During the month we will be posting periodically and return to regular posts in the New Year 2005.

Merry Christmas

Joyeux Noël


Abigail Bezold and Dave Bezold, Lisa Lemley Bezold, Bud Lemley, Katie Lemley, Christine Lemley, and Tyler Bud Bezold (on swing) - 2004

25 December 2004

          Thoughts at Christmas

    To be happy is to love and be loved.
    Love is both a quantity and a quality.
    The more people you love and are
    loved by, the happier you are.

    The concept of love is personal.
    It is difficult to conceptualize love,
    to talk about love and to relate to love
    since love is always limited 
    by custom and time and strength.

    When love becomes personal
    in its intensity for the giver
    and impersonal in its direction,
    love is complete.

    In a place where all try to love,
    love will be. For with love
    as with no other emotion,
    to make the effort is to succeed.

    Personal love cannot be talked about
    in public, in politics, or even in church.
    In these places love is a concept and a hope.
    The reality and humanity of Christ and Ghandi
    was their personal involvement and risk taking,
    their personal love given freely and unconditionally.

    Change occurs with love, not dialogue.
    To do, to help, to love is not for government
    or organizations but for people.
    To wrestle with who we are and what we are doing
    is to begin to love.

    To constantly question one's own risk level,
    To take small steps instead of rejecting the large,
    and to love,
    are the requirements of being human.

    To be human is the first and only concern.
    To be human is to love,
    and to love is to be concerned.
    To limit love is to destroy love.
    To direct love is to weaken love.
    To love and beloved is the ultimate end
    of freely giving and yet
    time and our human relationships usually
    prevent this reality.


BL, Christmas 2001/2004

18 December 2004

The following comment sums up why the whole world should be afraid, very afraid.

The comment comes from: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com

All Grown Up

Kash at Angry Bear says:

It seems that most market players sufficiently discount what Bush says about economics that his remarks had no major effect on the markets. They seem to understand that Bush has no clue about economics. Nevertheless, his remarks still reflect staggeringly poor judgment on Bush's part, particularly for calling into question the Fed's motives for its interest rate policy.

But perhaps Bush was then trying to fix things (in an odd sort of way) when he later made it completely clear exactly how poor his understanding of international economics is:

Bush said one way to combat the U.S. trade deficit, which hit a record $55.6 billion in October and which is a major factor behind the dollar's slide, was to buy American.

'There's a trade deficit. That's easy to resolve. People can buy more United States products if they're worried about the trade deficit,' he joked.

If Bush ever listened to his economic advisors he would understand that the trade deficit has nothing to do with Americans' preference for imported goods over domestic goods, and everything to do with Americans' preference for consuming more than they produce. So maybe the clever Bush added this comment to reassure the markets that he really has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to international economics, so they really shouldn't pay attention to what he says. If it weren't for the slight detail that Bush is actually the person who gets to make the final decisions on economic policy for the country, reassuring the markets that he doesn't understand how the economy works would be an excellent idea.
Perhaps this is what the last remaining thinking Republicans believe when they hear Bush speaking unintelligible gibberish --- he is actually reassuring markets that they needn't pay any attention to what he says. But it is past time that they come to the realization, however frightening it may be that Bush actually is making decisions. In the first term it seemed clear that he was manipulated by a powerful group of courtiers who were able to guide him in the direction they wanted him to go through flattery and access. Now that he has been validated by the people his personal arrogance has come to the fore.

All we need do is look to the Kerik debacle to see that Bush himself is now making decisions and he is doing it against the will of his advisors. It is obvious that Kerik appealed to Bush as a man's man. It was a simpatico relationship --- a pair of testosterone cowboys, one blue, one red, in love with their images as tough guys who take no shit. Bush saw in Kerik the man he now believes he is --- self-made, salt of the earth, leader of men, killer of bad guys. The empty frat boy and the crooked bureaucrat teamed up as adventure heroes.

The minute I read about this I knew that this had been a case of Bush saying "I take the man at his word, Alberto, now make it happen." This wasn't sloppy vetting. It was Junior issuing an edict based upon his vaunted "gut" with the predictable result. And I have no doubt that rather than blame himself for this mess, the Preznit blames Kerik for not being the man that Bush wanted him to be and blames the others for being right. (And I imagine that Bush will stick with Rumsfeld no matter what for the simple reason that so many want him out. That's the way dumb megalomaniacs think.)

This is the big story of the second term. Bush himself is now completely in charge. He did what his old man couldn't do. He has been freed of all constraints, all humility and all sense of proportion. Nobody can run him, not Cheney, not Condi, not Card. He has a sense of his power that he didn't have before. You can see it. From now on nobody can tell him nothin. It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, doesn't it?

digby 3:35 PM Comments (28) | Trackback (1)

*****

17 December 2004

We don’t know if we were clear yesterday in our news item about Congressman Billy Tauzin. While he is still Chairman of a committee of the House of Representatives of the United States of America that is charged with overseeing the Drug Industry, Tauzin has agreed to take a job that will pay him millions of dollars to represent the Drug Industry before the Congress of the United States of America.

From Thursday’s NYT: http://www.nytimes.com

Representative Billy Tauzin, a principal author of the new Medicare drug law, will become president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the chief lobby for brand-name drug companies, the trade group announced Wednesday.

"This industry understands that it's got a problem," Mr. Tauzin, a Louisiana lawmaker who is retiring from Congress, said in an interview. "It has to earn the trust and confidence of consumers again."

Miles D. White, chairman of Abbott Laboratories and of the trade association, sitting next to Mr. Tauzin, said he agreed that the industry had lost the trust of millions of Americans.

Mr. Tauzin, a onetime Democrat who became a Republican in 1995, has a wealth of connections in Congress, where he has served for 24 years.

Drug makers said that the job was not a reward for Mr. Tauzin's work on the Medicare bill, which followed the industry's specifications in many respects. The law was signed by President Bush on Dec. 8, 2003, a few weeks before a lawyer for Mr. Tauzin began talks with the drug trade group.

Mr. Tauzin, 61, is the latest policy maker to move from government to industry. "It's a classic example of the revolving door," said Lawrence M. Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group that tracks the influence of money on politics and government policy.

Thomas A. Scully, the administration's main negotiator with Congress on the drug bill, got a waiver of federal ethics rules that permitted him to negotiate with potential employers while he was still running the Medicare program. Since he joined a law firm last December, Mr. Scully has registered as a lobbyist for drug companies, including Abbott and Aventis.

