Home   About us   Comments   Webmaster   Links   Books To Read   Movies  Archives   Blog   Shop

November 2005

11-01-05  If you need to know anything all about Samuel Alito political leanings it is this, we are once again hearing from the right that “He deserves an up or down vote”. Nicknamed "Scalito" by some who compare him to Scalia, He voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law that required a woman to notify her husband before an abortion, a law later rejected by the Supreme Court. Alito while holding hundreds of thousands of dollars in Vanguard stock, and having years earlier stated that he would recuse himself from any cases involving Vanguard, when a case came up involving Vanguard Alito ruled in favor of Vanguard and later hard his ruling removed from the case.

Larry Lustberg, a former federal prosecutor who has known Judge Alito for 22 years said "Make no mistake: he will move the court to the right, and this confirmation process is really going to be a question about whether Congress and the country wants to move this court to the right."

If you want to read about Alito Here are some links

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01casey.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01alito.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01conserv.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01religion.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01legal.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01court.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/politics/politicsspecial1/01abortion.html

11-01-05  Look For The New Art Greenwald Movie on Wal-Mart. "The High Cost Of Low Prices"

Click here for a link to his site to find a place where it is playing or to buy a copy.

Links To Trailers http://www.walmartmovie.com/wmtv/archive.php 

The Two Trailers are rather large files and best if you have DSL or Cable.

http://www.walmartmovie.com/wmtv/2005/10/walmart_the_high_cost_of_low_price_trailer.php  17.3mb Or click here Windows Media for a 7.9mb file in windows media. http://www.walmartmovie.com/wmtv/2005/10/confessions_of_a_walmart_hit_man.php         39.2mb

11-02-05  It Just May Be In Tom Delays Over Zealots Need To Be In Control may be the undoing of himself. If he ever hoped for a mistrial he removed his best reason by playing his "Get out of jail free card" too soon. Yesterday after protesting that the Democratic Judge in his case be removed from his case because he once donated to Move On.org. Notice that their claim started with the fact that the "Judge was a Democrat". So I guess that only Republicans can judge Republicans, sort of like what is going on now in Washington, and no matter what Tom Delay does wrong it either gets covered up or ignored. Well it now appears that  A Republican Judge will be pulled out of retirement to hear the case.

11-02-05  CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons, The Washington Post reported today This us a short excerpt from the report that is very telling that the Republicans under George W. Bush and Dick Chaney continue to to violate ever principal that America stands for. This Administration continues with their actions to in sure an ever growing body of terrorist that want to do harm to American Civilians.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country.

The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.

Read The Rest Of The story Click Here or Click Here If Link Is down or cannot be displayed.

11-04-05  Bush's Job Approval Numbers Are Now 35% However he is considerable much further ahead of Dick Chaney who's approval rating is 19%.

11-04-05  Senate Votes To Trim Medicare, Farm Subsidies, and Drill The Caribou, The budget bill, cut federal spending was approved by a vote of 52 to 47. The bill also approved drilling in the artic for oil to "lower our gas prices" with oil that will not be available for at least 10 years, because they have to find it first. 

The only problem with the cutting social programs to save money because of the government heading toward bankruptcy at the speed of a run away fright train is that the Republicans still want to approve a $70 Billion dollar tax cut for the extremely wealthy.

The official Orwellian name of the bill is or was The Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005  Senator Frank Lautenberg filed an amendment to change the name, to a more truthful name, that would more accurately reflect it's intention. That name... "Moral Disaster of Monumental Proportions Reconciliation Act." (you can read a copy of his amendment by clicking here)

11-07-05  Rather Than Fire Karl Rove The White House ORDERED, Karl To Take A Remedial Ethics Class

11-07-05 More Bad News About Jobs, There was only 56.000 new jobs in September as well as the figures for July and August were over stated and are actually 34,000 less than original reported.

11-07-05 Now That The Patriot Act was Renewed In the Middle Of The Night While You Were Sleeping, some alarming numbers are coming out, like the The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms, which means if your one of the chosen ones your Cell Phone records, your bank records, you employment records, your medical records every thing about you is under scrutiny. Under the old legal test, the FBI had to have "specific and articulable" reasons to believe the records it gathered in secret belonged to a terrorist or a spy. Now the bureau needs only to certify that the records are "sought for" or "relevant to" an investigation "to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." That standard enables investigators to look for conspirators by sifting the records of nearly anyone who crosses a suspect's path. FBI rules established after the Patriot Act allow the letters to be issued long before a case is judged substantial enough for a "full field investigation." Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/05/AR2005110501366.html 

11-10-05 Lindsey Gram To Introduce A Bill Today To Eliminate Habeas Corpus, for anyone in Guantonamo bay.

