Tuesday 2/1 Election Fraud, Reform, & Updates Thread

"Jeff Gannon: Erosion of Ethics"

I'm not one to bitch-slap the mainstream media (MSM). After all, the alternative -- the blogosphere -- grants ideologues a pulpit to huff their own outrage, destroying the entire concept of newsworthiness by pursuing every genuine story and every incidental nit with the same self-stroking zealotry. Still, I can barely contain my exasperation for the old-guard media's sputtered indifference toward what has clearly emerged as pattern of deceptive propaganda emanating from the Bush administration. Latin American dictators have shown more candor.

Currently, journalists are playing dainty with the "privacy" of a right-wing call boy caught fudging with his Holly Hobby journalism kit when it wasn't long ago that they were circulating details of Bill Clinton's rim jobs. It doesn't take Shaggy and Velma to see the Jeff Gannon (a.k.a. Jim Guckert) is simply the latest administration assault on the free press. That a partisan hack infiltrated the ranks of actual journalists through a departure from procedure isn't even surprising any more. What is surprising is that he doesn't appear to have been on the White House dole like Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher. Gannon purportedly asked the president how he would be able to work with Democrats who were "divorced from reality" because he believed he should facilitate the president's point of view at the explicit expense of those that might disagree with him.

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Once you discover the pattern of propaganda, it serves as a handy cipher for the entire Bush presidency. His approach to Social Security reform reeks of deceit, the kind of underhanded carnie ruse that makes me worry that someone is trying to usher in the Antichrist. Conservatives have never believed in Social Security, seeing it as part of FDR's toxic legacy of socialism. But they also have enough public relations savvy to know that their belief system cannot be sold on its face and must be dishonestly repackaged. Gannon had no intention of doing more than pasting the White House press releases under his byline and maybe cribbing some of Sean Hannity's bumper sticker upchuck. But then, few people, especially people of good conscience who happen to be suckered by the pyrotechnics of affected right-wing passion, would trust Talon News Agency if it had called itself the "Republican Propaganda Orifice Staffed By Queer Hookers."

The focus on Gannon's ass-slinging side gig diverts attention from the larger issues embodied in this story. (Truth be told, I only bring up the homosexual call boy issue because God gets pissed off when you don't take time to savor the delicious work of Grandma Karma.) Perhaps the fleeting fixations of the media cycle prevent the Gannon story from being situated within the larger one, that is, the Bush administration's allergy to the truth. It's important to ask how a prostitute with no journalism credentials got to toss slow pitch strikes to a president who can barely play tee ball. Still, the real question is not how a hooker got into the White House, but how the White House became such a low-rent brothel in the first place.

US to expand Propaganda TV to Iran

As President Bush ponders incentives to encourage Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, Voice of America plans to go from a 30-minute to a four-hour daily news and information broadcast to Iran within the next few months.

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Officials say the Bush administration also plans to begin Arab-language satellite-television broadcasts to Europe later this year in a new escalation of its information war against Islamic extremism.

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"People could see it as a sign that an invasion is coming. It's the sort of thing that happens before nations build up their war effort," said Nancy Snow, a propaganda expert at California State University, Fullerton.

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The administration is seeking money for the expanded telecast in Bush's $81 billion supplemental budget request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as other U.S. efforts abroad.

Watch the Video (2 minutes)

Watch the Video (1 minute)

Watch the Video (4 minutes)

Preaching on shaky ground

WASHINGTON It was remarkable to see President George W. Bush lecture Vladimir Putin on the importance of checks and balances in a democratic society.

Remarkably brazen, given that the only checks Bush seems to believe in are those written to the "journalists" Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Karen Ryan, the fake TV anchor, to help promote his policies. The administration has given a whole new meaning to checkbook journalism, paying a stupendous $97 million to an outside PR firm to buy columnists and produce propaganda, including faux video news releases.

The only balance W. likes is the slavering, Pravda-like "fair and balanced" coverage Fox News provides. Bush pledges to spread democracy while his officials strive to create a Potemkin press village at home. This White House seems to prefer softball questions from a self-advertised male escort with a fake name to hardball questions from journalists with real names; it prefers tossing journalists who protect their sources into the gulag to giving up the officials who broke the law by leaking the name of their own CIA agent.