Mr. Tauzin (pronounced TOE-zan) and Mr. White refused to discuss Mr. Tauzin's new salary, except to say it was comparable to the pay at other large trade associations. People at other trade groups said they believed that Mr. Tauzin would receive $2 million a year or more.

Representative Pete Stark of California, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, said: "As a member of Congress, Billy negotiated a large payout to the pharmaceutical industry by the federal government. He's now about to receive one of the largest salaries ever paid to any advocate by an industry."

Mr. Tauzin wrote large parts of the new Medicare law as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and as a member of the conference committee that hashed out differences between the House and the Senate in four months of intense negotiations last year.

The law steers clear of price controls and price regulation, which are anathema to drug companies. The law forbids the government to negotiate with drug manufacturers to secure lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries.

Federal law prohibits a former member of Congress from lobbying the House or the Senate for one year after the lawmaker leaves office. In that "cooling off period," Mr. Tauzin cannot directly lobby Congress himself, but can legally tell other people how to lobby. In addition, he can make campaign contributions, attend fund-raisers and "interact socially" with people in Congress.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat who has focused on health policy for 30 years, did not question the legality of Mr. Tauzin's move. But Mr. Waxman said: "The appearance is terrible. A chief architect of the Medicare prescription drug legislation is now going to represent the chief beneficiary of the bill. This will only reinforce the public's disillusionment with Congress."

President Bush and Republicans in Congress say the law's main beneficiaries are Medicare recipients, not the industry.

Mr. Tauzin faces a paradox. Millions of Americans love the benefits of prescription drugs, but are outraged over drug prices and dislike drug makers. On the Senate floor two years ago, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, a supporter of the industry, said it was regularly portrayed as a "satanic" force, "a bunch of greedy, money-grubbing companies."

The industry is resisting a groundswell of support for proposals to legalize the import of lower-cost medicines from Canada and other countries.

Wilbert Joseph Tauzin, a colorful Cajun with the gift of gab, will take over on Jan. 3 from Alan F. Holmer, a trade lawyer who often appeared shy and awkward in public appearances.

The congressman waged a battle this year with intestinal cancer and said his life had been saved by Avastin, a biotechnology product made by Genentech and approved in February by the Food and Drug Administration. The drug works by choking off the blood vessels that provide a tumor with oxygen and nutrients.

Mr. Tauzin lost 45 pounds as he went through cancer surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. "I will look at things, for the first time in my life, from a patient's perspective, in a new way," he said.

With a million dollars in his pockets and his Congressional Pension and retirement perks we are certain he will look at events from a different perspective.
*****

The Little Missile that Couldn’t Fly, a story of the Bush defense of the United States.

An important test of the United States' fledgling missile defense system ended in failure early Wednesday as an interceptor rocket failed to launch on cue from the Marshall Islands, the Pentagon said.

After a rocket carrying a mock warhead as a target was launched from Kodiak, Alaska, the interceptor, which was intended to go aloft 16 minutes later and home in on the target 100 miles over the earth, automatically shut down because of "an unknown anomaly," according to the Missile Defense Agency of the Defense Department.

The launching had been planned as the first full test in two years of this element of the Bush administration's effort to deploy a multilayered missile defense shield.
*****

Can you imagine the gall of the City government of Washington in demanding that the new baseball team that wants to locate there pay one half the cost of a new $1 billion stadium? The old stadium named after Robert F Kennedy just won’t do. After all it is forty years old. And because the City government won’t pay, Major League Baseball is going to take its team elsewhere, like Las Vegas, the city of games. Maybe they will let Pete Rose run the team if it goes to Las Vegas. They could call the team the Las Vegas Black Sox in honor of that long ago team that threw the World Series.

We really aren’t afraid that Washington will lose its team. After all the Republicans run the U.  S. Government in Washington and they need skyboxes provided by Corporations to wile away those hot summer nights.  And because the New Republicans have never seen a government IOU that they weren’t willing to sign we are willing to bet the stadium of Major Leagues Baseball’s wet dreams gets built. What could be more Republican?
*****

CNBC has George David the CEO of United Technologies arguing for letting workers run their own Social Security funds. What a joke. Golden parachutes, personal planes, obscene pensions, millions of options repriced if necessary, and these corporate Chieftains have the gall to say that ordinary workers can afford the risk.

In reading about George David we learned UTX also guarantees every UTX worker a college education or more through the company's $60 million-a-year Employee Scholar program -- even extending some education benefits to laid-off workers. We are sure the laid off workers are pleased. Noblesse oblige.

When we were kids our favorite book was a pictorial history of the United States which used newspaper and cartoon headlines from the 1700s and 1800s to depict the growth of the country and the methods of the Robber barons. Every time we see Bush and his buddies we think of that book and Rockefeller and Carnegie and Pullman and all the other scum that built the country on the pain and suffering of the ordinary worker. There was no concern then for those workers and there is none now.

There is a special place for all these folk when they cross the river Styx.
*****

If you enjoy the Kerik story and the fact that the guy Bush appointed to run Homeland Security was at least a little shady and probably a bigamist and probably used an apartment provided for 9/11 workers for his trysts (The New York Daily News reported this week that Kerik broke city rules on accepting gifts, carried on two adulterous affairs in a secret apartment and buddied up to a city contractor with alleged mob ties.) then you might want to visit Talking Points memo and scroll down to the stories dated 12/16 and before.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004241
*****

No Comment

http://www.portapulpit.com/2004/12/back-by-popular-demand-im-getting-lot.html

*****

Blogs to read:

http://www.portapulpit.com/2004/12/back-by-popular-demand-im-getting-lot.html

Abu Aardvark
Agonist
alicublog
Atrios Eschaton
Back to Iraq
Baghdad Burning
Bilbo Bloggins
BlogBites
Brad DeLong
Crooked Timber
Daily Howler
Daily Kos
Fafblog!
Fallujah In Pictures
Greg Palast
Informed Comment
James Wolcott
Jesus' General
Jim Hightower
liberal media conspiracy
Majority Report Radio
Margaret Cho
Opinions You Should Have
Pandagon
Political Animal
Roger Ailes
Rude Pundit
Sadly, No!
Schrodinger's Cat
Steve Gilliard
Struggling Young Man
Talking Points Memo (fast)
TBogg
The American Street
The Panda's Thumb
The Right Christians
The Talent Show
This Is The Shit
Today In Iraq
Tom Tomorrow
trite and true
uggabugga
Where We're Bound
Wil Wheaton
William Gibson
You Will Anyway
Powered by
BlogRolling

16 December 2004

Election over, now is the time to make money. From the press wires:

The former chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, who earlier this year ended negotiations to head the pharmaceutical industry's top lobby after critics questioned the ethics of the move, has now accepted the post, the group said on Wednesday.