11-10-05 The Republicans In Congress Will Not Call A Hearing To See If Bush Lied About The War, They refuse to have a hearing about Libby, They refuse to have any hearings to see if Karl Rove leaked Valerie Plame, BUT they call for a hearing to see who leaked the story to the Washington Post, that America now has secret prisons...only to find out that the information was gotten from a Republican fundraiser while they were bragging about the fact that the CIA had created these secret prisons.

11-10-05  Marriages Of Any Kind Is Now Illegal In Texas, in their race to ban gay marriage in Texas for a third time, by making it a part of the Texas constitution, the wording used seems to have made any marriage illegal. 

11-13-05  And The Lies Go On This week on Meet The Press Ken- the Talking Point-Mehlman repeated the same line that everyone saw the same information as the administration did. Ken then cited the Silberman-Robb Commission as evidence that the White House has been cleared of any manipulation of intelligence. 

Well according to an article in the Washington post: President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence. Neither assertion is wholly accurate.

 Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions. 

But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."  

Bush, in Pennsylvania yesterday, was more precise, but he still implied that it had been proved that the administration did not manipulate intelligence, saying that those who suggest the administration "manipulated the intelligence" are "fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments." In the same speech, Bush asserted that "more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power." Giving a preview of Bush's speech, Hadley had said that "we all looked at the same intelligence."

But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR2005111101832.html 

In Plain English Bush And Ken Lied!...Surprise Surprise!

11-15-05 Yesterday It Was The Democrats Fault For The Iraq War, According To Bush, because they believed Bush's Lies. It does not matter that the Downing Street Minutes proved that the war was planned for years before by Bush, and that he was going to war no matter what and he was going to fix the intelligence to match the reasons to go to war. Now Today It Is Saddam Hussein Fault For Not Telling The Truth. (Click Here) As Bush Said "Only one person manipulated evidence and misled the world — and that person was Saddam Hussein," If you remember Saddam released thousands or pages of documents that proved he had no weapons, The UN inspectors proved he had no weapons, only George Insisted Saddam had weapons pf mass destruction. Only Powel, insisted that Saddam did. Only Rice Insisted Saddam did. Now George is the one trying to do what he is accusing everyone else of doing and "Rewriting History. (Click here).

    In Bush's world the War In Iraq is the fault of the people who believed Bush's lies (Click Here)... It is now the fault of the people who were lied to. ... Not The Liar who told the lies!  Not The Liar who caused the deaths of over 2000 Americans, It is not George W, Bush, who told the lies in the first place. 

The fault belongs to those who were lied to.

11-17-05  More Republican Lies, The Republicans Voted To Scrap The $442 Billion On The Alaska Bridge to nowhere, But instead voted to give the money to the state transportation department of Alaska and if they decide to spend it on the bridge...Oh Well.... At least the Congress didn't Build it. No... They only gave them the money. These deceitful liars need to be voted out of office in 06. Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/politics/17spend.html  If link is down Click here

11-17-05  Anatomy Of A Lie In PDF From 2004 By  UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM — MINORITY STAFF SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS DIVISION MARCH 16, 2004

 President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice In 125 separate appearances, they made 11 misleading statements about the urgency of Iraq’s threat, 81 misleading statements about Iraq’s nuclear activities, 84 misleading statements about Iraq’s chemical and biological capabilities, and 61 misleading statements about Iraq’s relationship with al Qaeda.

Click Here To Read Or download the full the Full Report

11-17-05  Complaints To The FCC 23,577 Amount Of Actual People Complaining 6     Where did the other 23,542 complaints come from? From the PTC (If they had their was we would all only be watching the animal planet and the Disney channel), The Parent’s Television Counsel,  which has a membership of about 60 people is attempting to hijack what the other 200 million of us think and feel and what to watch, buy duplicating a complaint over and over again. The Parent’s Television Counsel is subsidiary of Media Research Center, That in turn is funded by extreme right wing groups. Now just what do you think caused the drop in complaints, then the sharp increase? I think I have the answer, which also tells me that our Legal courts is now in jeopardy of a hijacking.

             The common thread is that they were spending all their energy on getting Judge Roberts On to the supreme court, then again to keep Harriett Meyers OFF the court.

11-17-05  Sheehan Planning Return To Bush Ranch For Thanksgiving, in spite of the new County laws passed to restrict protests in Crawford. One ordinance bans parking along all 14 roads within a five-mile radius around the ranch. The other prohibits camping or placing portable toilets in any county ditch. Read More Here.

11-18-05 Today Is The Day That The "Swift Boating" Of John P. Murtha A Highly Decorated Vietnam,  Veteran will begin in earnest on Rush, Fox, and the rest, Why, you might ask? Why slam a Decorated War vet Because he Slammed the Bush Administration, and demanded the withdrawal of our troops from the "New Vietnam" spelled I-r-a-q . VideoLinkshttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/politics/18military.html?pagewanted=print  

Story Link 1 Click Here  Story Link 2  Full Text Of News Conference Click Here

If Link Is Down Click Here  Link 2 Full Text Of News Conference Click Here

    I for one want to know when the American Public is going to stand up, by, and for our military when these "Swift Boat liars" keep slandering, and degrading our service men. People who have fought for our freedoms, only to be belittled by these lying cowards who looked for every excuse not to serve, but rather that claim they did not believe in war as many did, they claimed that they was just too busy to serve. 

    These are the same people that wore pink band aids to mock the purple hearts to John Kerry but in doing so they mocked every single solider who has ever received one.

    War and death, and mangled bodies is just a joke to this administration, what do you expect when the ring leader George W. Bush himself stood there mocking the dead and dying when he ran around stage at a fund raiser claiming "No weapons of mass destruction over here"

What Will It Take Till YOU have Had Enough America!

11-20-05   Patrick J. Fitzgerald Said On Friday That He Would Use A New Grand Jury In His Continuing Investigation. This development seems certain to extend the political cloud hanging over the Bush administration and could draw new players into the investigation. Fitzgerald told the Federal Judge that he would begin additional proceedings before a grand jury different from the one that brought an indictment last month against I. Lewis Libby Jr.   Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/national/19leak.html  If Link Is Down Click Here

11-22-05      IN HONOR OF JFK, 42 YEARS AFTER HIS ASSIGNATION.

"What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label 'Liberal?' If by 'Liberal' they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of 'Liberal.

' But if by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal' . . ."

". . . I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves . . ."

". . . Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies."

September 14th, 1960
John F. Kennedy

11-23-05  First Schmidt Said In Congress And I Quote: "A few minutes ago, I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, Marines never do." Now Schmidt claims that she Is "The Victim" after she said "There's no way that I remotely tried to impugn his character," Schmidt doesn't understand what the fuss is about, she said in a statement. "I have been attacked very personally, continuously since Friday evening." So lets see First you attack then your the Victim???

11-23-05 Oil Deal With Venezuela  President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela signed an agreement on Tuesday with Citgo, the American subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, to provide discounted home heating oil this winter to thousands of low-income Massachusetts state residents.  Citgo will supply over 12 million gallons of heating oil over the next four months at 40 percent below market price. Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts worked out the deal with Hugo Chavez.

NO American Oil Companies, not even EXXON after making the largest Profit last month in the history of the planet have come forward to make any sort of after let alone match the deal of Hugo Chavez.

11-25-05 From We, the People to our public servants: This isn't what we ordered. Send it back.

WHO COOKED THIS TURKEY?

It's about the size of an elephant, and it took a long time to cook. Preparations began in the 80s when some Texas powerbrokers went on an acquisition spree, converting the elections industry from diverse locally-based mom & pop businesses into a handful of firms peppered with criminal indictments and salted with political connections.

THE ROASTING BAG

Elections officials had to be bagged up and propagandized. A privatization advocate, the Council of State Governments, was run by Abe Frank, who became a founding director for The Election Center in 1990.

The Election Center, which has been run by former used computer parts salesman R. Doug Lewis since 1994, undertook the task of organizing and training local elections officials.

At the same time, vendors flexed their influence in the pay-to-play National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) -- You pay your fees, you get your face time. Secretaries of state, who often aspire to run for governor, cozied up to the very people who -- literally -- can make that happen.

