Hacking the Vote

Hacking The Vote: One in 20 people using a DRE machine will have his or her vote counted incorrectly.

"Reliability, more than fraud, bugs voting machines

AS AMERICA’S presidential election process stumbles its way towards November, fears are surfacing of yet another Florida- or Ohio-style voting fiasco. In the New Hampshire primary on January 8th, both independent polls before the election and exit polls on the day itself predicted that Barack Obama would soundly defeat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Mrs Clinton’s surprising upset cast fresh doubts over the reliability of the computerised machines used to count the vote.

Four out of five votes in New Hampshire were tallied by Accuvote machines from Premier Election Solutions, part of the Diebold Corporation. The remainder were counted by hand. Accuvote machines rely on an optical scanner to read paper ballots completed by voters, who use pens or pencils to fill in little ovals next to the candidate of their choice. The machines read the blackened ovals and tally the result.

When the results were in, Mr Obama had a four-percentage-point lead on the hand-counted part of the ballot. But Mrs Clinton’s three-percentage-point margin on the much bigger machine-counted part made her the overall winner. A manual recount was subsequently abandoned for lack of money.

The problem with direct-recording-electronic (DRE) voting systems like Diebold’s Accuvote and others from Election Systems and Software (ES&S) and Hart InterCivic is their vulnerability to sloppy installation, poor maintenance, shoddy software, infrequent updates and accidental loss of data.

In 2003, an author doing research for a book stumbled across a website on which a copy of Diebold’s source code for its voting machines along with manuals and memos from technicians were posted for all to see. Word about the machines’ appalling security quickly spread through the blogosphere.

A team of computer scientists—three from Johns Hopkins University and one from Rice University—subsequently published a scholarly critique of the Diebold software. They found hundreds of flaws in the source code, ranging from lack of password protection on the main database to bugs that allowed people with a certain type of smart-card to vote as many times as they liked. The software provided no way to verify that a vote had been correctly recorded, and no permanent record was kept. The company claimed that particular software was out of date, and had never actually been used in an election.

But the biggest indictment of DRE machines yet has come from Ohio. Recall that Ohio was where election officials purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls and illegally derailed a recount during the 2004 election that many believe would have given John Kerry the presidency. The 334-page follow-up report, published last month, paints a disturbing picture.

The independent researchers found numerous design and maintenance flaws. One machine from ES&S known as the M100 even accepted counterfeit ballots. Premier’s AV-TSX allowed unauthenticated users to tamper with its memory. The Hart EMS had audit logs that could be easily erased.

On all machines, the root cause of the poor security was the way standard practices for key and password management, security hardware and cryptography had been blindly ignored. Auditing was virtually non-existent. Logs of events happening during an election could be easily forged or erased by those operating the system. In all cases, the software was deemed “fragile” at best.

Yet these are the machines that 100m Americans will use to record their vote in the months ahead. The $3.9 billion of federal money allocated to state election boards in 2002 following the Florida fiasco has led to some 40,000 DRE machines being installed across the country. Far from making elections more representative and transparent, the machines seem to have made matters worse.

This does not mean electronic voting should be abandoned. After all, ordinary ballot boxes can be stuffed or stolen. Indeed, the vote-counting mess in Florida during the 2000 presidential election—the cause of America’s wholesale adoption of electronic voting—was triggered by inadequacies in paper-based balloting.

Bruce Schneier, a blogger on security technology, argues that the failure of electronic voting stems from the way technology invariably increases the number of steps in any process—with each step bringing yet more scope for errors.

Optical scanners, for instance, have twice as many steps as manual counting, making them at least twice as unreliable. First, the voter reads the ballot paper and fills in the ovals, the optical reader senses the blackened ovals, the scanner passes the vote to a tabulator, the tabulator collects all votes from that machine and then transmits the score to a central totaliser. Each step can have an error of a percentage point or two, giving the system as a whole something like a 5% error. That means one in 20 people using a DRE machine will have his or her vote counted incorrectly.

Mr Schneier has two suggestions. First, all DRE machines should have a paper audit trail—so the voter can verify the choice of candidate selected and confirm that the vote was, indeed, recorded. The paper audit also acts as a backup copy in case the machine fails and a recount is required. For added security, the voter wouldn’t be allowed to take a copy of the audit home. If they did, unscrupulous individuals might be encouraged to sell their vote.

