Black Box: Enter THE CARLYLE GROUP

[BevHarris]

Heading up the new Populex voting machines, somehow this new company just barreled into Illinois, someone greased the skids on that I'll bet. http://www.populex.com

Frank Carlucci of the Carlyle Group in head honcho.

RedEagle pointed out to me that James Baker III is now tangentially tied to AccuPoll.

Okay, so we have this now, folks

ES&S: Ties to Chuck Hagel, who worked for poppy Bush before coming to run the voting company, and left the voting company to run for the U.S. Senate. Main owner of ES&S is Hagel's campaign finance director. Hagel is being groomed for a presidential run.

Diebold: Out of the 100 or so George W. Bush "Pioneers" (heavy hitting campaigners and fund raisers), TWO are Diebold -- director W.H. Timken and Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell, who just promised to "deliver the votes" to Bush in 2004. O'Dell also sponsored Dick Cheney for a $600,000 fund raiser in July 2003.

Sequoia: Now owned by DeLaRue out of Great Britain. They have at least two people who have had brushes with the law, and Dan Hopsicker's "Big Fix 2000" video asks questions about ties to organized crime. Sequoia has traditionally gotten into places where gambling is big. I don't know too much about its current ties.

Election.com: Was owned by secret Saudi holding company based in the Cayman Islands, now owned by Accenture.

VoteHere: Chairman of the Board is Admiral Bill Owens, a close friend of Dick Cheney. A member of the Defense Policy Board and former NSA guy, currently the Vice-Chair for the SAIC, which is doing the "independent" review of Diebold. Another director: Robert Gates, former CIA director and now runs the George Bush school of business.

Populex: New kid on the block, touch screens with a paper trail (with problems? see below). Headed by Frank Carlucci as Chmn of the Board.

The first time I had heard of Populex was about a week ago, in a conversation with Dr. Dill. He was telling me about having a beer or something with Jim Adler (VoteHere) David Elliott (Washington State Elections Division, a foe of the paper trail) and "Populex." I told Dill that I hadn't heard of Populex. Dill told me they are a new company that makes touch screens with a paper trail. So I put them into my "good guy" list.

Now, here is my take on the "paper trail" by Populex --

1) They say the votes aren't stored in the machine, they are stored on a card with a bar code on it which comprises the paper ballot.

Now, a generic bar code scanned with a generic over-the-counter bar code scanner, IF compared with a touch screen tally, would at least give us a hybrid system with two independent data sets for auditing. The key being "independent" in that you could buy that any-old-brand scanner at any old store and use it for scanning cans of beans when you aren't counting votes.

It would not be independent enough if the bar code scanner was made by the same manufacturer as the touch screen. But apparently their touch screens don't even keep a tally. Nah. That's just auditing digital data against itself. You still need the human-readable ballot, sorry.

2) So...does the Populex system let us READ what's on the ballot or not? That's a key point. The Populex web site does not say that. Does anyone know? Can anyone find out?

3) The only reason to even deal with a bar code, which should only be in addition to human readable, is because bar code scanners are generic and there are a zillion brands of them, and you get a readout so if the ballot is also human readable, you could easily check that they are reading the ballot correctly.

But get this: What do you want to bet that Populex requires you to use only THEIR bar code scanner? Maybe they have a truly generic system that can use any old bar code scanner. Maybe they have human-readable ballots too. But I couldn't find that information on their web site. Point it out if I missed something.

What the hell is going on with our vote system?

Why do the defense industry, the Bush family, Cheney and The Carlyle Group keep popping up next to our votes?

By the way, according to Barron's, now Diebold is talking about managing the voter registration system.

Bev

My "good guy" list:

Avante: Touch screens with a paper trail, a normal all-American business, just a guy who had an electronics company that decided to make good voting machines. Sorry, I still can't find any dirt on these guys. But they aren't open source.

Hart Intercivic: I still can't find anything wrong with these guys, except that they have ties with Accenture, they aren't open source, and they have no voter verified paper ballots. Oh, and it was their person who set up the lobbyist meeting on Aug. 22.

AccuPoll: Said to be open source, touch screens with a paper trial. James Baker is a director of an organization with ties to them, but not direct ties. I haven't found anything else on them.

[hang a left]

1. OMG I am gonna be sick

[arcane1]

2. this is getting f*cking ridiculous

pardon my language...

sadly, in regards to your question:

"Why do the defense industry, the Bush family, Cheney and The Carlyle Group keep popping up next to our votes?"

I'm afraid we all know the answer to THAT!

:grr::mad::grr:

predicted sheeple response: "so what? Somebody has to make these machines, and make money at it. Might as well let the winners be the ones to do it!"

arcane1's response is unprintable

[Gin]

6. Unbelievable........my head spins with each new piece of information.

May "the force" be against them.

[Unknown Known]

3. We're SCREWED

EOM:nuke:

[never cry wolf]

4. things get curiouser and curiouser!! n/t

[nostamj]

5. black box or black hole ???

damn.

remember Bev, during one phone chat, we said: scratch ANYTHING ugly, evil, greedy, twisted, WRONG, in America over the last century... and you'll find a Bush.

corporate kudzu... aggressively choking out whatever it encounters.

on edit: formatting only

[hang a left]

7. any sites out there that say Poppy

is the antichrist? I am serious.

[Capn Sunshine]

12. There's a well researched one that says W is

http://www.geocities.com/trebor_92627/Bush.htm

this site kicks ASS

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

42. LOL. Love this line:

However, to be absolutely, positively certain that we’re dealing with the Antichrist...

Wouldn't want to make a mistake when dealing with matters of this import! Lofl.

[IkeWarnedUs]

13. He doesn't use the word "antichrist" but David Icke comes close

Other people know this as the lower astral dimension, the legendary home of demons and malevolent antities in their black magic rituals.... Then there are the experiences of Cathy O'Brian, the mind controlled slave of the United States Government for more than 25 years, which she details in her astonishing book, Trance Formation Of America, written with Mark Phillips. She was sexually abused as a child and an adult by a stream of famous people named in her book. Among them were the US Presidents, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and most appalingly, George Bush, a major player in the brotherhood, as my books and others have long exposed. It was Bush a paedophile and serial killer, who regularly abused and raped Cathy's daughter, Kelly O' Brian, as a toddler before her mother's courageous exposure of these staggering events forced the authorities to remove Kelly from the mind control program known as Project Monarch. Cathy writes in Trance Formation of America of how George Bush was sitting in front of her in his office in Washington DC when he opened up,a book at a page depicting "lizard-like aliens from a far off, deep space place". Bush then claimed to be an 'alian' himself and appeared, before her eyes, to transform 'like chameleon' into a reptile.... I know other people who have seen George Bush shape-shift into a reptilian.

link: http://www.davidicke.com/icke/articles/bsecret.html

[hang a left]

23. whoa! is that for real?

[Flying_Pig]

8. If, I say, IF we are successful in getting Bush out...

in 04', we must clamor (starting now) for "PUBLIC" management of voting systems, and remove the entire operation from the private/for-profit sector. In addition to media and campaign finance reforms, I am now going to add this to the top of my list. We need to get the candidates support this type of reform NOW, before they become so entrenched, we can't get them out, short of burning them out. It's petition time again! Know anyone who can organize it?

:mad:
Grrr!

[movonne]

9. What can we do about this...It has to get out in the media

(What are the chances of that)???? Slim to none!!!

[flpoljunkie]

10. Bev, a question about the 2002 mid-term Congressional elections...

Is there any way, other than through whistleblowers, to find out if there was tampering and fraud in the mid-term elections?

[Booberdawg]

11. Jebus!

:eyes:

Drip, drip, drip.

I'm sick.

