||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CALIFORNIAN SECRETARY OF STATE GOES AFTER VOTING MACHINE SOURCE CODE
BRAD BLOG - Debra Bowen, California's Secretary of State, has announced
taking action against Election Systems and Software because the vendor
of voting machines used in Los Angeles County has refused to turn over
their source code as part of the state's review of all voting systems
used in the state.
Bowen says: "I'm not going to stand by and watch ES&S ignore the State
of California and, in particular, the voters of Los Angeles County by
refusing to abide by the certification conditions that were imposed when
ES&S's Inka Vote Plus Voting System was certified last year."
The state's review of the Inka Vote Plus Voting System is part of a
top-to-bottom review of all voting systems used in the state of
California. The press release goes on: "ES&S was first notified 87 days
ago - on March 26 - that it had 30 days, under the conditions imposed in
April 2006 by the previous Secretary of State when he certified the Inka
Vote Plus Voting System, to provide the Secretary of State with its
equipment, a certified version of the source code, funding to cover the
reasonable cost of conducting the review, and an acknowledgement of the
terms of a confidentiality agreement. The company has provided the
Secretary of State's office with some voting system equipment, but
nothing else."
Also included in the press release is a letter, dated June 18, from the
Secretary of State's office to David Strouse, Regional Sales Manager for
Iron Mountain, Inc., the repository for ES&S's source code. The letter
requests Iron Mountain, Inc.:
"Please submit, by guaranteed overnight delivery to my attention at the
address listed above, an encrypted copy of source code held in your
escrow facility for the Unisyn Election Management System, version 1.1.
Please deliver the encryption key by telephone or under separate cover
by guaranteed overnight delivery. Please arrange delivery of both the
source code and encryption key so that this office receives them no
later than noon on Wednesday, June 20, 2007."
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4713
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
LOOKS LIKE NADER MAY RUN AGAIN
SIMON TISDALL, GUARDIAN, UK - Ralph Nader, the independent candidate
blamed by many Americans for George Bush's election victory in 2000,
says he is considering a run for the White House next year - even at the
risk of dishing the Democrats again. . . Mr Nader said he knew he would
be accused of acting as spoiler again if he decided to run. But it was
essential that the country be offered a real choice in 2008 and it would
be the Democrats' own fault if they did not win, he said. . .
Mr Nader sharply criticised Hillary Clinton, the Democrat frontrunner
whose failure to back an immediate Iraq withdrawal has alienated many on
the left. Her stance has toughened recently. "She is a political
coward," Mr Nader said. "She goes around pandering to powerful interest
groups on the one hand and flattering general audiences on the other.
She doesn't even have the minimal political fortitude of her husband."
Mr Nader, 73, enjoys high name recognition, is a familiar figure on
American television and author of several books. All the same, political
analysts say he cannot win and may have trouble getting on to the ballot
in many states.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections08/story/0,,2108468,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
OBAMA MYTH TAKES ANOTHER HIT
JOHN MCCORMICK, CHICAGO TRIBUNE - A soon-to-be-released biography about
Sen. Barack Obama portrays the Democratic presidential candidate as a
far more calculating politician than his most ardent supporters might
imagine. One such calculation was his much-heralded 2002 speech in
Chicago about the impending Iraq war, according to "Obama: From Promise
to Power," a nearly 400-page book by Tribune reporter David Mendell to
be released in August.
Obama gave the speech not just because of a desire to speak out about
the impending invasion, Mendell asserts, but also to curry favor with a
potential political patron, Bettylu Saltzman, a stalwart among Chicago's
liberal elite, and to also try to win over his future top political
adviser, David Axelrod, who was close to Saltzman.
"Obama, still an unannounced candidate for the U.S. Senate, did not
immediately agree [to speak at the rally],"according to an advance copy
obtained by the Tribune. "But he told Saltzman that he would think it
over."
After consulting with a political aide, the future candidate, who was
indeed personally opposed to the invasion, agreed to make the speech.