    Rep. W. J. "Billy" Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican, announced in February that he would step down as committee chairman and leave Congress because of a bleeding ulcer.

    Democrats criticized him for considering the high-profile post leading the      Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which lobbies Congress on behalf of drug companies, while he was still chairman of the committee that

regulates the drug industry.

    He ended negotiations with the group, saying controversy over the possible move was a distraction. The issue had threatened to create headaches for Tauzin's Republican party in this year's election campaign, which featured a fierce debate over the price of prescription medication.

    At the time, Tauzin's spokesman Ken Johnson said the congressman had no second thoughts. "This had become a monumental distraction, and Billy decided to put it behind him. He has served in Congress for nearly 24 years with honor and distinction and he does not want to leave with a cloud over his head," Johnson said in February.

*****

The attempts by the Bush folks to destroy Social Security is the key issue of the next two years until the 2006 elections. It is important that Democrats not allow the Republicans to get away with calling what they want to do reform. Republicans want to destroy Social Security. Social Security is not bankrupt nor will it be. The Republicans are the folks who are bankrupt. They only know how to destroy: Iraq, Social Security, Social safety nets, and good people like Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry etc.

Following if the first of many posts we will have from other blogs about social security. It is important in all discussions that the truth be told that the Republicans want to destroy Social Security. As Josh Marshal says below any attempt to compromise by Democrats in the Congress will be aiding Republicans not helping to save Social Security.

Social Security is the great gift along with the victory over Fascism and Nazism that FDR gave to the U.S.

From: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

(December 15, 2004 -- 03:45 AM EST // link // print)

Focused as I've been on the Kerik meltdown, I've given little attention to what will certainly be the defining issue of the next two years, for Democrats as much as the president: Social Security. Specifically, whether to phase out the program or maintain it as the anchor of retirement security in the United States.

As Paul Krugman, Kevin Drum and many others have been making clear in recent days, the entirety of the president's argument is based on a series of well-constructed lies. The president's advisors were never more truthful than they were when they compared the coming round of disinformation and fear-mongering to their public campaign in support of the Iraq war in 2002.

The Social Security "crisis" is manufactured; there is no crisis. To the extent there are long-term financing problems, the president's plan will gravely worsen them. The problem we face isn't over Social Security, which continues to run up huge surpluses (just as it was intended to under the early-80s reform), but that our non-Social Security budget continues to run massive structural deficits. Or rather, it has returned to running massive structural deficits after getting into the black in the late 1990s through the combined exertions of a Democratic president and a Republican congress. Social Security isn't the problem, but rather George W. Bush's reckless fiscal policy.

In any case, as I say, the whole thing is lies. This isn't about the program's problems but about its success. That's why the president and his allies want to phase it out. It's not about financing but about ideology.

I'm going to try to dive more deeply into the dishonesty of the president's plan and explanations of different aspects of the debate, though much of it will simply be steering readers to the most concise and straightforward explanations from other sites and sources.

Much of what we'll be focusing on here is strategy: how to defeat the president's plan, which will rip-off men and women across the country who, in President Clinton's much mocked but still apt phrase, "work hard and play by the rules."

So, a few points on strategy.

One thing that Democrats must understand is that they cannot win this battle legislatively. At one level what I mean by that is simply the math we can all see. The president has comfortable majorities in both chambers and in his first term (when he was a minority president and had smaller majorities) he commanded historic levels of party discipline. If he can hold those caucuses together, he can pass this and sign it and that's it. Doesn't matter what Democrats do.

This is, of course, obvious, as simple as the math, as I noted. But the implications for strategy are not necessarily that obvious.

As I wrote a month ago, the Democrats have to start seeing themselves as a true party of opposition in large part because of the way President Bush has reshaped the capital into something much more like a parliamentary system. There's no point in Democrats trying to improve legislation at the margins, because they won't be given any real opportunity to do so. The logic of the situation dictates coming up with an alternative plan not only to make the differences clear to voters now but to set the issue stage for the 2006 and 2008 elections.

So point one is party unity. The Democrats don't just need to keep their caucuses overwhelmingly together on this issue. They need to avoid even a single defection in the House or the Senate. From what I hear from knowledgeable sources this is already pretty close to doable in the House; and probably no more than three or perhaps four are even in play in the Senate.

Such unity has the obvious advantage of giving Republicans less breathing room in putting together majority votes in both houses. But it does much more than that. Making the elimination of Social Security a strictly Republican gambit raises the political stakes dramatically. Many Republicans will be far more cautious without bipartisan cover. Democrats must deny them even the thinnest of fig leaves. Making it a strictly Republican affair will also provide valuable clarity in the coming election, rather than the muddled picture created by Democratic defections on the 2001 tax bill.

Still another important benefit is the boon it will give to Democratic morale and energy in opposition. The coming debate over Social Security could become an engine for unity or disunity for Democrats. And the leaders of the party should be doing everything they can right now to lay the groundwork for making it the former rather than the latter. And party unity is the place to start.

If everyone isn't on the same page, that disunity will exacerbate the NewDem/Labor-Liberal divide -- something Dems simply can't afford right now. If they can achieve unity, they can demonstrate to themselves that they have points of common purpose that transcend their divisions. And that realization will itself make those divisions more manageable.

Luckily, such unity should not be that hard to achieve -- for two reasons. First, very few Democrats support privatization. Second, those relatively few in the centrist wing of the party who are open to the idea in the abstract are scared off by the budget-busting debt the president wants to take on to pay for his plan.

The worst thing that can happen for Democrats is that a few of their members of congress get played for fools by signing on to President Bush's plan in the hopes that they can secure some small improvements in the legislation or reflected glory for themselves -- slightly less money carved out of Social Security, bumping up the payroll tax cap, etc. Whatever miniscule benefits could be achieved in such a fashion would be greatly outweighed by the way that it would lessen the chances for fixing the damage after the next election.

The question will be how to enforce discipline at the margins. And here Democrats should take a page from the Republican playbook in 1994 (on health care) and 1998 (on impeachment).

I think Democrats should consider pulling together the major funders of the party, the official committees, the major organizations, basically the entire infrastructure of the Democratic party and making clear to individual members that if they sign on to the president's plan to phase out Social Security, those various institutions and individuals won't fund their campaigns. Not in 2006, not ever.

Similar committments can come from voters, activists and volunteers. And free rein to primary challengers. If a couple folks lose their seats because of underfunding or tough primaries, so be it. (In a subsequent post, we'll discuss how this compares to what the House Republicans did in 1998).

