Just posted by AP…
Federal elections are still hampered by inadequate voting machines, outdated registration and poor training of poll workers despite a 2002 law passed to improve the system, witnesses told a special commission led by former President Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III.
The system has been improved by the “Help America Vote Act,” but “we’ve still got a ways to go,” Carter said Monday.
Understatement of the Year Award goes to Carter!
Other than that, however, what’s interesting about the article is that the AP got the tenor of the hearing all wrong! But this time, the lazy, inaccuracy of the MSM works out nicely, thank you!
They didn’t cover (for the most part) the continuous drumbeat all day that morphed Election Irregularities/Fraud into Voter Registration Fraud and thus a call for Jim Crow-style Photo ID rules!
So three cheers — in this case — for a lousy, lazy, MSM who seem to have written their report before the event actually took place! Looks like the phoney-baloney “Election Reform” commission may not have gotten their money’s worth! At least so far. We’re certain the Cybercast News Service and the other fake GOP News Services will shortly lend a hand.
See BRAD BLOG’s Live Bloging of today’s Commitee Hearings here…
UPDATE Bloomberg’s take…
The system has been improved???
Someone described it this way – if your car is broken, you don’t just sit in it and keep hoping you it will take you to work.
Well – our election system is broken – we need to get out – i.e. stop using unauditable machines! Until our tecnology can meet the need for fair and transparent elections our f*****g "car" is broken – out of commission.
Hampered is such flaccid little word. Why not be honest and just say "screwed".
I suppose it HAS improved, if your goal is to steal elections, Kira. I’m sure that "proprietary software" has been streamlined very skilfully for the purpose of keeping tabs of tabulations and altering results.
Aren’t WE the "proprietors" of our own elections? Isn’t that what having elections means? Oh, help! My outrage overload is overloading!
Oh yes, Peg C.! The only goal there could be is to steal elections. Otherwise these unauditable machines would have never been pushed in while so many citizens & other professionals were loudly speaking out against them.
I’m overloading today too. I’m going to raise my window and scream "I’m MAD AS HELL and I’m NOT going to take it ANYMORE!!!"
"The Silent Scream of Numbers" must gain it’s voice.
The government attitude toward elections seems to be that world conditions are so very grave that the average citizen cannot any longer fathom the reality and therefore cannot vote coherently.
Was it Jung who said "a person can’t take too much reality". If not, he should have.
We are at the most critical crossroads in history. The implications of PEAK OIL are sobering. This is what was said in CONGRESS recently:
"What now? Where do we go now? One observer, Matt Savinar, who has thoroughly researched the options, and this is not the most optimistic assessment, by the way, but may be somewhat realistic, he starts out by saying, Dear Readers, civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. I hope not. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse Bible sect or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is a scientific conclusion of the best-paid, most widely respected geologists, physicists and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by the phenomenon known as global peak oil.
Why should they be terrified? Why should they be terrified just because we have reached the peak of oil production? Last year, China used about 30 percent more oil. India now is demanding more oil. As a matter of fact, China now is the second largest importer of oil in the world. They have passed Japan. When you look at how important oil is to our economy, you can understand the big concern if, in fact, we cannot produce oil any faster than we are producing it now and there are increasing demands, as there will be, for oil. In our country, for instance, we have a debt that we must service. It will be essentially impossible to service that debt if our economy does not continue to grow. So there are enormous potential consequences, which is why he says that these people are absolutely terrified by the phenomenon known as peak oil" (link here, emphasis added).
Here are some links to PEAK OIL websites (link 1, link 2).
The US invasion of Iraq was a knee-jerk reaction to the oil companies waking up to PEAK OIL about ten years ago. They realized they had been wrong and had brought the world to the brink by being false with the facts about oil.
It is too late for them, being habitual, to form methods and means of peacefully and honestly dealing with the problem. They will resort to the mob and drug addict methods of taking by any means except civility.
Voting issues to them are mickey mouse and they will stoop to any level to keep the ones they have deceived quiet as far as having political impact.
The game now is to step up the lying while they secure as much oil as possible with 90% of the power (military and gov strongarming) and use 10% of that power ("planning") to bear directly on a long term solution.