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The Bush administration wields maximum secrecy with minimal opposition. The White House press is timid. The poor, limp Democrats don't have enough power to convene congressional hearings on any Republican outrages and are reduced to writing whining letters of protest that are tossed in the Oval Office trash.

Local official opposed to Nevada election bill

Assemblyman Rick Keene, R-Chico, authored the bill that would require voters to show proof of identity at their polling places, but Nevada County Clerk-Recorder Kathleen Smith said she believed that instead of helping restore voter confidence, the bill would damage it.

"Voting is a right, not a privilege. When you start requiring people to do something in order to vote, you are going back in time," she said.

Smith also criticized Keene for not contacting any of the elections officials in the counties - including Nevada County - he represents. She said she only learned of it when she was contacted by the Butte County elections official, which is also a part of Keene's district, along with Lassen, Plumas, Yuba, and Sierra Counties, and a northern strip of Placer County.

Besides, she said, there is already a system in place for verifying identity.

Congressional Sadists

As you sweat out the tax season, bear in mind that identifiable men and women — the members of Congress — inflict this pain on you. They know what you go through. They know the hours you put in and the money you spend. They know that you look frantically for missing receipts just to keep a few more dollars that, after all, belong to you anyway. They know that you fear the hell of an IRS audit. Yet they refuse to stop the torture. They could do it. But they don’t — because you only matter around election time, which is long after tax day.

This suggests a modest, short-run approach to tax reform: Move tax day to the day before election day. And for good measure, abolish withholding. Imagine if people trudged to the polls the day after sending fat checks to the IRS. That might bring the incumbents down a notch.

You have to wonder how such a sadistic group of people can call themselves our leaders. Why won’t they relieve us from the dastardly income tax? The answer is obvious. They want the large amount of money and the social-engineering powers that only an income tax can provide. Whenever you hear a politician talk about compassion and wanting to make a difference, think of the IRS.

The 19th-century political philosopher Lysander Spooner saw through the pretense as no one has since. He compared the tax authority to a highwayman. But he saw a profound difference between the two. As he wrote in his publication No Treason:

The highwayman ... does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a ‘protector,’ and that he takes men’s money against their will, merely to enable him to ‘protect’ those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection.... Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful ‘sovereign,’ on account of the ‘protection’ he affords you. He does not keep ‘protecting’ you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.

We can only hope that our politicians one day elevate themselves to the level of a common robber.

Our view: Voter identification bill is a reasonable precaution

Although they have not yet demonstrated widespread voter fraud, Republicans pushing for a bill to require voters to present photo identification cards do have a better bill this time than last time.

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What this bill does that the last one in 2003 did not is exempt the disabled and people living in nursing homes from the photo ID requirement. Instead, they would need to have a witness vouch for them.

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The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has estimated that nearly 123,000 state residents lack a photo ID card. Providing free cards for the indigent would cost about $1 million.

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It's possible that individuals or private agencies might have to help some people get to the courthouse for a birth certificate, or to the DMV office for a drivers license. But the numbers are so small as opposed to the state population as a whole that it would be possible to make sure everyone has a chance to get the necessary identification.

Indiana Voter ID bill OK’d by state senators

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Senate on Monday approved a measure that would require voters to show a picture ID before being allowed to vote at the polls. The bill now moves on to the House.

Democratic senators opposed Senate Bill 483, arguing that it will impose a hardship on the elderly and the poor, and will hamper voting by restricting those who can vote.

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Critics of the bill said requiring voters to have ID is similar to a poll tax.

Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Bloomington, said her mother is eager to vote in every election but does not have an ID. Simpson said she is willing to purchase an ID for her mother so she can vote.

“I’ll pay the poll tax if I have to,” she said. “Not every person has a daughter to take her there and pay the bill.”

White House claim it was unaware of Gannon's credentials is hard to buy

If you're new to the Jeff Gannon story ... well, to borrow a phrase from Dave Barry, we're not making this up.