THE RECIPE: INGREDIENT LIST

- ONE SIX-MEMBER FEDERAL ELECTIONS COMMISSION:
The FEC makes the rules for voting machine certification, the so-called "1990" and "2002" FEC standards (which have been removed from the FEC site, but can be found here).

The FEC left themselves a loophole. They never codified the FEC standards into regulations, so that the force of law cannot be applied to force voting machine makers to comply. The FEC standards are "voluntary guidelines".

- TWO TESTING LABS, HUNTSVILLE ALABAMA BRAND

Test how ripe they are before using: Jam a pocket calculator halfway into a banana, see if they'll certify it as a voting machine for the right money.

Three labs were authorized, but vendors chose to use only the Huntsville brand -- Nichols/PSInet/Metamore/Ciber, a series of companies that repeatedly passed the hot potato to a
tester named Shawn Southworth, and handed another portion of the testing to Wyle Labs' Jim Dearman.

These labs were supposed to do source code and functionality reviews, but here's the catch:
They are paid by the vendors.

The testing labs are called "ITAs" for "Independent Testing Authorities" but there is nothing independent about them. According to Shawn Southworth, in a taped interview conducted by Black Box Voting, the labs don't like to write anything negative in the reports because the vendors don't like it, and they're paying for it.

- One Voting Systems Panel from the National Association of State Elections Directors (NASED).
This panel approves the voting machines after the ITAs recommend approval. They are supposed to check over the ITA's paperwork, after which they assign a "NASED number" signifying Federal certification.

The NASED panel sometimes issued cert numbers before reading the reports, and has routinely certified systems with "not tested" and "untested" notations on the recommendation forms.

NASED got some operational support via cash donations from the big vendors, and apparently never saw anything odd in the fact that two old ladies and a gun nut from Black Box Voting were running circles around the ITAs, exposing hard-core voting system defects like the GEMS defect and fundamentally flawed memory card architecture that the ITAs forgot to mention.

These defects were subsequently confirmed by reports commissioned by the secretaries of state of Ohio and California, causing ITA labs and their apologists to offer this excuse:

"THE FEC STANDARDS WERE TOO WEAK."

Not.

You don't need to be a computer scientist to understand plain English: Both 1990 and 2002 FEC standards prohibit something called "interpreted code." The Diebold memory card architecture relies on interpreted code, executing logic on the memory card by passing memory card code through -- drum roll, please -- the interpreter.

You also don't need to be a computer expert to understand that another item forbidden in the FEC standards, "nonstandard computer language" is being used. Diebold decided to make up its own language, calling it "AccuBasic." Only Diebold uses it, no one else in the world. Apologists for the ITAs explain that the AccuBasic language is similar but different to the C++ computer language. That's like saying German is English because the languages are "similar."

But the FEC standards are deficient in some areas. Here's something that doesn't take a statistician to figure out: The FEC standards set a failure tolerance so low that 10 percent of the voting machines are allowed to fail on the first day of use. Would you buy a TV set if you knew there was a 10 percent chance it would stop working the first day? Hello? This is good use of taxpayer money?

The NASED voting systems panel appears to have gone rogue years ago and their certification oversight ability is being stripped from them and given to the new Election Assistance Commission (EAC) -- which isn't functional yet.

That hasn't stopped the California Secretary of State from inviting many of the most problematic members of the NASED voting systems panel in to an invitation-only meeting on Nov. 28 and 29 to help California set "best practices."

- Add to the mix: Various academics and "experts" who were supposed to be checking this stuff out.

Even the best of them (Dr. Doug Jones of Iowa and Dr. David Jefferson of California) didn't want to get too vocal about known problems, especially early on. Others like Georgia's Brit Williams and Florida's Paul Craft cannot possibly explain their unabashed cheerleading of systems which have now been proven to be defective.

There were a small number of notable exceptions: The outspoken Dr. Rebecca Mercuri who has been telling it like it is since 1989.

HAVA: WHO ORDERED THIS TURKEY?

The Help America Vote Act was lobbied in by defense contractors and manufacturers looking to make a buck
on the backs of U.S. taxpayers. (Documentation: See Black Box Voting book, chapter 16)

Demand a Hold on HAVA -- Megan Matson of Mainstreet Moms Operation Blue(MOB) has the right idea:
 "Hold on HAVA." The National Alliance of County Officials (NACO) wants to extend the HAVA deadline, at
least until standards are set and adequate funding is available. The Election Assistance Commission, charged
with supervising HAVA, is months behind its own deadlines.