The second recommendation is that the software used on DRE machines should be open to public scrutiny. Interested parties could then review the software, identify bugs and correct them. That alone would do much to increase public confidence in the process.… (read the rest at the Economist)

http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/techview/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=10573225

And what if the Karl Rove virus does cross the GOP/DEM barrier? (Lessig Blog)

And what if the Karl Rove virus does cross the GOP/DEM barrier? (Lessig Blog):

So Obama said the obvious (that Reagan's administration was transformational). And he also said that the GOP pushed a set of ideas in the 1980s that quickly captured many Dems (including, let's not forget, Clinton (see, e.g., welfare reform)). That too was obvious. But just as it's obvious to anyone with integrity that when Time names Putin as "Person of the Year" (or Hitler for that matter), Time is not endorsing the positions of Putin or Hitler, so too is it obvious (to anyone with integrity) that Obama was not endorsing Reaganomics. (Krugman, in my view, has that integrity. But he's just gone off the deep end here. There's no myth about the success of "voodoo economics" (as Bush the First put it) to be debunked). Indeed, as Obama pointed out in the most flashy line of the debate, he was on the streets of Chicago organizing against Reaganomics. His statement about "ideas" was simply identifying the kind of leadership he wanted his presidency to aspire to. That's precisely the leadership I want a president to aspire to too.

Yet HRC repeated the slander that Obama was endorsing or recommending those policies. I understand the political gain from creating that impression in people. But someone who does that in that way betrays a basic lack of integrity.

"Let's start with the disappointment: Debates are not Obama's forte. If he were running for Prime Minister, I'd have second thoughts. I can't understand why he isn't better prepared for the obvious exchange that was going to happen. It took way too long to get to (w/r/t the Reagan absurdity): 'I obviously don't agree with his ideas and never said I did, and indeed, I worked against them.' It took way too long to get to (w/r/t the 'present vote' issue): 'In the US Senate, voting present would be bad Senatoring. In the Illinois Senate, it is how the system works. My 180 votes out of 4000 is just the same as ....' And w/r/t health care, he never got to 'my plan IS universal because it is made available, in an affordable way, to everyone. I just don't believe in fining poor people. I believe in helping them.' Again and again, the echo of Obama's message was 'it's legitimate for us to disagree about ...' What good is that line doing -- especially given the completely illegitimate charges raised against him by HRC? Someone has go sit him down and force him to spit back 10 second responses to these questions. It isn't rocket science. It is practice and training.

But disappointment is one thing; (this word sounds too harsh, I know, but) disgust is something else. For there was a basic lack of integrity in the Clinton show last night. As a former friend of Clinton put it to me last night, 'I now understand just why people hated the Clintons so.'

For example: The absurdity about the Reagan comments (and slowly the press is coming around to the recognizing the absurdity in the comments, at least if you believe the Obama survey of the sources).

So too with the extraordinarily cheap shot of saying Obama worked for a "slum lord."

As Hillary Clinton of the Rose Law Firm (remember Whitewater?) certainly knows, even assuming (falsely) that Obama represented this "slum landlord," that one gives a client a defense does not mean one has endorsed the ethics or values of the client. And more certainly, the fact that as an associate at a law firm, one spent 4 hours working on a memo does not signal that one has endorsed the ethics or values of the client. Pt the partner of the client. As the Washington Post Factchecker reports:

William Miceli, Obama's supervisor at the law firm, said the firm represented the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., a nonprofit group that redeveloped a run-down property on Chicago's South Side with Rezko. He called Clinton's assertion that Obama represented Rezko in a slum landlord business "categorically untrue."

"He was a very junior lawyer at the time, who was given responsibility for basic due diligence, document review," said Miceli, adding that Obama did what he was told by the firm. According to Miceli, that was the only time Obama worked on a Rezko-related project while at the law firm.

But of course the irrelevance of this to Obama or his values is not obvious to people outside of legal practice. That means it was an effective charge politically. Clinton knew the truth. It was a plainly unethical charge for her to make. (Recall Advice and Consent: "Sir, have you no shame?")"

http://lessig.org/blog/2008/01/and_what_if_the_karl_rove_viru.html

Editing Hillary’s Story - New York Times

Editing Hillary’s Story - New York Times:

The implicit promise of Hillary Clinton’s presidential candidacy was that she had learned from Clinton I. In her, Americans would have a candidate who had been in the very center of White House decision-making. And the very fact that so much had gone wrong was added value. She is nothing if not a good learner, and — the story went — she had discovered at great price where all the landmines lay, both in the presidency and her own character.

