Be INFORMED

Friday, January 11, 2008

The War In Iraq: The Numbers

   From The Gavel    January 9th, 2008 by Office of the Speaker

· The Iraq war has already been going on for almost five years – longer than U.S. participation in World War II, World War I, the Korean War, or the Civil War.

· 3,912 brave U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003 – 901 over the past year, making it the worst year for American military in Iraq. [Department of Defense, 1/9/08; icasualties.org, 1/9/08]

· Nearly 29,000 soldiers have been wounded in Iraq since the war began – 12,918 suffering injuries so serious they were prevented them from returning to duty. [Department of Defense, 1/9/08]

· The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, under the President’s policies, the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion through the next decade.

· The war increasingly strains our military – now creating the worst crisis in U.S. troop readiness and our ability to respond to new threats since Vietnam.

· “Nearly half of U.S. diplomats unwilling to volunteer to work in Iraq say one reason for their refusal is they don’t agree with Bush administration’s policies in the country.” [AP, 1/8/08]  

Friday, January 04, 2008

Fraudulent Elections: 20 Facts You Probably Didn't Know

  While making my usual round researching a topic for later use, I ran across an interesting post over at DailyKos that lists 20 facts about our corporations and their employees which make and run our voting machines.

   The author of the post ( jmsjoin ) says to place this post everywhere so I am doing my part right now.

 

  fraudulent elections: Bush doesn't understand what happened!  it's his underhanded standard!

by jmsjoin
Thu Jan 03, 2008 at 05:34:39 AM PST

     I happened upon 20 amazing facts about voting today that really bothers me and I can't believe it has been allowed to happen like everything else underhanded today, right under our "closed eyes"
     I was gathering information this morning and I was going to post on Pakistan after Bhutto. I decided to sit on the information a little longer as it was so felonious, convoluted, and nefarious. Instead, after hearing that Bhutto was killed the day she was going to hand US Diplomats proof that Musharraf was rigging the election which of course was denied, knowing to an impartial observer Russia just fraudulently elected Putin, and so far 250 killed as a result of Kenya's fraudulent elections, I decided to focus on fraudulent elections.

This is Democracy in the 21st century and Bush set the standard. I heard Rice say today that Kenya was the most stable country in East Africa and does not understand what happened. I do! Bush has set the underhanded standard here too. Get what you want anyway you have to, that is all that matters.

     He set the standard! "free and fair" election was not held in the United States on Nov. 3, 2004. Voting "irregularities" were widespread, and often concentrated in money-poor areas inhabited by people-of-color. People were illegally turned away from the polls, given misinformation about when/if they could vote, and found that their registrations had disappeared. Additionally, electronic voting machines that were easy-to-hack and had no ability to produce a paper trail were in use in more areas than ever before. Throw in corporate-owned candidates up and down the ticket that provided no meaningful choice, and Nov. 3 2004 really was a sElection.

     After the sElection, "third party" candidates attempted to call the powers-that-be on their scams by demanding recounts in several states, and activists worked hard to expose the issues of racist fraud, electronic voting machines, and the generally undemocratic workings of voting in the U.S. The problems of 2004 were already raising their ugly heads in 2002 and 2000.
     Knowing how fraudulent this "great right" of a true Democracy has routinely become that in itself should tell you about Democracy today but I happened upon 20 amazing facts about voting today that really bothers me and I can't believe it has been allowed to happen like everything else underhanded today, right under our "closed eyes"

Did you know....

  1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
  1. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
  1. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
  1. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
  1. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
  1. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
  1. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
  1. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
  1. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
  1. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
  1. Diebold is based in Ohio.
  1. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
  1. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.
  1. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
  1. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
  1. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie
  1. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
  1. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
  1. The governor of the state of Florida was Jeb Bush the President's brother of course.
  1. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

**It is a setup and it isn't funny! This is only one of the myriad ways of stealing an election today. pakistan is all screwed up and Bush doesn't understand what happened in Kenya or anywhere else. I'll tell you what happened Bush happened! He set the standard of underhanded, lying, deceitful leadership as the worlds leader and they are all learning well just one more sign of the future to come compliments of Bush! stolen elections

NOTE: Please copy the above list and distribute freely! LET THE FACTS BE KNOWN! Thank you!

James Joiner
Gardner Ma
http://www.anaveragepatriot.com/