine wasn’t built in a day, that Democrats must knuckle down for the long haul to build a similar base. Quietly and patiently put their people into the right local offices, that they might too, someday, rig the election in the Democrats’ favor. But this begs a question the Dems will never resolve. Republicans from top to bottom are smug, selfish dogs. Unthinking brutes by definition. That’s what it takes to run a well-oiled graft machine. Look at your fellow Dems and tell me they will have the stamina and self-interest to work those lower echelons with dumb tenacity. Republicans have staffed the halls of bureaucracy because it suits their temperament. How is a do-gooder supposed to lie, cheat and steal, for a living, elbowing his fellow man?
PUEBLO- NOV 1st.
It may be the last Colorado whistle stop on the way to the White House. Come see Candidate Obama and make sure he hears what you expect from him. No more wars period. Not in Sudan, Somalia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Columbia, Bolivia, or Haiti. No more economic war of attrition against America’s own people.
You and I know there aren’t any White Supremacists of sufficient IQ, nor Cuban Loyalist mobsters, nor CIA rogues, nor Southern Separatist holdout, nor probably Zionist hit squad, who have it out for Barack Obama. Nobody is threatened by his intended reform but the Neocons. If the Bush Cheney Gang aren’t convinced they’ve squeezed the American economy of its last trillion dollars, I don’t imagine they plan to let anyone interrupt their gig.
The eyes of America are on this election and on Barack Obama. We aren’t seeing record voter registrations and early voting turnout for any other reason than that the citizens want change. They’re counting on their right, as advertised on TV, to elect the person they want to the presidency. No Texas Book Depository, nor shadow government cabal is going to get in the people’s way.
Sarah Palin is probably like most people, she’d rather her medical records remain confidential. Most of us resist even the indignity of taking a drug test to qualify for a job. But executive level positions require the insurance of a bill of health, clean or not. Unfortunately for Sarah, the employers making the hiring decision for the Executive Branch are We the People.
I do hope there’s an Executive Privilege to invoke which can protect the details of some categories. If FDR could keep his wheelchair a secret, I don’t mind not knowing about mental health lapses, STDs, or conditions Palin had to invent to score antibiotics for a spouse’s infection. Sarah may not seem bright, or educated, but TV viewers can all attest she doesn’t lack sanity or stamina. I doubt a psychiatrist would consider her behavior to be in any way aberrant for a public figure.
What probably really chafes Sarah is that fewer of her viewers seem concerned for her health, than are eager to check out her strange pregnancy story. Ordinarily, I’d think reproductive health histories should be the last to merit scrutiny, but what if the details in question concern a politician who wants to make it her business to regulate the reproductive rights of others?
Should a daughter’s right to privacy supersede a policy maker’s family-values facade? If a politician wants to laud high fructose corn syrup as part of a child’s healthy diet, I’d like them to acknowledge if their children are obese. Don’t preach the practicality of abstinence if your children are reproducing out of bounds. Maybe your clan can afford unwanted pregnancies, at least admit it.
I don’t have a problem with Jamie Lynn Spears’ second teen pregnancy, she has the financial resources to have oodles of babies. Of what quality, I can’t judge. But I’m not much in favor of Disney holding her up as an example for teenagers who aren’t buffered from minimum wage jobs and no daycare.
More mothers than we could probably guess have raised a grandchild as their own, to save face for a daughter’s premarital accident. Nothing untoward about secret keeping, it’s just tragic that women are forced to hide. Perhaps we should wish that society be more accepting. Would Sarah Palin’s fundamentalism be taking us in that direction?
Sarah Palin’s reproductive dogma would be hypocritical if it turns out that her fifth baby Trig was in reality her daughter Bristol’s. Why do we presume to judge unless we know for sure? Why does Palin refuse to release her health records? She’s told the media she will, but November 4th approaches…
It’s reported the Trig pregnancy went undetected by Sarah’s staff, while by coincidence, over the same period 16-year-old Bristol was kept out of school on account of “mono.” Sarah was on a business trip in Texas when she says her water broke. She boarded the plane to Alaska, still without anyone knowing about her condition, and gave birth later that evening. Who really cares if it happened that way or not, except that Palin is an outspoken puritan.