Notice that voting machines have only been used since PEAK OIL became the reality. They could have been used a decade before that. Just like ATM machines have been used much longer.
Voting machines were brought in specifically to control the vote so that the agenda of meeting the greatest economic and social insecurity of all time could go forward.
They also invented the fake threat of terrorism to divert attention.
It has worked well and the vote will be controlled as they seek to avert disaster on a massive scale as all nations head for the greatest economic, political, and cultural crisis of all time.
Both parties are beginning to see the writing on the wall and only those who go along with the political oil map will be elected.
That is probably why Carter, Baker, et. al. act with one mind on these voting issues to keep the people unworried about voting machines.
The MSM supplies the rhetoric about "shifting political views" to give a cover for the thrown elections.
The drug companies furnish the drugs to calm the nerves and emotions of folks who can’t get over the way the country is going nuts and voting for the neocon madmen all the time and all over the place.
Right o, Dredd my man! A gram is better than a damn, indeed!
Give me Librium or give me meth! We’re gonna have to take to the streets, that’s all. But in the meantime, let’s really unleash a tsunami of e-mails, and tons of snail mails that will pile up and cause problems (return receipt requested, for those presumably few of us as can afford it), and, I’m gonna push it again, mail birdbrain a bag of pretzels. Let us make a joyous ruckus unto the heavens! When is the next commission conclave? Let’s get a mediagenic protest going! I sure wish I were on that side of the Big Ditch right now. Whatever we do it’s gotta be so public that the msm have to cover it. Carter walking out "in disgust" would be a good start, but if he were met by thousands of cheering, concerned citizens, like that, cha cha cha… Let’s put our tinfoil thinking caps on and get cracking. How’s about a million tinfoil hat march on the Capitol? Just a few thoughts as I let a hectic day wind down. Thanks for your patience with my venting.
czaragorn #6,#7 good points … humor is one of the strengths we gotta keep to get thru this …
It is so serious that it will overload us with grief or the like if we do not temper it with some good ole humor …
voting on the machines out there now is … "poke and hope" … cause there is no way to know if it is rigged or not without adequate paper trails … you poke on the buttons and hope for the best …
it is outrageous that these committees have Blackwell’s Syndrome (symptoms akin to Alzheimers – can’t remember who voted for what – so stories are made up) and seem to fantasize that americans would go for an ATM machine record system that just gave the balance without telling what transactions transpired to produce that balance … americans want to vote fairly and know that machines without logs are WRONG
Kira #8 glad you survived my worst case scenario … I do that from time to time so we can at least contemplate the worst and work to avoid it or change it … I am not giving up …
Hahahaha! Thank you CZARAGORN for the belly laugh! I needed that. Give me Librium or give me meth, indeed. 2 funee.
Every one of your suggestions is great except for the expensive one. But I love the giant bag of pretzels idea and I love the million tinfoil hat march idea. Who knows – it could turn into quite a fad or possibly fashion!
While we’re being silly:
Pretzels Anyone?
Dredd #9
We must keep at it! I love to laugh and have to work hard at being serious, although I must admit that everything that has happened since 2000 has really changed my ability to be the free spirit I once was. The "change of life" in a big way.
Thanks for all your tireless energy here! Thanks to everyone here for keeping the noise level at a roar!
And thanks to Czaragorn for that deliciously funny #7. I keep getting images of a protest march led by supermodel Christy Crinkley wearing a designer foil outfit. We can call ourselves the Foilers! I hope we do foil the plans of the greedy NeoCONS.
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I found an online museum that says ATM machines were first used in 1974 (link here).
My statement in #5 concerning voting machines:
"Notice that voting machines have only been used since PEAK OIL became the reality. They could have been used a decade before that. Just like ATM machines have been used much longer.
Voting machines were brought in specifically to control the vote so that the agenda of meeting the greatest economic and social insecurity of all time could go forward. "
From 1974 ATM machines were paper trail machines at is was not considered to be ‘an unreachable goal’ … but voting machines suspiciously came online for major elections without a paper trail cause ‘its haaarrrrddd weeerrrrkkkkk’?
"Verrrrrryyyyy interesting …."