[Capn Sunshine]

14. Carlyle Group===only a matter of time wasn't it.

[AP]

15. Excuse me while I go throw up.

This is really disturbing.

[FauxNewsBlues]

16. 2004 solution

The democrats have to alert every media member of this prior to the vote. They also have to spend cash on poll watchers. One thing to do is randomly show up at a precinct, and literally overwhelm them with pollsters. If 500 people vote at 1 precinct, and 300 agree to be sampled, 120 dems, 120 reps, 110 others, and the Dem has 60%, only to find out that the dem loses the precinct by 30 points, it will be quite good proof of things being rigged.

If the repugs are smart though, they will shave say 5 votes a precinct, enough to just barely throw a tight election.

[Eloriel]

17. Bev

Once upon a time you posted an enormous list of what industries and companies Carlyle owns. Do you have that handy?

And remember, everyone, Carlyle is a "privately held equity group," which means that they don't have much (any?) oversight at all. Hard to get much info on them, in fact, because they don't have to tell anyone much about the company.

I'm sick about this, but I'd known Carlucci and others had their hands on this issue all along. They're just expanding and tightening the grip, it seems.

Eloriel

[Andy_Stephenson]

34. Eloriel...

I think you hit the nail on the head. Posit this, what if carlyle is the anti-christ.

[Eloriel]

52. Yeah, GBNC

I've frankly been worried for some time -- sorta in the back of my mind, tho it pops up to the front now and then -- that the Carlyle Group wants to end up owning the world, or significant parts of it (like 3/4 or more).

I wish I were just a paranoid nutcase. It would be a lot easier some days.

:hi:

Eloriel

[BevHarris]

58. Carlyle holdings (a very incomplete list)

They are mostly a holding company, very opaque. Here are some Carlyle Group entities

Note: The Carlyle Group is often filed in Edgar under TC Group -- they also have Carlyle II, III, IV and so forth up to at least VII

- BK Capital Partners IV, L.P.
- Blum Capital Partners, L.P.
- Blum Strategic Partners, L.P.
- Carlyle-EG&G, L.L.C. IRS ID# (not given)
- Carlyle-EG&G Holdings Corp.
- Carlyle-EG&G International Partners, L.P. IRS ID# (not given)
- Carlyle-EG&G Partners, L.P. IRS ID# 51-0392269
- Carlyle-EG&G Partners II, L.P. IRS ID# : (not given)
- Carlyle-GTSD Partners, L.P.1 IRS # 52-1909589
- Carlyle-GTSD Partners II, L.P. IRS # 52-1911051
- Carlyle High Yield Partners, L.P. IRS ID# 52-2175223
- Carlyle International Partners II, L.P. IRS ID# 98-0153707 (Cayman Islands)
- Carlyle International Partners III, L.P. IRS ID# 98-0153592 (Cayman Islands)
- C/S International Partners IRS. ID# 98-0160490 (Cayman Islands)
- Carlyle Investment Group, L.P. (CIG) IRS ID# 51-0357730
- Carlyle Investment Management, L.L.C. IRS ID# : 52-1988385
- Carlyle-LSS Partners, L.P. IRS ID# 52-2057944
- Carlyle-LSS International Partners, L.P. IRS ID# : (not given)
- Carlyle Partners II, L.P. IRS ID# 51-0357731
- Carlyle Partners III, L.P. IRS # 51-0369721
- Carlyle SBC Partners II, L.P. IRS ID#51-0369721
- CP II Holdings, L.L.C.(1)IRS # 52-2033495
- CP II Investment Holdings, L.L.C.(1) IRS # 52-2033497
- EG&G Technical Services Holdings, L.L.C. IRS ID# : 03-0478046
- Holdings LLC, URS
- Lear Seigler Services, Inc.
- State Board of Administration of Florida (SBAF) ;(separate account maintained pursuant to an Investment Management Agreement dated as of
September 6, 1996 between the State Board of
Administration of Florida, Carlyle Investment
Group, L.P. and Carlyle Investment Management,
L.L.C. IRS ID# 52-203831)4
- Stinson Capital Fund (Cayman), Ltd.
- Stinson Capital Partners, L.P.
- Stinson Capital Partners II, L.P.
- Stinson Capital Partners III, L.P.
- TC Group L.L.C. IRS ID# 54-1686957
- TC Group II, L.L.C. : 54-1686957
- TCG High Yield, L.L.C. IRS ID# 52-2175223
- TCG High Yield Holdings, L.L.C. IRS ID# : (not given)
- TCG Holdings, L.L.C. IRS ID# 54-168601
- Technology Venture Fund-Asia - Carlyle
- URS Corporation (a Delaware corporation offices SanFrancisco)
- URS Holdings, Inc. (see note below, merged with EG&G etc -- This is a wholly owned subsidiary of URS Corporation)
- URS-LSS Holdings, Inc. (This is a wholly owned subsidiary of URS Corporation)

