Flyby News
"News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era"
VotingCounts * BushBlair * Mejia * Hartmann * King
05 April 2004
1) Voter-Verified Paper Ballot- - How Electronic Voting Threatens Democracy
- - Sludge Report - Sequoia Voting Code Released
- - Black Box Voting
2) Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war 9 days after 9/11
3) Awol from Iraq - Interview With Sargent Mejia
4) Thom Hartmann: On Corporate Rule
5) John Dean - Worse Than Watergate
6) Air America Radio - Tune In and Turn Out
7) A Grassroots Report on Kucinich in Oregon
8) Martin Luther King Remembered - America Where Are You Now?
Editor's Notes:This issue begins with updates on the electronic voting voodoo world. But there are some hopeful signs, and ways to take action in support for a paper trail. Item 2 is more late breaking news about the Bush/Blair agenda to go after Iraq with new evidence revealing they had such a conversation on this nine days after 9/11/01. Item 3 links to a US serviceman's interview with Dan Rather of Sixty Minutes, while AWOL and seeking to become a conscientious objector in response to his experience in the illegal US preemptive war and occupation of Iraq.
Item 4 is on Thom Hartmann. Last Friday I had the honor of attending a presentation by him in Keene, NH. The program was sponsored by the Monadnock Freedom Forum. Both the book and presentation tracked the history and loss of democracy in the United States of America. By pinpointing the one Supreme Court ruling that was used to justify courts treating corporations with rights as persons, but in essence as feudal warlords, Hartmann shows the solution to the puzzle, and how we can reclaim US democracy.
Item 5 links to the last NOW PBS TV program with Bill Moyers interviewing John Dean. Dean knows what its like for an abuse of power, and has written a book entitled: "Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush.
Item 6 is about Air America Radio, and item 7 is a grassroots report on Dennis Kucinich in Oregon and to Flyby News on depression. The final item is on Martin Luther King, Jr., and ties in with the current circumstances of betrayal, corruption, and conspiracy. April 4th is a time to remember Dr. King, especially due to the unresolved nature of the conspiracacy of his assassination, proven in civil court!
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles and misguided men."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
1) Voter-Verified Paper Ballot- - How Electronic Voting Threatens Democracy
- - Sludge Report - Sequoia Voting Code Released
- - Black Box Voting
Electronic miscounts of votes is no longer a theory - it's a fact.
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.asp?id=997What if the miscounts we know of are only the tip of an undetected iceberg of electronic miscounts? They might be.
We have no way of knowing.
To solve the problem before November 2004 let's pass
H.R.2239/S.1980.
Title: A bill to amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a voter-verified permanent record or hardcopy under title III of such Act, and for other purposes.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:s.01980:Demand A Voter-Verified Paper Ballot!
www.VerifiedVoting.org [Democracy counts on it!]
At VerifiedVoting.org you can click on
"What's Happening in Your State"
CALL CONGRESS TOLL-FREE
1-800-839-5276
Tell your Senators and Reps to
Support and Co-Sponsor
H.R. 2239 in the House.
S.1980 in the Senate
-- Support Senator Graham's bill --
Demand A Voter-Verified Paper Ballot!
www.VerifiedVoting.org = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - How Electronic Voting Threatens DemocracyFrom: Wired News Daily [mailto:wiredmail-info@lists.wired.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 2:15 AM
To: Wired News Daily
Subject: Special Report: How Electronic Voting Threatens Democracy
Note: For specific feedback on this alert, please send it to: wiredpr@wired.com
Dear Readers,
Today Wired News is running a special report entitled,
Full story:
"How Electronic Voting Threatens Democracy".
The story, an in-depth look at the growing controversy surrounding electronic voting machines and the companies that manufacture them, raises important questions about the security of our voting system in this presidential election year. I'm sending out this e-mail so you'll be sure to read the piece.
Electronic voting has been touted as the solution to the hanging chad debacle of the 2000 presidential race. With funding from Congress, voting officials across the country have been aggressively adopting e-voting in their districts. It's estimated that about 50 million people will vote on a paperless touch-screen voting machine this year; another 55 million will use optical scan machines that require voters to use a pen to mark a paper ballot, which the machine then scans.