"But now Bill is all over the place — campaign guru, surrogate candidate, one-man first response team. By next week, he’ll be designing the bumper stickers.

The Democratic elders are wringing their hands about the ex-president’s rants at Barack Obama, worrying that he’ll alienate black voters. That doesn’t seem all that likely. African-Americans have stuck with the Democrats through a lot worse than a fight over who said what about Ronald Reagan’s legacy.

And you can’t deny the Clintons’ double-teaming is throwing Barack off his game. “I can’t tell who I’m running against sometimes,” he complained during Monday’s debate.

But in the process, they’re ruining the central selling point of her campaign, the story that explains why she’s the one a dispirited country should trust to make things better.

Bill’s role as Chief Attack Dog undermines all that. If he’s all over her campaign, he’s going to be all over her administration. Instead of the original promise of the thoroughly educated Hillary, we’re being offered the worst-case scenario — that the pair of them are going to return to Pennsylvania Avenue and recreate the old Clinton chaos.

Every candidacy has one. Barack’s is about the child of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya whose very lineage makes him the vehicle for a transcendent national unity. Hillary’s isn’t how the smart girl from Illinois who overcame every obstacle fate could throw at her to become the first woman president. Instead, it’s a version of the story we love best of all, about second chances and the American capacity to turn failure into redemption.

She admits she messed up during her early first lady years. The health care plan was a disaster. Travelgate is still too embarrassing to go near. “Oh, we made so many mistakes,” she said last summer, waving away the woes of 1993 and 1994 in one fell swoop, all the while referring to the first Clinton presidency in the first person plural.

Her biggest error was taking a major policy role in her husband’s administration. During the 1992 campaign many people, including me, were offended when the public seemed to want to limit Hillary to the adoring gaze and cookie-baking role. But the public was onto something. It wasn’t Hillary’s gender that was the problem, it was her status as spouse.

It’s almost never a good idea for the boss to bring a husband/wife into management. It muddies up the lines of authority, and it lets personal relationships contaminate the professional ones. As every sentient being on the planet knows, the Clintons have an extremely complicated marriage, and sticking it smack in the middle of the chain of command caused chaos."

For someone who is supposed to be running on her record, Clinton, and her campaign are expending a phenomenol amount of effort misrepresenting, muddying and morphing Obama's record into something that it is not now and never was.

The confident, inevitable, candidate has no confidence in her own record, and, apparently not much more in her husband's. The sneak attacks didn't work. Now, there seem to be no limits on what they'll say or do.

They don't believe the voters can handle the truth.…

…They've given up highlighting Hillary's qualifications, policies and aspirations. The message now is "Watch out for that unqualified black guy." The truth is affirmative action is what she's running on. The more desperate the situation, the more she'll play the victim. Dishing it out is the "fun part." Let's see if she can take good dose of truth. It'll depend on "what the meaning of is is."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/opinion/24collins.html?th&emc=th

The Truth About Ethics Reform - New York Times

The Truth About Ethics Reform - New York Times:

At a debate before the New Hampshire primary, Charles Gibson, the news anchor, and former Senator John Edwards poked fun at the fact that the ban on lobbyists’ buying meals does not prevent lobbyists from providing food and drinks to lawmakers at stand-up receptions. Mrs. Clinton cited that comment approvingly last week on “Meet the Press.” As they all surely know, there is a big difference between attending a crowded reception and pressing a cause at intimate sit-down meals.

"We’ve long grown used to candidates’ cherry-picking each other’s records to score points in a campaign. But the new Congressional ethics law, and the role Senator Barack Obama played in passing it, have been belittled in troubling ways that are worth noting.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton voted for the ethics measure, but has lately suggested that it was neither a landmark change nor particularly controversial. Wrong on both counts.

No ethics law is perfect, and much depends on the vigor with which the changes are enforced. But there was a big cultural shift in the legislation’s ban on gifts, meals and travel paid for by lobbyists, and provisions requiring greater disclosure of lawmakers’ pet projects and making it harder for former lawmakers to capitalize on their Capitol Hill connections.

Mocking the ethics law simply fuels a cynicism that can only make future ethics battles harder.

