In These Times
by Joel Bleifuss

12/29/05

Concerned about reports of election fraud and vote suppression in the 2004 election, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, to examine the allegations. In September, the GAO released a report that found electronic voting systems 'have caused local problems in federal elections -- resulting in the loss or miscount of votes.' In the 2004 general election, about 64 percent of voters cast ballots on one of two types of electronic voting systems: optical scan systems, which read marked paper ballots, and direct recording electronic systems (DRE), which have a touchscreen that voters use to make their choice...

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2452/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Nation
by Cindy Sheehan

12/28/05

I have been in Europe for two weeks now. I have been toasted by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingston, and greeted by foreign ministers, a vice president and members of the various parliaments. Those stories are for another article. My highest honor both here in the States and in Europe now is meeting with the families of children murdered in George Bush's War of Terror against the world. No matter if we all speak differently accented English, Spanish, or the heavy Glaswegian accent of my Scottish sister in sorrow, Rose Gentle -- whose gentle-giant son, Gordon, was killed by Blair and Bush in Iraq in July of 2004 -- our hearts all speak the same idiom of pain, and we sing the same lament of futile loss... [First published at truthout.org, 12/23/05]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060109/sheehan


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



Cindy Sheehan
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Sheehan

The Weekly Standard
by David Gelernter

Returning to young people (the cultural climate affects young people most) -- either the Information Age is real, and they would be even less well-informed without it (which is hard to picture); or it's a fraud and has failed to help or actually made things worse. The more carefully we ponder the facts, the more unsettling they become. And this issue is important. We can't abolish the Cybersphere, and few people would choose to. But that doesn't mean we have to take it as it is and like it and keep quiet. There is remarkably little commentary on the Cybersphere beyond consumer-level recommendations. You'd have thought Cybersphere criticism would be nearly as well developed as literary criticism by now. It isn't. So what's the truth about the Information Age?" (for publication 01/02/05)

http://tinyurl.com/av6um


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20119


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

12/30/05

We spent the greater part of 2005 anticipating the consequences of the Fitzgerald investigation, hoping that justice would finally be done. In the final months, it began to look very much like the War Party is in for more than a little payback -- and it couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch. If 2003 was the year of the liar, 2004 the year of the war criminal, and 2005 the year of justice no longer deferred, then 2006 holds out the promise of being the year of revelation, when the dark truth about how and why we were lied into war finally comes out in full view of the American public...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8323


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Denver Post

12/29/05

Peace activist Bill Sulzman in Colorado Springs protests the war in Iraq by refusing to pay the federal excise tax of about 50 cents on his monthly phone bill. Sulzman also recruits others who are against US military involvement in Iraq to stop paying the tax, which was first adopted in 1898 to pay for the Spanish- American War. The tax raises about $5 billion a year, which activists say goes to fund war efforts. The Internal Revenue Service won't confirm that the money goes exclusively to the military but instead says it goes for general fund expenditures, including military spending. 'It's kind of entry-level active resistance,' Sulzman said. 'Phone companies don't cut off the phones. They don't have the leverage.' Nationally, an estimated 10,000 phone customers don't pay the tax, said Ruth Benn, a spokeswoman for the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee in New York. With many Americans questioning the rationale for the Iraq war, the number who don't pay appears to be growing, said Betty Ball, a spokeswoman at the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center in Boulder...

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_3348908


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Orlando Sentinel

12/29/05

In the days following revelations that the Bush administration ordered the National Security Agency to spy on domestic telephone and Internet communications without a court order, one involved party has remained silent. The nation's telephone giants -- which control the data pipelines -- have neither commented on nor denied their reported participation, nor have they reacted to the charge that they may have been complicit in violating privacy rights. But historically the telecom companies have cooperated with the government on wholesale wiretapping, and the Bush administration's anti-terrorism programs appear to be no exception. Without commenting directly on a classified topic, industry officials -- when asked -- suggested that they would not stand in the way of a request for help...

http://tinyurl.com/cqtww


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Yahoo! News

12/29/05

Heading a military service isn't quite the position of power it used to be. In a Bush administration revision of plans for Pentagon succession in a doomsday scenario, three of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's most loyal advisers moved ahead of the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force. A little-noticed holiday week executive order from President Bush moved the Pentagon's intelligence chief to the No. 3 spot in the succession hierarchy behind Rumsfeld. The second spot would be the deputy secretary of defense, but that position currently is vacant. The Army secretary, which long held the No. 3 spot, was dropped to sixth. The changes, announced last week, are the second in six months and reflect the administration's new emphasis on intelligence gathering versus combat in 21st century war fighting...

http://tinyurl.com/dlz96


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp