From the Styx by Peggy Tibbetts

So. Are you all DISTRACTED yet???

Hey. I’m just like everybody else. Bleary-eyed. Can’t take my eyes off the TV. We have this zany presidential campaign that has morphed into a Fellini film – with the MSM playing the part of the scary clowns. Then comes this train wreck of an economy. And Bush gets on the TV playing Chicken Little and the sky is falling. So he wants you and me to cough up 700 – ACK! – billion $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. It’s upside down world. Totally wack.

Meanwhile – OMG!!! – the GOP foot soldiers are busy stealing the 2008 election for McCain/Palin. This is not on the TV. This is not funny.

Alls I can say is – in the immortal words of Dennis Kucinich: WAKE UP AMERICA !!!

The Palin factor

The nomination of an unknown Christian conservative woman gives them Christian cover for a surprise upset when the polls don’t agree with the results –

Why They Chose Sarah Palin
by Mark Crispin Miller
To understand how Team McCain intends to get away with stealing this election, we must recall how Team Bush got away with it four years ago. (Those aren’t two different teams.) The plan for stealing this contest has everything to do with the ostensibly surprising choice of Sarah Palin as McCain’s VP. Here’s why…

Planned incompetence

They’ve had YEARS to prepare for record voter turnouts, which we’ve seen in the last two national elections, but they STILL can’t get it together –

Election Day Could Be a Mess
Mary Pat Flaherty, The Washington Post: “Faced with a surge in voter registrations leading up to Nov. 4, election officials across the country are bracing for long lines, equipment failures and confusion over polling procedures that could cost thousands the chance to cast a ballot. The crush of voters will strain a system already in the midst of transformation, with jurisdictions introducing new machines and rules to avoid the catastrophe of the deadlocked 2000 election and the lingering controversy over the 2004 outcome. Even within the past few months, cities and counties have revamped their processes: Nine million voters, including many in the battleground states of Ohio, Florida and Colorado, will use equipment that has changed since March. But the widespread changes meant to reassure the public have also increased the potential for trouble.”

‘Fatally Flawed’ Systems Await Voters: ‘Drastic Change Needed’
By Rady Ananda
A new report, and video, has been issued by the Computer Security Group at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “All voting systems recently analyzed by independent security testers have been found to contain fatal security flaws. There is need for drastic change. The very core of our democracy is in danger.”

Some Swing States Not Prepared for Voting Problems in November
Common Cause: “As election officials brace for record-breaking voter turnout on Election Day, a close examination of voting preparedness in 10 swing states shows that significant problems in the basic functions of the American election administration system persist, and in a few cases have worsened over the last few years, a new report by Common Cause and The Century Foundation shows.”

Picky, picky, picky

New voter database systems allow election officials to cross voters off the rolls if they don’t use their middle initial consistently. Say what?

Voter Database Glitches Could Disenfranchise Thousands
Kim Zetter, Wired.com: “Electronic voting machines have been the focus of much controversy the last few years. But another election technology has received little scrutiny, yet could create numerous problems and disenfranchise thousands of voters in November, election experts say.”

“Is Your Vote Safe?”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Mike Papantonio
“There are about 30 scams the Republicans are deliberately using, particularly in the swing states to get Democratic voters off the rolls. These scams originate in the so-called Help America Vote Act, which was passed after the Florida debacle in the year 2000. It was originally suggested by Democrats and Republicans, but it was passed by a Republican Congress with a Republican Senate and a Republican president. And instead of reforming what happened in Florida, it basically institutionalized all the problems that happened in Florida.”

Swing state strategy

The GOP is targeting key swing states – even key swing counties! – to play the dirtiest voter disenfranchisement tricks. They’re going after college students, veterans, people who have lost their homes, poor people, black people, Jews – you name it. The crap they’re pulling unbelievable. BUT IT’S TRUE !!

Ten Ways the GOP Is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, The Free Press: “The McCain/Palin GOP is already in the process of stealing the Ohio vote, as was done in 2004. Among those at the center of the GOP strategy is Bush family computer operative Michael Connell, who programmed the key vote-counting mechanisms that were used to give George W. Bush his second term.”