The measure ultimately passed the Senate by a lopsided 83-to-14 vote, hardly surprising because few lawmakers want to go on record against cleaning up Congress, especially in the aftermath of the Jack Abramoff scandal. The hard part was assembling and passing a strong package of rules against intense resistance within Congress and from lobbyists.

With Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, Mr. Obama played a central role in this effort. Forcing fellow members of Congress to disclose the names of lobbyists who bundle campaign donations is not the sort of thing that endears you to your colleagues."

Distortion seems to be at the heart of the Clinton strategy.

Why else would they take a hundred of the four thousand votes cast in the Illinois Senate out of context to prove what is demonstrably a lie.

I wonder if Senator Clinton cast four hundred votes in her entire Senate service. Do you think it even approaches a thousand. By her own admission, she's voted for bills she never read.

She's got mud on her face, bloody a disgrace, waving her husband all over the place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/opinion/21mon2.html?th&emc=th

Good Jobs Are Where the Money Is - New York Times

Good Jobs Are Where the Money Is - New York Times:

“…the people running this country as the mad-dashers, a largely confused and inconsistent group lurching ineffectively from one enormous problem to another.

They’ve made a hash of a war that never should have been launched. They can’t find bin Laden. They’ve been shocked by the subprime debacle. They’re lost in a maze on health care.

Now, like children who have eaten too much sugar, they are frantically trying to figure out how to put a few dollars into the hands of working people to stimulate an enfeebled economy.”

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"David Cay Johnston, took a look at income patterns in the U.S. over the past few decades in his new book, “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill).”

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Big business and the federal government have worked hand in hand to squeeze the daylights out of working people, stripping them (in an era of downsizing and globalization) of much of their bargaining power while ferociously pursuing fiscal policies that radically favored the privileged few.

From 1980 to 2005 the national economy, adjusted for inflation, more than doubled. (Because of population growth, the actual increase per capita was about 66 percent.) But the average income for the vast majority of Americans actually declined during that period. The standard of living for the average family has improved not because incomes have grown, but because women have gone into the workplace in droves.

The peak income year for the bottom 90 percent of Americans was way back in 1973 — when the average income per taxpayer (adjusted for inflation) was $33,001. That is nearly $4,000 higher than the average in 2005.

It’s incredible but true: 90 percent of the population missed out on the income gains during that long period.

Mr. Johnston does not mince words: “The pattern here is clear. The rich are getting fabulously richer, the vast majority are somewhat worse off, and the bottom half — for all practical purposes, the poor — are being savaged by our current economic policies.”

His words are echoed in a proposed stimulus plan currently offered by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. (The plan is available on its Web site, epi.org.) Stressing that any stimulus package should be “fair,” the authors of the institute’s proposal wrote:

“The distribution of wages, income and wealth in the United States has become vastly more unequal over the last 30 years. In fact, this country has a more unequal distribution of income than any other advanced country.”

Economic alarm bells have been ringing in the U.S. for some time. There was no sense of urgency as long as those in the lower ranks were sinking in the mortgage muck and the middle class was raiding the piggy bank otherwise known as home equity.

But now that the privileged few are threatened (Merrill Lynch took a $9.8 billion fourth-quarter hit, and the stock market has spent the first part of the year behaving like an Olympic diving champion), it’s suddenly time to take action.

There is no question that some kind of stimulus package geared to the needs of ordinary Americans is in order. But that won’t begin to solve the fundamental problem.

Good jobs at good wages — lots of them, growing like spring flowers in an endlessly fertile field — is the absolutely essential basis for a thriving American economy and a broad-based rise in standards of living.

Forget all the CNBC chatter about Fed policy and bargain stocks. For ordinary Americans, jobs are the be-all and end-all. And an America awash in new jobs will require a political environment that respects and rewards work and aggressively pursues creative policies designed to radically expand employment."

---

Within the Democratic party there are the so-called centrists, represented by the Clintons and Lieberman. They believe in market forces. There are populists, like Edwards who believes in close combat with few holds barred is the solution, but still supported NAFTA. Finally, there' span ingenuity.<>

My shorthand for them: Slicers, Throwers, and Bakers.

Only the bakers can make a bigger pie.

Slicers can't alter the recipe as needed because of available resources or changing circumstance.

There's a certain satisfaction in throwing the pie. It messes up the suits, for sure, but crumbs tend to be all that's left over. Dirty crumbs at that.

