Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

“We now have the entitlement generation as CEOs. They just plain feel entitled to being wealthy as Croesus with no responsibility, no accountability. They have become literal sociopaths.” - William K. Black on Bill Moyers’ Journal

"When you're rich, they think you really know!" - "If I Were a Rich Man," from Fiddler on the Roof

Californians have been drawn within the cross-hairs of a propaganda blitz bought and paid for by Meg Whitman, the billionaire former CEO of eBay, who, since declaring her intent to run for governor in February, 2009, has already contributed $59 million of her own money to her "campaign" --- a one-sided political phenomenon which has seen a stealth candidate, with disturbing connections to Goldman Sachs, soar to the top of the polls because the electoral process has been emasculated by the absence of mandatory debates and meaningful investigative journalism...

It's just a small town somewhere in the middle of Nevada, but the top-notch political pun-ditry we caught on display around the town of Ely (pop. 4,041), could make all the difference this November...

Heheh...It sez "butt" instead of "but." Get it? Harry Reid is a "butt"! heheh...

And if you think that's good stuff, on the side of the trailer --- if you park your car and walk over to it, since the letters are pretty small --- you'll find some slightly more substantive political wisdom and criticism, apparently from someone named Jack Norcross. These thoughts are even more convincing, since they rhyme! (Sort of, though there are some metering problems)...

Rand Paul, son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is running for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senator to replace the retiring Sen. Jim Bunning in the state of Kentucky. Paul, who has been endorsed by the likes of Sarah Palin, is running against Republican Party insider, KY Sec. of State Trey Grayson, who has been endorsed by the likes of Dick Cheney. Primary Election Day is set for May 18th.

Grayson's disturbing history of misrepresenting the truth in regard to certification of the state's electronic voting systems should be of great concern to Paul and his supporters, particularly given the state's rich history of confirmed election fraud by election insiders --- which includes tampering with e-voting systems to change voters votes --- and the fact that much of the state still uses electronic voting systems which are 100% unverifiable in any way, shape or form.

Of equal concern are the hand-marked paper ballot systems used in other parts of the state. Those electronic systems are also at risk to both simple, nearly undetectable manipulation by insiders as well as tallying errors, and have been found to feature serious security flaws highlighted in the past by the state's own former Republican AG. Even admissions by one of the voting machine companies, Diebold, that systems in use in the state did not meet certification requirements, were largely dismissed, and all but ignored for years by Grayson, the state's chief election official who will be overseeing his own election against Paul in May...

Guest Editorial by Frank Schaeffer

With the Senate having now passed the final reconciliation changes to the health care reform bill, the Republicans from their "Tea Party" wing to their high priest of hallucinatory fantasy; Glenn Beck, are about to pay a historic price for the biggest miscalculation in American political history since Charles Lindbergh sided with the Germans. The pundits all have it wrong. Obama's victory on health care reform will result in the Democratic Party retaining the majority in both houses of Congress as well as Obama winning a second term.

Disclosure: As a former Republican and Religious Right leader who quit the movement in the mid 80s (for reasons I explain in my book Crazy For God) let me tell my progressive friends and all reality-based people why and how the Republican Party just consigned themselves to defeat by (amongst other things) opposing health care reform...

Wow. These guys ain't fooling around.

If the Republican Gubernatorial primary candidate Carly Fiorina is willing to put out a web ad like this, against her Republican opponent Tom Campell in the race for the GOP nomination to run against Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer this year, do the Democrats have any idea of the crazy train they're about to be barreling into?...

[Hat-tip TPM who tweets it as "Possibly the best web ad ever". We might have to agree.]

Never thought I'd miss the 2000s, but if this week is any indication of what's to come, can we please roll back the clock?

Hundreds of thousands died in Haiti. Detainees were revealed to have been murdered in American custody at Gitmo. Democracy died again in Diebold's Massachusetts. A faint hope for reviving the death of the public's airwaves dies yet again as Air America dies. And the U.S. Supreme Court commits mass murder of everbody and everything else that had still been left teetering.

Worse. Week. Ever.

As it happened, I was previously scheduled to be a guest on Peter B. Collins' podcast yesterday to discuss MA. Suffice to say, the conversation ended up a bit broader, and a great deal darker.

If you'd like to listen, if you can stand to, it's now posted here...

Guest Editorial by Frank Schaeffer

[Readers: Please see the added "Ed Note" at the end of this editorial. Thanks. It has also now been updated with some new information. - BF]

Congratulations to the Left of the progressive movement and the Democratic Party: You just shot us all in the foot. You contributed to the Democratic loss in Massachusetts.

I’m a former Republican who ran from that hate-filled movement years ago. I am a heartfelt Obama supporter. And I am also an Independent Massachusetts voter.

I blame the ideological purist Left who have worked so hard to undermine the Obama presidency for the MA debacle. You set the stage...

Several supporters of Democrat Martha Coakley were injured during her rush to get to the phone as quickly as possible in order to concede the race for the U.S. Senate in MA to Scott Brown even before AP called the race in favor of the Republican.

That, while some 25% of the precincts had yet to report even how Diebold's easily-hacked, oft-failed optical-scan machines (which are in violation of federal voting system standards and programmed by a company with a disturbing and criminal background), had even reported their tabulation and, more disturbingly, while 0% of the voters' cast ballots in Massachusetts had been counted or examined by any human being on the face of the earth.

"After months of campaigning, the Attorney General thought it was important to make sure neither her, nor her supporters voters were actually counted, so best to ensure that the Democracy Menace wouldn't rear it's ugly head right here in the Bay State," said Coakley's campaign manager Kevin Conroy.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) released a statement upon hearing the news, proclaiming he was "proud of the speed at which Martha was able to concede the race with even fewer of the votes counted by anyone --- zero in Martha's case --- than when I conceded the race for President of the United States in 2004." Kerry added that he had prepared his statement on Monday, so as to save valuable time on Election Night, since American Idol was also scheduled to be on.

And with that out of the way, please see:

• Bev Harris' article today about how these media "calls" are actually made (hint: it ain't based on actually counting anybody's ballot);
• The several updates to my previous report on the allegations of ballots pre-marked for Brown said to have been given to voters in "at least" three different jurisdictions;
• My fully ignored tweet urging all candidates to NOT concede until the voters votes were actually counted, and;
• If you missed it, my article at the right-leaning Gouverneur Times on the outrage of ceding our American democracy, and the U.S. Senate seat from MA, to private, unaccountable companies like Diebold and LHS Associates.

[UPDATED SEVERAL TIMES with more info on the curious/disturbing issue of ballots reported as being handed out as pre-marked for Scott Brown. Allegations now of five different reports from "at least" three different jurisdictions. See bottom of article for continuing updates...]

Haven't heard too much from on the ground in Massachusetts this morning yet (happily), but that's not much of a surprise. The real questions come later, as we will all wonder whether or not the "results," whatever they are, as reported by Diebold and never counted by actual humans, have anything to do with the way voters actually voted.

In the meantime today, a group of election integrity experts, after having posted an "Orange Alert" yesterday about the serious e-voting concerns in today's election, have sent an open letter to Sec. of State Bill Galvin, along with a public records request [PDF], calling for the retention of all election materials, such as voted, spoiled, and unvoted ballots, as well as all of the easily-tampered-with memory cards and electronic databases, etc., to ensure they are all secured and available for inspection by the public after the close of polls.

Election integrity advocates Susan Pynchon, Shelia Parks, and John Brakey also put the entire sorry matter in stark terms, demonstrating how simple this all could have been in a very short piece at OpEd News asking why MA didn't simply just determine to count the ballots, by hand, in front of everyone at the polling place, especially given that it was a single race on the ballot with just three people on it...

As to the ballots themselves, Greg Sargent at The Plum Line reports an odd situation: Two different voters, from two different towns, have both informed him that they were handed ballots that had Scott Brown's bubble already inked in when they went to vote. Here's the report from the second voter Sargent heard from...