IS ANYONE GOING TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THIS TURKEY?

The Election Center and NASED ignored ITA ommissions the size of the national defecit for 10 years. When
this became undeniable, after the work of ordinary citizens to expose the flaws, secretaries of state at first
commissioned independent studies, from the SAIC, RABA, CompuWare, and recently Steve Freeman.

These studies became inconvenient, however, when they confirmed the GEMS defect, the memory card
executables, and numerous other critical defects. So people like Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell simply
hid the reports, while California whispered suggestions into Diebold's ear, encouraging it to quietly resolve the
issues. There was no investigation, and no one has put either the vendor or the ITAs under oath to question
how this came to be.

Vendors like Diebold knew nobody was watching the store, so they acted like a pack of Goths sacking Rome.

To criticize Diebold is to critique the WHOLE SORRY HOUSE OF CARDS who all act like they were members of
 the same happy club -- and in fact, they are. People from one part of this structure typically relocate to other segments.

- Indicted vendors become election officials (Lance Gough, Chicago).
- Convicted felons who were vendors become elections consultants (John Elder, Diebold ballot printing.)
- Regulators become vendors (Ralph Munro, Bill Jones, Sandra Mortham, Lou Dedier).
- State elections officials become convicted felons (Ark. sec. state Bill McKuen, Louisiana elections director Jerry Fowler).
- County elections officials vacation with vendors (Los Angeles' Conny Drake McCormack, Diebold's Deborah Seiler).
- Political powerbrokers become voting machine lobbyists (former DNC chairman Joe Andrew, now Diebold lobbyist.)
- County elections officials hire PR firms and lobbyists who work for the vendors at the same time (Riverside County/
Sequoia/O'Reilly PR; Ohio Association of county election officials share their lobbyist with Diebold)

The interchangability of elections officials, regulators, lobbyists, indicted personnel, and vendors is a gigantic
set of Tinker-Toys.

That's why companies like Diebold have been so protected. If Diebold goes down, people might look too closely,
causing the whole thing to collapse in scandal.

- At Black Box Voting, we've been told that we need to leave these TinkerToy Turkeys a graceful way out.
- We are told that it is rude to tell it like it is.
- We are told that the situation can't be fixed if we are politically incorrect.

That's probably true, if you leave this to legislation. But We, the People, can never again leave it up to others to
fix our broken election system.

At some point, we've got to hold this turkey's feet to the fire. Now all the people who cooked this turkey are
jockeying for position in the free pass line.

Is that what we want? Do We, the People, really need to be that polite to those who took away our ability to oversee our own elections? Have we become a nation of bootlickers, cowed to politeness before the very people whose corrupt practices invaded our most fundamental right?

What our public servants brought to the table was not what we ordered. Send it back.

Now have a happy Thanksgiving!

Black Box Voting

Permission to reprint granted, with link to http://www.blackboxvoting.org

-----------

Black Box Voting is a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501c(3) elections watchdog. We are fighting for your right as
a citizen to view and oversee your own voting process. Our focus is on increasing your access to the
elections process, obtaining crucial public records to document what is going on in elections, and exposing
procedural problems that corrupt the integrity of the election.

Black Box Voting is supported entirely by citizen donations. You can support this important work by
clicking here:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
or by sending to 330 SW 43rd St. Suite K, PMB 547, Renton WA 98055Black Box Voting

11-28-05  The New Deception... Core Inflation. We keep hearing inflation is still under control, and yet when you go to buy something like say gas or heating oil, or say food to eat, it seems that it was cheaper just the day before. Well it was and inflation is much higher than it was reported on the news. When the current inflation numbers are reported, we keep hearing the core inflation is now running at 5% excluding Oil and Food, that means the they do not include the increase in the cost of food or oil. So if you don't drive a car, or buy anything that needs oil to transport it, or need oil to heat your home, and If you don't need to eat either then inflation is not a problem for you. However if you do need to... say eat or drive pr stay warm, then the numbers that they decided to omit are kind of important wouldn't you say? Especially since those are the items the you are effected by the most, unless of course you don't eat or buy anything that needs oil to make or transport it.