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Many are asking how this guy wound up sitting within a stone's throw of the president at least once, and how he occupied the most cherished reporting real estate on the planet repeatedly, and that isan issue. The White House explanation, from Scott McClellan, for Guckert repeatedly getting press passes is, "In this day and age, when you have a changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide, to try to pick and choose who is a journalist. It gets into the issue of advocacy journalism. Where do you draw the line?''

That simply defies belief.

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This White House is very, very well versed in media; events are scripted to the final detail, crowds at public events are screened to weed out opponents, camera angles and backdrops meticulously crafted. The "who knew?'' excuse from McClellan is very hard to buy.

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However, the press briefing room has seen its share of ringers, partisans and oddballs over the years. Why is Guckert an issue? For that, we turn to columnist Leonard Pitts.

"... a government that is not scrutinized by an energetic and adversarial press is a government that is not accountable for its actions. A government that is allowed to create its own reality is a government that can get away with anything. ... Frankly, the only thing more galling than the brazenness with which the White House abrogates the public's right to know is the sheep-like docility with which we accept it, with which we become complicit in our own hoodwinking.''

Fox News: Doing the White House's Dirty Work

Charlie Jarvis, the president of USA Next, was a guest Monday (February 28, 2005) on Your World w/Neil Cavuto. While touting itself as an alternative to AARP, USA Next has quickly become the radical right's most prominent voice in the effort to dismantle Social Security. The website ThereIsNoCrisis.com has researched this slimy group, and Media Matters has tracked Fox's promotion of it.

As a result of the AARP's opposition to Bush's plan, the right aims to destroy it. To that end, USA Next has, as Cavuto said today, "engaged some of the folks" involved in the "very influential Swift Boat ads to help with its campaign." (The word "folks" makes them sound so benign.)

Last week, USA Next ran an Internet ad insinuating that AARP hates our troops and favors gay marriage. Here is a picture taken from the ad. Due to public pressure, USA Next pulled the ad, however, Fox News itself, another surrogate of the radical right, kept the AARP-bashing alive today during Jarvis's appearance.

Teasing the upcoming segments at the top of the show, Cavuto said: "And is the AARP a bunch of left wing nut cases? Hear from a group that says it has the data to prove it."

As Cavuto introduced Jarvis later on, he said: "I want you to take a look at this Internet ad attacking the AARP. It has nothing to do with Social Security (What a lie. It has everything to do with Social Security.) but the group behind it says it has everything to do with bringing conservatives to its side." At that point Fox showed the picture from the Internet ad which I linked to above.

During Jarvis's interview, Cavuto, not Jarvis, brought up gay marriage. In his usual innocent, little-boy way, Cavuto said: "Charlie, could I ask you, ah, you're pretty good at playing the media games, in fact very adept at it, to start bringing things like the gay marriage in to sort of tarnish, what really is being debated here. The AARP folks have essentially told me off the record this was foul. This was playing foul." As Jarvis gave an unresponsive answer, Fox News gave life to what Cavuto said by airing video of lesbian couples marrying in San Francisco last year.

Comment: Cavuto may have an innocent, soft spoken demeaner, but he is as much a warrior for the radical right as Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. Jarvis didn't link AARP and gay marriage today, Cavuto did. USA Next may have pulled its ad, but the right needn't worry; Fox News is there to make sure the message gets out anyway.

Restoring public trust in the election process

The debate over the 2004 governor's race is an opportunity to improve the way Washington votes.

Anyone looking for a cure-all to the trials of this historically close contest will come up empty-handed. No single solution exists.

But passing a series of meaningful reform proposals now will not only overhaul outdated laws and clarify recount rules. It will also help restore public trust. What could be more important?

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Finally, my office should receive the necessary resources to conduct a review of every county's election procedures and equipment every three years and to improve training for election workers. Reviews and additional training will provide counties with a clear road map to solve and prevent problems.

Voter Alert: Beware of "Push Polls"!

Push polls are one of the lowest and most manipulative forms of negative campaigning and should be challenged by voters and the media. In a city with very low voter turnout, push polling is especially cynical. Candidates who use push polls in advancing their campaigns should be held accountable by the voters and the media.


What are "Push Polls?"