It's that important. And there is an importance to unity on this issue that transcends the particular debate over Social Security.

Next, as we've discussed before, this isn't a debate about 'reform', 'privatization' or 'saving' Social Security. It's about phasing out the Social Security program, or not. Framing it any other way concedes half the battle before the fighting even begins.

(There is a subsidiary question here of whether Dems take a stand-part stance in general, or come up with their own 'plan' to go up against the president's. That's a question we'll return to.)

Third, beware the risks of arguments about risk.

Republicans want to make this an argument about people who believe in markets and people who don't. That's not true. But Democrats can make it seem true by framing too much of the debate on 'risky scheme' lines. Letting the argument be framed that way is a losing proposition because most Americans instinctly believe in markets and largely for good reason.

The issue here isn't markets. Most Democrats favor plans that would make it easier for middle- and lower-income families to save and invest money for retirement. That would make the overall retirement picture much better.

The issue is balance and commonsense. A breadwinner with dependents who gets a lump sum salary at the beginning of the year and invests it all in a few hot start-ups doesn't believe in the market; he or she is just a fool. A wise investment portfolio is balanced between riskier and more conservative investments. The best way to make this argument (and the most valid one) is to make it clear that Democrats want people to be able to invest. That really is the path to wealth. But Social Security is different. It is, among other things, a baseline of guaranteed retirement security and income for everyone. You get it whether you retire in boom times or bust times, whether life has dealt you good cards or bad cards. The two things are simply different.

A related danger is placing too much, or rather an incorrect emphasis on the windfall of money Wall Street would make because of phasing out Social Security. This is true, of course. And it helps impugn the motives of those pushing for the abolition of the program. But fundamentally it doesn't matter.

If privatization really were a good thing for most Americans, the fact that some people would make money on it wouldn't be a reason to oppose it. The reason to oppose it is that it's a very bad deal for most Americans. The fact that lots of Wall Streeters will get rich racking up fees on these tiny accounts only serves to show why they're pushing so hard for it.

Again, it's a matter of emphasis that I fear too many Democrats miss. Focusing too much on the Wall Street windfall risks placing the emphasis of the Dems opposition on something that is, fundamentally, beside the point. It can also make the opposition appear to be based simply in bitterness or resentment.

And this brings me to my final point. Focusing on the Wall Street stuff evades the key issue. And Democrats have built up a habit of doing that a lot on many issues -- thinking they can skirt against the wind, play up ancillary issues, and generally muddle through without facing up to the heart of the matter. The reasons they've developed this habit are many and for another post. But in the case of Social Security it is almost sure to lead to defeat.

This isn't about financing. It's about whether Americans get to keep Social Security, a program of guaranteed retirement insurance, which unlike the other key elements of a good retirement plan -- investments and pensions -- cannot be taken away.

Social Security has been overwhelmingly popular for well over half a century. Nothing suggests that popularity has diminished, save scare-mongering telling people that they won't be able to enjoy its benefits.

Democrats should run into this fight, not away from it.

-- Josh Marshall

(December 15, 2004 -- 03:00 AM EST // link // print)

(Ed.Note: The following is a guest post from long-time New Republic and Slate editor Mike Kinsley, who now edits the editorial page for the LA Times. He invites your responses at michael.kinsley@latimes.com. Note too that you'll probably see this post on at least a few other blogs.)

My contention: Social Security privatization is not just unlikely to succeed, for various reasons that are subject to discussion. It is mathematically certain to fail. Discussion is pointless.

The usual case against privatization is that (1) millions of inexperienced investors may end up worse off, and (2) stocks don't necessarily do better than bonds over the long-run, as proponents assume.But privatization won't work for a better reason: it can't possibly work, even in theory. The logic is not very complicated.

1. To "work," privatization must generate more money for retirees than current arrangements. This bonus is supposed to be extra money in retirees' pockets and/or it is supposed to make up for a reduction in promised benefits, thus helping to close the looming revenue gap.

2. Where does this bonus come from? There are only two possibilities: from greater economic growth, or from other people.

3. Greater economic growth requires either more capital to invest, or smarter investment of the same amount of capital. Privatization will not lead to either of these.

a) If nothing else in the federal budget changes, every dollar deflected from the federal treasury into private social security accounts must be replaced by a dollar that the government raises in private markets. So the total pool of capital available for private investment remains the same. b) The only change in decision-making about capital investment is that the decisions about some fraction of the capital stock will be made by people with little or no financial experience. Maybe this will not be the disaster that some critics predict. But there is no reason to think that it will actually increase the overall return on capital.

4. If the economy doesn't produce more than it otherwise would, the Social Security privatization bonus must come from other investors, in the form of a lower return.

a) This is in fact the implicit assumption behind the notion of putting Social Security money into stocks, instead of government bonds, because stocks have a better long-term return. The bonus will come from those saps who sell the stocks and buy the bonds.

b) In other words, privatization means betting the nation's most important social program on a theory that cannot be true unless many people are convinced that it's false.

c) Even if the theory is true, initially, privatization will make it false. The money newly available for private investment will bid up the price of (and thus lower the return on) stocks, while the government will need to raise the interest on bonds in order to attract replacement money.

d) In short, there is no way other investors can be tricked or induced into financing a higher return on Social Security.

5. If the privatization bonus cannot come from the existing economy, and cannot come from growth, it cannot exist. And therefore, privatization cannot work.

*****

15 December 2004

We have used commentary from the “blog” http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ before. We thought we would run a full commentary from ‘River Bend’ who is a woman in Iraq who comments on conditions periodically. We believe the person is real but we have no way of verifying. That is the way it is in the virtual reality of Iraq. What is real there and what is fiction?

Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

Sunday, December 12, 2004

Fuel Shortage...
It has been a sad few weeks.

The situation seems to be deteriorating daily. To brief you on a few things: Electricity is lousy. Many areas are on the damned 2 hours by 4 hours schedule and there are other areas that are completely in the dark- like A'adhamiya. The problem is that we're not getting much generator electricity because fuel has become such a big problem. People have to wait in line overnight now to fill up the car. It's a mystery. It really is. There was never such a gasoline crisis as the one we're facing now. We're an oil country and yet there isn't enough gasoline to go around...