When slicers hearts are in the right place, they still aren't making anything. They're just marketing their slicing technique.They can make sure everybody gets a slice. Sure.

Only the bakers can make sure everyone gets enough.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/opinion/19herbert.html?ref=opinion#

Eugene Robinson - A Hand the Clintons Aren't Showing - washingtonpost.com

Eugene Robinson - A Hand the Clintons Aren't Showing - washingtonpost.com

Is it possible that accusing Obama and his campaign of playing the race card might create doubt in the minds of the moderate, independent white voters who now seem so enamored of the young, black senator? Might that be the idea?

“A new Post-ABC News poll shows that black Democrats nationwide support Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination by nearly 2 to 1. This striking reversal -- a month ago, Clinton held a big lead among African Americans -- is perhaps why race has suddenly become such a hot issue in a campaign that previously had dodged the subject.”

I'd guess it depends on how calculating (and how devious) you think the Clintons are. After all, occasionally, smart people do dumb things.

At some point though, they get it. They figure out that this isn't working and start doing somwthing else.

On "Meet the Press," Clinton didn't just seek to explain her remarks about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s role in landmark civil rights legislation (she said it took a president to bring about real action) or Bill's "fairy tale" crack about Obama's record on the Iraq war (which some African Americans took as a dismissal of Obama's candidacy as mere fantasy). Instead, she went on the attack, accusing the Obama campaign of "deliberately distorting" her words in a way that was "unfair and unwarranted."

It wasn't just her phrasing. The attitude seemed to be that if you found anything to be upset about you were the one with the problem. It might even be the case, but that's a strange attitude to take when you want someone's support.

A lot of the things associated with their quest for the nomination seem strange. They keep chastising the press for not examining Obama's record. You might think they'd do that. Instead, we get rumors that Barack is a secret muslim, or the elementary school he went to was a madrassah. We're told that he's so ambitious that he wante to be president in kindergarten.

The closest thing to a legitimate attack is a partial, out of context quote from an interview at the 2004 convention. Bill Clinton should be ashamed. A sense of shame is something neither Clinton seems to have.

Race is just one of the fights that the Clinton campaign is pressing with Obama; the other is an attempt to discredit Obama's opposition to the war. It could be that the idea is to engage Obama in so much tit-for-tat combat that his image as a new, post-partisan kind of politician is tarnished.

Is it possible? Have they given up on inclusion? Is destroying Obama more important than building a better coalition?

Bill won in 1992 by a very small margin, but, at least he ran on hope. This time they want us to abandon hope.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011402082.html

Race and Gender Are Issues in Tense Day for Democrats - New York Times

Race and Gender Are Issues in Tense Day for Democrats - New York Times:

"In a tense day of exchanges by the candidates and their supporters, Mrs. Clinton suggested on Sunday that Mr. Obama’s campaign, in an effort to inject race into the contest, distorted remarks she had made about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Mr. Obama tartly dismissed Mrs. Clinton’s suggestion, adding that “the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous.”"

I get email from the Obama campaign daily. Sometimes as often as five times a day. I've posted my reaction to the Clintons comments so "my" view is clear. I haven't received one single email about her statement from the Obama campaign. No one has called about them. If reporters weren't asking about this, I'm not sure there would be any mention at all. So what's really going on here?

The Clintons seem to need so desperately hurt Obama, that in the context of the interview she said something that many of us found offensive. Instead of apologising, she blamed her opponent for distorting what she said and then spreading the distortion. In fact, he's done neither. In fact, they've distorted what he said in the 2004 convention. In fact, theyve taken his statments out of context and deleted the part of the statement that proves their argument an outright lie.

Before this, like most African Americans, I had respect for the Clintons. While I'm for Obama, I didn't see a Clinton win as bad thing. That's no longer true. The uneasiness I've felt about their tactics has hardened into opposition. I now believe that they will do and say anything they think they'll get away with. While the mainstream media fails to ask hrd questions of any candidates democratic or republican. They think this is spinoff of American Idol.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/us/politics/14campaign.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all#

We're Back

Until the inauguration

This contest is about delegates.

The general election is about electors.

The primaries are about delegates.

On to South Carolina where we will see what we shall see. We'll see if South Carolinians find Hillary Clintons comment about the unimportance of Dr. King as offensive as I do.

We'll see if the mainstream media keeps swallowing her claims of 35 years of experience. I might buy 16 years, if I believed being married to the President qualified as on the job training.

