I was interviewed by BBC’s Maggie Shiels in April 2003 about being a peace blogger, amidst all of the “War Bloggers.” She had no way of telling me at the time when the piece was going to air, but she did give me a clip that I could play for my parents — but I couldn’t publish it on my blog or anything.
Well, now that so much time has passed, I wrote to see if it was OK, and she said it was.
Here it is. (Real File)
(Here’s a link to its directory if you need that for some reason.)
Also interviewed are UC Berkeley School of Journalism Professor Paul Grabowitz and blogger Chris Perillo. (Will somebody let them know about this for me? I don’t have their emails.)
That’s me reading from Salam Pax’s weblog too.
The story is about bloggers taking over as reliable sources of news.
Author Archives: Lisa
Shrub On The Next Four Years Of Bloodshed Abroad And Economic Hardship/Loss Of Loved Ones Here At Home: “Gosh, We’re Going To Have A Lot Of Fun”
I found the “Political Capital” Shrub speech I and others were looking for (Thanks Hetty).
There are Windows and Real clips available, but nothing you can download.
I’d still prefer a copy from one of you so keep looking everybody, ok?
There’s also a transcription available (“More” below).
It’s even more frightening to read it in print.
Apparently, he’s enjoying himself madly. (Emphasis on madly.)
How can he laugh and crack jokes when he’s going Roman on Fallujah, killing thousands of innocents, and sending 10,000 of our troops to their death in the process?
He’s also decided that our “Free Press” only needs to have one question answered at a time now.
He also hasn’t bothered to figure out how much the war will cost, or how many troops it’s going to take to do the job.
Incredible that he hasn’t felt the need to do President work while campaigning while we’re casually at War on the other side of the globe. The War’s like a back drop to him. Like “Made In America.”
He’s also lying about when he says that he hasn’t heard from anyone in the army that they need more troops. They’ve been saying that since before we made our first attack. The estimates were 200-300,000 soldiers would be needed to do the jjob. (It’s all in the Rumsfeld’s War program on PBS’s Frontline.
Q Would you like it? Now that the political volatility is off the issue because the election is over, I’d like to ask you about troop levels in Iraq in the next couple of months leading up to elections. The Pentagon already has a plan to extend tours of duty for some 6,500 U.S. troops. How many more will be needed to provide security in Iraq for elections, seeing as how the Iraqi troops that you’re trying to train up are pretty slow coming on line?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, first of all, the — we are making good progress in training the Iraqi troops. There will be 125,000 of them trained by election time. Secondly, I have yet to — I have not sat down with our Secretary of Defense talking about troop levels. I read some reports during the course of the campaign where some were speculating in the press corps about the number of troops needed to protect elections. That has not been brought to my attention yet.
And so I would caution you that what you have either read about or reported was pure speculation thus far. These elections are important, and we will respond, John, to requests of our commanders on the ground. And I have yet to hear from our commanders on the ground that they need more troops…
Q Do you feel more free, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, in terms of feeling free, well, I don’t think you’ll let me be too free. There’s accountability and there are constraints on the presidency, as there should be in any system. I feel — I feel it is necessary to move an agenda that I told the American people I would move. Something refreshing about coming off an election, even more refreshing since we all got some sleep last night, but there’s — you go out and you make your case, and you tell the people this is what I intend to do. And after hundreds of speeches and three debates and interviews and the whole process, where you keep basically saying the same thing over and over again, that when you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view, and that’s what I intend to tell the Congress, that I made it clear what I intend to do as the President, now let’s work to — and the people made it clear what they wanted, now let’s work together.
And it’s one of the wonderful — it’s like earning capital. You asked, do I feel free. Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That’s what happened in the — after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I’ve earned capital in this election — and I’m going to spend it for what I told the people I’d spend it on, which is — you’ve heard the agenda: Social Security and tax reform, moving this economy forward, education, fighting and winning the war on terror…
Listen, thank you all. I look forward to working with you. I’ve got a question for you. How many of you are going to be here for a second term? Please raise your hand. (Laughter.)
Good. Gosh, we’re going to have a lot of fun, then. Thank you all.
Letter by Conyers, Nadler and Wexler To The GAO Office Requesting An Investigation Into Election 2004’s Voting Irregularities
Thanks to William Rivers Pitt for including this in his latest article.
Here’s a Wired News article explaining more of the details behind the letter.
Representatives John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Robert Wexler, all members of the House Judiciary Committee, posted a letter on November 5th to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. In the letter, they asked for an investigation into the efficacy of these electronic voting machines. The letter reads as follows:
November 5, 2004
The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
U.S. General Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20548
Dear Mr. Walker:
We write with an urgent request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.