"Obama was trying to draw Axelrod onto his Senate campaign team," the
book says. "It would not be wise to disappoint Saltzman if he wanted her
to continue lobbying Axelrod on his behalf. So Obama agreed to speak."
Axelrod, now Obama's top adviser, denied that the Illinois Democrat made
the speech to win over political friends and mentors. "That's not true,"
said Axelrod, who added that he was advising Obama "in an informal way"
at the time. . . .
The book also suggests Obama and his advisers initially were incensed
that top Democrats had relegated him to a speaking slot at the 2004
Democratic National Convention in Boston that was not carried live over
the three major TV networks. The keynote address ultimately was what
helped propel him to the national stage.
"As it has all turned out, we all look like geniuses," Obama's senate
campaign manager Jim Cauley says in the book. "But back then, we were
totally pissed."
The book opens with a scene from Boston on the afternoon before Obama's
big speech. "The swagger in his step appeared even cockier than usual on
the afternoon of July 27, 2004," the book says. Once past a security
checkpoint, Obama told Mendell that he felt like LeBron James, the
National Basketball Association star. "I'm LeBron, baby," Obama is
quoted as saying. "I can play on this level. I got some game."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070620obama-story,
1,4328906.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MICHAEL MOORE AND CLINTON'S HEALTH PLAN
WE HAVEN'T SEEN SICKO YET, but several reviewers have referred to the
kind words Michael Moore had for Hillary Clinton and his charge that she
sold out on the health care issue. That is simply not true. Her original
healthcare plan was also a disaster, certainly in the running for one of
the worst written pieces of major legislation ever. Since the movie was
made, Moore has at least admitted that Clinton's bill "maybe wasn't
necessarily the right plan."
SAM SMITH, 'SHADOWS OF HOPE,' 1994 - During the first months of the
Clinton administration, one of the biggest national policy changes of
the past fifty years was being forged by a secret committee led by Mrs.
Clinton under procedures that periodically defied the courts and the
Government Accounting Office and whose public manifestations consisted
of highly contrived media opportunities, carefully staged "town
meetings," and similar artifices.
Despite the contrary evidence of public opinion polls, the concept of
Canadian-style single-payer insurance was dismissed early. Tom Hamburger
and Ted Marmor in the Washington Monthly tell of a single-payer
proponent being invited to the White House in February 1993. It was, he
said, a "pseudo-consultation;" the doctor was quickly informed that
"single payer is not politically feasible." When Dr. David Himmelstein
of the Harvard Medical School pressed Mrs. Clinton on single payer, she
replied, "Tell me something interesting, David."
In other words, write Hamburger and Marmor: "Fewer than six weeks into
the Clinton presidency, the White House had made its key policy
decision: Before the Health Care Task Force wrote a single page of its
22-volume report to the President, the single payer idea was written
off, and "managed competition" was in."
If there was any popular, grassroots demand for "managed competition" it
never appeared. Managed competition had not been tested anywhere.
Nonetheless, reported Thomas Bodenehimer in Nation:
"Around Hillary Rodham Clinton's health reform table sit the
managed-competition winners: big business, hospitals, large (but not
small) commercial insurers, the Blues, budget-worried government leaders
and the 'Jackson Hole Group,' the chief intellectual honchos of the
managed competition movement. . . Adherence to the mantra of managed
competition appears to be the price of a ticket of admission to this
gathering. "
What was finally proposed involved a massive transfer of the American
health industry - by some accounts now larger than the
military-industrial complex - to a small number of the largest insurance
companies and other major corporations. These were companies that had
the assets to play the game being offered - a medical oligopoly that
would dispense health-care under the rules of the Fortune 500 rather
than according to those of Hippocrates.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
US CAPITOL PRODUCES POLLUTION EQUAL TO 17,000 CARS
NBC 4, DC - The House announced plans to reduce energy consumption by 50
percent in 10 . . . In 2006, the House side of the Capitol complex
produced about 91,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That is the
equivalent of the emission of more than 17,000 cars.
http://www.nbc4.com/news/13547796/detail.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CALIFORNIAN SECRETARY OF STATE GOES AFTER VOTING MACHINE SOURCE CODE
BRAD BLOG - Debra Bowen, California's Secretary of State, has announced
taking action against Election Systems and Software because the vendor
of voting machines used in Los Angeles County has refused to turn over
their source code as part of the state's review of all voting systems
used in the state.