Do some former interns partially qualify too?

Yes, I'm grateful for Lyndon Johnson's effort, contribution and courage. All Dr. King did for my rights was stand up for them, march for them, go to jail for them, get his house bombed for them, live for them, speak for those who could not voice them, die for them. Not that great a contribution according to Hillary Clinton.

But we've got to be careful. No matter how she distorts, disparages or backstabs, direct or by surrogate, we dare not make the lady cry.

The Oprah Winfrey Show: Sick in America

This is the debate on healthcare that the candidates should have had.:

"Today's Show: Sick in America: It Can Happen to You For the first time on TV, Sicko director Michael Moore and a respected insurance lobbyist face off in a healthcare showdown. Then, Lisa Ling puts some insurance companies on the line. It is a discussion of the one question we all need to answer—find out what it is.

See what happened on the show!

Join the discussiion on Oprah.com ."

http://www2.oprah.com/tows/tows_landing.jhtml

Daily Kos: FEC: The Netroots Win

Daily Kos: FEC: The Netroots Win:

"The netroots have won.

Not an election, mind you - though those victories will come - but an official governmental recognition that what you all do is a valuable part of the democratic experiment, and one which should not be thwarted by the incursion of the federal government.

Today, the Federal Election Commission voted unanimously to approve its final regulations regarding political activity on the Internet. As you know, we had dreaded these regulations for a year and did everything we could to influence or stop them altogether - submitting our own comments to the FEC and encouraging you to do the same (and you did, in the thousands), testifying before the FEC and Congress, and pressuring Capitol Hill to pass legislation protecting the medium.

Congress punted, but something remarkable happened -- though it's not something which ought to be remarkable: the Federal Election Commission reviewed all the comments, asked pointed questions during two days of hearings, deliberated for months . . . and ended up with the only logical conclusion that the facts, technology and law could warrant:

Through this rulemaking, the Commission recognizes the Internet as a unique and evolving mode of mass communication and political speech that is distinct from other media in a manner that warrants a restrained regulatory approach. ...

As a whole, these final rules will make plain that the vast majority of Internet communications are, and will remain, free from campaign finance regulation. To the greatest extent permitted ...the Commission is clarifying and affirming that Internet activities by individuals and groups of individuals face almost no regulatory burdens under the Federal Election Campaign Act. The need to safeguard Constitutionally-protected speech allows no other approach."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/3/27/1427/23860

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > The Campaign: In Harshest Critique Yet, Kerry Attacks Bush Over War in Iraq
And It's About Time!: "'Today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way,' Mr. Kerry said. 'How can he possibly be serious? Is he really saying that if we knew there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to Al Qaeda, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer, resoundingly, is no, because a commander in chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe.' While Mr. Kerry said Saddam Hussein 'deserves his own special place in hell,' he argued, 'we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.' The 47-minute speech was Mr. Kerry's most stinging critique to date of what he called Mr. Bush's 'colossal failures of judgment' on Iraq. Mr. Kerry also laid out, as he has before, four broad steps that he urged Mr. Bush to take immediately: repair alliances, train Iraqi security forces, improve reconstruction and ensure elections. If all that happened, Mr. Kerry said, 'we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer, and realistically aim to bring our troops home within the next four years.'" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/21/politics/campaign/21campaign.html?pagewanted=all&position=

Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism - Money and Politics Blog: "The Money and Politics Blog is dedicated to fostering excellence in media coverage of campaigns, elections, and the role of money in the political process." http://www.moneyandpoliticsblog.org/

Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism - Money and Politics Blog: "The Money and Politics Blog is dedicated to fostering excellence in media coverage of campaigns, elections, and the role of money in the political process." http://www.moneyandpoliticsblog.org/