Yet there's mounting evidence these machines are far from secure. In today's story, Senior Reporter Kim Zetter writes about how that evidence came to light over the past year. Zetter documents election glitches, including machines that sometimes fail to boot up, fail to record votes or even record them for the wrong candidates.
Her story also raises serious concerns about the people behind the machines, including the partisan loyalty of e-voting company executives. It's no wonder that computer scientists, election officials and activists are wondering whether electronic voting can be trusted.
You'll notice that Zetter's story, which took several months to produce, is longer than most you read on Wired News. That's because the topic is complex, involving many people, companies and details. Ultimately, however, it shines a light on one of the more important technology stories -- I might say stories, period -- of this election year.
Sincerely,
David Ian Miller,
Wired News managing editor
Note: For specific feedback on this alert, please send it to: wiredpr@wired.com
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- - Sludge Report - Sequoia Voting Code Released Sequoia Vote Counting Code Released -
Why This Software Is Being Released In This Way
[Excerpted from] the Sludge Report #162
Sequoia Vote Counting Code Released
Scoop published a report from Blackboxvoting.org's Bev Harris about holes in the Sequoia vote tabulation software.
Arguably this is the biggest new development in the black box voting saga since this column announced the release into the wild of the full contents of the Diebold FTP website. The Diebold FTP site contained the source code tree for the Diebold touchscreen software, numerous installation versions of the GEMs vote counting software, and manuals for numerous Diebold Election Systems programs.
Bev Harris's latest report details not only how insecure the Sequoia vote tabulation software is - and it appears to be if anything worse than Diebold's offering - but also asks specific questions about the conduct of Sequoia staff and election officials in Riverside County California during the March 2 election this year.
This column contends that, like the Diebold software, the Sequoia WinEds software clearly requires extensive academic examination.
The download address for the file is:
www.blackboxvoting.org/WinEDS200.zip This column does not know how long this address will remain live however. Therefore Look for other mirror URLs here -
scoop.co.nz/mason/features/?s=usacoup. And please send advice on any mirror URLs to editor@scoop.co.nz.
To read the story in full…
Bev Harris: Inside Sequoia's Vote Counting Program The story can also be read on Bev Harris's activist website:
- - BlackBoxVoting.orgAt this above web site, check out Bev Harris's book, called:
"Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering In The 21st Century"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For more background and live news links on this news subject
see also
Scoop's Special Feature A Very American Coup…Anti©opyright Sludge 2004
2) Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war 9 days after 9/11Published by Guardian Unlimited
Sunday April 4, 2004
The Observer
Bush and Blair made secret pact for Iraq war
by David Rose
According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner when Blair became the first foreign leader to visit America after 11 September, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the initial goal on the war on terror - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy.
For this article, see:
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1185438,00.html- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For links to this and other breaking news stories, see:
http://legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news
3) Awol from Iraq - Interview With Sargent MejiaCBS TV - Sixty Minutes 2
AWOL From Iraq
March 31, 2004
In the year since U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq, hundreds of American soldiers have broken the law and gone AWOL – absent without
leave.
Correspondent Dan Rather talks to one soldier, Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, who abandoned his unit in the middle of the war in one of the most dangerous parts of Iraq.
In his only on-camera interview while still in hiding, Mejia told 60 Minutes II that he went AWOL because he is morally opposed to a war that has killed or wounded nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers.
Rather also talks to Mejia's commanding officer and fellow National Guardsmen who are furious that they were deserted by a squad leader they now call a coward.
For the complete transcript, see:
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/29/60II/main609216.shtml
4) Thom Hartmann: On Corporate Rule"Unequal Protection:
The rise of corporate dominance and theft of human rights
a new book by Thom Hartmann
thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection.shtmlIn Unequal Protection, author Thom Hartmann tells a compelling, can't-put-it-down story that tracks the history of the loss of democracy in America. . . To remedy the legal blunder of corporate personhood, Hartmann offers specific action steps that can be taken by citizens, courts, legislatures, and local communities.
"Unequal Protection is a blueprint
for revitalizing the spirit of American democracy.."
