LIBERADIO(!)

From the NY Times: “Representative Randy Cunningham, a Republican from San Diego, resigned from Congress on Monday, hours after pleading guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes to help friends and campaign contributors win military contracts.”

“In the Senate, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee and the majority leader, is under scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission for the timing of his trades in the stock of his family’s health care company. In the House, Representative Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, was forced to step down as majority leader after he was indicted on conspiracy and money laundering charges.

In a separate Justice Department investigation, Michael Scanlon, a former spokesman for Mr. DeLay, pleaded guilty last week to bribery. Prosecutors said Mr. Scanlon was part of a conspiracy to defraud Indian tribes and win legislative favors from lawmakers in return for campaign donations, meals, entertainment and other benefits. A former White House aide has also been indicted in that investigation, which is centered on Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist and an ally of Mr. DeLay who worked with Mr. Scanlon. As part of his plea, Mr. Scanlon agreed to cooperate in the investigation.

In addition, I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was indicted last month on charges of perjury and false statements in the investigation of the leaking of the name of a C.I.A. operative. Other White House officials, including the senior political adviser Karl Rove, remain under investigation in that case.”

Last night, Nora Guthrie was at Davis-Kidd Booksellers signing copies of a new volume of Woody Guthrie’s drawings. She was charming and funny and radiated warmth, entertaining us with stories and giving sage advice.

She and her brother were raised learning about all the world’s religions. On her birth certificate, under religion, her father put “all or none.” For anyone who struggles to come up with good answers to the questions that so often get asked down here in the buckle of the bible belt (“What church do you go to?” “What’s your faith?”), those three little words speak volumes.

Had another chat session with Freddie where I, once again, try to understand how Dick Cheney can lie so blatantly. I mean, WE HAVE CAMERAS! AND MICROPHONES! AND, believe it or not, many of his words are, you know, RECORDED!

Freddie’s explanation: “He’s hoping that their reality assembly line works faster than the demolition crew of the reality-based community.”

We’ve got to work harder. Remember your Liberadio(!) Thanksgiving task (as it does apply to Vice President Cheney as well): According to Bill Kristol, “If the American people really come to a settled belief that Bush lied us into war, his presidency will be over.’ Discuss this with family and friends this Thursday until it’s “settled belief.” But remember, discuss responsibly. Don’t drink and discuss. And please, for goodness sake, know when to say “no” to discussion.

From AP via Yahoo News: “Three Civilians Mistakenly Killed in Iraq”

Really? Just three? I thought they’d be more after all this time. huh. go figure.

To the anonyous person who sent me book recommendations through Vanderbilt’s inter-campus mail. I appreciate it and am looking forward to checking out the selections.

So Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has just released a statement that claims that newly declassified information indicates that the Bush administration’s use of pre-war intelligence was misleading. If this is true, it should be rightly distressing to the American people.

What is striking, though, is that the media doesn’t seem to be sharing with America its own concern about this issue. Consider this excerpt from a recent Dan Froomkin post:

Back in June, Zogby asked Americans if they agreed or disagreed with the following question:

“If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment.”

An astonishing 42 percent of Americans agreed. (I wrote about that in my July 6 column .)

Since then, no news organizations has expressed any curiosity, and no polling company has decided to ask the question on its own.

But afterdowningstreet.org, a group urging Congress to launch a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war, keeps asking.

In October, they commissioned Ipsos Public Affairs to ask a similar question. That poll found that 50 percent of Americans agreed.

Now, a new Zogby poll commissioned by the group finds that a clear majority — 53 percent of Americans — agree with the statement.

I thought 42% was a striking figure, but now we’ve got a majority of Americans seriously considering the fact that impeachment proceedings might be appropriate alongside a Senator claiming that the very issue that these same Americans consider an impeachable offense is revealed by newly declassified information? The question is whether new media will step in where old media has dropped the ball and let Americans discover for themselves how troubled they are by so much of what has been happening under the Bush administration as culminated in the war with Iraq.

From Guardian Unlimited: “The Pennsylvanian school board that is attempting to introduce the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution was yesterday ousted in local elections by anti-creationist campaigners.

All eight Republican members of the board, the body that sets education policy for Dover, Pennsylvania, lost their seats to Democrat challengers.” Read more…

(Hat Tip: Cecily Friday)

Did you know that the Government Accountability Office issued a report last month CONFIRMING problems with Electronic Voting Machines during last year’s election? We (meaning Mary) don’t think there were problems. We (meaning Mary) think they did exactly what the Republican’s wanted them to do.

The GAO report stated that “Concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes.”

The bipartisan report, which was requested by several high-ranking members of the U.S. House of Representatives ( including Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) and Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), Judiciary Committee Chair F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI), and Science Committee Chair Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and Ranking Member Bart Gordon (D-TN)), culminated a year-long investigation. (Democratic Rep. Gordon stated, “The foundation of democracy rests upon the accuracy, integrity and security of our voting system.” )

Voting System Vulnerabilities Identified by GAO:

· Cast ballots, ballot definition files, memory cards, and audit logs could be modified.

