The Commander-in-Chief is Incompetent

This is the most important story of the day, bar none:

President Bush Wednesday promised that U.S. naval forces would deliver humanitarian aid to war-torn Georgia before his administration had received approval from Turkey, which controls naval access to the Black Sea, or the Pentagon had planned a seaborne operation, U.S. officials said Thursday.

As of late Thursday, Ankara, a NATO ally, hadn't cleared any U.S. naval vessels to steam to Georgia through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, the narrow straits that connect the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, the officials said. Under the 1936 Montreaux Convention, countries must notify Turkey before sending warships through the straits.

Pentagon officials told McClatchy that they were increasingly dubious that any U.S. Navy vessels would join the aid operation, in large part because the U.S.-based hospital ships likely to go, the USNS Comfort and the USNS Mercy, would take weeks to arrive.

"The president was writing checks to the Georgians without knowing what he had in the bank," said a senior administration official.

"The president got out in front of the planning when he talked publicly about using naval forces," said a second senior administration official. "At that point we need to look at treaty obligations, our bilateral relations with the Turks and others, waterway restrictions and what kind of ships might be appropriate and usable — something like the Comfort or something already in the Med (Mediterranean)."

The U.S. officials requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly, because the issue is diplomatically sensitive or because the administration takes a dim view of officials who reveal its internal deliberations.

What we have here are two members of the Bush Administration who are, for lack of a better way to say it, telling the American people that their President is incompetent. They are leaking this with the full knowledge that it will humiliate Bush and make him look out of touch, uninformed, and ridiculous. To think that he could snap his fingers and send the US Navy into the Black Sea reveals that this man has no grasp on reality and no one advising him who knows what the hell it going on.

This should be screaming from every paper, news show and website--the President doesn't know what he's doing, and he's trying to send military forces into a situation he does not understand.

--Warren Street

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The Idiocy of Hindrocket Never Fails to Astonish

Hindrocket sees something wonderful in how John McCain has used cheap platitudes and ignorance to take ownership of the Georgia issue. I guess the fact that Condi Rice isn't going to end her vacation is reinforced by the fact that McCain--who never shows up in the Senate anymore--is on the case.

One of the most striking features of the crisis in Georgia has been the role played by John McCain. While President Bush was enjoying the Olympics and Barack Obama was on vacation in Hawaii, McCain became the leading international spokesman on behalf of Georgia. While Obama initially parroted the Russian line, so that he was soon required to flip-flop--what a surprise!--McCain saw the crisis from the beginning as a clear case of Russian aggression, and understood the strategic implications of that aggression.

Today, in a speech in York, Pennsylvania, McCain continued his role as the strongest advocate for Georgian independence. His remarks were so cogent and so eloquent that I will quote them almost in full:

Georgia itself, my friends, has a long and remarkable history. It was a fourth-century convert to Christianity, one of the first nations on Earth to convert to Christianity -- if you go to Georgia, as I have several times, you'll see churches that go back to the fourth- and fifth-century -- and it's been a part of the grand sweep that comprises Western civilization. But because of their location, their history hasn't been easy. Through the centuries, they have seen invasions and attacks from Mongols, Russians, Turks and Persians. And through it all, they maintain their language, their cultural identity, and their national pride. And as you know, they were part of the Soviet Union and were able to achieve their independence when the Soviet Union disintegrated. And they're facing terrible trials today, but they'll get through this, too.

And, my friends, and I'll talk about this more in a minute -- but they're at a strategic crossroads. There's a pipeline, an oil pipeline, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, which brings oil from the Caspian to points west and traverses Georgia -- that's the very pipeline that the Russians tried to bomb. And I don't have to tell you about the price of oil and disruption of oil supplies.

It has been an extraordinary moment, in which John McCain has seemed almost more the leader of the free world than the President. You can be sure that in November, Saakashvili and Vladimir Putin will be following our election results with equal attention.

They'll be laughing their asses off along with us as McCain wins slightly more than a dozen states. Leader of the free world? Leader of the Apple Dumpling Gang, more lik. Cognent and eloquent? How about wrong?