– Marianne Williamson
You can link for his book and also listen
to Thom Hartmann on his radio program:
thomhartmann.com/
5) John Dean - Worse Than WatergateThe Secret Presidency of George W. Bush
NOW with Bill Moyers
Program April 2nd, 2004
John Dean is in the news again. Thirty years ago as counsel to Richard Nixon he mesmerized the country with his testimony in the Watergate hearings about "a cancer growing on the presidency." Eventually Nixon would resign and John Dean would go down in history for his role in the Watergate scandal. Now Dean has written a new book – his sixth – in which he concludes that the obsessive secrecy and deception in Washington today is "Worse Than Watergate." The conversation with Bill Moyers is Dean's first television interview on "the hidden agenda of a White House shrouded in secrecy and a presidency that seeks to remain unaccountable."
WORSE THAN WATERGATE:
The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush.
To link for transcript or program with Bill Moyers, see:
www.pbs.org/now/politics/dean.html
6) Air America Radio - Tune In and Turn OutAl Franken and others are launching a major new progressive radio network this week.
If you're in LA, Portland, New York, or Chicago, you'll be able to hear Air America programming starting this minute. And the daily lineup is pretty juicy: three hours of Al Franken on "The O'Franken Factor," plus Janeane Garofalo, Chuck D, Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the weekends. Air America's got big plans for expansion, but for now if you're not in one of those areas, you can listen in on the web at:
airamericaradio.com
7) A Grassroots Report on Kucinich in Oregon..Kucinich was in town here last week & I got to hear him twice. Truthfully I am cynical about ALL politicians. But he did get to me during the 2nd talk.
He was busy in Oregon because we have a late primary & there are many progressive people here. His message was that if Kucinich gets a high percentage in the Oregon primary, then his campaign has more leverage in determining the national Democratic platform, and that is why he is still running. Made sense to me. So I registered as a democrat & will vote in the primary & am encouraging all of my friends to do the same.
By the way, Oregon is the only state in the country that has mail-in voting. We don't even have voting machines any more. Your ballot comes in the mail, you fill it in with a pencil, and either mail it back or drop it off at a collection place in every town. No electronic voting machine fraud possible here.
I wanted to say something about what you wrote about depression and the current mess of a situation. I border on it myself. But what I have increasingly found over the last year is the more I wake up and see what is ACTUALLY going on, the more I realize that the validity/basis of any excuse I have ever given myself about why I am not 100% totally going for being my true, authentic self is now gone. Why hold back when the reality i am holding back for, trying to accommodate to, is clearly INSANE.
This is a testing time. Against the context of this mass psychosis, I have the perfect background to become authentically who I am and to stop giving two hoots about what anyone else thinks about it. It is a time when one has to CHOOSE what is important. That to me is why Richard Clarke chooses to tell the truth, and Jim Wilkinson and Condaleeza Rice choose to lie through their teeth. It's a matter of character, of moral fibre.
It is ONLY against such a background that the best (or worse) of a person can come out. Because otherwise most of us are wanting to play it safe. Based on human biological imperatives, there is a lot to say for playing it safe. But we are also wired with a survival mechanism, and when that is triggered, parts of self that were never even seen before have their moment to develop. And that builds character and courage.
That in fact was what Kucinich was saying over and over "Courage, America, courage". And in that he is right. He exhibits a great deal of courage. And that builds character.
I think it is highly likely that Life/God ALLOWS situations such as the one we are currently dealing with to exist BECAUSE it is only in such situations that we can truly find out who we really are, because we are forced to. I have read interviews with several soldiers awarded the purple heart for bravery. The gist of their spiel was "I didn't feel like any hero. I was scared to death. I only knew I couldn't leave my buddy lying out there wounded" and stuff like that.
Perhaps you can communicate to your readers that anyone who does not feel fear or depression in times like this is probably not someone any of us would want to spend time with - in other words, they would be delusional ideologues. Any sane, feeling person in touch with any sense of human dignity would be feeling fear and depression right now. The intention of the fear/depression is to cause us to CHOOSE, are we going to be stopped by all of this or are we going to act IN SPITE OF the fear/depression.
One thing is for certain. Most people want this to all go away so their lives can go back to the comfortable, normal ones they used to be. That includes progressive activist people also.