Oh don't get me wrong- the governmental people have gasoline (they have special gas stations where there aren't all these annoying people, rubbing their hands with cold and cursing the Americans to the skies)... The Americans have gasoline. The militias get gasoline. It's the people who don't have it. We can sometimes get black-market gasoline but the liter costs around 1250 Iraqi Dinars which is almost $1- compare this to the old price of around 5 cents. It costs almost 50,000 Iraqi Dinars to fill up the generator so that it works for a few hours and then the cost isn't so much the problem as just getting decent gasoline is. So we have to do without electricity most of the day.

Cooking gas has also become a problem. The guy who sells us the gas cylinders isn't coming around because apparently he can't get the used cylinders exchanged for full ones. People are saying that it costs around 10,000 Iraqi dinars to buy one on the street and then, as usual, you risk getting one that might explode in the kitchen or be full of water. We're trying to do more and more of our 'cooking' on the kerosene heater. The faucet water is cold, cold, cold. We can't turn on the water heater because there just isn't enough electricity. We installed a kerosene water heater some time last year but that has also been off because there's a kerosene shortage and we need that for the heaters.

I took my turn at 'gasoline duty' a couple of weeks ago. E. and my cousin were going to go wait for gasoline so I decided I'd join them and keep them company. We left the house at around 5 a.m. and it was dark and extremely cold. I thought for sure we'd be the first at the station but I discovered the line was about a kilometer long with dozens and dozens of cars lined up around the block. My heart sank at the discouraging sight but E. and the cousin looked optimistic, "We just might be able to fill up before evening this time!" E. smiled.

I spent the first hour jabbering away and trying to determine whether or not gasoline was actually being sold at the station. E. and the cousin were silent- they had set up a routine. One of them would doze while the other watched in case a miracle occurred and the line actually started moving. The second hour I spent trying to sleep with my kneck at an uncomfortable angle on the back head rest. The third hour I enthusiastically tried to get up a game of "memorize the license plate". The fourth hour I fiddled with the radio and tried to sing along to every song being played on air. (It should be mentioned that at this point E. and the cousin threatened to throw Riverbend out of the car).

All in all, it took E. and the cousin 13 hours to fill the car. I say E. and the cousin because I demanded to be taken home in a taxi after the first six hours and E. agreed to escort me with the condition that I would make sandwiches for him to take back to the cousin. In the end, half of the tank of gasoline was kept inside of the car (for emergencies) and the other half was sucked out for the neighborhood generator.

People are wondering how America and gang (i.e. Iyad Allawi, etc.) are going to implement democracy in all of this chaos when they can't seem to get the gasoline flowing in a country that virtually swims in oil. There's a rumor that this gasoline crisis has been concocted on purpose in order to keep a minimum of cars on the streets. Others claim that this whole situation is a form of collective punishment because things are really out of control in so many areas in Baghdad- especially the suburbs. The third theory is that this being done purposely so that the Iraq government can amazingly bring the electricity, gasoline, kerosene and cooking gas back in January before the elections and make themselves look like heroes.

We're also watching the election lists closely. Most people I've talked to aren't going to go to elections. It's simply too dangerous and there's a sense that nothing is going to be achieved anyway. The lists are more or less composed of people affiliated with the very same political parties whose leaders rode in on American tanks. Then you have a handful of tribal sheikhs. Yes- tribal sheikhs. Our country is going to be led by members of religious parties and tribal sheikhs- can anyone say Afghanistan? What's even more irritating is that election lists have to be checked and confirmed by none other than Sistani!! Sistani- the Iranian religious cleric. So basically, this war helped us make a transition from a secular country being run by a dictator to a chaotic country being run by a group of religious clerics. Now, can anyone say 'theocracy in sheeps clothing'?

Ahmad Chalabi is at the head of one of those lists- who would join a list with Ahmad Chalabi at its head?

The borders are in an interesting state. Now this is something even Saddam didn't do: Iraqi men under the age of 50 aren't being let into the country. A friend of ours who was coming to visit was turned back at the Iraqi border. It was useless for him to try to explain that he had been outside of the country for 10 years and was coming back to visit his family. He was 47 and that meant he, in his expensive business suit, shining leather shoes, and impressive Samsonite baggage, might be a 'Jihadist'. Silly Iraqis- Iraqi men under 50 are a sure threat to the security of their country. American men with guns and tanks are, on the other hand, necessary to the welfare of the country. Lebanese, Kuwaitis and men of other nationalities being hired as mercenaries are vital to the security of said country. Iranian men coming to visit the shrines in the south are all welcome... but Iraqi men? Maybe they should head for Afghanistan.

The assault on Falloojeh and other areas is continuing. There are rumors of awful weapons being used in Falloojeh. The city has literally been burnt and bombed to the ground. Many of the people displaced from the city are asking to be let back in, in spite of everything. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it must be for the refugees. It's like we've turned into another Palestine- occupation, bombings, refugees, death. Sometimes I'll be watching the news and the volume will be really low. The scene will be of a man, woman or child, wailing in front of the camera; crying at the fate of a body lying bloodily, stiffly on the ground- a demolished building in the background and it will take me a few moments to decide the location of this tragedy- Falloojeh? Gaza? Baghdad?
*****

14 December 2004

According to yesterday’s NYT the Pentagon is trying to figure out how much it should manage or manipulate news to affect what reaches the world and shapes perceptions about the U.S. soothe big question is how much to lie and whether they will get caught doing so.

The Pentagon and Bushies has been lying for four years now about this police action that they call a war so why should they change now?
*****

Kofi Annan is taking it on the chin on right wing radio and even in some of the liberal media for the fact that his son received payments from a French company involved in the U. N. Oil for Peace Program after he left that company’s employ. He received $2500 per month. The Congress of the U.S. a/k/a Republican Yahoos are upset that he didn’t turn over information to them that they had requested. Funny, we didn’t know that the United Nations was a branch of the Federal Government.

We are amused by the brouhaha because we have a Vice President of the U.S. receiving $50,000 per year from the major contractor of the Iraq war named Halliburton. Cheney also holds million of dollars of options that have yet to vest whose value will be determined by the share price of Halliburton in the future. Cheney says he is going to give those options to charity although to our knowledge he hasn’t yet done so.

We also have a former President and father of the current President who cavorts with and is involved in intricate business deals worth millions of dollars with supposed friends of the U.S. like Saudi Arabia and the Bin ladin Family. Bush 41 also made millions of dollars from selling options given to him for a speech for a later bankrupted company called Global Communications.