Bowen says: "I'm not going to stand by and watch ES&S ignore the State
of California and, in particular, the voters of Los Angeles County by
refusing to abide by the certification conditions that were imposed when
ES&S's Inka Vote Plus Voting System was certified last year."
The state's review of the Inka Vote Plus Voting System is part of a
top-to-bottom review of all voting systems used in the state of
California. The press release goes on: "ES&S was first notified 87 days
ago - on March 26 - that it had 30 days, under the conditions imposed in
April 2006 by the previous Secretary of State when he certified the Inka
Vote Plus Voting System, to provide the Secretary of State with its
equipment, a certified version of the source code, funding to cover the
reasonable cost of conducting the review, and an acknowledgement of the
terms of a confidentiality agreement. The company has provided the
Secretary of State's office with some voting system equipment, but
nothing else."
Also included in the press release is a letter, dated June 18, from the
Secretary of State's office to David Strouse, Regional Sales Manager for
Iron Mountain, Inc., the repository for ES&S's source code. The letter
requests Iron Mountain, Inc.:
"Please submit, by guaranteed overnight delivery to my attention at the
address listed above, an encrypted copy of source code held in your
escrow facility for the Unisyn Election Management System, version 1.1.
Please deliver the encryption key by telephone or under separate cover
by guaranteed overnight delivery. Please arrange delivery of both the
source code and encryption key so that this office receives them no
later than noon on Wednesday, June 20, 2007."
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4713
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
LOOKS LIKE NADER MAY RUN AGAIN
SIMON TISDALL, GUARDIAN, UK - Ralph Nader, the independent candidate
blamed by many Americans for George Bush's election victory in 2000,
says he is considering a run for the White House next year - even at the
risk of dishing the Democrats again. . . Mr Nader said he knew he would
be accused of acting as spoiler again if he decided to run. But it was
essential that the country be offered a real choice in 2008 and it would
be the Democrats' own fault if they did not win, he said. . .
Mr Nader sharply criticised Hillary Clinton, the Democrat frontrunner
whose failure to back an immediate Iraq withdrawal has alienated many on
the left. Her stance has toughened recently. "She is a political
coward," Mr Nader said. "She goes around pandering to powerful interest
groups on the one hand and flattering general audiences on the other.
She doesn't even have the minimal political fortitude of her husband."
Mr Nader, 73, enjoys high name recognition, is a familiar figure on
American television and author of several books. All the same, political
analysts say he cannot win and may have trouble getting on to the ballot
in many states.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections08/story/0,,2108468,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
OBAMA MYTH TAKES ANOTHER HIT
JOHN MCCORMICK, CHICAGO TRIBUNE - A soon-to-be-released biography about
Sen. Barack Obama portrays the Democratic presidential candidate as a
far more calculating politician than his most ardent supporters might
imagine. One such calculation was his much-heralded 2002 speech in
Chicago about the impending Iraq war, according to "Obama: From Promise
to Power," a nearly 400-page book by Tribune reporter David Mendell to
be released in August.
Obama gave the speech not just because of a desire to speak out about
the impending invasion, Mendell asserts, but also to curry favor with a
potential political patron, Bettylu Saltzman, a stalwart among Chicago's
liberal elite, and to also try to win over his future top political
adviser, David Axelrod, who was close to Saltzman.
"Obama, still an unannounced candidate for the U.S. Senate, did not
immediately agree [to speak at the rally],"according to an advance copy
obtained by the Tribune. "But he told Saltzman that he would think it
over."
After consulting with a political aide, the future candidate, who was
indeed personally opposed to the invasion, agreed to make the speech.