In particular, we are extremely troubled by the following reports, which we would also request that you review and evaluate for us:
In Columbus, Ohio, an electronic voting system gave President Bush nearly 4,000 extra votes. (“Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes,” Associated Press, November 5)
An electronic tally of a South Florida gambling ballot initiative failed to record thousands of votes. “South Florida OKs Slot Machines Proposal,” (Id.)
In one North Carolina county, more than 4,500 votes were lost because officials mistakenly believed a computer that stored ballots could hold more data that it did. “Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes,” (Id.)
In San Francisco, a glitch occurred with voting machines software that resulted in some votes being left uncounted. (Id.)
In Florida, there was a substantial drop off in Democratic votes in proportion to voter registration in counties utilizing optical scan machines that was apparently not present in counties using other mechanisms.
The House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff has received numerous reports from Youngstown, Ohio that voters who attempted to cast a vote for John Kerry on electronic voting machines saw that their votes were instead recorded as votes for George W. Bush. In South Florida, Congressman Wexler’s staff received numerous reports from voters in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties that they attempted to select John Kerry but George Bush appeared on the screen. CNN has reported that a dozen voters in six states, particularly Democrats in Florida, reported similar problems. This was among over one thousand such problems reported. (“Touchscreen Voting Problems Reported,” Associated Press, November 5)
Excessively long lines were a frequent problem throughout the nation in Democratic precincts, particularly in Florida and Ohio. In one Ohio voting precinct serving students from Kenyon College, some voters were required to wait more than eight hours to vote. (“All Eyes on Ohio,” Dan Lothian, CNN, November 3)
We are literally receiving additional reports every minute and will transmit additional information as it comes available. The essence of democracy is the confidence of the electorate in the accuracy of voting methods and the fairness of voting procedures. In 2000, that confidence suffered terribly, and we fear that such a blow to our democracy may have occurred in 2004.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this inquiry.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler
Ranking Member, Ranking Member, Member of Congress
House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution
cc: Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Chairman
William Rivers Pitt: This Election Was Even More Of A Disaster Than 2000
Worse Than 2000: Tuesday’s Electoral Disaster
By William Rivers Pitt for Truthout.
Another point of interest included in this article is the actual letter sent out by John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler and Robert Wexler (all members of the House Judiciary Committee) that was sent last friday to the GAO office asking for an investigation of several voter irregularities.
Four years later, and none of the Florida problems were fixed. In fact, by all appearances, they spread from Florida to Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan and elsewhere. Worse, these problems only scratch the surface of what appears to have happened in Tuesday’s election. The fix that was put in place to solve these problems – the Help America Vote Act passed in 2002 after the Florida debacle – appears to have gone a long way towards making things worse by orders of magnitude, for it was the Help America Vote Act which introduced paperless electronic touch-screen voting machines to millions of voters across the country.
Not Going On My Trip
I decided that this wasn’t a good time to take off for a couple days, birthday or no.
So I’ll be right here keeping track of the post-election and shrub war developments going on.
Just a heads up.
Greg Palast On The Day Before The Election: 1,000,000 Kerry Votes Already Stolen
This shouldn’t technically be in the “Aftermath” category, because it was published the day before. But I feel like it needs to be here to make this category complete.
An Election Spoiled Rotten
By Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper’s magazine, for TomPaine.com.
It’s not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is already down by almost a million votes. That’s because, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked
Election Day Report From ABC News: A Number Of Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported
Wow. Here’s one I missed from ABC News that was published on Election Day (Nov 2, 2004).
Electronic Voting Machine Woes Reported
By ABC News.
Voters nationwide reported some 1,100 problems with electronic voting machines on Tuesday, including trouble choosing their intended candidates.
The e-voting glitches reported to the Election Protection Coalition, an umbrella group of volunteer poll monitors that set up a telephone hotline, included malfunctions blamed on everything from power outages to incompetent poll workers.
But there were also several dozen voters in six states – particularly Democrats in Florida – who said the wrong candidates appeared on their touch-screen machine’s checkout screen, the coalition said.
In many cases, voters said they intended to select John Kerry (website – news – bio) but when the computer asked them to verify the choice it showed them instead opting for President Bush (website – news – bio) , the group said.
After 10 minutes trying to change her selection, the Pinellas County resident said she called a poll worker and got a wet-wipe napkin to clean the touch screen as well as a pencil so she could use its eraser-end instead of her finger. Harvey said it took about 10 attempts to select Kerry before and a summary screen confirmed her intended selection. Election officials in several Florida counties where voters complained about such problems did not return calls Tuesday night…
The Election Protection Coalition received a total of 32 reports of touch-screen voters who selected one candidate only to have another show up on the summary screen, Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a coalition member.