The two reports are too anecdotal at this point to make too much of them just yet, but it seems worth noting for the moment. May come in handy later.

[UPDATED as more reports of pre-marked ballots have come in! Please see additional follow-ups now below.]

Are you hearing, reading, seeing other points of concern today? Let us know in comments. Links are always welcome...

P.S. Have done a flurry of radio appearances to discuss all of this, last night and early early this morning. Appearances from Mike Malloy, Stephanie Miller, and Nicole Sandler's shows are now archived online if you'd like to give them a listen, right here...

P.P.S. Might I also recommend, request, that all you folks on Twitter (we can be followed here), Retweet the following as far and as loud as you can:

UPDATE 4:03pm PT: Coakley Campaign Manager Kevin Conroy issued the following "ALERT!" on the campaign website, and via email about an hour ago concerning the reports of ballots being handed to voters pre-marked for Brown, as mentioned above...

A quick follow up, as I'll be on the road for most of today, on the mess I warned about on Friday concerning Tuesday's Special Election for the U.S. Senate in MA, the terrible optical-scan Diebold voting machines in use there, and the company with a dubious, criminal background which sells, services and programs them:

• Over the weekend, I was briefly interviewed by Joan Brunwasser of OpEd News and Citizens for Election Reform about it all. That interview is now published here...

• Bev Harris from Black Box Voting offers a detailed breakdown and a toolkit "for effective actions everyone can take, whether you live in Massachusetts or not" to try to help oversee and protect the election tomorrow.

• A coalition of election integrity experts have issued an "Orange Alert" about the concerns for tomorrow's election, calling on MA Sec. of State Bill Gavin to take effective action to protect secure chain of custody for ballots, voting machines, tabulators, memory cards, unvoted ballots and all other related materials, and calling on the candidates to NOT CONCEDE until all votes are actually counted accurately and transparently.

• I'll be on the air tonight and tomorrow morning to talk about all of the above. Among my currently scheduled radio appearances on this [all times PACIFIC]:
  • MON 1/18, 7:00pm: Mike Malloy Show (air affiliates, Sirius Ch. 146, XM Ch. 167)
    [Update: Here's the commercial free audio archive (MP3) from last night on Malloy, appx. 19 mins]
    
  • MON 1/18, 8:00pm: Nicole Sandler Show
    [Update: Here's the commercial free audio archive (MP3) from last night, appx. 33 mins]
    
  • TUE 1/19, 6:00am: Stephanie Miller Show
    [Update: Here's the commercial free audio archive (MP3) from this morning on Stephanie's show, appx. 20 mins]
    

UPDATE 1/19/10: More on early reports and other developments on Election Day, now here...

Guest essay by Ernest A. Canning

Had Marcy Winograd simply chosen to denounce violence, both individual and state-based; had she objected to the oppressive nature of Iran's theocratic regime, or, during the 1980s, denounced a South African regime mired in racist apartheid, few would so much as raise an eyebrow.

Winograd's Feb. 15, 2008, speech, "Call For One State," delivered at the Friends of Sabeel Conference on behalf of L.A. Jews for Peace, however, was not merely directed against violence per se or against nations that permit a disparity in the rights of their citizens on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion. She denounced all forms of violence, including "Israeli state terrorism"; asserted that Israel had rendered a two-state solution all but impossible, and said she favored a "one state solution" because you "cannot establish a democracy in a state founded on the institutionalized superiority or exclusivity of one of religion, ethnicity, or culture."

In doing so, the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA)-endorsed Winograd, now seeking to unseat a wealthy seven-term 'Blue Dog' Democrat, Jane Harman (D-CA36), touched what many see as a third rail in American politics.

The real question is whether American criticism of Israel should continue to be a political third rail or whether the courage to challenge "the bipartisan mainstream" consensus is long overdue...

In the November 2008 election, the tabulation of votes for California's Proposition 8 --- the controversial ballot measure which resulted in the repeal of marriage equality by, for the first time, amending the state's constitution to deny the rights of Californians --- was "probably corrupted".