According to the American Association for Public Opinion Research, "A push poll is a telemarketing technique in which telephone calls are used to canvass potential voters, feeding them false or misleading "information" about a candidate under the pretense of taking a poll to see how this "information" affects voter preferences. In fact, the intent is not to measure public opinion but to manipulate it-to "push" voters away from one candidate and toward the opposing candidate. Such polls defame selected candidates by spreading false or misleading information about them. The intent is to disseminate campaign propaganda under the guise of conducting a legitimate public opinion poll."

Push polls are condemned not only by legitimate professional polling and political organizations including the American Association of Public Opinion Research ( http://www.aapor.org/pdfs/2004/pushpolls.pdf ), which says they "violate the code of ethics by intentionally lying to or misleading respondents," but also by the American Association of Political Consultants who calls them "an activity which would corrupt or degrade the practice of political campaigning."

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What Voters and the Media Can Do

Voters should hold candidates who use push polls accountable by not voting for them. Negative campaigning reduces voter turnout and increases voter apathy. If you find yourself in the midst of a survey that seems like a push poll, write down the questions asked, ask the pollster who is paying for the poll, ask for the name of the company making the calls and report the push poll to the media. Tell your friends and colleagues to beware.


Articles and Resources:

Push Polls, Not to Be Confused with Legitimate Polling:
http://www.aapor.org/pdfs/2003/2003pushpollstatement.pdf
National Council on Public Polls: http://www.ncpp.org/push.htm
Public Opinion Strategies: http://www.pos.org/research/pushpoll.cfm

The Mighty Texas Strike Force
(Voter Suppression w/ link to GOP)

On the night of November 1, 2004, Jim Branscome said, he overheard a man, a guest in the Holiday Inn where Mr. Branscome worked in Columbus, Ohio, tell someone over the pay phone in the hotel lobby:

"'Look, I know you got out of prison about'...X amount of months ago...I can't remember how many months he gave, but it was earlier this year, the year 2004, and he said, 'It's illegal for you to vote in this state, and if you show up tomorrow at the polls, we're going to have the FBI there waiting for you, and we're going to haul your ass right back into the slammer' he told him or into the 'can' or something like that."

-- From a videotaped interview with Robert Fitrakis and Linda Byrket.

Mr. Branscome said that the man appeared to be making calls from a list of names and phone numbers. Outraged at what he had heard, Mr. Branscome said, he approached the man, but the man got on the elevator and fled to the sixth floor where he had a room. Mr. Branscome followed him to the sixth floor, but the man returned to the lobby immediately, with Mr. Branscome following him down and out of the hotel. Mr. Branscome saw the man turn the corner next to Ohio Republican Party headquarters, in the same block as the hotel, and he said he is sure the man went into the state GOP's building.

The hotel desk clerk called the Columbus police about the incident. The 911 report shows the police responded, but no action was taken, and there was no record of a report having been written, a clerk in the records section said.

If Mr. Branscome's report is accurate, the caller violated the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Voting Rights Act of 1968. If convicted, the caller could be sentenced to one year in jail.

Mr. Branscome has said he believes the caller was a member of a group staying at the hotel to work on the election calling itself the Mighty Texas Strike Force (MTSF). The organization has connections reaching into the White House.

In Afghanistan, Limbaugh lectured students on importance of "truth" in journalism

Once again calling into his radio program from Afghanistan, where he is working at the request of the federal government to highlight U.S. relief efforts, nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh lectured students on journalistic standards.

Recounting a meeting with students at a "journalist training program," Limbaugh noted that he told the aspiring journalists: "The best thing you can learn about journalism is truth." From the February 25 edition of the Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: One of the first questions was, "How do you balance justice and truth and objectivity?" and that was just a hanging curve ball. It was a softball. I just knocked it right out of the ballpark. I said, "The best thing you can learn about journalism is truth. Forget all the rest of the stuff. You're a human being, and you have opinions. You're an educated, learned human being; as a result, you have opinions. You have an interest in the outcome of events. Don't try to hide that. You'd just be a phony. You'd just be a hypocrite."

Media Matters for America has documented numerous examples of Limbaugh's misstatements, lies, and distortions. It remains unclear who is paying for Limbaugh's trip to Afghanistan, and why no progressive is traveling with him as a counterpoint.