British energy giant BP said Tuesday that it was not aware of any Russian attack on a key international oil pipeline in Georgia that the group operates.

'We're not aware of any attack at all. We have no report at all of an attack,' a BP spokeswoman told AFP.

Yes, my friends--John McCain is repeating unadulterated bullshit that is not factual or backed up with any evidence and Hindrocket calls it 'cognent and eloquent.'

McCain is the laughingstock's laughingstock--a perfect example of the out-of-touch bloviating windbag.

Hindrocket's claim to fame, of course:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

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Thanks To Bush, U.S. Has Little Moral Authority To Lecture Russia Now

Morally, it was easier, before Bush. The U.S. never exactly had a spotless record on international (or domestic) aggression, but there were usually ample rationalizations to which one could point. In 2008, there are few rationalizations left, so it sounds ludicrous for American officials to try to scold Russia over the invasion of neighboring Georgia.

Until Il Doofus and the Neocons engineered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were usually at least some convoluted reasons trotted out as to why the U.S. did certain unsavory things, and the reasons even held up as folklore. (Yes, I know there are still plenty of morons who think Saddam Hussein was behind the 9-11 attacks, but for now let's confine the debate to participants who can actually think.)

Let's review some history. War with Spain in 1898 was supposed to have been precipitated in part by the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, though in hindsight it's far-fetched that Spain had anything to do with that. Cuba was very near, and home to many U.S. interests, so with an insurrection there was a great opportunity to kick Spaniard ass and steal some colonies. We made a casino/plantation/whorehouse out of Cuba for 60 years, and killed a million Filipinos while subjugating their country.

Later, our Marines were in Nicaragua so many times, chasing Sandino and his ilk around, that they should have just renamed the place Camp Lejeune South. We violated sovereign territory down that direction as often as United Fruit Co. could think of a reason.

There are those who think of the Vietnam War as a flat-out invasion of Vietnam by the U.S. The rationale was, of course, that it was part of the larger Cold War against communism. That was the argument that die-hards still cling to today -- the reason it was supposed to be OK to prop up a succession of puppet autocracies in the south, doggedly pursue a war that killed some 3 million Vietnamese, poison the countryside for generations and divide our own country for -- yes, generations. We wuz a-fightin' common-ism.

Let's see -- there were CIA-engineered or CIA-aided regime changes in countries like Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973) and others. There were invasions of Panama, Grenada, Cambodia, Laos ...

So far, I'm just hitting "high" points that go back to 1898. It goes back further. There was a war with Mexico that made it possible for me and my forebears to reside in this paradise of the Lone Star State, under American protection. And then, there were those pesky Comanches who once lived just about where I sit, long before Hernando Cortes was a gleam in his daddy's eye. You generally have to drive up to Lawton, Oklahoma to see a live Comanche now, and they look pretty damned depressed, what's left of them.

Not to belabor this -- but the U.S. really didn't have all that damn much moral authority on the world stage B.B. (Before Bush) Arguably, we had our own holocausts, our own wars of conquest, our own slaughters and subjugation of peoples. I won't even start on slavery.

But, at certain points in the 20th century, America seemed to stand tall. We led the alliance that defeated German Nazism, and also Japanese and Italian fascism. The folly of Vietnam aside, we led a very long fight against Stalinist communism in an eerie new kind of war, and won. After a century of post-slavery Jim Crow, we reformed this society's racist heritage to such an extent that our next president may be a man of mixed race. There is much to be proud of here.

A lot has changed since 2003. When Il Doofus and his accomplices manufactured reasons for an invasion of Iraq, they all but destroyed what was left of U.S. moral authority on the world stage. A lot of people recalled that Saddam Hussein was our ally in the '80s, and that we even supplied him with the WMDs he used on the Kurds. Just what made Saddam so alarmingly evil to us, 15 years after? Perhaps it was all that oil he was sitting on, and that we couldn't get to as long as he was there.

