Naperville Democrats -

Mego, Naperville Sun: Election Commission Challenged to Explain Voting Machine Accuracy

SteveKier — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:40:04 -0400

Thanks to Jean Kaczmarek of the Illinois Ballot Integrity Project for pointing me to this Bill Mego editorial from today's Naperville Sun:

Election commission is challenged to explain voting machine accuracy

July 17, 2008

"With all the mechanical improvements they have in the way of adding machines, and counting machines, they can't seem to invent anything to take the place of the old Political mode of counting - two for me and one for you. More people have been elected between Sundown and Sunup, than ever were elected between Sunup and Sundown." Indeed, when Will Rogers wrote that, we could not mechanize vote fraud. But now that we have things like Premier/ Diebold touch screen voting machines, votes can be stolen whether it's night or day.

Of course, it's not the machine that steals them.

Diebold machines are, as our election commission proclaims, fairly accurate. And we do not, in fact, know that any votes have ever been stolen electronically in DuPage County. All we know is that they have been stolen in other places and that, if they were to be stolen here, the design of the machines guarantees that the theft would be absolutely undetectable.

...

Many of the races this fall will be uncharacteristically close, and may be well within the 5 percent that experts claim can be undetectably shifted by voting machine fraud. The faith of many of our citizens in their government and its institutions has already been badly shaken by the events of recent years. We need to start restoring it right now.

Bill Mego's column is published each Thursday. Contact him at bill.mego@sbcglobal.net.

EJ Dionne on the Lasting Conservative Courts

SteveKier — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 01:14:27 -0400

The Court vs. Voters

By E. J. Dionne Jr., Tuesday, July 1, 2008

If the long conservative era that began with Ronald Reagan's election is over, will the judges appointed during the right's ascendancy be able to block, frustrate and undermine the efforts of a new progressive majority?

Consider this analysis from two influential journalists describing Supreme Court justices as "the last hope of the conservative interests in the United States."

Imagine, they write, that a new liberal approach to the country's problems "had been overwhelmingly approved both in Congress and at the polling booths," so "conservative interests resorted to the courts, starting literally thousands of actions to stay the government's hand." ... Those words are from a still-compelling 1938 book called "The 168 Days" by legendary Washington journalists Joseph Alsop and Turner Catledge. They were writing about the conservative Supreme Court that struck down so much of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program and the effort by FDR to be given the power to name additional liberal justices to break the court's conservative majority.

...

The spate of 5 to 4 conservative decisions during the Supreme Court term just ended should stand as a warning that we may soon revisit the fights of 70 years ago. Yet almost nobody is talking about this danger. To the extent that judges have been a campaign issue in recent elections, the focus has been on a few hot-button issues, notably abortion. After last week's decision in the sharply contested Second Amendment case, perhaps gun rights will join the list.

But the more important question is whether conservative judges will see fit to do exactly what conservative courts did for much of the New Deal era by using a narrow, 19th-century definition of property rights to void progressive economic, environmental and labor regulation.

...

Political Animal: Underinsured

SteveKier — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:22:30 -0400

Another from Kevin Drum:

UNDERINSURED....Ezra Klein reminds us that we don't merely have lots of people in the United States who lack health insurance completely, we also have lots of people who do have health insurance but don't have enough of it:

The Commonwealth Fund estimates that about 14 percent of the population was underinsured in 2007. That sounds about right, and it's a useful reminder that insurance isn't binary, wherein you have it or you don't. Rather, it exists on a continuum, with some folks being totally insured, some folks being half insured and half uninsured, some folks being totally uninsured but having access to emergency rooms, and so forth.

This is how American rationing actually manifests. Canada might have waiting times for non-essential treatments, but we have cost barriers to all manner of treatments. Some can't afford the care, and so they go into debt, or have to sell their home. Others can't afford the care, and so they never get it. We count that waiting time as zero rather than infinity, but that's just a bad faith numbers trick meant to make us feel better.

But a good faith effort to count real waiting time would conclude that lots of Americans have to wait a long time for medical care. And we can't have that, can we? After all, we have the best healthcare in the world.

Political Animal: Obama's Words

SteveKier — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 02:19:22 -0400

From Kevin Drum:

OBAMA'S WORDS....Two press conferences, three headlines:

Washington Post: Obama Softens on Iraq Withdrawal Timeline

New York Times: Obama Strives to Retain Some Flexibility on His Iraq Policy

LA Times: Obama restates plan to exit Iraq in 16 months

The story is the same in all three cases: Obama held a press conference in the morning saying, as usual, that he planned to bring our troops home from Iraq in 16 months, but leaving himself a bit of wiggle room based on issues of troop safety and political stability. This "fueled speculation" that he was changing his position, so he held a second press conference in which he said:

Let me be as clear as I can be. I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war — responsibly, deliberately, but decisively. And I have seen no information that contradicts the notion that we can bring our troops out safely at a pace of one to two brigades a month, and again, that pace translates into having our combat troops out in 16 months' time.

So who got the headline right?

...

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WurfWhile: Biggert Calls Vote “Hard To Explain” - Challenger Harper Calls It “Out Of Touch”

SteveKier — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:14:18 -0400

Hiram writes:

Congresswoman Judy Biggert Calls Her Vote “Hard To Explain” - Challenger Scott Harper Calls It “Out Of Touch”

Congresswoman Judy Biggert called her recent vote against economic relief “hard to explain” given the high unemployment rate in the 13th Congressional District. But Judy Biggert still voted against the bi-partisan unemployment benefits bill supported by 49 of her fellow Republicans, including fellow Illinois Congressional Republican Tim Johnson.