[Eloriel]

64. Thanks, Bev

Helps make up a little for my hard disk crash a couple of weeks ago.

Eloriel

[GregW]

18. How can AccuPoll be a good guy on your list?

If ES&S is bad because it has 'ties' to someone who used to work for Poppy

-and-

If Diebold is bad because two executives support Bush

-and-

If Sequoia is bad because they 'have' two people with 'brushes with the law'

-and-

If election.com is bad because it is now owned by Accenture (WTF?)

-then-

How can AccuPoll in any way be 'good' if James freakin' Baker is a Director? Aren't we applying inconsistent guilt by association?

[BevHarris]

25. He's not a director

Here are the key differences, and they are important:

1. AccuPoll is open source. The others are not.
2. AccuPoll has a voter-verified ballot. The others do not.
3. AccuPoll has a tangential connection -- Baker is a director of a firm they have a relationship with. He is not a director of AccuPoll. That raises my eyebrows, but that's all at this point.

ES&S has, as its primary owner, the current campaign finance director for Senator Chuck Hagel, who has publicly stated that he may seek the presidential nomination in 2008. Hagel was the Chairman and CEO of ES&S, under its previous name of AIS. Hagel still owns up to $5 million of stock in the direct parent company for ES&S. ES&S has dozens (if not hundreds) of documented elections where its machines miscounted the vote, often flipping the race to the wrong candidate, even when it was not close. ES&S was founded by the current president of Diebold Election Systems. Next:

Diebold has severe security issues and its software has been compromised. Its CEO is a Bush Pioneer. Its director is also a Bush Pioneer. Its CEO promised, in writing, to "deliver the votes" to Bush.

The difference is in how well the product meets transparency and trustworthiness and auditability requirements, and how close the ties are.

Bev

[Cocoa]

19. you've got to be kidding me

on the other thread you were claiming that you don't focus on who it is that is behind the plot.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=269727&mesg_id=269727#270494

And now you post this.

I guess my question would be, why did the Carlyle Group fix the 2002 republican primary so that Bush's favored candidate lost?

[trumad]

24. So I'm guessin cocoa

that this type of info don't bother you a bit?

[Cocoa]

29. Carlucci is definitely a red flag

Why are there these partisan people all throughout this industry? There could be an explanation, but it sure looks fishy.

[AP]

30. How do you know they didn't? Counties don't have electoral votes.

Maybe Bush's candidate's 10,000 votes were 5,000 more than he really got.

You don't have to win the county to get votes you didn't really get. In primaries, cocoa, the winner is the person who gets the most votes in the state, not the person who wins the most counties.

[Cocoa]

31. Bush's guy lost

if they're going to fix the election, why wouldn't they have fixed it so he won?

[AP]

33. Only 4 counties use touch screens. How do you know this one

didn't give votes to Bush's guy that he didn't really get?

[Cocoa]

38. I'm confused...

sorry to repeat myself, but Bush's guy lost. If that election was fixed, it was fixed against Bush.