That was an invasion of a sovereign nation, albeit a dictatorship, with flimsy rationale that have been discredited and perhaps even exposed as deliberate lies. About a million people and counting have died as a direct result, and the number of refugees can't be accurately estimated.

Now, George W. Bush musters enough chutzpah to say something like, "Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people."

First, one could question whether the latter part of that sentence even describes the contemporary United States. But given the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the continued U.S. occupation, can a sane, reasonably informed person think that most of the world even begins to take him seriously?

One thing is certain: Vladimir Putin and his puppet successor as Russian prez do not. I've been convinced for years that Putin and his wife tell Bush jokes in private. Just imagine what the jesting is like now.

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Lets look at Georgia, Russia and Ossetia Through History's Lens

The Caucasus region, where Asia and Europe meet, is a hodgepodge of ethnicities, languages and loyalties scattered throughout the mountainous terrain that straddles the area between the Black and Caspian Seas. The area is as diverse geographically as it is ethnically, with terrain that consists of both barren mountains and lush, fertile valleys. More important - and more recognized than todays national borders - are ancient trade routes that have existed for centuries crisscrossing the region.

So why are Russia and Georgia about to embark on a full-scale war over a sliver of land smaller than Prince Edward Island?


When all the extraneous factors have been dismissed it boils down to this: It's all about the hydrocarbons. Russia has them and Europe needs them, and the pipelines to deliver them cut through former Soviet satellite republics.

Even in this melange of cultures, languages and ethnicities, the Ossetians are a unique case.

In 1801, when the Russian Empire was expanding, the Ossetians welcomed the opportunity to throw their lot in with the powerful Russia, and their loyalties have never wavered. In fact, Ossetians fought alongside Russian forces as they expanded the Russian Empire in the early 1800's. This loyalty has been reciprocated by Russian leaders, who for more than two hundred years have looked upon the Ossetian people as a favored and loyal people.

Here it must be pointed out that the Ossetian people migrated into the region from Asia about seven hundred years ago, and do not ethnically identify as Russian nor Georgian, and they speak a language that is not Slavic in origin, but a dialect of Persian/Farsi, akin to the language spoken by Iranians today.

As the Soviet Union began to slowly implode in the late 1980s, the fiercely nationalistic Georgians attempted to enforce a cultural hegemony that emphasized the Georgian language and history, but these moves were rejected by the Ossetian people. When the collapse of the Soviet empire was a done deal and the maps were redrawn, Northern Ossetia was a part of Russia, but Southern Ossetia was consigned to Georgia. The South Ossetians rejected that arrangement out of hand, declared themselves an autonomous region, and fought a bloody ethnic conflict in 1991-92. Tens of thousands of Ossetians and Georgians fled their homes for ethnic enclaves. The turmoil there was a precursor to the bloody ethnic violence that would erupt in the Balkans a few years later. The elation of freedom from the yoke of Soviet rule was short lived as ethnic strife brought intractable quagmires when that external locus of control suddenly ceased to exist.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought over enclaves in one anothers territory. Abkhazia and South Ossetia rejected Georgian rule. Chechnya erupted in bloody chaos twice.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation reached out to traditional allies, one of which was South Ossetia. The Ossetians had traditional ties to Russia, and reestablished them quickly. Georgia realized that with Ossetia a de facto Russian protectorate, they had no hope of repatriating the area in the face of superior Russian military power, even in 1992, so reluctantly the Georgians accepted a cease fire and the whole world resumed pretending that South Ossetia was still a part of Georgia, even though everyone with any chops at all knows it isn't, hasn't been and never will be.

Not only that, realists know that the Russian government is now the Russian mob. With Communism out of the way, they can really run things. They aren't just limited to the black market. Those trade routes I alluded to earlier? They are at least as favored by smugglers as the Khyber pass is for opium traffickers. Poised between two continents, the region is rife with illegal commerce, a very attractive feature for a kleptocratic oil-garchy like Russia.

So why did Georgia decide to make the stupid move they made and make the challenge now? When the eyes of the world are elsewhere? Did they really think that whacking the hornets nest like that was going to get them into NATO or cause an energy-dependent west to get uppity with Russia?