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Protect the Vote: "More than 80 percent of the population of Detroit is black. This is very well understood by John Pappageorge, who is white and a Republican state legislator in Michigan. 'If we do not suppress the Detroit vote,' said Mr. Pappageorge, 'we're going to have a tough time in this election.' Oops! Republicans aren't supposed to actually say they want to suppress black votes. That's so retro. It's so Jim Crow. This is the 21st century, and the thing now is to do the dastardly deed, but never ever acknowledge it. That's where our friend Pappageorge went wrong. After his startling quote was published several weeks ago in The Detroit Free Press, Mr. Pappageorge, who is 73, apologized and said he certainly never meant to suggest that anything racist or illegal take place. But he reiterated to me in a phone conversation last Friday that he did indeed mean that the vote in Detroit needed to be kept down." A lot of other Republicans have similar views about the vote in areas with large African-American populations. Most blacks vote Democratic. If those votes can be suppressed, Republicans benefit. And there is increasing evidence that a big effort to suppress the vote among blacks and some other heavily Democratic voting groups is under way, which is why it is important to keep the following phone number handy: 1-866-OUR VOTE. That's a hot line set up by the Election Protection Coalition, a group that was formed to identify and stamp out attempts to disenfranchise voters, especially in predominantly black and Latino precincts around the country. On Election Day in November, the coalition expects to have as many as 25,000 volunteers, including 5,000 lawyers, available to provide assistance to voters who encounter irregularities or feel they are not being treated fairly at the polls. Voters who call the hot line will immediately be put in touch with volunteers in their local area. The coalition is also urging people to call the hot line now if they are aware of efforts to discourage or prevent people from voting. Among the groups included in the Election Protection Coalition are the People for the American Way Foundation, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the League of Women Voters, the N.A.A.C.P., the American Civil Liberties Union and the Advancement Project, a civil rights advocacy group in Washington. The attempt to prevent blacks from voting has been a staple of America's political history, like long-winded speeches and balloons. I wrote three columns last month about a situation in Orlando, Fla., in which armed state police officers went into the homes of elderly black voters to question them as part of a so-called criminal investigation involving absentee ballots. This tactic sent a definite chill through voters who were old enough to remember the torment inflicted on Southern blacks who tried to vote in the 1950's and 60's. A new study by the People for the American Way Foundation and the N.A.A.C.P. describes many recent examples of voter harassment and intimidation - the latest entries in the long and sordid history of disenfranchisement in the U.S. The study, called "The Long Shadow of Jim Crow," noted: "Voter intimidation and suppression efforts have not been limited to a single party, but have in fact shifted over time as voting allegiances have shifted. In recent decades, African-American voters have largely been loyal to the Democratic Party, resulting in the prevalence of Republican efforts to suppress minority turnout." … http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/13/opinion/13herbert.html

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Amnesia in the Garden: "… W. took a page from Arnold Schwarzenegger's 'Total Recall,' a futuristic movie about inserting fully formed memories into the minds of unsuspecting victims. The president and vice president ignored all the expert evidence now compiled indicating no link between 9/11 and Saddam, and no Saddam threat to U.S. security. After talking about 'the fanatics who killed some 3,000 of our fellow Americans,' Dick Cheney boasted: 'In Iraq, we dealt with a gathering threat, and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein.' Though the convention mythologized Mr. Bush's bullhorn moment at ground zero, there was no mention of Osama, the fiend W. vowed to catch that day. The speakers did not acknowledge the brutal spiral in Afghanistan and Iraq, or the re-emergence of the Taliban, now finding sanctuary with our ally, Pakistan. " Mr. Cheney, king of hooey, bragged about a "Taliban driven from power," even though just as the convention got under way, at least seven people, including two Americans, were killed by Taliban fighters in Kabul. W. stormed ahead with the discredited domino theory of democracy promoted by the neocons and Ahmad Chalabi - ignoring the widening F.B.I. probe into alleged leaks from neocon central at the Pentagon to Mr. Chalabi, an accused Iranian spy, and to an Israeli lobby. "Because we acted to defend our country, the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are history," the president said, adding that "democracy is coming to the broader Middle East." The $445 billion deficit? Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney erased it. In their inside-out universe, the economy is blossoming, there's money to pay for Mr. Bush's to-do list and No Child Left Behind is more than an empty slogan. … Inside Madison Square Garden, W. kept insisting he'd made the world safer. Outside, the exploding world didn't seem safe at all.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/opinion/05dowd.html

OJR article: Letters Editors Flummoxed Over Weed-Like 'Astroturf' Growth: "The practice of creating a fake grassroots campaign is known as 'astroturf,' and it has been employed by groups on all sides of political debate, mainly to create an organized groundswell of support for an issue or candidate with the hope that the organizational apparatus won't show through. But Republicans struck astroturf gold in 2003, with a letter on Bush 'demonstrating genuine leadership' running in more than 100 newspapers including The Boston Globe and USA Today. That was one of many form letters generated by the GOPTeamLeader.com site, where volunteers earn 'points' (redeemed for merchandise) for getting letters printed. While that instance and others led to many media reports on the practice, that didn't stop a recent outbreak of astroturf ("America's economy is strong and getting stronger") generated by the GeorgeWBush.com campaign site's letter-generating tool, this time hitting 29 smaller newspapers and counting." http://ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1093396596.php