[Junkdrawer]

40. Who won that county and what was the expected vote total for...

Bush's candidate Vs. the number of votes he officially received.

[Junkdrawer]

20. The lengths these companies will go to in order to NOT print...

a human readable, human auditable paper ballot just has my tinfoil hat all a twitter. In my mind that is Story #1 in this whole mess.

[Andy_Stephenson]

35. Mine is Buzzing as well.

For different reasons.

[Cocoa]

36. you both better adjust your thinking

this company's machines DOES produce a paper ballot, so you better come up with something else to be upset about:

But in contrast to most other touch screen voting systems that collect and store the votes electronically in computers, the Populex™ system prints a tangible paper ballot card. This ballot card is the official ballot. Each ballot contains a bar code that is scanned to reliably record and count the votes on election day. The same ballot card is the permanent paper record that must be available for manual audits and recounts as required by the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

[Junkdrawer]

39. So it prints the names of the candidates you voted for?

Or does it print an encoding of the vote on a barcode. In other words, when I'm done voting, how can I look at that card and insure myself that the candidate I intended to vote for is what that card has recorded?

[Cocoa]

41. Sorry, you're right

a bar code, probably nothing human readable. Sorry to both you and gbnc.

[MetaTrope]

60. And not to be a pessimist or anything,

but is it too obvious to point out that just because one of these machines might print out the names you voted for, that's no proof it matches the electronic data which gets tallied?

[Andy_Stephenson]

61. Really good point...

and I have thought the same thing. But having a paper Ballot as a backup, would mitigate this...especially if they are used as a recount device and crossed checked with the eletronic vote totals.

[ConsAreLiars]

44. adjusted thinking ???

This is junkdrawers complete message:
"The lengths these companies will go to in order to NOT print...
a human readable, human auditable paper ballot just has my tinfoil hat all a twitter. In my mind that is Story #1 in this whole mess."

You then quote Populex's PR saying "Each ballot contains a bar code that is scanned to reliably record and count the votes on election day" as if that somehow answered junkdrawer's concerns.

To the contrary, the Populex statement you quote confirms that the Populex procedure does NOT provide a "human readable, human auditable paper ballot" but rather a piece of paper with a BAR CODE printed on it. This is just another variant of the black box, where voters are prohibited from reading their own ballots or counting them.

Now, of course, such machines MIGHT vote as you ask - it is possible. It's also possible someone else has a way to exert a bit more influence over what the machines do than is compatible with democracy. Maybe their owners, or maybe their owners' backers, or maybe anyone who has the necessary resources?


In that sytem it is the machines which vote. The "citizen" can't even watch what it is doing or read the actual "ballot." It doesn't help if SOMETHING UNREADABLE is printed out on paper rather than taking place entirely inside some box.

In such a system humans can't even count the ballots because they are still in code -- BAR CODE this time instead of patterns of electrons on some computer chips.

In that system humans don't count at all.


Democracies can be of varied quality, but not being able to even read what is later regarded and counted as your ballot makes that particular bit of tech inherently unsuitable for any democracy.

[dusty64]

21. Yikes, this gets

more horrible by the day. I can't believe this is allowed, the media shouldn't be forced to cover a story like this (the fact that they do says it all). Where are our Democratic leaders, beyond a few I've heard nothing. Where are the Greens and the Liberatarians? Are there any election officials out there with a half a brain and a little integrity?

[Robbien]

22. Wait a minute

According to the WashPo article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A42085-2003Aug10¬Found=true

Even the most vocal critics say there are workable solutions. Computer scientists say the companies should release their secret source codes for expert review, as two start-ups, VoteHere and Populex, have agreed to do.

So for now the code should be okay, right?

[BevHarris]

26. They have not released the code

They said they would, but they haven't.

[Eloriel]

46. And even if they do

There's so much ugliness and chicanery and secrecy in the industry, I can't imagine what kind of iron-clad chain of custody I'd need to feel reassured that what they show the public is what gets put on the machines.