Georgia quite possibly signed their own death certificate when they threw down this gauntlet.

We are going to see a realignment of allegiances, and they are going to take place along an energy axis. Russia is sitting in what is known as "the catbirds seat" with vast reserves of both oil and natural gas - and a burr under their saddle about NATO expansion and a missile shield in their back yard. But Russia doesn't have to confine their irritation with the west these days. They have both the resources and the inclination to settle some scores and right some perceived wrongs.

Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili, for whatever inexplicable reasons, selected last week to get chirpy and send his 18,000 man army to forcibly repatriate the 70,000 South Ossetians who have considered themselves independent for the last 16 years. Surely they knew that the Russians would come to the aid of their traditional allies? They had to. Didn't they?

You don't suppose he actually thought that the west was going to supply military aid as he and Sancho Panza took off to tilt at windmills...Did he?

What he got for his troubles was this: a weak country that is now further weakened by defeat and on the brink of collapse. What do you suppose that fact does to their bargaining position where those Russian pipelines are concerned?

If I were a betting woman, I would bet that within months, Russia annexes Georgia, and the former satellite republics start falling back into line with Moscow. And look for a hydrocarbon-addicted west to remain largely silent in the face of a reemerging Russia.

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Germany says "Halt!"

Germany has a different perspective that the United States,
being as they are in the neighborhood and all.

Next week, when the NATO summit gets underway in Bucharest (good Gawd, I never thought I would ever say that with a straight face) aWol Bush will swagger in and try to bully our allies into admitting former Soviet bloc nations, regardless of how much unnecessary strain that move would put on relations with Russia.

Fortunately, Germany is standing in the way (that's another thing I never thought I would ever say and mean).

From Spiegel Online:

German objections dominate the debate over NATO expansion in the final days leading up the military alliance's summit meeting in the Romanian capital Bucharest. James Goldgeier, a member of the National Security Council in the administration of former US President Bill Clinton, told SPIEGEL ONLINE: "I am amazed at how openly the current differences between Berlin and Washington are being aired. In February it was the German role in Afghanistan. Now it's about the issue of NATO expansion, in which Germany quite openly orchestrated the resistance to Ukraine and Georgia. This is relatively unusual in advance of this sort of summit."

REUTERS

Romania's Ceausescu-era parliament building in Bucharest will host next week's NATO summit.

Goldgeier's words ring especially true when one considers the importance of the issue for the Bush administration. NATO expansion is one of the few strategies it took over almost seamlessly from the Clinton administration. "Bush absolutely wanted to get the acceptance process for Georgia and Ukraine underway in Bucharest," says Goldgeier.

A clear signal that things will not go quite as smoothly as Bush had hoped was the discussion among foreign policy and security experts at the Brussels Forum, sponsored by the German Marshall Fund, less than two weeks ago. Moderator Ronald Asmus, who, as a senior official in the Clinton administration in the 1990s, played a key role in the initial push to expand NATO eastward, opened the meeting by calling EU and NATO expansion an historic success. Asmus went on to rave about how the map of Europe had been redrawn, and praised the joint tour de force by Europeans and Americans.

But moving on from the "glorious past" and returning t0 a shaky present and looking to a less-than-certain future, the "elephant in the room" is the fact that the bloom is of the NATO and EU membership rose.

Next week at the summit, membership invitations will be extended to Macedonia, Croatia and Albania. The question in the balance is, should overtures be made to Georgia and Ukraine, indicating membership invitations will be extended in the near future?

In addressing the conundrum, Asmus' tone quickly turned from jubilant to sober. Would the United States be able to achieve these goals, he asked the group apprehensively? There are already many critics today, he added, critics like the Germans. "An official from the German foreign ministry told me recently that he couldn't think of one member of the foreign affairs committee of the German Bundestag who supports the initiation of NATO membership negotiations with Ukraine and Georgia," Asmus said.