Election Deception on College Campuses in Swing States
Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers: “Colorado Democrats accused a Republican county clerk Wednesday of falsely informing Colorado College that students from outside the state could not register to vote if their parents claimed them as a dependent on their tax returns.”

Virginia: Will New Policy Help Vets Vote in 2008?
Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet: “For the fourth time in six months, the Department of Veterans Affairs has revised its policy on allowing voter registration drives at hundreds of VA facilities serving injured and homeless veterans. Monday’s announcement, on the eve of Senate hearings, said the agency would allow voter registration drives if certain conditions were met.”

Lose Your House, Lose Your Vote
Eartha Jane Melzer, The Michigan Messenger: “The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.”

Obama Campaign Files Voter Rights Lawsuit
Michael Falcone, The New York Times: “Responding to allegations that Republican Party officials in Macomb County, Michigan plan to use home foreclosure lists to challenge voters at the polls in November, the Obama Campaign and the Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in federal court to prevent what they contended was an illegal practice. Obama Campaign General Counsel Bob Bauer said that using home foreclosure lists as a basis for challenging voter eligibility would have a ‘deadly effect on the voting process’ and argued that the practice would be illegal.”

GOP Working to Keep Poor African-Americans From Voting in Many States
Jonathan Alter, Newsweek: “It was a mainstay of Jim Crow segregation: for 100 years after the Civil War, Southern white Democrats kept eligible blacks from voting with poll taxes, literacy tests and property requirements. Starting in the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court declared these assaults on the heart of American democracy unconstitutional. Now, with the help of a 2008 Supreme Court decision, Crawford vs. Marion County (Indiana) Election Board, white Republicans in some areas will keep eligible blacks from voting by requiring driver’s licenses. Not only is this new-fangled discrimination constitutional, it’s spreading.”

New Jersey Mistakenly Tells Voters They Aren’t Registered
The state department mailed out about 300,000 letters to residents in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Camden and Essex counties telling them they were not eligible to vote. The letters prompted the recipients, majority of whom were registered to vote and did not need to re-register – to deluge election and elected officials with phone calls Monday.

GOP Voter Suppression Comes To Wisconsin
By Steven Rosenfeld
In WI this past week, the Repub AG Van Hollen, filed a politically timed lawsuit that local election officials say will interfere with turnout for the election on 11/4 and create a bureaucratic nightmare for election workers seeking to process a record number of new voter registrations before then. The game plan is simple: create a bureaucratic nightmare to tie up the election machinery & create bottlenecks to confound voters.

Jewish Florida Voters Targeted By Republican Fake Polls
She was then asked if her opinion of Barack Obama would change if she knew that Obama had given lots and lots of money to the PLO. Joelna told me the caller admitted that the calls were meant for Jews only. And the firm sending the calls, Research Strategies, has a history of working for Republican candidates. This is just the beginning, and it will only get worse.

It’s still the MACHINES, stupid

K. Let’s say you make through the gauntlet of voter disenfranchisement, suppression and caging that’s going on. You’ve checked and double checked with your county clerk. You KNOW you’re registered. You CAN vote and you WILL vote. But the MACHINES will count your vote – even if you vote by mail. Machines that can be programmed to flip votes, count every other vote for a specific candidate, hide votes, and dump votes. Good luck with that.

About Those So-called “Election Audits” – Missing Info
By Bev Harris
NEW ENGLAND – Voting machines in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine are programmed by a single firm, LHS Associates. Connecticut report of Feb. 2008 audit results is MISSING, Univ. Connecticut discovered unchecked “duplicate memory cards” but has been unable to examine all of them, 30% of 2007 audit data missing or unusable. And the other four LHS-programmed states aren’t even checking any of this.

Princeton University Reveals How The GOP Steals Election
Watch a short video that shows you how to steal votes on a voting machine.

Brothers in arms

I know. I know. Like me, you think if they steal this election this time, people will riot in the streets. Hell, I’LL riot in the sleepy Silt streets. Even if it’s just me and my dogs. But they’ve got that covered, too. Check it out –

Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1
By Gina Cavallaro
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys. Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Hang on! This ride’s about to get a whole lot bumpier.

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