Eloriel

[Zhade]

27. Well...

That's assuming they do, in fact, release the actual source code, and not a false one with all "security flaws" removed.

OPEN SOURCE is the only way to do anything with computers. But I believe only hand-counted paper ballots can be close to trustworthy for voting.

[dansolo]

28. Illinois State Board of Election Meeting Minutes - 7/15/2002

http://www.elections.state.il.us/AboutBoard/pages/downloads/pdf/7_15_02Minutes.pdf

It was during this meeting that a demonstration of the Populex voting machine. I found this quote very interesting: "The system was used at a local high school for one election and had virtually no errors."

Virtually? Do they mean to say that the machine can't even accurately handle a couple thousand votes?

[Walt Starr]

32. It sounds to me like America is dead

I don't know if there's any going back.

This could become the worst crime in human history if these bastards get their way, and yes I know how horrible the holocaust was, but if this can actually happen, the crimes of these bastards may well supercede even that horror!

[punpirate]

37. They also seem to be providing voter information web pages...

... like this one for Peoria:

http://204.97.188.239/searchprecinct.aspx

Notice the phrase next to the logo at the bottom:

Powered by Populex. Fairness. Accuracy. Democracy™

As the British would say, don't you think it's a bit cheeky of them to be trademarking democracy?

Cheers.

[Generic Other]

43. Whatever they are up to, they have been at it for some time

<snip>
The Betrayal of The Patriots
The Halloween Crew had its genesis in Congress' Select Committee on Assassinations in the mid-1970s. In October of 1977, right at Halloween that year, President Carter's new Director of Central Intelligence, Stansfield Turner, fired almost a thousand veteran CIA covert-action agents and station chiefs, keeping a campaign promise to clean up the CIA. These fired agents had been involved in manipulating elections and maintaining dictatorships throughout the Third World for decades, and their expertise would have been shamefully lost if George W. Bush Sr.--who had run the CIA himself before Turner's "Halloween Massacre"--had not rounded them up to work for the GOP, leading up to the 1980 election season. Incensed at Carter, seeing themselves as patriots who had risked their lives for their country and then been foully betrayed, many of these disgruntled spooks volunteered outright to work for the incipient Bush campaign in å79. And when Ronald Reagan adopted Bush as his Vice Presidential candidate, they were happy to work for the great Reagan/Bush Leviathan of 1980.

http://www.voxfux.com/articles(closed)/00000015.htm

<snip>
In the middle 1970's, the CIA decided to increase its power. In retaliation for Turner's Halloween Massacre a decision was made to place CIA operatives in control of American Indian Reservations as a means of laundering money, transporting drugs, and controlling arms sales and biological weapons. In other words, the CIA wanted to build its own country within the United States and control its own government, not unlike the Vatican operates under the Pope in Italy. <snip>

http://www.newsmakingnews.com/vmoperationexodus.htm


<snip>
Many of the CIA operatives dismissed by Turner had experience with the manipulation of elections. As Professor Scott has said, such people were not likely to have shrugged off their dismissal and gone to open bookstores. Instead, they put their training to work for their popular former boss whom Turner had replaced.
They were angry and bitter, and many volunteered to work with the Reagan-Bush campaign, especially given the added attraction of a former CIA chief as the vice-presidential candidate. "There were Reagan-Bush posters, cut off in the middle with only the right side, i.e. the George Bush side, up all over the agency," recalled a former staff member who had frequently visited the headquarters at Langley.
Years later, Richard V. Allen, Reagan’s chief foreign-policy adviser during the campaign, condescendingly dismissed this group as a "plane load of disgruntled former CIA" officers who moved into the Reagan-Bush campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia . . .<snip>

http://www.memresearch.org/econ/Langley.htm

[BevHarris]

45. And along these timelines:

First optical scan machines by the Urosevich brothers were in about 1978, I think. This is a bit foggy, but I think I'm right on this -- one of them came from Westinghouse where they did academic testing stuff, fill in the dot with a #2 pencil.