Moreover the folks who want Annan to disown and or take responsibility for his son’s actions make no claim on Bush 41 to take responsibility for Bush 43’s action when he was selling stock ahead of bad news in an oil company. In fact Bush 41 had his SEC chairman give Bush 43 a clean bill of health. And neither Bush 41 nor 43 have been called on to disown their son and brother Neal Bush who has cavorted with prostitutes and traded on the Bush name for years. In fact Governor Jeb traded on the Bush name before he found employment as Governor of Florida. And of course there was that little matter of Jeb’s wife trying to sneak valuable goods on which no duties had been paid through customs. But of course that was just and oversight and no calls were made by Republicans on Jeb to disown her.

Finally the man Bush 43 appointed to be head of the Department of Homeland Security was caught hiring folks who were illegal entrants into the country, making $6 million in options from a company doing business with the NYPD and the Department of Homeland Security and we are sure other juicy tales will emerge about him in the coming days. See below for more Kerik stuff.

Hypocrisy is alive and well in Republican land.
*****

The Army said Friday it was negotiating with an armor manufacturer, Florida-based Armor Holdings Inc., to accelerate production of upgraded M1114, or Level 1, Humvees. The company said it could boost monthly production from the current 450 vehicles to 550 in February or March.

Bush through Rummy could have ordered this done three years ago.
*****

"In response to one or more indecency complaints, the Federal Communications Commission has asked NBC to send it tapes of its coverage of the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies in Athens, the network confirmed late yesterday."

We guess that Michael Powell and his crazy right wing born again friends are going to complain about the tight bathing suits or running outfits. The running outfits on the sprinters certainly left a lot/little for the imagination.
*****

From: http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=2682767

Democrat John Kerry is asking county elections officials to allow his witnesses to visually inspect the 92,000 ballots cast in Ohio in which no vote for president was recorded, a Kerry lawyer said Sunday night.

The request is one of 11 items that Kerry is asking for as part of the recount that Ohio's 88 county boards of election will begin this week, according to a letter sent to the boards over the weekend.

"We're trying to increase the transparency of the election process," said Donald McTigue, the lawyer handling the recount for the Kerry campaign.
*****

Bush’s choice for Homeland Security Honcho: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6700947/site/newsweek/   

http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2004/12/shenanigans.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_12_12.php#004215

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/261625p-224000c.html this is the Daily News so they have good headlines.
*****

11 December 2004

The Krugman article is the simple explanation of the fiasco of Social Security reform that the Bushies are proposing. Take your time reading it.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/10/opinion/10krugman.html?oref=login

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Borrow, Speculate and Hope

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 10, 2004

“The National Association of Securities Dealers," The Wall Street Journal reports, "is investigating whether some brokerage houses are inappropriately pushing individuals to borrow large sums on their houses to invest in the stock market." Can we persuade the association to investigate would-be privatizers of Social Security?

For it is now apparent that the Bush administration's privatization proposal will amount to the same thing: borrow trillions, put the money in the stock market and hope.

Privatization would begin by diverting payroll taxes, which pay for current Social Security benefits, into personal investment accounts. The government, already deep in deficit, would have to borrow to make up the shortfall.

This would sharply increase the government's debt. Never mind, privatization advocates say: in the long run, they claim, people would make so much on personal accounts that the government could save money by cutting retirees' benefits. Financial markets won't believe this claim, as I'll explain in a minute, but let's temporarily grant the point.

Even so, if personal investment accounts were invested in Treasury bonds, this whole process would accomplish precisely nothing. The interest workers would receive on their accounts would exactly match the interest the government would have to pay on its additional debt. To compensate for the initial borrowing, the government would have to cut future benefits so much that workers would gain nothing at all.

How, then, can privatizers claim that they could secure the future of Social Security without raising taxes or reducing the incomes of future retirees? By assuming that workers would invest most of their accounts in stocks, that these investments would make a lot of money and that, in effect, the government, not the workers, would reap most of those gains, because as personal accounts grew, the government could cut benefits.

We can argue at length about whether the high stock returns such schemes assume are realistic (they aren't), but let's cut to the chase: in essence, such schemes involve having the government borrow heavily and put the money in the stock market. That's because the government would, in effect, confiscate workers' gains in their personal accounts by cutting those workers' benefits.

Once you realize that privatization really means government borrowing to speculate on stocks, it doesn't sound too responsible, does it? But the details make it considerably worse.

First, financial markets would, correctly, treat the reality of huge deficits today as a much more important indicator of the government's fiscal health than the mere promise that government could save money by cutting benefits in the distant future.

After all, a government bond is a legally binding promise to pay, while a benefits formula that supposedly cuts costs 40 years from now is nothing more than a suggestion to future Congresses. Social Security rules aren't immutable: in the past, Congress has changed things like the retirement age and the tax treatment of benefits. If a privatization plan passed in 2005 called for steep benefit cuts in 2045, what are the odds that those cuts would really happen?

Second, a system of personal accounts, even though it would mainly be an indirect way for the government to speculate in the stock market, would pay huge brokerage fees. Of course, from Wall Street's point of view that's a benefit, not a cost.

There is, by the way, a precedent for Bush-style privatization. One major reason for Argentina's rapid debt buildup in the 1990's was a pension reform involving a switch to individual accounts - a switch that President Carlos Menem, like President Bush, decided to finance with borrowing rather than taxes. So Mr. Bush intends to emulate a plan that helped set the stage for Argentina's economic crisis.

If Mr. Bush were to say in plain English that his plan to solve our fiscal problems is to borrow trillions, put the money into stocks and hope for the best, everyone would denounce that plan as the height of irresponsibility. The fact that this plan has an elaborate disguise, one that would add considerably to its costs, makes it worse.

And maybe the fact that serious financial experts, the sort qualified to be Treasury secretary, understand all this is the reason why John Snow has just been reappointed.
*****

This is a report on what is occurred in OHIO during and after the election. We present here for the record. It is too bad that the Democrats surrendered again so early in the process.

From: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/975

Ohio election fraud uproar blasting to new level
by Steve Rosenfeld, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
December 7, 2004

COLUMBUS -- The bitter battle over the stolen November 2 election in Ohio has turned into a rapidly escalating all-out multi-front war with the outcome of the real presidential vote count increasingly in doubt. 

In Columbus, major demonstrations on Saturday, December 4, have been followed by an angry confrontation between demonstrators and state police at the office of Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, the Bush-Cheney state chairman who is also officially in charge of certifying the election, at least for now.   Civil Rights leader Jesse Jackson has called on Blackwell to recuse himself from dealings with the election, saying his role as Bush-Cheney chairman has compromised his objectivity in delivering fair election results.   

New revelations about voting machine allocations in Franklin County emerged on Tuesday, December 7. William Anthony, Chair of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told WVKO radio listeners that the Board begins “stationing voting machines four weeks out” before Election Day. Security questions were raised after a machine in Gahanna Ward 1B at the New Life Church recorded 4258 votes for Bush where only 638 voters cast ballots.