Limbaugh apparently met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai during the trip, as he explained to his listeners:

LIMBAUGH: We came back to Kabul and went to another arrangement here where there's more revolutionary media taking place, and then spent -- it was scheduled to be 10 minutes with President Karzai -- spent 45 minutes with him.

Contacts:

Rush Limbaugh
rush@eibnet.com

The Rush Limbaugh Show
1-800-282-2882
rush@eibnet.com
fax: 212-563-9166

The Rush Limbaugh Show
1270 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Just who is the Council for National Policy, and why aren't they paying taxes?

Letter from Senator Boxer - Join me in the fight for election reform!

Dear Friend,

On February 18th, Senator Hillary Clinton and I introduced the "Count Every Vote Act" -- critical legislation that will bring overdue reform to our election system and restore the faith of all Americans in their most basic, fundamental right.

Every citizen of this country should be guaranteed that their vote matters, that their vote is counted, and that in the voting booth, their vote has as much weight as that of any CEO, any member of Congress, or any President. Our democracy is the centerpiece of who we are as a nation, and we must take action now to ensure that the American people have full confidence in our electoral system.

Today, I ask you to join the fight. Email your Members of Congress as part of my new e-advocacy campaign, and ask them to join Senator Clinton and me in the Senate, and Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones in the House, to co-sponsor the "Count Every Vote Act."

I hope all Members of Congress will join together in a bipartisan way to enact this critical legislation. But if the past is any indication, we still have a lot of work to do. That's why reaching out to your elected representatives is so critical -- especially when multiplied by hundreds of thousands of Americans speaking with the same voice.

With your help, we’ll fight for the kind of comprehensive election reform that our nation so desperately needs. Please email your Members of Congress now -- and then invite all of your friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues to join our cause!


In Friendship,



Barbara Boxer
U.S. Senator

Video in Real Media format (1 minute)

Video in Real Media format (30 seconds)

Video in Real Media format (4 minutes)

Video in Real Media format (4 minutes)

Video in Real Media format (3 minutes)

Video in Real Media format (1 minute)

We must defend voting rights in America, not just Iraq

This weekend in Selma, Ala., marchers will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in that city. The violence unleashed by Southern sheriffs and racial vigilantes on that day galvanized President Johnson to push through the Voting Rights Act, giving blacks the right to vote in the South for the first time since the brief reconstruction period after the Civil War.

Now 40 years later, that right to vote is once more at risk. When President Bush met with the 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. -- I report with some pride -- asked him if he would support extension and strengthening of the Voting Rights Act when it comes up for renewal in 2007.

Bush responded that he did not support voting rights for the District of Columbia. Jackson said that was not what he asked; he asked about extending the Voting Rights Act. Bush replied that he was not aware of the act and would look at it when it got to his desk. The president's passivity would enable House Majority leader Rep. Tom ''the Hammer'' DeLay to torpedo the act, just as he has real voting-rights reform.

The president has been eloquent in promoting democracy across the world. He said he would tell Russian President Vladimir Putin that democracies should be founded on ''the rule of law, and respect for human and rights and dignity.'' Bush has argued that democracy is so important in Iraq that it alone is worth Americans' dying and killing for. The interim Iraqi constitution protects the rights of women and minorities to vote.

But in America, Bush and his party are undermining the right to vote -- and the right to have one's vote counted. The glaring contrast between Bush's rhetoric abroad and his record at home raises deep questions about his true intentions.

'Outing' ignored by liberal media

Citizens, it's finally happened. An alleged former male prostitute has been unmasked among the White House press corps.

If this comes as a surprise, don't blame liberal media bias. For once, there's a Washington sex scandal our fastidious "mainstream" press mostly wishes to avoid.

Why? Good question. By day, "Jeff Gannon" posed as White House correspondent for a fictitious news organization called Talon News, an Internet site that is a subsidiary of GOPUSA.com. That's a Texas-based Web site bankrolled by one Bobby Eberle, an activist now depicted as virtually unknown in Texas GOP circles, even though he was a Bush delegate to the 2000 Republican National Convention.

"Gannon" was granted day passes to White House press briefings and news conferences, where he routinely lobbed softball questions to press secretary Scott McClellan.