Many Germans were sitting in the audience -- and agreed with Asmus' characterization. Eckart von Klaeden, foreign policy spokesman of the conservative Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) parliamentary group, was only too willing to list Germany's concerns. In Ukraine, he said, large segments of the population oppose the idea of NATO membership. And Georgia, with its internal conflicts? "We don't want another Cyprus in NATO," said von Klaeden, referring to the Mediterranean country's division into Turkish and Greek regions.

Now far be it from me to appease Russia. But far be it from me to borrow trouble, too. And admitting either or both of those nations to NATO has the potential for alliance-threatening turmoil in the future. One Cyprus is enough.

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Beware of robo calls and sources

The dirty tricks during an election season sometimes include robo calls -- those automated telephone messages used sometimes by ethically-challenged politicians or their surrogates to inject misleading information that smear a candidate. We've seen this sort of misinformation technique deployed previously in Kentucky -- an attack that eventually received national attention.

Here in Atlanta, we have a new wrinkle on the robo call tactic (with emphasis)

Automated telephone calls that criticize U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia for backing Hillary Clinton for president were placed by the co-founder of an Atlanta phone-banking firm who said he dislikes the longtime congressman.

The man behind the robo calls, John Garst, operates a company that includes "several top Georgia Republicans and at least two Democrats."

[Keep reading... more after the jump.]

John Garst told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday that neither Clinton's campaign nor that of her top opponent for the Democratic nomination, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, had anything to do with the calls....

...The so-called "robo call" urges listeners to call Lewis' Atlanta office and tell him to support fellow African-American Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

..."I read a news story off the Drudge Report about John Lewis, who is my congressman, talking in essence that he didn't really care what his constituents thought about who he should support as president," Garst said. "He was going to do what he felt he should do."

That, Garst said, "is the way he's run the 5th District for 22 years he's been in office. I looked at this as an opportunity to point out to people, in mass, I disagree with him politically."

Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement, said the attack won't change his allegiance.

"It's unthinkable," Lewis said. "You make a commitment; you keep that commitment."

Garst said the calls went out to 51,000 numbers and about two-thirds were successful. It is his voice on the call, he said.

In the calls, Garst did not identify himself. But he said anyone with caller identification could have seen where the calls originated and that he made no effort "to block that or shield that."

If someone didn't have caller ID, however, they wouldn't have known.

"I suppose that is technically possible," Garst said.

FCC rules require that automated calls "at the beginning of the message, state clearly the identity of the business, individual or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call."

In the call, Garst urges listeners to call Lewis' Atlanta office and tell him to support fellow African-American Obama. "Don't be afraid to call, and remember, King Day is on Jan. 21 this year. And we shouldn't have a congressman in King's own home city refusing to endorse a member of the Black Caucus."

Garst co-founded Rosetta Stone Communications in 1997 with Steven Schultz. The firm offers political consulting, advertising, polling and other services.

Lewis said it's good that Garst has taken responsibility for the call.

"But I think he does the Obama campaign and Mr. Obama and all the people who support him a disservice," Lewis said.

As for Garst's claims that he isn't responsive to his constituents, Lewis said it's not true.

"I do care what the people in the district think," Lewis said. "That's why I spend so much time in the district. As a representative in a country such as ours, you have to lead. And you have to mold and shape opinions and get people to follow."

Lewis said his Atlanta office received more than 100 calls from people who received the call.

John Thigpen of Decatur was one who received the call. He was not happy about it.

"I thought the entire message was inappropriate. I also am firmly against all autodialed, prerecorded calls for any purpose," Thigpen said.

The Obama campaign earlier in the day disavowed the calls.

"These kinds of attacks are misleading and divisive, and the Obama campaign has nothing to do with them," Obama's Georgia director Eureka Gilkey said. "Congressman John Lewis is a hero whose courage and sacrifice have made this country more equal and more just, and all Americans owe him a debt of gratitude."

As of Tuesday evening the campaign was preparing a letter to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker asking him to investigate.

The Clinton campaign declined to comment.

Garst said Tuesday that it wasn't his intention to be racially divisive. He said he got the idea for the call before the recent contretemps.

