NOTE to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta): Another US soldier has died in Iraq. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich. The hour is getting late. There is a massive build-up of US Navy vessels in the Taiwan straits to participate in a huge “military exercise.” There is a credible rumor that Vladimir Putin will commit 40K Russian troops to Iraq in the Fall to influence the US Presidential Election in favor of Bush (although we are skeptical). John Negroponte (whose shirt sleeve cuffs are red from Latin America) has been named the Bush cabal’s ambassador to Iraq, and Iyed Allawi, a paid US operative, who recently executed six blindfolded, handcuffed *suspects* with his own pistol in front of witnesses, has been installed as the Iraqi strong man. The now apparently soul-less Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has appeared on TV ads, extolling the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident’s “moral clarity,” and also campaigned in person with the VICE _resident in Michigan, which McCain won in the 2000 Republican primary season, despite the Bush cabal’s hate-filled dirty tricks. Bush supporters in Louisiana are distributing bumper stickers that read: "Kerry is Bin Laden’s man, Bush is mine.” The Republican candidate for Senate in Oklahoma says that he favors the death penalty for abortionists. AnythingButSee (ABC), SeeBS (CBS) and NotBeSeen (NBC) have decided that the national conventions are “infotainment” (as opposed to staged, scripted White House “press conferences”?) and will severely limit their prime time coverage. The deceitful, destructive campaign of the shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Ralph-Nader, who couldn’t win the Green Party nomination, has been buoyed by both disproportionate media attention and one third (at least) of his financial contributions coming from Bush supporters. The Diebolic black box voting scheme has been thwarted in many states, but remains a factor in several crucial ones. The final report of the 9/11 Commission is beginning to look like a real whitewash for the Bush cabal, just like the Senate Intelligence Committee’s reports on the “intelligence failures” leading up to the war in Iraq. The compelling witnessing of whistleblowers like Joe Wilson and Sibel Edmonds has been marginalized, ridiculed and misrepresented. And as the publicly available evidence of US atrocities at Abu Ghraib turns unspeakable, the “US mainstream news media” coverage of the war crimes (and the high officials implicated by the published paper trail) have gone almost silent. Yes, the “US mainstream news media” seems to be in almost total lockdown, ignoring the Kerry-Edwards campaign, and carry the Bush abomination’s filthy water on 9/11, Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Enron and a host of other nightmares and outrages. Furthermore, it has been reported that the Bush cabal has been pressuring Pakistan to deliver Bin Laden or his number one sometime before the US Presidential Election. There have been repeated warnings by high government officials of significant terrorist attacks planned in this time leading up to Election Day. There is talk of providing emergency legislation for the canceling of the Presidential Election should another significant terrorist attack be launched (while at the same time of course there is legislation to block the UN from sending monitors at the request of duly elected members of the US House of Representatives). Will the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident cash in another Trifecta ticket? And how will you maneuver this ghastly landscape? What will you do if a catastrophe in the coming days blows the Democratic Convention off the air waves and the front pages? The LNS knows that you understand how late it is, and understand why you are running with Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) instead of the LNS favorite son, Gen. Wesley Clark (D-NATO). In a sick climate, in which the pink-ribbon 9/11 Commission, the “US mainstream news media” and the US Senate itself (even the minority leadership) are covering up for criminal negligence and a failed administration, you have to run on more than just Iraq and 9/11. You and Edwards are marching straight down Main Street, with the townspeople swelling behind you, and you are going to take City Hall. Of course, so much depends on the US Electorate, i.e. on the townspeople falling in behind you on your way to the showdown. The LNS believes the US Electorate understand the suffering of the US soldiers, and the scapegoating of the US intelligence community…The November 2004 election is a national referendum on the CREDIBILITY, COMPETENCE and CHARACTER of the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident. The central issue of this struggle is SECURITY: not just National Security, but also Economic Security, Environmental Security, Healthcare Security and Social Security. You have run a flawless campaign since the Iowa caucuses. You have been right to keep your powder dry. The LNS believes in your hunter’s soul, your prosecutorial skills, your timing, your discipline and especially your brain trust…But John, we can see the white of their eyes now…Unleash the dogs of war…Almost 900 US soldiers have died so far in Iraq, the deaths of 3K innocent people on 9/11 could have been avoided if the Bush cabal had not been so arrogant and blind to the expertise of Richard Clark and the counter-terror triage that Clinton-Gore left behind them, AND the Federal Surplus has been gutted and replaced with hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal Deficit, AND we have lost four years in the global effort to counteract global warming and AIDS in Africa, and the EPA has been prostituted, AND please, John, talk about the Draft, put America in touch with what that power would mean in the hands of the Neo-Con Chickenhawks of the Bush adomination, you must declare over and over again everyday that no young US soldier will die unnecessarily for oil or anything else. John, you cannot reaffirm American values, without going NEGATIVE on the Bush abomination – because their agenda and their methods are antithetical to American values, and to the US Constitution, and to the traditions of the US military, and to the mainstream of America’s religious life. There is a time, as warriors understand, when you have to look up at the sky and stomp the earth, and say "if it today for which there is no tomorrow, than it is today, but nothing will be held back." John, that time is here...
JOHN McCARTHY, Associated Press: Three counties that were considering electronic voting machines made by Ohio-based Diebold Inc. cannot switch by November because tests have shown security problems, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell said Friday.
Hardin, Lorain and Trumbull counties will stick with their current systems, Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said. Mercer County decided earlier this week to stick with its current system — punch-card ballots...
Thirty-one Ohio counties had planned to replace their machines, but most backed out as the November election neared. Most of those counties use punch-card ballots, the type that plagued the Florida vote in the 2000 presidential election.
Thwart the Theft of a Second Presidential Election, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040716/ap_on_re_us/ohio_voting_machines_1
Ohio Counties Can't Switch Vote Machines
Fri Jul 16, 7:27 PM ET Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo!
By JOHN McCARTHY, Associated Press Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Three counties that were considering electronic voting machines made by Ohio-based Diebold Inc. cannot switch by November because tests have shown security problems, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell said Friday.
Hardin, Lorain and Trumbull counties will stick with their current systems, Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said. Mercer County decided earlier this week to stick with its current system — punch-card ballots.
Some of the state's 88 counties already were using electronic voting machines, and the decision does not affect them.
Thirty-one Ohio counties had planned to replace their machines, but most backed out as the November election neared. Most of those counties use punch-card ballots, the type that plagued the Florida vote in the 2000 presidential election.
A first round of security tests found 57 problems, mostly security related, in machines made by three vendors — Diebold, Electronic Systems and Software, and Hart Intercivic.
Blackwell said his decision was based on preliminary results of a second round of tests.
Diebold was the only vendor to undergo the retesting, and Blackwell's office said the results would be released when the full study was complete.
"The counties were told several months ago to make contingency plans," LoParo said. "There was disappointment that the system did not obtain our security requirements, but an understanding that our systems must be secure."
Mark Radke, director of marketing for Diebold Election Systems, said the company had received no information from Blackwell on any remaining security problems.
"We are anxious to learn the areas where the consultant believes additional work is needed," Radke said in a statement.