Who cares if Senator Larry Craig solicits illicit sex in public bathroom stalls? Except he’s a leading demagogue against gay equal rights.
And their denials would make them liars. Since when do we tolerate duplicity from public officials?
There’s a chance Sarah Palin has complicated her story with the public announcement of daughter Bristol’s unplanned pregnancy and intention to wed her unwitting teenage partner. It would appear this revelation was made primarily to deflect suspicions about which of them gave birth to the April baby. Sarah’s argument is that Bristol couldn’t be five months pregnant now if Bristol had been Trig’s real mother. Except the public will have little way to know how far along Bristol really is or was, if at all. Until well after the election.
All those facts will be very easy to contain after the election.
The American public needn’t know Bristol Palin’s private life. But we have every obligation to discover if Sarah Palin is the straight shooter she pretends.
COLORADO SPRINGS- Is it my imagination, or are the McCain/Palin yard signs receding? This year has meant such a depressing drive through our neighborhood, to see all the “Families for McCain,” even “Women for McCain” signs. Today we thought we’d record just how many there were, and lo, they appear to be on the wane. Sure, signs for local Republican contenders remain, thus the selfish/conservative residences are still marked, but their homeowners may now be shying away from being full-on bullish for their dwarf geezer and his bespectacled Gold Rush tart.
Still, let’s list the addresses of those Colorado Springs 80906 neighbors who steadfastly endorse the McCain/Palin ticket. Smile, you’re on Candid “dumbshits-only” Camera. This time your arrogant determination to show your ignorant boot-heel clicking is for keeps.
These signs are like BBB badges, but say the obverse. I’ll bet these households are the same as in 2004, when they were the Bastards who Backed Bush.
We thought about offering OPT-OUT coupons, for those who didn’t want their addresses on a Dumbshit List. But it would have been disingenuous of us. The election results are going to be permanent. Which side you cheered tells plenty about you, and it will be good to remember.
PUEBLO, COLO.- How exciting to live in a swing state! Obama returns to Colorado on Saturday Nov 1st, 3pm Pueblo. If Obama becomes president, when will we have a better chance to reach him with an antiwar message? Michelle Obama’s visit to COS on Tuesday looked progressively Blue, Blue, Blue, until you got inside the City Auditorium and saw the Red White and Blue pro-militarism imagery. We need to put the peace logo back at the front of this train. As usual, expect campaign lieutenants to throttle the pacifist tone.
Change We Need Rally
with Barack and Michelle ObamaThe Union Avenue Historic District
Intersection of S. Union Ave. and D Street, Pueblo
Public Entrance: Corner of C Street and S. Main St.,Saturday, November 1st, Gates Open: 1pm, Program Begins: 3pm
The event is free and open to the public. …For security reasons do not bring bags or umbrellas. Please limit personal items. No signs or banners allowed.
You gotta love how wind power is the poster child for alternative energy. 
News segments about energy self-reliance begin with a depiction of wind turbines. Election ads about the imperative to invest in other energies, more wind turbines. Is energy from the wind a new technology? I’m not sure it isn’t actually the oldest, next to kindling wood. Wind might tie with the water wheel, another energy they’re lauding as alternative.
We’ve had windmills since man needed energy to push water against the tendencies of gravity. Man reversed the scheme when he needed to moving water to put muscle into his mechanical devices. Both came many millennium before steam and oil.
So what is the technology we need to invest in wind power, beside optimization of process, storage and transmission? Hahaha. The hurdle to overcome with wind power is the will to surround ourselves with windmills. Even if it means the quaint windmills of the Dutch lowlands, I’m not sure the public is prepared to despoil its open space, its peripheral view-shed, with lumbering omniscient propeller blades, squeaking when they need oiling.
What kind of landscape maintains its serenity with the constant grinding of wingless, flightless single-prop stick-planes going forever nowhere?
The call for alternative sources of energy is less about inaccessible technology. It’s about making compromises which we’ve already declined. Off-shore platform oil spills, no thank you. Nuclear reactors courting unthinkable cataclysm? No. Ungainly wind machines generating unceasing turbulence? Nimby. Coal. Choke. Clean Coal. Gag me with oxymoronic insolence.
The least palatable of all the unfortunate last resorts is the energy alternative never mentioned because it means less investment and fewer jobs. It’s the only remedy that doesn’t resemble a hammer to our environmental coffin nail, and it counters our consumer culture. Energy conservation. It may cast a cold shadow like a windmill, but isn’t it the only sustainable solution of the bunch?
If you don’t want a nuclear meltdown, nor large bird-slashing knives spinning your thinking space, nor toxin spewing coal, nor combustibles cooking the earth, why not invest your efforts in being personally energy independent. The logo for alternative energy should be a smart smiling face.
This is, as all presidential election years are, a circus year of American comedy at its best! I mean, we got a gift from John McCain of his female Dan Quail, Sarah Pale In town even! Still, imagine my surprise to see today’s edition of our Far Right Wing daily paper (The Gagzette) with a prominent headline for our city’s only active Communist Party member, 
Vivian! She’s been the deliverer of the Communist Party’s national newspaper around town for years now (and a reporter for that paper, too!), but apparently our Gazette ‘reporters’, ‘editors’, and ‘newsmen’ are unaware of that!????? Go figure?
They probably are aware though, that Barack Obama is a Big Bad American Communist? I mean, we are dealing with world class geniuses over that at Freedom Communications, Inc… lol. I hope that they do not now inform the national crowd about Barack Obama’s connections to Colorado Spring’s Communist Movement, now that they are getting the real scoop about my friend Vivian, the CP reporter and paper deliverer?
OK, here’s the link to the Gazette’s pro- Communist Party activity, though you have to buy the paper’s hard copy to get the full effect, as their website really doesn’t give a good idea of how much they actually headlined their pro-CP coverage. I’ll be laughing through the next year over this one, you can bet on that! Campaigners on different sides, but have same passion
Go Vivian! I love you even if you are an evil commie! Give me a call so we can get together some! I’m not surprised that you are pushing for Obama.
Could it be that the Colorado Springs Gazette’s editors are Lenin’s useful idiots? For more about the American Communist Party, go to The Gus Hall Fan Club website …I know that our local paper would want you to do that! Go useful idiot team at our local Gagzette! Good work! I’m still not voting for Barack Obama though.
How I lost my vote to EARLY VOTING. Alright, to be less dramatic: How my vote is now in somebody else’s pocket.
Following the prevailing advice, Obama’s for example, among others, I voted early. But against the most important precautionary warnings, I wasn’t able to use a paper ballot. You can’t, for EARLY VOTING. In El Paso County, for some reason, early voting is all electronic.
Why do I presume there is something inherently wrong with the Diebold touch-screen voting machines? The problem is, no one can make a case for how the computers involved can be defended from corruption.
While it sounds unfair to consider electronic voting devices guilty until proven otherwise, imagine we were talking about a leaky boat. If experts can point to the holes, it would become the obligation of the designers to demonstrate how their perforated vessel is going to stay afloat. Can we agree that we might require some such proof before we put our destiny in their hands. Isn’t that fair enough?
Let’s also admit that reassurances from inexperts, who maintain that no such holes exist, do not hold water. Especially when they’re backed by party bosses who profess expertise, minus technical degrees. And cling to power, mysteriously unaccountable to their constituents. Think about the issue of building the County Jail, in spite of the incredible local outcry.
In much of the country, electronic voting devices, manufactured by GOP-backers Diebold for example, or otherwise, have been taken out of the election loop. Many state legislatures have taken heed of the 2004 election experiences, and popular outcry, and banned “black box voting” altogether. Colorado is not one of those wised-up states. What better indication do you need that to be “conservative” really means to be an idiot?
Really. The “conservative” take on the Diebold anti-democratic vote theft of 2004 is to say “balderdash.”
At least our Secretary of State was made to provide paper ballots to all who request them. Except in El Paso County, for early voting.
In all three early voting centers in Colorado Springs, your only option is to use the Diebold touch-screen machines. When I asked about a paper ballot, I was told that I would be able to verify my vote on a paper receipt generated by the machine.
Here’s how it works. After you make your choices on the touch-screen, and after you scroll through the completed ballot on the screen, you have the option to make a print out of your votes on a cash-register-like roll of paper located inside a compartment beside the Diebold screen. There, behind a small plastic window, you can see a line by line record of your votes, in three inch length glimpses. Each time you touch the “print” button, the paper advances with the next three inches of your votes. Eventually it line feeds into the upper portion of the compartment, presumably to accumulate until the roll is replenished. Exactly like a cash register, actually.
Now if you’ve used a cash register, you might also know that it often keeps two separate tapes. One for the customer, and an abbreviated one for the sales tax records. The latter is compressed to save paper, but in substance they are identical. But a programmable point of sale machine could produce different tallies, if such was desired.
Likewise, the Diebold print-out which you see but cannot touch behind the plastic, needn’t be the print-out being archived. As simple as that.
Interestingly, the printout visible under the plastic is more a translation of your vote, in plain English, than a coded abbreviation of what your vote represented. Meaning, to reassure you that your vote is recorded according to your wish, the paper trail sacrifices being in a format easily tabulated by an auditor. In fact, it’s hard to imagine the rolls processed at all. Even the election volunteer giving my tutorial explained that the roll is kept only for extenuating circumstances. I was not polled upon emerging from the election center, to survey how El Paso County’s early voters are leaning. So, will there be any call for election workers to review the roll of paper representing my vote?
Now I cannot remember for certain, but it seemed that the push “print” operation was optional. Because of the numerous ballot initiatives this year, the ballot was particularly long. I had to push “print” at least a half-dozen times. That’s rather strange, isn’t it, if printing would not be optional? But then, what kind of a paper trail would represent each Diebold unit, if the rolls only recorded the votes which only particular users were concerned to see in print?
Thus my choices for office holders and local amendments are now recorded with Diebold. They will be counted on other electronic devices, and communicated to central devices. Experts have pointed to man-in-the-middle vulnerabilities where results can be processed at intermediary points-unkown before being retransmitted to their official destinations.
These are the vulnerabilities which other states have determined pose a risk to democratic elections. El Paso County officials, GOP bureaucrats determined that things remain exactly as they are, are plenty happy to stick to their tried and true Diebolds.
Perhaps they know that El Paso County is expected to fall in line with the GOP, and thus no one is planning to challenge the results anyway. Even if this were true, what about the local issues on the ballot. Might the public not want to verify the votes on the sales tax measure? The county administrators themselves benefit from that tax increase. Might taxpayers want to audit that vote, in case it’s really the citizen’s preference not to raise a regressive tax that weighs more heavily on those with less money? The county has been in financial trouble because of the breaks it’s been giving to the wealthiest of clients. Why should they make up the shortfall on the backs of the needy?
Don’t give El Paso County your vote to do with what they please. Cast a paper ballot which remains traceable to your authentic vote. If you believe that your only role in this Democracy is the right to vote, at least, make certain it counts.
COLORADO SPRINGS- I attended the Every Vote Matters town hall symposium and I can cut through the unselfconscious evasiveness for you. The El Paso County election is RIGGED. The Republicans in charge are already folding their arms smugly behind locked glass doors. Many of the major bureaucrats showed up today to be seen smiling about it.
County Commissioner Dennis Hisey introduced the event with this assurance on behalf of the agency: “All those eligible to vote will be able to do so.” Give Hisey credit for taking straight aim to muddy the chief point of contention. Both the State of Colorado and El Paso County have been caught hindering voter registration. Promising to respect voting rights reserved for eligible citizens is a sick joke.
El Paso County’s purposeful mishandling of voter registrations has already excluded thousands who Hisey may well consider now ineligible.
What else? Here’s what else:
1. No redress for voter participation already suppressed.
2. Many newly registered will not be notified of their eligibility.
3. More will be sidelined with provisional ballots.
4. No early voting facility for voters more likely Democrats.
5. No paper ballot alternative to Diebold for early voters.
6. No nonpartisan oversight of Republican data technicians.
Neither Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink nor Secretary of State Mike Coffman showed up to answer the current accusations. Instead two representatives from the election staff were put forward to offer attendees the same reassurances crafted for the county website. Every vote matters, regardless the election, partisanship aside, yada yada.
The two women were besieged by complaints and worries from public at large, and though they had no answers, they were applauded by the Republicans in the room, most of whom were men in suits, many of whom were county employees. So much for partisanship. You’ve never seen such smug assholes.
In fairness, I’d guess neither Liz Olsen nor Terry Sholdt know the partisan shenanigans being pulled by their bosses. Probably the two are fully qualified office managers who enforce the rules they are given. Without a hint of awareness of the big picture. “Anyone with concerns should feel free to call us anytime.” I’m paraphrasing Olsen. Their office is eager to resolve any issue, so long as it’s brought to their attention. Fortunately someone was on hand in the audience to tell them trying to reach their office by phone was often impossible.
And is that your understanding of a voter’s rights? So long as a voter knows to call the Office of the County Clerk and Recorder, or try, he needn’t feel disenfranchised.
NOTE: Mark Lewis provides some video of the meeting:
DENVER- Let’s just say Senator Salazar wasn’t applauded roundly when he was introduced to speak. Our antiwar message played to a friendly crowd this morning as demanding Obama supporters converged on Denver’s Civic Center Park.
From the moment we started, many came up to thank us, others holding our signs to pose for pictures. (More pics to follow.)
according to the Ohio Republicans, and the Dictator in Thief, and his Attorney General…
The Caucus – A New York Times Blog
October 16, 2008, 1:30 pm
Joe in the Spotlight
By Larry Rohter AND Liz RobbinsJoe Wurzelbacher spoke to Senator Barack Obama about taxes while the candidate campaigned near Toledo, Ohio, last week.
SNIPPETY SNIP SNIPMr. Wurzelbacher is registered to vote in Lucas County under the name Samuel Joseph Worzelbacher.
“We have his named spelled W-O, instead of W-U,” Linda Howe, executive director of the Lucas County Board of Elections, said in a telephone interview. “Handwriting is sometimes hard to read. He has never corrected it in his registration card.”
The records, she said, showed he voted Republican in the March primary.
OOOPSIE!!! Republican Poster Child is not only a Liar but also, it seems, a Fraudulent Voter!
“Say it Ain’t So, Joe!”
Well, apparently they have, because they DID tell the Afghans and Iraqis who could vote, and for whom…
JUST LIKE IN OHIO, USA
President Bush yesterday forwarded a request to the Department of Justice to investigate mismatched voter registration records in Ohio, as urged by U.S. Rep. John Boehner (R., West Chester, Ohio), House minority leader.
A White House spokesman said the President would pass along to Attorney General Michael Mukasey the letter from Mr. Boehner asking the Justice Department to look into whether the state’s voter rolls comply with the federal Help America Vote Act.
Ohio Democrats labeled the proposed investigation an act of partisanship.
In his letter, Mr. Boehner noted that starting today, county elections officials will begin removing ballots cast during the state’s early voting period from their identifying envelopes, eliminating any possibility of catching fraudulently cast ballots.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, has disclosed that 200,000 of the approximately 700,000 new registrations this year don’t match up exactly with information in state records because of misspellings, incorrect addresses, or other inconsistencies in their records.
Ohio Republicans have asked her to identify the 200,000 voters by county and precinct so they can be made to vote by provisional ballot until their validity can be confirmed.
“Unless action is taken by the Department immediately, thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, of names whose information has not been verified … will remain on voter rolls during the November 4, 2008 election; and there is a significant risk – if not a certainty – that unlawful votes will be cast and counted,” Mr. Boehner’s letter said.