From the Scott Harper for Congress Campaign:

“HARPER SLAMS BIGGERT ON UNEMPLOYMENT VOTE
Democratic candidate criticizes ‘hard to explain’ rationale

Naperville, IL - Scott Harper, the Democratic candidate for Congress in the IL-13, today blasted Judy Biggert for her vote last week against granting emergency benefits to the growing number of unemployed. In a strong show of bi-partisan support for economic relief, forty-nine Republicans joined with House Democrats to pass these benefits.

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Democratic Strategist: Winning the Energy Security Debate

SteveKier — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:37:21 -0400

J. P. Green writes at The Democratic Strategist on the GOP/McCain attempt to make hay of high gas prices:

Republicans believe they can now make the issue of energy security a winner for them by attacking Obama and Democrats for opposing drilling in environmentally-sensitive areas. ...

The GOP knows energy security is a potentially lethal issue for them, with gas prices so high and because they have done so little to promote energy independence. So they are following the Karl Rove playbook, which calls for full scale assault on the adversary's strongest positions....

Green quotes the New York Times' Thomas Friedman, excoriating the Bush/McCain recommendation to drill "anywhere that even smells like oil":

It is hard for me to find the words to express what a massive, fraudulent, pathetic excuse for an energy policy this is...This from a president who for six years resisted any pressure on Detroit to seriously improve mileage standards on its gas guzzlers; this from a president who’s done nothing to encourage conservation; this from a president who has so neutered the Environmental Protection Agency that the head of the E.P.A. today seems to be in a witness-protection program...But, most of all, this deadline is from a president who hasn’t lifted a finger to broker passage of legislation that has been stuck in Congress for a year, which could actually impact America’s energy profile right now — unlike offshore oil that would take years to flow — and create good tech jobs to boot.

Bush Offshore Drilling Proposal "Worse Than a Dumb Idea"

SteveKier — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:13:24 -0400

The New York Times editorializes today against President Bush's opportunistic proposal to lift the current restrictions on offshore oil and gas drilling (an idea embraced by Senator McCain, by the way):

June 19, 2008

Editorial

The Big Pander to Big Oil

It was almost inevitable that a combination of $4-a-gallon gas, public anxiety and politicians eager to win votes or repair legacies would produce political pandering on an epic scale. So it has, the latest instance being President Bush’s decision to ask Congress to end the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along much of America’s continental shelf.

This is worse than a dumb idea. It is cruelly misleading. It will make only a modest difference, at best, to prices at the pump, and even then the benefits will be years away. It greatly exaggerates America’s leverage over world oil prices. It is based on dubious statistics. It diverts the public from the tough decisions that need to be made about conservation.

There is no doubt that a lot of people have been discomfited and genuinely hurt by $4-a-gallon gas. But their suffering will not be relieved by drilling in restricted areas off the coasts of New Jersey or Virginia or California. The Energy Information Administration says that even if both coasts were opened, prices would not begin to drop until 2030. The only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land before their friends in power — Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — exit the political stage.

The whole scheme is based on a series of fictions that range from the egregious to the merely annoying. ...

Veracifier - Short Nightly Campaign Videos from TPM Media

SteveKier — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:05:11 -0400

Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com and his team put out a short (5-8 minute) video every weeknight on some subject in politics. It might be a spot overviewing the state of the presidential race, something on some particular issue being discussed, a conversation with an influential or provocative figure. All from a hard-hitting, progressive, penetrating angle. I download them onto my TiVo and watch them on the big screen. You can do that, or just watch them online. Either way, they're worth the few minutes it takes to watch.

Here's one from the other night on John McCain's Social Security Bamboozle (He claims, with fervor, that he's not in favor of Social Security "privatization." rather, he just wants to put part of the money in private accounts). Right. As Kevin Drum wrote the other day, "And me? I don't like chocolate ice cream. I merely crave frozen dairy treats flavored with the fermented extract of the tropical cacao tree."

You can find an archive of Veracifier videos here.

Biggert, Kirk, Roskam Oppose Extending Unemployment Benefits for 190,000 Out-of-Work Illinoisans

SteveKier — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:15:35 -0400

www.americansunitedforchange.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Jeremy Funk, 202.470.5878

DATE: June 12^th, 2008

Americans United for Change Blasts Reps. Judy Biggert, Mark Kirk, and Peter Roskam for Voting to Deny an Immediate Extension of Unemployment Benefits for Nearly 190,000 Out-of-Work Illinoisans Struggling Under the Bush Economy

“Yes Sir!”: Despite Historic and Stunning Jump in U.S. Jobless Rate, Biggert, Kirk, and Roskam Stood With Bush Over Illinois Families and Contributed Further to the Failed Bush Legacy on the Economy

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TPM Election Central: McCain Campaign Tries to Generate Outrage at Imagined "Attacks" on Cindy McCain

SteveKier — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:09:45 -0400

...from Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central:

McCain Campaign Falsely Accuses DNC Of "Attacks" On Cindy McCain

By Greg Sargent - June 18, 2008, 12:10PM

The McCain campaign is charging that the Democratic National Committee "attacked" Cindy McCain this morning -- and argues that this is at odds with Barack Obama's recent insistence that family members be "off limits."

There's only one problem: The DNC isn't attacking Mrs. McCain at all.

In an email blasted out to the media this morning, the McCain camp noted that the DNC had sent to reporters this article about Mrs. McCain.

"When will Sen. Obama do as he promised and `speak out against' Howard Dean and the DNC for their attacks on Mrs. McCain -- or at least demand they stop?" McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers asked in the email.

I received the DNC's email this morning, too. And nowhere in the email does the DNC attack Mrs. McCain.

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