"Obama was trying to draw Axelrod onto his Senate campaign team," the
book says. "It would not be wise to disappoint Saltzman if he wanted her
to continue lobbying Axelrod on his behalf. So Obama agreed to speak."
Axelrod, now Obama's top adviser, denied that the Illinois Democrat made
the speech to win over political friends and mentors. "That's not true,"
said Axelrod, who added that he was advising Obama "in an informal way"
at the time. . . .
The book also suggests Obama and his advisers initially were incensed
that top Democrats had relegated him to a speaking slot at the 2004
Democratic National Convention in Boston that was not carried live over
the three major TV networks. The keynote address ultimately was what
helped propel him to the national stage.
"As it has all turned out, we all look like geniuses," Obama's senate
campaign manager Jim Cauley says in the book. "But back then, we were
totally pissed."
The book opens with a scene from Boston on the afternoon before Obama's
big speech. "The swagger in his step appeared even cockier than usual on
the afternoon of July 27, 2004," the book says. Once past a security
checkpoint, Obama told Mendell that he felt like LeBron James, the
National Basketball Association star. "I'm LeBron, baby," Obama is
quoted as saying. "I can play on this level. I got some game."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070620obama-story,
1,4328906.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
MICHAEL MOORE AND CLINTON'S HEALTH PLAN
WE HAVEN'T SEEN SICKO YET, but several reviewers have referred to the
kind words Michael Moore had for Hillary Clinton and his charge that she
sold out on the health care issue. That is simply not true. Her original
healthcare plan was also a disaster, certainly in the running for one of
the worst written pieces of major legislation ever. Since the movie was
made, Moore has at least admitted that Clinton's bill "maybe wasn't
necessarily the right plan."
SAM SMITH, 'SHADOWS OF HOPE,' 1994 - During the first months of the
Clinton administration, one of the biggest national policy changes of
the past fifty years was being forged by a secret committee led by Mrs.
Clinton under procedures that periodically defied the courts and the
Government Accounting Office and whose public manifestations consisted
of highly contrived media opportunities, carefully staged "town
meetings," and similar artifices.
Despite the contrary evidence of public opinion polls, the concept of
Canadian-style single-payer insurance was dismissed early. Tom Hamburger
and Ted Marmor in the Washington Monthly tell of a single-payer
proponent being invited to the White House in February 1993. It was, he
said, a "pseudo-consultation;" the doctor was quickly informed that
"single payer is not politically feasible." When Dr. David Himmelstein
of the Harvard Medical School pressed Mrs. Clinton on single payer, she
replied, "Tell me something interesting, David."
In other words, write Hamburger and Marmor: "Fewer than six weeks into
the Clinton presidency, the White House had made its key policy
decision: Before the Health Care Task Force wrote a single page of its
22-volume report to the President, the single payer idea was written
off, and "managed competition" was in."
If there was any popular, grassroots demand for "managed competition" it
never appeared. Managed competition had not been tested anywhere.
Nonetheless, reported Thomas Bodenehimer in Nation:
"Around Hillary Rodham Clinton's health reform table sit the
managed-competition winners: big business, hospitals, large (but not
small) commercial insurers, the Blues, budget-worried government leaders
and the 'Jackson Hole Group,' the chief intellectual honchos of the
managed competition movement. . . Adherence to the mantra of managed
competition appears to be the price of a ticket of admission to this
gathering. "
What was finally proposed involved a massive transfer of the American
health industry - by some accounts now larger than the
military-industrial complex - to a small number of the largest insurance
companies and other major corporations. These were companies that had
the assets to play the game being offered - a medical oligopoly that
would dispense health-care under the rules of the Fortune 500 rather
than according to those of Hippocrates.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
US CAPITOL PRODUCES POLLUTION EQUAL TO 17,000 CARS
NBC 4, DC - The House announced plans to reduce energy consumption by 50
percent in 10 . . . In 2006, the House side of the Capitol complex
produced about 91,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That is the
equivalent of the emission of more than 17,000 cars.
http://www.nbc4.com/news/13547796/detail.html
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
No comments:
Post a Comment