Cornell McCleary, former minority director of the Republican Party of Ohio, argues that it would easy for computer hackers to hack directly into the machines: “The two points of vulnerability are setting up a computer and hacking directly into the machine, or the line that goes directly down to the Board of Elections.” He dismissed the Gahanna incident as a “prank.” Prank or not, Kerry’s decision to concede early on November 3 was based in part on these imaginary votes that were either a prank, a computer glitch, or a deliberate effort to boost Bush’s total in Ohio.

Anthony also conceded that some voters in Franklin County waited up to “five or six hours’ in order to vote. He admitted that the Board of Elections usually holds back “a truckload of voting machines"--- 75---in case there’s a truck accident."  He blamed this on the lack of machines and the fact that 77 voting machines malfunctioned on Election Day. Two affidavits from voters obtained by the Free Press report that voting machine maintenance people came out to fix machines and their technique seemed to be to continually plug and unplug, or reboot, the electronic machines until the machines functioned again.

Anthony also confirmed that the Board only delivered 2741 of its 2866 machines at the opening of polls on Election Day.  He said Board of Elections workers later placed an additional 44. This would put the total number in use at the “close of polls” at 2785, leaving 81 machines sitting unused. Anthony further said Election Day problems were the result of utilizing essentially 4800 volunteers with minimal training, paid a small stipend. Some poll workers have testified they repeatedly called the Board of Elections for additional machines as lines stacked up at their inner city precincts but got no response. 
In addition, new evidence has continued to surface of widespread voter fraud throughout the state.  Among other things, a letter from Shelby County election officials dated December 2 confirmed that the county discarded "tabulator test deck reports" from the November 2 vote count "to reduce paperwork and confusion with official results."  As this county's response is the first of 88 to come from Freedom of Information Act filings, it seems likely other controversial practices could surface.

Moreover, new computer tabulation errors – first reported locally after Election Day – have resurfaced, and are of a magnitude suggesting Bush’s margin over Kerry---now 118,775 votes or 2 percent of the total votes cast in the state, according to Blackwell---could easily have been manipulated.  

One precinct in Youngstown, Ohio, recorded a negative 25 million votes (that's not a typo) on an ES&S Votronic voting machine, which was discarded from official results, according to a Nov. 3 report in Youngstown’s Vindicator newspaper http://www.vindy.com/basic/news/281829446390855.php. Machine malfunctions combined with human error to create the massive negative vote count. “That led to some races showing votes of negative 25 million, Munroe said,” quoting Mark Monroe, the Mahoning County election chief. "The numbers were nonsensical so we knew there were problems." The website www.VotersUnite.org lists dozens of voting machine errors, voter intimidation reports and other problems – from the very large to very small – that were reported in the Ohio press. At the very least these errors, many of which are detailed below, add up to a scathing indictment of a statewide election.  On December 6 White House Spokesman Scott McClellan called the election “free and fair.”

But even the www.VotersUnite.org list does not contain some of the biggest errors that will be cited in an election challenge filed Tuesday, December 7 by the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign in Ohio Supreme Court. It does not cite two non-partisan Election Day exit polls, by CNN and Zogby, which found Kerry leading by mid-afternoon. The Ohio Honest Election Campaign filing also describes abnormal patterns in the votes for statewide Democratic candidates – with Kerry receiving fewer votes than obscure candidates – could point to computer vote shifting. The Honest Election Campaign is seeking to investigate these abnormalities.      

On Wednesday, Dec. 8, Rev. Jesse Jackson and many people associated with recounting the Ohio vote and challenging the election returns, will brief Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee in Washington.

Rev. Jackson has repeatedly traveled to Ohio, demanding at packed, angry rallies that the Ohio Supreme Court consider setting aside Bush's victory in Ohio and that Congress should investigate how Ohioans voted. Among other things, the call for a re-vote as in Ukraine has become a consistent theme among disgruntled Ohio voters. 

Jackson’s involvement comes as other national public-interest groups are pursuing their own litigation. For example, People for the American Way is trying to stop the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland from rejecting 8,099 of the 24,472 provisional ballots cast there. The ballots were thrown out because voters did not properly complete them or cast them at polling places that were not their own.

(EDITOR’s NOTE: What follows is an excerpted list http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp of voting errors in Ohio compiles by VotersUnite.org. They are placed in the following categories: malfeasance, canvass anomalies, machine malfunction, vote suppression, provisional ballots, fraud, absentee ballot errors, and others. The link to the original news report follows.)

-- Lucas County. An extensive housecleaning in the Lucas County elections office was announced yesterday with Elections Director Paula Hicks-Hudson resigning and four other officials suspended pending investigation into problems with the official count of the Nov. 2 election. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20041204/NEWS09/412040418

-- Some groups also have complained about thousands of punch-card ballots that were not tallied because officials in the 68 counties that use them could not determine a vote for president. Votes for other offices on the cards were counted. http://www.nbc4i.com/politics/3953104/detail.html

 -- Cuyahoga County. 8,099 provisional ballots (about 1/3 of those cast) have been ruled invalid because the voter wasn't registered or was registered in the wrong precinct. In 2000, about 17% were ruled invalid. http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1101205815101550.xml

-- Mahoning County. 20 to 30 ES&S iVotronic machines that needed to be recalibrated during the voting process because some votes for a candidate were being counted for that candidate's opponent. http://www.vindy.com/basic/news/281829446390855.php

-- Lucas County, Toledo. Throughout the city, polling places reported an assortment of problems, ranging from technical trouble with Lucas County's leased optical-scan voting machines to confusion about precinct boundaries and questions over provisional balloting. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20041103/NEWS09/411030355/-1/ARCHIVES30

-- Lucas County (Toledo). Technical problems snarled the process throughout the day. Jammed or inoperable voting machines were reported throughout the city. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20041103/NEWS09/411030355/-1/ARCHIVES30

-- Lucas County Election Director Paula Hicks-Hudson said the Diebold optical scan machines jammed during testing last week. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20041103/NEWS09/411030355/-1/ARCHIVES30

-- Cincinnati. Problems with punch card voting machines delayed the start of voting for up to an hour Tuesday morning at a suburban precinct. Voters were unable to slide their punch-card ballots all the way into any of the six voting machines that had ALL evidently been damaged in transit. http://www.wcpo.com/news/2004/local/11/02/machineprobs.html