"I don't really know how to respond to that," Garst said. "The climate when I had this idea really wasn't what it was today."

He said had he realized how bad the situation had gotten he wouldn't have placed the calls.

Rosetta Stone Communications offers a variety of political campaign consulting, according to its Web site, www.politicalecalling.com.

According to the Georgia Ethics Commission, the firm has been paid nearly $370,000 since 2006 by candidates for state office in Georgia, including Gov. Sonny Perdue and Secretary of State Karen Handel, both of whom are Republicans. In fact, of the $370,000, more than $350,000 was paid by Republican candidates.

Schultz himself ran for the Georgia Legislature as a Republican in 2006.

One of the firm's clients is Rep. Jill Chambers, (R-Dunwoody). She said Rosetta Stone Communications provides marketing and consulting.

For Garst to say his "intention" was not racially-motivated makes me laugh at his lame excuse. His automated message, "[A] congressman in King's own home city refusing to endorse a member of the Black Caucus" introduced race into the equation. I don't know if Garst is a racist but his messaging strategy insidiously plays the race card. His denial not only rings false but calls his integrity into question.

Having originated from a Repub-leaning political operative in such a disingenuous, deceptive manner should trigger further scrutiny into what motivated Garst beyond his stated dislike of Lewis and the congressman's endorsement of Clinton. I highly doubt that he plans to vote and support Obama in the primary or the general election if Barack wins the Democratic nomination. Do you think Garst will vote Democratic? I don't.

In short, John Garst is full of shit, his tactics questionable, and his animosity toward John Lewis (D-GA) unwarranted. Perhaps he suffers from Clinton Derangement Syndrome. I dunno but I hope Georgia AG Thurber investigates the matter thoroughly. Good for the Obama campaign for not allowing these kind of attacks against Lewis to go unanswered.

Keep in mind as the election season heats up and we head to the polls, Repubs -- famous for disinformation and "whisper" campaigns -- have an axe to grind and propaganda to spread. Fronting robo calls that appear to originate from Democratic sources isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility. Don't be surprised. Question everything.

For inquiring minds, the Rosetta Stone Communications website is here. Co-founder Steve Schultz here.

There's more: "Beware of robo calls and sources" >>

Electronic voting still unaccountable

Voting machines: Can you trust them? The issue heats up nationally as one state faces a lawsuit.

Once again, electronic voting problems have resurfaced as Topic A during the election season. MoveOn.org sent email alerts to sign an "urgent petition asking local, state, and federal officials to require paper ballots" and cited the Sunday NYTimes Magazine cover story, "Can You Count on Voting Machines?" The answer is no. Next week, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) plans to introduce an emergency bill to fund a "push for paper ballots and vote count audits" before November 2008. With so much at stake, we can't afford to allow our next president and legislators to be decided by unreliable e-voting machines.

In Georgia, the electronic voting fight will head to court after years of battling resistance to overhaul the state's Diebold touch-screen system with a verifiable audit trail. On July 13, 2006, VoterGA.org filed suit to challenge the state's e-voting -- a system that was nationally ranked last by the conservative D.C.-based Free Congress Foundation. Says a lot, doesn't it? When the lawsuit comes before a Superior Court judge next month, voters will hopefully learn what election remedies the state must undertake if VoterGA wins its motion for summary judgment.

The counts in the lawsuit -- which names the Georgia State Election Board, former Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox (D), and Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) as defendants -- are persuasive. Via email, I received an update from Garland Favorito of VoterGA (with emphasis):

...the lawyers are currently finishing a motion for Summary Judgment in which we are asking the judge to rule in our favor on each count because the state has admitted most of our contentions in deposition.

...the evidence was clear the electronic voting machines were acquired illegally in 2001 [count No. 8] and never properly certified before use in 2002 [count No. 9].

The lawsuit was amended to include this new evidence to bolster the case. As a result, VoterGA's attorney Walker Chandler agreed to an extension giving the defendants time to examine the acquisition and certification evidence until the newly-agreed February 2008 court date.