That's the finding of a newly released study issued by a coalition of election integrity organizations, as based on their analysis of an Election Verification Exit Poll conducted in Los Angeles on the day of the 2008 general election. "An investigation is warranted," the study concludes, into the evidence which suggests a likelihood that either "fraud or gross errors" occurred in the tabulation of that specific ballot measure.

The complete 49-page study has now been released on a new website, WasProp8Straight.org.

The poll was conducted on Election Day by Election Defense Alliance, Protect California Ballots, and ElectionIntegrity.org and was designed and researched with the help of at least one well known exit pollster, Ken Warren of St. Louis University's The Warren Poll, for the express purpose of measuring the accuracy of the reported vote count. It functioned beautifully in general, by confirming the results of most of the issues and races on the ballot. On Proposition 4, for example, which concerned a similar hot-button issue --- parental notification for abortion --- polling results and official election results matched within 2%, well within the expected margin of error.

However, for Proposition 8 only, the official results varied from the Election Verification Exit Poll by an average of 7.75% in the 19 precincts polled. In some cases, the discrepancy was as high as 17.7%. That is, of course, far outside of the margin of expected error and certainly worthy of further investigation by officials.

The creators of the poll, along with the analysts of the results and the authors of the study, seem to have gone out of their way to preempt the usual reasons for questioning and/or dismissing the methodology and findings of such polls. For example, as noted in the group's press release [emphasis added]...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and board member of Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), has confounded progressives by joining forces to support notorious "Blue Dog" Democratic Rep. Jane Harman in her upcoming primary re-match against PDA-backed Marcy Winograd, long time leader in the grassroots progressive organization.

Several weeks ago, in "Winograd, Harman Race Heats Up Again," we noted that the looming 2010 primary contest between Harman, California's powerful eight-term Democratic U.S. Congresswoman and the progressive Winograd "presents a classic David and Goliath match up. With a net worth ranging between $236 million to $558 million, Harman, is said to be one of the richest members of Congress. Winograd, by contrast, is running a bottom-up progressive campaign of the type I advocated for recently in 'Progressives of America - Unite!'."

We noted:

An endorsement for Harman, from Lynn Woolsey of all people, has engendered some predictably strong reactions from progressive circles...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

A little more than seven months after launching her second attempt to unseat California's powerful eight-term Democratic U.S. Congresswoman Jane Harman, the PDA-backed Marcy Winograd recently sent out a fundraising email in which she described Harman as the Joe Lieberman of the House.

In the campaign letter, Winograd notes Harman's claim in her 1998 election, as reported by the Los Angeles Times: "I was flattered to be introduced in the last election as the best Republican in the Democratic primary."

The Harman campaign did not respond to an email requesting comment on the quote above, though a spokesperson from the Winograd camp sent us a copy of the archived 1998 LA Times report on the Congresswoman's comments to "several hundred civic leaders" in downtown Los Angeles, containing her direct quote which ends with Harman adding: "I accept."

The race presents a classic David and Goliath match up. With a net worth ranging between $236 million to $558 million, Harman, is said to be one of the richest members of Congress. Winograd, by contrast, is running a bottom-up progressive campaign of the type I advocated for recently in "Progressives of America - Unite!". The match-up presents a stark contrast in directions for a conflicted Democratic Party...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

There have been a few occasions during my 62 years when I heard something profound that stuck with me.

The year was 1969. I was attending a freshman college history class, shortly after returning from Vietnam, when my professor said:

His words came back to me as Brad Friedman and I simultaneously made guest appearances on Live from the Left Coast with Angie Coiro.

While the topic was Afghanistan, a concern emerged over the splintering of the Left as a product of what Coiro described as strident "rhetoric," such as the suggestion that President Obama was a "sell-out" or the announcement by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) that he intended to introduce a privileged resolution to stop the "criminal enterprise" in Afghanistan. The concern was the potential for that "rhetoric" to adversely impact the Democratic Party in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Unfortunately, in part due to technical difficulties they had on the show that night, I failed to adequately articulate my concerns, which go to the core of the Progressive dilemma in U.S. electoral politics....