11-29-05  Home Sales Fall 2.7%, Sales of existing homes fell 2.7 percent last month and the inventory of houses and condominiums on the market rose to the highest monthly level in more than two years, an industry trade group reported yesterday. Click Here Or Here If Link Is Bad Source: NYTimes

11-29-05 Where In The World Is Scott McClellan? He Is Conducting Press Conferences Via The Whitehouse web in a letter, with questions asked by an unknown source. Read The Interview Here or Here

11-29-05 The Short List Of Where The Republican Loyally Lie, and Where They Are Leading America. 

Representative Randy Cunningham, a Republican from San Diego    pleading guilty to taking at least $2.4 million in bribes to help friends and campaign contributors win military contracts.

In the Senate, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee and the majority leader, is under scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission for the timing of his trades in the stock of his family's health care company

In the House, Representative Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, was forced to step down as majority leader after he was indicted on conspiracy and money laundering charges.

I Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was indicted last month on charges of perjury and false statements in the investigation of the leaking of the name of a C.I.A. operative.

Other White House officials, including the senior political adviser Karl Rove, remain under investigation in that case.

This offense is just the latest example of the culture of corruption that pervades the Republican-controlled Congress, which ignores the needs of the American people to serve wealthy special interests and their cronies," Ms. Pelosi said in a statement.

Last but not least the Downing Street Minutes prove that George W. Bush Lied us into an illegal invasion and occupation of an unarmed nation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editorials

Economy 101

By: William A. Peary, Founder and Editor Of Founding Freedoms.com

Published 11-13-05  

    There have been tell tail signs that the economy is not as Grand for the average American as The Republican party would like you to believe. In fact real "buy the home, pay the rent,  put the food on the table" wages are still falling. 

    In an article in the NY Times "G.M. told the Securities and Exchange Commission that it overstated its 2001 earnings by as much as $400 million, though the actual amount is still being determined. The company, which had reported a profit of $601 million that year, said it would correct any erroneous earnings before it released its 2005 annual report next year" that means it was more like less then 200 million in earnings, 2/3 less than originally stated.

    There are other “Little things”, that show the cracks in the Republican economic lie, like for example that poverty in the United States has grown for each of the last 4 years by just under 1.5 million people for each year. Gas costs over the last 2 years have increased which in turn has caused cost increases in everything from transpiration, to food, and utilities, at a faster rate than most people’s wages. And to date George W. Bush and the Republican administration have yet to create one net new job since taking office. In fact last month the job creation number was 56,000 new jobs. That does not even cover the amount of people needed to clean up in the gulf coast after Katrina. But of course that number does not include the greed of Halliburton in hiring illegal immigrants to work on there Government no bid contracts.) and From the Washington Post  Latino and immigrant advocacy groups say the word is out and immigrants are on the move. There is a lot of work to be had on the Gulf Coast. Spanish-language media and blogs report that U.S. cleaning companies are quickly hiring Latinos, no questions asked.

Let me digress, when we as Americans went to the polls and voted for a President we were voting for a American President weren't we? Someone who would work for American Citizens, Someone who would work for American Jobs. Someone who would defend Americans from the destructive power of Big corporations?

Under George W, Bush and the Republicans took control of our government, there are less people now, no make that less American Citizens working now than before the 2000 elections. There are however more illegal aliens in America now. 

However I must add that if you are in the top 1 % of our population, which is people like, the Walton’s (of Wal-Mart fame) thanks to George and the Republicans tax cut that lets then only pay 15% tax on their 8 BILLION DOLLAR income for last year. That 8 Billion is after paying the cost of workers, management, products sold, electric bills, advertising. After paying dividends to shareholders. After every single last expense was paid the Walton family personally took home 8 billion dollars. Then after taxes they made 6.8 BILLION, for the YEAR!

Ask Your self this...Just how low are their prices if they can turn a 8 Billion dollar profit at the end of the year?

Why can't they pay their employees a living wage?

Consider this If Wal-Mart decided to pay every employee a real living wage, (so that they did not need public assistance for housing and food stamps), and gave every employee health insurance, guess what it would have cost them?

1 Billion dollars, which means they would have had to settle with 7 Billion dollars for the year, or 5.5 BILLION Dollars to divide amongst 9 families...FOR THE YEAR!!!

CEO and other corporate heads had their salary increase by over 50 times that of what they made the previous year; ,most making some 500 times that of the average worker, while workers are loosen pensions, that they contributed to, they are loosing their health benefits that were promised to them as part of their wage package when taking their job, their even loosing their jobs, and all to pay for their multi million dollar annual salary increase to the CEO’s.

            Over the last several weeks some very alarming news has been dropped out by the news as a sort of a not important news item, “don’t pay attention” sort of way. But it is a very big piece of news. You have heard about the housing market is what is fueling our economy. Well does it not stand to reason that if something, anything disrupts that market that it will have a negative effect on the economy as a whole?

            Well several months ago I started to notice a change each month in the way the housing market news was reported. For example the news said that new housing starts for the month were up by 2 million homes, which was good news. Then as if deliberately done, in another segment it was said that new home sales for the month was 1.2 million, what that meant was 600,000 more homes were built than were sold. Now as this continued on each month it was creating an even bigger glut each month which would be the “Housing Bubble” that was talked about.

    So as the good news dominated the market prices on homes continued to rise making the affordability of a home far more difficult. The cost of a home became so unrealistic for a standard home banks came up with a new creative financing deal. "The interest only loan". I prefer to call it "The I'll bet you a $200.00 a week raise" morgue. This is how it works. Let's say you could not afford a $2,000.00 a month morgue, so the bank says don't worry, how about we only charge you $1,200.00 a month instead for the first 5 years and only charge you interest on the loan. Here is where the "Bet" comes in. After the first 5 years the bank will add back the principal and the rate goes back up to $2000.00 a month. Do the math $1,200.00 from $2,000.00 is $800.00 a month, divide that by 4 for each week in the month and you get $200.00. Have you ever made a $200.00 a week raise before, or to break it down even more have you ever made a $40.00 a week raise or more every year? If not you loose the bet, you loose the house, and you loose $72,0000.00.

     Don't expect help from the bankruptcy courts, they stacked that against you as well unless...you guessed it unless you already have more money then you know what to do with then you can off shore your money declare bankruptcy be absolved of your debts then just draw on the off shore accounts, just as if nothing happened.

    As I reported on 10-20-05   Another Blow To Economy Has Arrived. About 30% of spending in the economy was from people getting home equity loans to the tune of 600 billion dollars a year in 2004. That number this year has stopped, as interest rates rise. That means if it stays flat 30% of the money fueling the economy is gone.

    George W. Bush and the Republicans want to insure the death of the housing market as well with their new tax proposal to eliminate the deduction of the interest on your home morgue loans.

    On Friday the evidence of the Bursting Bubble is now evident where as new homes sales went flat. The very last prop that was holding up our economy appears to have finally fallen.

    George W. Bush and the Republican party have now destroyed every single thing that the Democrats took 8 years to build up under Bill Clinton.

    George W. Bush and the Republican party are borrowing 1 Billion dollars a week to continue giving out tax cuts to the top 1% like the Walton's. How can any rational sane person say we need to cut our income and then go borrow money to give it to someone who does not need it? This is the ultimate height of Welfare mentality except instead of applying it to the poor who have absolutely nothing and by the way we never borrowed 1 billion dollars a week to support our welfare system. Why is it you can not tolerate spending money to support someone who had absolutely nothing but you tolerate it when we are borrowing money to give it to people that have so much money they can't even spend the interest that they are making faster then it is coming in.

    If this was you or I or any Corporation we would have been considered Bankrupt 3 years ago. 

    The 3 Trillion dollar Surplus is now a 8 Trillion Dollar Deficit, We now know that Bush’s little speech about “Honor and Integrity”, was just the first in what was to become a long laundry list of lies, he would tell not only Americans but the world. 

Americas Economy is now just another Monument to the Colossal Failures of George W. Bush.

I for one am tired of paying for the Economics 101 of George W. Bush and the Republicans.

When Bush Lies People Die!

By:  William A. Peary   11-13-05

Founder and Editor Of Founding Freedoms.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thought Of The Day

11-28-05  The Question To Republicans And Evangelical Christians Isn’t “Where Are Your Brains”, For Supporting George W. Bush… The Question should be, “DID YOU EVER POSSESS A BRAIN”, Because Your Support Of George W. Bush Certainty Disproves Intelligent Design.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Misleader 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Duplicity

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Consider This

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Letters

Home   About us   Comments   Webmaster   Links   Books To Read   Movies  Archives   Blog   Shop