We now have completed what I think is an absolutely compelling case and have a good chance to win some of the counts without a trial. If we win any one of seven counts we will have essentially won the suit against the current voting machine implementation and the state will be forced to make a major change. Here is an overview of the counts of the lawsuit:

[Keep reading... more after the jump!]

1. The state law currently attempts to exempt voting machines from the Constitutional requirement to produce a ballot

2. The Georgia Constitution states that elections are conducted by the people but the people cannot even verify any of the three key aspects of voting,

Choosing candidates on their ballot;

Casting their ballot;

Counting the votes.

3. The law requires that every ballot be recorded correctly and accurately at the time the voting machines are used on Election Day and it is impossible to implement any procedure to confirm that the ballots cast on Election Day were recorded correctly and accurately.

4. A re-accumulation of electronic ballots has and will always produce the same results as the original count and therefore subverts the intent of the law that entitles candidates to a legitimate recount of votes when the margin of victory is within 1% of the total votes cast.

5. The electronic voting machine implementation does not provide Constitutionally required equal protection for electronic voters vs. optically scanned absentee ballot voters because:

Electronic ballots can only be re-accumulated and not recounted for recounts

Electronic ballots can only be re-accumulated and not recounted when it is necessary to investigate discrepancies

The voter cannot verify what is on an electronic ballot as they can on an optical scanned ballot

6. The law requires that every ballot be recorded correctly and accurately at the time the voting machines are used on Election Day and the new technology piloted in 2006 still renders it impractical to implement a procedure to confirm that the ballots cast on Election Day were recorded correctly and accurately.

7. The new technology piloted in 2006 produces a sequential roll of ballots in the exact order in which the voters voted and therefore cannot ensure secrecy of the ballot as required by the Georgia Constitution

8. The electronic voting machines were procured illegally in 2001 because the law required them to have an independent audit trail for each vote cast and the machines do not have any such capability that is independent of the machine or its vote casting mechanism

9. The voting machines that were implemented in 2002 were improperly certified because:

The state is unable to produce the state certification reports required by state law

The machines do not meet the 1990 and 2002 federal standards that require them to prevent fraudulent manipulation the vote and identify each person to whom access is granted,

The machines were not recertified after they were patched in the summer of 2002

10. The judge has the authority to rule on these matters (Mandamus)

Essentially, the state's Diebold electronic voting system remains unaccountable and "cannot be verified, audited, or recounted."

Garland Favorito, one of the plaintiffs, will provide more details in the future as the case progresses. All state electors, the plaintiffs on behalf of approximately nine million voters include eight members from a wide spectrum of political affiliations -- the Constitution Party, the Georgia Green Party, a Democratic campaign worker, the Libertarian Action Network, and the non-partisan group Defenders of Democracy.

Something as fundamentally democratic as voting can bring together a diverse mix of folks. On getting e-voting right, they are united.

There's more: "Electronic voting still unaccountable" >>

Georgia's Saxby Chambliss: Thy name is Shameby

Reader and commenter Apollo13 (who was invited to join our little party but has too many time constraints) forwarded me a piece he wrote on Georgia's Saxby Chambliss, a truly odious little man. It's good stuff and I hope time will permit him to join us soon. BG,RS

As a Georgia voter, I have been outraged for years at the forked-tongue of Repub Sen. Saxby Chambliss. As a congressman, he voted yes on a 1999 House amendment that allowed the Ten Commandments to to be posted in public schools and government buildings but he didn't take to heart one of the commandments that admonishes, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."

During the 2002 election, Chambliss ran a despicable ad smearing Democrat Max Cleland that included Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in a photo montage to imply that Cleland was weak on national security and a terrorist appeaser. Only a fool would trust Chambliss after his dirty-bomb politics maligning a war vet who lost two legs and an arm in service to his country. Saxby knows no shame. National security rhetoric dripping from the thin-lipped Moultrie grifter, a GOPbot stamped with a Bush Attaboy on his forehead, is nothing more than empty sloganeering uttered to win a Senate seat at any price. Bah!