They then started Data Mark Systems, changing the name in the early 1980s to American Information Systems, then changing the name again in 1997 to Election Systems & Software.

I have an anecdotal report from an elections worker in California that the optical scan machines in her county flipped the result from Carter to Reagan, and when they caught it, counted the paper ballots, gave the votes to Carter as they were marked, they tried to get other counties to look but no one did.

Bev

[Eloriel]

47. Thank you VERY Much for those links

They absolutely confirm what I had suspected about the CIA people that got turned out on their ear.

It's my understanding JFK tried to clean up the CIA too. (See the online book Farewell America.)

Eloriel

[scottxyz]

48. No more machines

Just get rid of all the goddamned voting machines.

When you make a deposit in the bank, even if you use an ATM, you WRITE ON A PIECE OF PAPER.

I want my paper ballot back.

[bearfan454]

68. Absentee ballots might just be the way to go

if the Carlyle group runs the voting machines. This is f*cked up. Sorry for the language.

[Octafish]

49. Wanna know why, Bev?

"Why do the defense industry, the Bush family, Cheney and The Carlyle Group keep popping up next to our votes?"

Because that's where the money is. Figuratively. Literally. Physically.

[CHIMO]

50. Keep up the Great Work

Really appreciate your dedication on getting to the bare facts.

[Kool Kitty]

51. Bev, if you're still up

and looking at this board, are you going to be on Democracy Now! this morning? (Thursday) I just got an e-mail from them saying they were doing a story covering the Diebold Company and the Repub contributor that is the owner. (I'm paraphrasing, I can't remember the message exactly.) I'll be listening.

[BevHarris]

53. Yup. I'll be on Democracy Now tomorrow

And just got confirmation that Hustler Magazine is running an article on this :)

They wanted my picture (musta thought I was that "bunny" Thomas Greene of "The Register" accused me of being). I told them "no, no, you want DemActivist") }(

heh heh.

[Eloriel]

54. Okay -- tell me about Democracy Now

I thought it was a radio program, but I was flipping channels and saw whatshername (Amy Goodman?) on FSTV I think it was, midday-ish.

So, it is radio? TV? And what exact TIME? Gotta watch/listen to this one. ;-)

Thanks,

Eloriel

[Kool Kitty]

57. I listen to it on the radio.

I get it at 99.5FM-WBAI in NYC. It's a Pacifica station, I don't know where you are, Eloriel, but you can go to www.pacifica.org or www.wbai.org and they stream it live. In my area (central NJ), it's on at 9 AM. It is also on FSTV, but I don't know what the time is, as I unfortunately do not get it. Dammit. You can also go to www.democracynow.org and they have all the info there and I think they have a live link, too.

[BevHarris]

59. 8 a.m. Eastern (5 a.m. my time, urk) Excuse frogs in throat

Bev

[Eloriel]

62. FSTV times - Ch. 9415 on Dish

M-F: 8-10am (live)
7-8pm
12-1am EST

EIGHT A.M.????? You're talking torture there, Bev. I'm a night owl.

I'll catch up with you at Noon. :-)

Eloriel

[shance]

63. In Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, its on again at 9:00 am, 90.7 FM

n/t

[ConsAreLiars]

65. FSTV video is essentially the radio show with extras

The schedule is at the FSTV site http://www.freespeech.org
http://www.freespeech.org/fsitv/fscm2/genx.php?schedule_start=1062655200&name=fstv_schedule

http://www.democracynow.org/ has audio and video online and broken into smaller segments by midafternoon.

The audio is carried by several radio stations and lots of public access cable stations carry video as well- see: http://www.democracynow.org/stations.shtml and search for your best source.

Democracy Now! is essential every day.

[diamondsoul]

55. Well allllrighty then.

Absentee for me, f*ck this BS! Not no, but HELL no! I am not going to give up!

