PLUS CA CHANGE........

Continuing Krugman's theme from yesterday's post, here is some information from yesterdays Progress Report, the daily newsletter from the American Progress Action Fund.  This may be the single most informative daily political news update that I receive, and I get a lot of them.  This is more info on the problems likely to be occurring with voting this November, things all of us need to know about.  A constant theme of the convention speakers is "this time, every vote must be counted."  It seems entirely possible that this may only be wishful thinking.  I'm putting in the entire section from the Report on voting, so you can just read it here. 

VOTING
GOP Calls for Voter Suppression

A string of recent declarations from top government officials and Republican party leaders are raising questions about whether the Bush administration is quietly attempting to manipulate voting in the 2004 presidential election. Last week, a GOP lawmaker and co-chair of the Bush-Cheney '04 Michigan Veterans Leadership Team called recently for his party to "suppress the Detroit vote," making a mockery of President Bush's belated attempt to reach out to African-Americans in that city last week. Speaking at the National Urban League, Bush said, "I believe you've got to earn the vote and seek it," but State Rep. John Pappageorge (R) revealed a backup plan in the swing state of Michigan: "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election," he said. It is little secret what Pappageorge meant by the "Detroit vote" – while Michigan state is majority white (78 percent), Detroit boasts an overwhelmingly minority population (88 percent). State Sen. Buzz Thomas (D) told reporters, "I'm extremely disappointed in my colleague…That's quite clearly 'code' that they don't want black people to vote in this election."

SAME OLD STORY: The idea the GOP might try to "suppress" votes is nothing new to minority voters. A BET/CBS poll shows "more than four in five blacks believe Bush did not legitimately win the [2000] election, and two-thirds think deliberate attempts were made to prevent black voters' ballots from being counted."

BACK TO MESSING WITH FLORIDA: Earlier this month in Florida, where President Bush's brother Jeb is governor, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights announced it would ask the Department of Justice to investigate whether the state's aborted effort to "use of a flawed database to remove felons from the voter rolls was a deliberate attempt to block some voters from casting ballots." The Miami Herald reported that this year's list "included people – many of themblackDemocrats – who have had their right to vote restored."

E-MACHINES MEAN NO RECORD: Efforts to suppress votes could only be aided by the proliferation of touch screen voting machines. The machines, despite coming under fire for technical glitches and a lack of transparency, "are poised for use in the November elections in more than 675 counties, comprising more than 30 percent of the nation's registered voters." Because many of the machines provide no paper record of votes, they could make a manual recount of a contested vote impossible.

RIGGING THE SYSTEM: The CEO of the company which will provide many of the new voting machines is Diebold's Walden O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser (Pioneer) who wrote in a fundraising letter last August that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Federal Election Commission data shows "at least eight million people will cast their ballots using Diebold machines next November," meaning 8 percent of the number of voters in 2000 will have their 2004 votes calculated on a machine created by a self-described Bush partisan.

STILL STICKING WITH PUNCH CARDS?: Meanwhile, the ACLU is taking aim at problems with antiquated punch card ballots, which were the source of controversy during the 2000 election in Florida. AP reports an ACLU lawyer in Ohio is "arguing that even isolated malfunctions in Ohio could change the November election results in this swing state." Arguing for the machines to be judged unconstitutional, the ACLU maintains "that punch cards are more likely to go uncounted than votes cast with other systems, and that use of the ballots violates the rights of black voters, who mostly live in punch-card counties."

So, there you have it.  We all need to make some noise about this, and quickly.  I'm working to register voters, I'm especially concerned with getting minority voters registered.  I want their vote to be counted, not an exercise in futility.

Again, from yesterday's Progress Report, some disturbing, though unsurprising facts on corporate donations to the Democratic Party, and Convention.  I know my party is not perfect, I know my candidate is not perfect - I know there are huge reforms that need to be made in this whole system.  This is a longterm effort that truly needs the attention and participation of more than just a few people, however.  It won't change until the entire electorate decides it needs to change.  In the meantime, yes, the corporations are calling the shots and pulling the strings.  Take a look at just how big a pricetag is attached to those strings.  I'm only putting in the first and last paragraphs of this section, go to the Report and read the entire thing - it is, to say the least, illuminating.

CONVENTION
'Boon for Special Interests'

As the Democratic Party this week uses its national convention to trumpet its working class roots, and the need for a government that represents the middle class, a whole other convention is occurring out of sight of television cameras. In scores of parties throughout Boston, the New York Times reports, "corporate big spenders...finally can cut loose." While anti-war protestors expressing their constitutional rights are "under lockdown" and cordoned off from the convention, lobbyists have flooded the area, underwriting the convention with cash from some of the biggest companies with the biggest business before the federal government. The brazen display of corporate largesse runs counter to Sen. John Kerry's consistent support of campaign finance reform. As one lobbyist at the convention said, "Corporate dollars are flowing rather freely" at the convention, with "a lot of folks saying, 'Let the good times roll.'" Similarly, former DNC Chairman Don Fowler said, "Some of the best lobbying in the world is done at these conventions. It is a tremendous boon for special interests."

$39.5 MILLION FROM CORPORATE SPECIAL INTERESTS: The NYT reports the Raytheon Company, IBM and Fidelity Investments each gave at least $1 million to the host committee for the Democratic National Convention in Boston, according to a donor list. AT&T, Amgen and Nextel Communications each gave at least $500,000. In all, more than 150 donors have contributed more than $39.5 million - money they could not legally give to a political party or a candidate under the new law but are permitted to donate to a convention. All told, "private sources are on track to contribute about $110 million to this year's Democratic and Republican conventions combined, some 13 times what they gave for the 1992 conventions."

MAKE NO MISTAKE – THE GOP CONVENTION IS WORSE: As troubling as some of the behavior at the Democratic convention is, it appears the Republican Party is trying to go even further. Earlier this year, CBS News reported House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) was planning to use the guise of a children's charity to allow corporate donors to slather him and other Republicans with cash. Specifically, DeLay created a group called "Celebrations for Children" that he said was a charity, but planned to use to solicit corporate donations at the Republican National Convention. "For $50,000, a donor will get luxury box seats at the 2004 Republican convention, tickets to Broadway shows and spots in an upscale golf tournament," from the "charity," while "A half-million dollars will buy all of that, plus a New York cruise and two dinners" with DeLay himself. In 2000, DeLay had major corporate donors sponsor a luxury train car for him and other top Republicans to party in during their convention.