Dems Seek GAO Investigation Into Voting Irregularities
House Dems Seek Election Inquiry
By Kim Zetter for Wired News.
Three congressmen sent a letter to the General Accounting Office on Friday requesting an investigation into irregularities with voting machines used in Tuesday’s elections.
The congressmen, Democratic members of the House of Representatives from Florida, New York and Michigan, cited a number of incidents that came to light in the days after the election. One was a glitch in Ohio that caused a memory card reader made by Danaher Controls to give George W. Bush 3,893 more votes than he should have received. Another was a problem with memory cards in North Carolina that caused machines made by UniLect to lose 4,500 votes cast on e-voting machines. The votes were lost when the number of votes cast on the machines exceeded the capacity of the memory cards.
There were also problems with machines that counted absentee ballots in Florida. Software made by Election Systems & Software began subtracting votes when totals surpassed 32,000. Officials said the problem affected only certain countywide races on one of the last pages of the ballot. Elections officials knew about the problem two years ago, but the company failed to fix the software before the election this year.
Reports from voters in Florida and Ohio also indicated that some of them had problems voting for the candidate of their choice. When they tried to vote for John Kerry, they said, the machine either wouldn’t register the vote at all or would indicate on the review page that the vote was cast for Bush instead…
In their letter, representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Robert Wexler of Florida asked the GAO to “immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.”
John Doty, spokesman for Nadler, said the congressmen emphasized that they were not seeking a nationwide recount and were not anticipating that an investigation would change the outcome of the election.
“But we do want to make sure that where there are problems they’re fixed so that it won’t affect other elections in the future,” Doty said. “We want to make sure that people can be confident in the system.”
The “Twilight Zone” Election Continues
Karl Rove is on Meet The Press right now, and I’ll have it up around noon today.
I gotta say that it’s rather frustrating watching all of these people talk about the Election as if all of these miscount reports didn’t exist.
Obama, Illinois’ new Democratic Senator, just said that he “shared a million votes with President Bush.” There’s no way that a million Democrats in Illinois voted for Bush.
We’re now finding out that this is exactly what we’re supposed to believe: that millions of Democrats took it upon themselves to vote for Bush. This concept is laughable to say the least. (Here’s an article that deals with this specifically.)
I just wanted to drop you guys a note and say “no worries.” This strange episode of the Twilight Zone will continue, but it may just have a happy ending, eventually. There seem to be a lot of folks paying attention to the facts now, and the hard math is on our side.
The question is: what will the Democrats do when it’s been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the election was faulty. A recount is in order, to say the least, but I don’t hear anybody asking for one.
But don’t dispair. We’re in this together guys. Thanks for sending me all the great links. I’m committed to archiving them here.
It’s my birthday on the 10th., and I’m taking a few days off to rest up a bit. So if you don’t hear back from me, that’s why. But I’ll catch up on everything when I get back, and I’m here all day today, so now’s a good time to send anything over. I cancelled my trip. I’ll be right here 🙂
Computers That Tally Optical Votes Aren’t Secure Either
Evidence Mounts That The Vote Was Hacked
By Thom Hartmann for Commondreams.
When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida’s 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.
“It was practice for a national effort,” Fisher told me.
And evidence is accumulating that the national effort happened on November 2, 2004.
The State of Florida, for example, publishes a county-by-county record of votes cast and people registered to vote by party affiliation. Net denizen Kathy Dopp compiled the official state information into a table, available at http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm, and noticed something startling.
Also See:
Florida Secretary of State Presidential Results by County 11/02/2004 (.pdf)
Florida Secretary of State County Registration by Party 2/9/2004 (.pdf)
While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios matched the Kerry/Bush vote, and so did the optically-scanned paper ballots in the larger counties, in Florida’s smaller counties the results from the optically scanned paper ballots – fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking – seem to have been reversed.
In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.
In Dixie County, with 4,988 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.
The pattern repeats over and over again – but only in the smaller counties where, it was probably assumed, the small voter numbers wouldn’t be much noticed. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.
Yet in the larger counties, where such anomalies would be more obvious to the news media, high percentages of registered Democrats equaled high percentages of votes for Kerry.
More visual analysis of the results can be seen at
http://ustogether.org/election04/FloridaDataStats.htm, and
www.rubberbug.com/temp/Florida2004chart.htm.
And, although elections officials didn’t notice these anomalies, in aggregate they were enough to swing Florida from Kerry to Bush. If you simply go through the analysis of these counties and reverse the “anomalous” numbers in those counties that appear to have been hacked, suddenly the Florida election results resemble the Florida exit poll results: Kerry won, and won big.