This morning, I came across a prime example of Saxby's GOP-styled chicanery in the form of denials, blatant mendacity, and pandering to the Pat Robertson deadender clan. Watch this Jan. 17, 2006, Christian Broadcasting Network interview by David Brody, the CBN News Capitol Hill correspondent... or read my transcription from the video clip below. If you can stand a stinking pile of hypocrisy, lies, and pure partisan politics (emphasized in boldface), read on but hold your nose:

BRODY: ...This idea about capping troops, what is your sense about all of this idea?

CHAMBLISS: I don't think Congress has any business micro-managing the war. Uh, the, uh, battlefield commanders need to tell us what they need and we've consistently listened to 'em and responded to 'em and I don't think it's appropriate for us to try to tell the battlefield commanders, uh, how many troops they need.

BRODY: Think the, the, uh, Democrats need to kind of in a way put up or shut up regarding funding if they're really serious go ahead and try to cut off funding?

CHAMBLISS: Well, they've given no alternative to the president's plan and the president's had some very difficult decisions to make. Uh, anytime you're in the middle of a wartime scenario, the Commander-in-Chief has to step forward and provide leadership. He's done that, and frankly we've seen a lot of criticism from the other side but we've seen no constructive alternatives, and, and, um, you know, that's playing politics instead of being more concerned about national security.

BRODY: By the way, speaking of playing politics, what about this resolution that the Democrats are kind of concocting right about now... what is your sense about this non-binding resolution? If you think it's politics or do you think they're serious about it?

CHAMBLISS: No, I think, uh, [Saxby snickers and then continues]... We're in the middle of politics according to presidential politics [snickers again]. So, yeah, I think that's very clearly what it is. And, uh, the war hadn't been going well and they've seized on it during the course of the election leading up to '06 and they obviously think they've achieved some success based upon the situation in Iraq and I think they're continuing that.

As a member of the SASC, was Chambliss asleep when Abizaid and Casey testified that the solution to Iraq was not a military one? Both generals believed that the U.S. military presence in Iraq was fueling the insurgency and advocated a gradual drawdown of troops this year. So, no, Saxby Chambliss neither listened nor responded to battlefield commanders.

Sniveling Shameby also lied about Dems having offered no plan on Iraq. Count 'em... Democrats Jack Murtha, Dick Durbin, Barack Obama, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Jack Reed, Ted Kennedy, and Harry Reid, as Pale Rider explained, have had "more than enough detailed, thoughtful alternatives and suggestions to change the current policy.... There are ideas a-plenty."

And what president has demonstrated that he knows no bounds in exploiting national security for political purposes with the support of rubber stamps like Saxby Chambliss? What party has enriched its cronies and political contributors with subsidies and no-bid contracts, exempted them from the rule of law (Order 17) in Iraq, and rendered no oversight to ipso facto plunder the U.S. treasury and squander precious lives and limbs?

I don't know which is worse: that Chambliss has deluded himself into thinking that Bush has provided leadership or that the shithead from Georgia carries water for the WH regurgitating, that, uh, uh, the, uh, Democrats have offered no "constructive alternatives." Absent from the exchange between the Brody tool and Chambliss is any mention of the eight Repubs who oppose Bush's Iraq strategy:

"Republicans are scared to death of it politically," said Ed Rogers, a top GOP lobbyist with ties to the White House and Republican leaders on the Hill. "The fear is that it won't make any difference. There won't be a perception of turning the corner."

Maybe Chambliss wouldn't, uh, uh, uh, hesitate to articulate a position and thought of his own if he wasn't searching his mind to parse the WH talking point du jour while covering his cowardly political ass.

When Bush arrived at Ft. Benning, GA, last Thursday to begin selling his newly repackaged "stay the course" plan, missing from the podium was Sen. Chambliss. Why the sudden faint-heartedness over a photo op with Bush? Two words: gutless worm. Facing re-election in 2008, Shameby runs away.

--Apollo13

There's more: "Georgia's Saxby Chambliss: Thy name is Shameby" >>