The intention of all of this is to push us OUT of anything we consider normal or comfortable. Life is forcing us to either roll over and die in fear, or to become ever more of who we truly are. The more I evolve the more I see that evolution (growth) is the ONLY aim in life. Everything else is secondary.
And growth by its nature implies moving from that which is known, familiar, and comfortable, into that which is unknown. What is unknown is perceived as scary, until we master it. As soon as we do, Life calls upon us to take even another step forward.
If we are going to be effective people, we have to not only challenge that which is wrong, unfair, and unjust in the world around us, we also have to continually challenge the places of complacency within our own being, the places that when they collectively manifest into the outer reality through millions of humans, CREATE the wrong, unfair, and unjust conditions that we are opposed to. We are ALL contributing to creating that reality in ways, small and large, that we are totally unaware of. We need to continually find those places of personal complacency within ourselves and challenge them every day. This is over and above any external efforts we may be making towards working for a "better" world.
OK, there is my ten cents.
Blessings to you and your work
love
steve
8) Martin Luther King Remembered - America Where Are You Now?"If a lonely, bitter white man - who'd spent most of his adult life in prison - killed Martin Luther King because he hated black people - then America is one thing. If on the other hand - a conspiracy resulted in the death of Martin Luther King - a conspiracy that government at the local, state and federal level was involved with - took 30 years to try to prevent the truth from coming out - and still denies to this day that anything I have talked about is of any relevance to any of you - then America is something else...."
~ Rev. Mike Clark
Rev. Mike Clark, pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church in Watertown, MA, is a student of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for more than 30 years. He worked for the family of Dr. King during the historic civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee in 1999. Over the years, Dr. King's family had come to believe that James Earl Ray did not murder their husband and father. After Ray's death in prison in 1998, the family decided to bring a wrongful death action against an individual whom they did believe was involved in a conspiracy to kill Dr. King.
In a Memphis courtroom in November 1999, the family sued Loyd Jowers and other unnamed individuals, asking the jury to hold them liable in the death of Dr. King. After 70 witnesses and five weeks of testimony, the jury found that Jowers had been part of a conspiracy involving government agents. The jury's verdict was historic and reversed the official story that James Earl Ray had killed King alone and unaided. During the trial, Mike Clark worked as the media liaison for the family. He was present in the courtroom, met with the news media, and assisted the plaintiffs in the presentation of their case.
The Memphis trial revealed that government operatives at the local, state and federal level were involved in the conspiracy to kill Dr. King and worked together for 30 years to hide the truth in the case. At a time in which the US is moving toward war once again, it is vitally important to revisit the death of America's greatest 20th century prophet and to understand what he lived for and why he was killed. There are important lessons to be drawn from Dr. King's death and this historic trial for our current justice and peace work.
Rev. Mike Clark will be presenting
Monday, April 5th at 7 pm
First Churches
129 Main Street, Northampton
(corner of Center & Main, use Center Street entrance)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Free At Last
Can a seed wither into the dust of despair
and if truth than be neglected, then tell me, why?
Can a man speaking out with a righteousness really die,
was not Martin Luther King Jr. wise?
My life is inspired by a few and to these I congratulate and continue
to breathe the air and receive its gifts, nourishing the cells with a spiritual lift.
but when confusion enters into the night
we must go to the center of love not fright,
for in ideals of freedom we will last forever, in realms of wisdom,
loving one another.
Life is thus, a series of attitudes bringing peace war or feuds,
but by keeping the dignity of what is right,
we cannot be discouraged by a brother's soulful flight.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968
For a Flyby News archive article - April 4, 2002 - see item 2:
"Martin Luther King Assassination-Conspiracy Confirmed"
The views expressed herein are the writers' own and not necessarily those of Flyby News.
A "Fair Use Policy" that describes Flyby News' use of copyrighted material is posted at flybynews.com.
Your feedback for story suggestions and networking Flyby News are welcomed and appreciated.
You can write to the publisher/editor Jonathan Mark via email: info@flybynews.com
Flyby News is educational and nonviolent in focus, and has supported critical campaigns
for a healthy environment, human rights, justice, peace, and nonviolence,
since the launching of NASA's Cassini space probe in 1997.=====News Fit to Transmit in the Post Cassini Flyby Era====> = = = = = = www.FlybyNews.com = = = = =