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Feel the Hate: "For many months we've been warned by tut-tutting commentators about the evils of irrational 'Bush hatred.' Pundits eagerly scanned the Democratic convention for the disease; some invented examples when they failed to find it. Then they waited eagerly for outrageous behavior by demonstrators in New York, only to be disappointed again. There was plenty of hatred in Manhattan, but it was inside, not outside, Madison Square Garden. Barack Obama, who gave the Democratic keynote address, delivered a message of uplift and hope. Zell Miller, who gave the Republican keynote, declared that political opposition is treason: 'Now, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.' And the crowd roared its approval. Why are the Republicans so angry? One reason is that they have nothing positive to run on (during the first three days, Mr. Bush was mentioned far less often than John Kerry). The promised economic boom hasn't materialized, Iraq is a bloody quagmire, and Osama bin Laden has gone from 'dead or alive' to he-who-must-not-be-named."… "I don't know where George Soros gets his money," one man said. "I don't know where - if it comes from overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from." George Soros, another declared, "wants to spend $75 million defeating George W. Bush because Soros wants to legalize heroin." After all, a third said, Mr. Soros "is a self-admitted atheist; he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust." They aren't LaRouchies - they're Republicans. The suggestion that Mr. Soros, who has spent billions promoting democracy around the world, is in the pay of drug cartels came from Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, whom the Constitution puts two heartbeats from the presidency. After standing by his remarks for several days, Mr. Hastert finally claimed that he was talking about how Mr. Soros spends his money, not where he gets it. The claim that Mr. Soros's political spending is driven by his desire to legalize heroin came from Newt Gingrich. And the bit about the Holocaust came from Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of The Washington Times, which has become the administration's de facto house organ. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/opinion/03krugman.html

Who's FlipFlopping Now!

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > In Retreat, Bush Says U.S. Will Win War on Terrorism: "President Bush moved to put out a political brush fire on Tuesday with a forceful declaration to the nation's largest veterans group that the United States will win the war on terrorism and that the country will never show 'weakness or uncertainty' on his watch. A day after NBC broadcast an interview with Mr. Bush in which he said he did not think the United States could win the war against terrorism, which has become the focus of his presidency and his re-election campaign, he raced back to his optimistic statements that America will prevail.…" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/01/politics/campaign/01bush.html

The New York Times > Washington > Census Policy on Providing Sensitive Data Is Revised: "The Census Bureau announced on Monday that it would no longer assist law enforcement or intelligence agencies with special tabulations on ethnic groups and other 'sensitive populations' without the approval of senior bureau officials. The policy shift comes in response to weeks of criticism after the recent disclosure that the bureau had compiled detailed demographic data on Arab-Americans for the Department of Homeland Security. " Findings of a Freedom of Information Act request disclosed in July showed that the Census Bureau had produced two specially tabulated demographic tables on Arab-Americans for the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security. One table provided ZIP code-level breakdowns of Arab-Americans of various national origins. The cooperation was legal and the statistics used to compile the tables were publicly available. But the assistance sparked complaints from ethnic, privacy and civil rights groups that the Census Bureau was using its powers to aid law enforcement. "We recognize that simply making sure we obey the law may not always be enough to ensure that people trust us," said C. Louis Kincannon, the census director. "Perception also affects how people view and cooperate with the census. This is an interim step to restore trust." The Census Bureau already has rules requiring senior-level approval of special tabulation requests for which the agency is paid. The new procedure, to take effect immediately, extends that rule to informal, nonreimbursable requests from government agencies, private organizations and individuals. The expanded policy will cover the data on a wide variety of demographic groups including racial and ethnic minorities, the disabled and noncitizens. "Over all, the policy change is welcomed as a positive step," said Helen Hatab Samhan, the executive director of the Arab American Institute Foundation, which this month sent the Census Bureau a letter of complaint signed by more than 50 organizations and individuals. Ms. Samhan and others said questions remained about how the new policy would be carried out.… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/politics/31census.html