-- In Franklin County, Columbus, overcharged batteries on Danaher Controls ELECTronic 1242 systems kept machines from booting up properly at the beginning of the day http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041102evoteprobs/

 -- Auglaize County In a letter dated Oct. 21, Ken Nuss, former deputy director of the County Board of Elections, claimed that Joe McGinnis, a former employee of ES&S, the company that provides the voting system in Auglaize County, was on the main computer that is used to create the ballot and compile election results, which would go against election protocol. Nuss was suspended and then resigned http://www.theeveningleader.com/articles/2004/11/06/news/news.01.txt

-- Franklin County, Columbus. A Danaher ELECTronic 1242 computer error with a voting machine cartridge gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. A cartridge from one of three voting machines at the polling place generated a faulty number at a computerized reading station. Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections said the cartridge was retested Thursday and there were no problems. He couldn't explain why the computer reader malfunctioned. http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10103910.htm?1c

-- Warren County. Citing concerns about potential terrorism, officials locked down the county administration building on election night and blocked any independent observers from monitoring the vote count as the nation awaited Ohio's returns. County Emergency Services Director Frank Young explained that he had been advised by the federal government to implement the measures for the sake of Homeland Security. The Warren results were part of the last tallies that helped clinch President Bush's re-election. James Lee, spokesman with the Ohio Secretary of State's Office in Columbus, said Thursday he hasn't heard of any situations similar to Warren County's building restrictions.  http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/11/05/loc_warrenvote05.html 

-- Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said voters could not cast provisional ballots despite not receiving their absentee ballots in time. A judge overruled him, calling his statement a "failure to do his duty" and saying that the federal Help America Vote Act requires that people who claim to be eligible voters must be allowed to cast provisionals regardless of the reason they are not on the rolls or are challenged. http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=3652

 -- Cuyahoga County. In precinct 4F, located in a predominantly black precinct, at Benedictine High School on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Kerry received 290 votes, Bush 21 and Michael Peroutka, candidate of the ultra-conservative anti-immigrant Constitutional Party, received 215 votes. In precinct 4N, also at Benedictine High School, the tally was Kerry 318, Bush 21, and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik 163.  The Constitutional and Libertarian tallies were entirely implausible for the precinct.  http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/story/257365p-220441c.html

-- Sandusky County. What appeared to be an overcount resulted when a computer disk containing votes was accidentally backed up into the voting machines twice by an election worker. http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/news/stories/20041125
/localnews/1649165.html

-- Sandusky County elections officials discovered some ballots in nine precincts were counted twice. [ES&S optical scan] The county doesn't yet know how it happened http://www.thenews-messenger.com/news/stories/20041116/localnews/1601347.html   

-- Polling places in Northeast Ohio had half the number of voting machines that were needed. This caused a bottleneck at polling stations, and many people left without voting. http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1100428444286470.xml

-- Columbus. Sworn testimony shows a disparity between the number of voting machines provided to different precincts. With record turnouts, some inner city precincts had fewer machines than in previous elections.  http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/917

-- Columbus. Carol Shelton was the presiding judge at a Columbus precinct with three machines for 1,500 registered voters. At her home precinct in Clintonville, she said there were three machines for 730 voters. "I called to get more machines and got connected to Matt Damschroder, and after lots of hassle he sent a fourth machine," she said. "It did not put a dent in the long lines." http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10176004.htm

-- In Franklin and Knox counties, where voters use touch-screen units, long lines developed and voters turned to a federal judge for help as the time grew near for polls to close. To speed the voting, some of those voters were given paper ballots http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041103/NEWS09/411030355/-1/ARCHIVES30

-- Cincinnati. "We've had reports that poll workers aren't doing a very good job putting people in the right lines for their precincts," said Molly Lombardi, a spokeswoman for the Election Protection Coalition. "People stood in line for over an hour in the rain in some places only to find they were in the wrong line. A lot of them gave up and went home." http://www.enquirer.com/midday/11/11032004_News_mday_voting03.html

-- Knox County. Kenyon College student Maggie Hill appeared on the "Today Show" Wednesday morning. She was one of hundreds of students and other Gambier residents who waited for up to 10 hours to cast their votes. Observers in the Gambier precinct said there were only two voting machines for 1,300 voters. Each machine, they said, is designed to handle 20 voters per hour. http://www.newsnet5.com/news/3889129/detail.html

-- Stark County (Canton). The Election Board reluctantly followed the law and rejected provisional ballots cast at the wrong precinct in the right polling place. Up until this year, they remade a ballot that was cast in the wrong precinct, meaning that the person’s vote would be put toward the appropriate races in the correct precinct. http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=193617&Category=9

-- Of the 11 counties that have completed checking ballots, 81 percent, or 4,277 out of 5,310 ballots, are valid, according to a survey Monday by The Associated Press. Most of the counties are in rural areas. "They swear up and down they're registered to vote and they're not," said Bill Thompson, deputy elections director in Pike County. http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/news/stories/20041116/
localnews/1599347.html

-- Montgomery County. Two precincts had 25% presidential undervotes. This means no presidential vote was recorded on 1/4 of the ballots. The overall undervote rate for the county was 2%. The undercount amounted to 2.8 percent of the ballots in the 231 precincts that supported Kerry, but only 1.6 percent of those cast in the 354 precincts that supported President Bush. http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/
daily/1118undercount.html

 -- A woman sued elections officials Tuesday, December 7, on behalf of Ohio voters who claim they did not receive their absentee ballots on time, seeking permission for them to be able to cast provisional ballots at the polls. SoS office said state law says that if a board of elections sent someone an absentee ballot, that person cannot try to vote at a polling place. http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/10075572.htm

-- Lake County. Some voters received a memo on bogus Board of Elections letterhead informing voters who registered through Democratic and NACCP drives that they could not vote. Election officials referred the matter to the sheriff. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12514-2004Oct30.html

-- Cleveland, unknown volunteers began showing up at voters' doors illegally offering to collect and deliver completed absentee ballots to the election office http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12514-2004Oct30.html

·  Widely circulated "Voting Information" fliers from the "Bipartisan Voting Authority" claimed that "due to record numbers of registered voters this year," Republicans would be voting on Tuesday, November 2 while Democrats should vote Wednesday, November 3.  The flier did not inform voters the polls would be closed on Wednesday.
-- Cleveland. Voters received phone calls incorrectly informing them that their polling place had changed. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12514-2004Oct30.html

--
Steve Rosenfeld is a producer for Air America radio.  Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are publisher and senior editor of www.freepress.org.   

10 December 2004

The Onion says it all about Social Security reform the Republican way.

http://www.theonion.com
*****