6 Responses

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   the_zapkitty said on 5/22/2007 @ 2:11am PT: [Permalink]

   NAtional: Editorial – Ballot Boxing
   Congress should proceed cautiously in requiring new voting procedures. LINK
   NAtional: Ultimate Nightmare for Democracy: High Confidence Yet Total Fraud LINK
   

   And supporters of “Holt II” blithely yammer on about how Holt and company assures them that the amended bill is “fixed” now with regards to the EAC extension language… apparently completely unaware that this statement by Holt’s office is misleading and that instead the actual language of the bill establishes the EAC as a permanently funded Executive Branch bureaucracy intended to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.

   Yep. A nascent federal bureaucracy with control over elections and permanent fund disbursement authority. An uneeded bureaucracy, as its functions can be easily handled by existing agencies, but no doubt some people would like to get in on the ground floor of a new entity rather than deal with the checks and balances of an established agency.

   So. The “savior of democracy” is actually bureaucratic pork in progress and as far as the EAC is concerned it seems that it was never intended to be otherwise. And if this was promised to somebody in return for support for the bill… as it now seems obvious was the case all along… then who?

   The power grab that this bill actually represents is not going to somehow be “magically removed” in the amendment and conference process. People and organizations are going to have to take Holt and company aside and say “Stop it. Now.” before a clean election reform bill can emerge from the current hodgepodge.

   … and then we can work on the actual tech problems with the bill…

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   Floridiot said on 5/22/2007 @ 2:42am PT: [Permalink]

   I’m dead serious here, all of these assholes like Von Spitovsky, Rove, Cheney, all RNC operatives involved in this treason, should be sent to Gitmo as enemy combatants if we used their method of how they treat terrorists.

   All of these Son-of-a-bitches are enemies of the state.

   I said before, this is right out of the 1920’s and beyond KKK playbook.

   It seems we have to become like them in order to defeat them, doesn’t it ?

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   Dredd said on 5/22/2007 @ 5:51am PT: [Permalink]

   Floridiot #2

   The election movement is obviously full of trolls who cannot read fifth grade too.

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   Dredd said on 5/22/2007 @ 8:41am PT: [Permalink]

   The rubber is going to meet the road soon in congressional hearings:

   Von Spakovsky, who had been a longtime voting rights activist and elections official in Georgia before serving at Justice, accepted a presidential recess appointment to a Republican slot on the Federal Election Commission in December 2005. He is scheduled to appear at a June 13 confirmation hearing before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.

   (McClatchy Story, emphasis added). Urge them not to confirm this neoCon!

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   the_zapkitty said on 5/22/2007 @ 9:13am PT: [Permalink]

   Yep, Dredd, you’re right.

   As they can read beyond 2nd grade level they know that the text of HR 811, as amended in comittee, is now available at http://thomas.loc.gov… if they knew how to search for “H.R. 811″…

   And then they could, with a bit of effort beyond the 3rd grade level, find the statement on Holt’s site that says: “Extension of Authorization of EAC ““ has been removed.”

   And with 4th grade reading skills they might indeed find that that particular text has indeed been removed from the amended bill…

   But it obviously takes a 5th grade or higher reading level to note the new laundry-list of very permanent functions the EAC is given in the amended bill… and to connect those permanent functions with the following added direction:

   “(D) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS- There are authorized to be appropriated to the Election Assistance Commission such sums as may be necessary to carry out the Commission’s duties under paragraphs (3) and (4) of section 231 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (as added by subparagraph (A)).”

   In other words they snipped out the bit of text that got all the unwanted attention… while simultaneously carrying on with the full funding of the scandal-plagued EAC as the new “Decider” of our elections.

   Fortunately your reading skills are higher than that, Dredd. But what do we do about all of the pro-“Holt II” activists who remain unaware that Holt and company are actually engaged in a bureaucracracy-building power play… and are playing the activists for fools in the process?

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   greggp said on 5/22/2007 @ 12:12pm PT: [Permalink]

   I went to the San Diego Supervisors meeting today, regarding the hiring of Deborah Seiler and Michael Vu. Read about it here.