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What does the affair tell us about White House security amid the "war on terror"? That's hard to say. So far nobody's explained how a man with no journalistic credentials and a phony name passed muster with the Secret Service. One reasonable presumption might be that a high-ranking White House official must have vouched for him, but given the Washington press' reluctance and GOP control of Congress, we may never know.

Schwarzenegger backs initiatives for special election

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he and supporters will start gathering signatures to place measures before voters in a special election later this year aimed at cutting state spending, changing how teachers are paid and revising how political districts are drawn.

Anticipated for months, Schwarzenegger's move pits the popular GOP governor against some of the state's most powerful political forces - including the state's majority party, the Democrats; the education coalition; and most of the largest labor unions.

Schwarzenegger, who has called the election a "great battle," also planned to make his first campaign-style event Tuesday afternoon at a Sacramento-area restaurant. He has vowed to raise $50 million to support his agenda, which he said follows the reformist themes of the 2003 recall election that brought him to power.

In January, Schwarzenegger called on the Democrat-dominated Legislature to place four measures on the ballot before March 1 or face him at the polls. Even though the deadline has passed, Democrats have said they would still consider working with Schwarzenegger on compromise proposals.

Unfairness and Inaccuracy in Media, The Propaganda-Apologists Continue to Shill For Jeff/Jim Gannon/Guckert

Now that Jeff Gannon has returned to brag about how the left hunted him down, it was expected that the apologists for this whore would start coming out of the woodwork to defend the indefensible. People from the far right, the administration, and the mainstream media all have a stake in downplaying this story. In order for that to work, they need to convince you that this is somehow a partisan story and that poor Jeff/Jim is the hapless victim of the mean-spirited lefties.

Cliff Kincaid is one such writer who has come to the defense of Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert. Clearly shilling for the administration, Kincaid maintains his blog on the Accuracy in the Media (AIM) website. This is a cheap imitation of the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting organization, which is in the business of real activism. AIM tries it’s best to appear to be FAIR, but in the end it is clearly a partisan enterprise, engaged in the business of disinformation.

Kincaid has written more than one piece already, serving as an apologist for the administration and Gannon. In his pieces he has defended Gannon and ridiculed the blogosphere. He has portrayed Gannon as the victim and the new media as the relentless villain. This is nonsense.

On February 11, 2005, Kincaid posted his article entitled, “The Destruction of Jeff Gannon”. It can be found here.

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (and War)

Gannongate: Journalism's Latest Disgrace

Stop and really think about this for a minute. The Bush Administration has already confessed to counterfeiting news by planting columnists and reporters with party rhetoric and a fat paycheck. The response from the media? A half-assed question: "Do you think it's a proper use of government funds (emphasis mine) to pay commentators to promote your policies?"

That reporter was well rewarded with an equally half-assed reply: "I expect my cabinet secretaries to make sure that that practice doesn’t go forward. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet."

Janus-esque doubletalk, meet propaganda proponents.

With Guckert's outing by weblogs around the world, one would think that the White House would finally have to eat some crow over its relentless bending of the Fourth Estate to its will. After all, the scandal has all the prime elements of a television movie – gay sex, deceit, treachery and politics. It couldn't have come bundled in a better package. And yet once again, this disturbing story of media manipulation has been tucked away with all the mouth-frothing over Iraqi weapons and terror alerts. No indictment for perjury. No ramifications of any kind.

Instead, we're treated to a softball "investigation" into Bush's drug use. Who cares one iota over whether or not Bush did lines or smoked weed or drank himself silly? It doesn't affect me, it doesn't affect you, it's none of our business. All I care about with regards to the President is how he serves his role as leader of the people of the United States. In that, he's a miserable failure and a criminal.

Votes might get paper receipts

Mississippi getting $34 million to modernize elections

LONG BEACH - This year will be the most important for election reform, Secretary of State Eric Clark said Monday night.

States must clean up voter rolls and buy new voting machines in accordance with a federal act, Help America Vote, passed in October 2002 by Congress. The provisions of the act go into effect Jan. 1, 2006.

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Counties also must have new voting machines by next year.

"Our intent is to make a state purchase rather than each county negotiating and buying its own machines," he said.