· Supervisor functions were protected with weak or easily guessed passwords, and memory cards that allowed individuals access to voting machines were inadequately protected.

· Systems had easily picked locks and power switches that were exposed and unprotected.

· Voting machine vendors had weak security practices, including the failure to conduct background checks on programmers and system developers, and the failure to establish clear chain of custody procedures for handling software.

Voting System Failures Have Already Occurred During Elections. In addition to identifying potential vulnerabilities, GAO identified a number of cases of operational failures in real elections. These examples included:

· In California, a county presented voters with an incorrect electronic ballot, meaning they could not vote in certain races.

· In Pennsylvania, a county made a ballot error on an electronic voting system that resulted in the county’s undervote percentage reaching 80% in some precincts.

· In North Carolina, electronic voting machines continued to accept votes after their memories were full, causing over 4,000 votes to be lost.

· In Florida, a county reported that touch screens took up to an hour to activate and had to be activated sequentially, resulting in long delays.

In Tennessee, the State Election Commission will decide at their next meeting (November 15) how they will spend the federal dollars given to improve the way Tennesseans vote. In other words, what kinds of machines we will purchase.

What we must do BEFORE November 15
1) Call and/or email the Tennessee State Election Commissioner from your area (Davidson County residents please contact Judge Bobby Sands) or call and leave a message at the Election Commission, (615) 741-7956. The Tennessee Election Commission members are:

Ask them to make the following recommendations:
1. All voting equipment purchased after 9/1/05 must produce a VOTER VERIFIED PAPER BALLOT
2. Phase out existing machines that cannot produce a VOTER VERIFIED PAPER BALLOT by 11/01/06.
3. Implement a process to implement MANDATORY random small scale (5% of votes in each county) manual recounts by 11/01/06.
4. Encourage use of HAVA (Help America Vote Act) funds be spent to purchase Optical Scan Systems instead of Direct Record Electronic Equipment (DRE): paper ballot-based system, less costly, more efficient.
5. To meet HAVA requirements for disabled voters: choose either Automark ballot marking device or the Accupoll e-voting machine.
6. NO WIRELESS ACCESS CAPABILITY on any machine. All voting equipment purchased by Tennessee or sold in Tennessee should come without wireless capabiity. Any machines currently being used that have wireless should have that function disabled before May ‘06.

2) Email your State Senators and House Representatives who are on the State and Local Committee and ask them to encourage the Election Commission to adopt these guidelines.
Senators:
THELMA HARPER ( District 19 -Davidson County) (615) 741-2453, sen.thelma.harper@legislature.state.tn.us
JOE HAYNES D-Nashville District 20 – (Davidson County), (615) 741-6679
sen.joe.haynes@legislature.state.tn.us
House Representatives:
EDITH TAYLOR LANGSTER – Vice-Chair (District 54 – Part of Davidson County), (615) 741-1997, rep.edith.taylor.langster@legislature.state.tn.us
GARY W. MOORE, SR. (District 50 – Part of Davidson county), (615) 741-4317, rep.gary.moore@legislature.state.tn.us
MARY PRUITT (District 58 – Part of Davidson County), (615) 741-3853, rep.mary.pruitt@legislature.state.tn.us
BEN WEST, JR.(District 60 – Part of Davidson County) (615) 741-6959, rep.ben.west@legislature.state.tn.us

3) Attend the next meeting of the state Election Commission to show support for these initiatives:
Tuesday, November 15, 11am
Division of Elections
312 Eighth Avenue North

4) Read more stories here.

5) Eternal Vigilance! ‘Cause Democracy won’t fix itself…

Ron Nessen references an analysis by Michael Rubin of the somewhat infamous (to liberals and pacifists) American Enterprise Institue, a (neo)conservative thinktank and reflects that, “This think tanker’s balanced, thoughtful, first-hand account of what’s really going on in Iraq is like a fresh breeze blowing away the heavy smog of negativity we usually hear.”

While I think the reasons for our going to war and the sequence of actions that led us there will be hotly debated for some time to come, I similarly think that people perceive our progress (or lack thereof) in the terms most comfortable (or advantageous) to them. For my part, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rubin’s accounting of the economic situation in Iraq were quite accurate. But when offset against the near total uncertainty about short- to medium-term foreign policy planning (and even goals) in Iraq on the part of America right now in terms of troop commitments and foreign aid, I think pieces like Rubin’s and thankful commentary like Nessen’s highlight just how difficult a balancing act is occurring on a daily basis. Could this economic growth be sustained in the face of a unilateral pullout of U.S. troops? If not, how do we intend to undertake a phased withdrawal, and how long will it take? What are our hopes and expectations for the rate of growth vs. sustainability of the Iraqi economy and democratic institutions? How about our own?

Bottom line: war is a destabilizing factor, and I don’t think we yet know a single best pracitce for restabilizing in the aftermath. But, for that matter, in the face of so much political polarization in American and the world, I don’t think we know best practices for much of public policy at all…