[Terwilliger]

56. holy frekin cow!

:scared:

Curiouser and curiouser.

[eek]

66. Jim Hightower said Diebold spent wknd w/bushies

Jim Hightower was at Schwartz in Milwaukee last night.
During Q&A he was asked to comment on BBV and who developed this stuff.
When he spoke of Diebold and the bush Pioneers (now apparently called "Rangers") a gasp went through the audience.
Just goes to show you that even savvy activist folks don't know this stuff.
Yhey may hear about the Black Box stuff but not know WHO the people are.
That aspect seems even bigger.

Anyway, Hightower talked about the Diebolds and said that they spent the weekend with the bushies - in Crawford, I think
.
Huh. Wonder what they were talking about over their Huevos Rancheros!

[bearfan454]

67. Holy Shit !

If the Carlyle group is into it then it is all about money, not just power and control any more. This could be bad folks. I hope not.

[shance]

69. Kick

n/t

[loudsue]

70. NO !!!! TELL ME IT ISN'T SO!!!

They are so blatantly obvious to ANYONE who is looking! Why isn't EVERYBODY looking!!

Oh, major downer! Carlyle -- shoulda known.

:kick::kick:

[nolabels]

71. A little note with this kick

:kick:

It seems many would turn thier head in fear rather than face up to the implications
(from the bottom, bottoms up)

http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/authors/fresia/c6.shtml
(snip)
4. Several nations, such as Australia, have compulsory registration. It is similar to our own compulsory military registration for males eighteen years of age. The point here is to illustrate how as a nation we are capable of accepting compulsory registration and that our government is capable of administering such a program.

5. The simplest way to register voters and not obstruct voter participation is the process of registering as one votes.36

The repeated (within the context of a presidential primary) arrests of thousands of the poorest citizens attempting to vote would not only make clear that the U.S. government does not permit the enfranchisement of all it citizens, it might broaden the range of debate to include such critiques as Walter Dean Burnham's that, “the American political system is...significantly less democratic today than is any other Western political system which conducts free elections.”37 Hopefully, the national self-awareness that actions of this sort might help to generate would channel the political alienation of many citizens into the creation of more political space that would parallel the political mobilization of the early 1950s' Civil Rights movement. The important point regarding confrontational strategies is this: our political system was designed with distrust and fear of common people in mind. When we participate in electoral politics or established politics generally we must act in a dozen subtle ways (registering to vote for example) that show deference to ruling elites. Agreeing to participate in the current political process does not empower us. Rather, it reminds us of how politically impotent we are, drains our confidence and self-respect and, consequently, discourages us from future attempts to engage in politics. Therefore, before we participate in the system, we must challenge the beliefs that underlie it - the beliefs that say we, the “common people” should not have an active, powerful voice in the structuring of our lives.

In August of 1987, the FBI fired John Ryan, a twenty-one year veteran of the Bureau, because he refused to begin a “domestic security/terrorism investigation of the Veterans Fast For life.” Stated Special Agent Ryan, “I believe that in the past members of our government have used the FBI to quell dissent, sometimes where the dissent was warranted. I feel history will judge this to be another such instance.” Ryan's refusal was a confrontation to and a sort of emancipation from a system of which he had been an integral part for a long time. We need to do make that challenge more often. And we need to do it together. It sounds strange to our political ear because we do our politics in a spiritually dead society where our involvement is scorned. But we must struggle, nonetheless, to acquire a clear conception of our creative freedom and our responsibility to exercise it.38
(snip)

[RedEagle]

72. A Kick

Kick!

[Q]

73. Saw/listened to Bev on Democracy Now this morning...

- She presented her case in a clear, concise manner. She's doing a great job for Democracy and the future of America. DUers should be proud.

[shance]

74. Amen Q!** Great job as always Bev!***

Only regret was not providing more time to the subject***

Progress, not perfection.....one step at a time!