America's wars of aggression and crimes against humanity continue in Iraq and Afghanistan despite the opposition of the majority of Americans. Whenever people tell me that they oppose the wars, I ask them why they continue to vote for war. They have numerous excuses. Some think they have no choice because peace isn't on the ballot, so the only way they can exercise their franchise is to vote for war. Some don't think that voting for a candidate committed to war, is the same as voting for war. Some think that despite the trillions of dollars in war profiteering, if they just allow their candidate to kill a few more million innocent people, they might then be able to persuade their candidate to stop the wars. Others think that the only alternative to war is violent revolution--haven't they ever heard of peace? None of these arguments make any sense, yet people keep repeating them, hoping that repetition of illogical arguments might justify the fact that they claim to want peace but keep voting for war.

Lanova Messiah is a hero of the peace movement here in Exxonia. Lanova's mother was tortured and killed by the corrupt dictator who is currently our country's President. Lanova has been arrested many times protesting the crimes of our government, most recently at the office of one Member of Parliament who had promised to help us remove our dictator from power, but has not, and at the office of another who is also from Lanova's own political party but is protecting the dictator instead of protecting the people. So it was with great joy that we learned that Lanova is running for Parliament herself.

You won't believe this one.

California's new Democratic Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, found, after a top-to-bottom review by experts, that voting machines have hundreds of vulnerabilities that cannot be secured. In an attempt to comply with State Election Code, Bowen only recertified the machines if the vendors agreed to certain conditions. One of those conditions is a slightly larger audit in extremely close races.

But Diebold/Premier doesn't want those audits, so San Diego, whose Registrar of Voters is a former Diebold salesperson, is suing the Secretary of State!

Do you think we have a democratic form of government? Think again! When progressives call for democracy, the response from regressives is often that we do not have a democracy, we have a republic. A republic, we're told, is a representative form of democracy, so many people think that we do at least have a type of democracy. We do not. The republic we have in the USA is not only undemocratic, it is anti-democratic. The reason for this is that while we supposedly have the right to elect our representatives, in reality we do not, as I explain below, and we also lack the power to remove them for refusing to represent us, as many of us have already learned the hard way. Without the power to elect representatives who will protect our interests, and to remove them if they fail to do so, we cannot be said to have a democratic form of government.

When John Conyers was here in San Diego on Friday, I was fortunate enough to spend fifteen minutes talking with him. I was walking towards the bus after attending a little reception for him hosted by the San Diego Metro Chapter of Progressive Democrats of America, when I passed him sitting on a bench waiting for his ride, and, being in no particular hurry myself, I stopped to chat.

Had John Conyers been a Republican, a chat like that probably would have cost me thousands of dollars. But he's a Democrat, and not just any Democrat, but a man of the people, so it didn't cost me a dime. There's going to be a reception here for Barbara Boxer, but I don't have the $100 price of admission, which is fine with me, since I have no particular desire to meet Boxer anyway, but Conyers has always been a hero of mine.

Most Americans don't vote. Of those who vote, most are dissatisfied with the Democrats and Republicans, but don't see any real alternative. This is a proposal for third party unity that anyone can introduce to their local third parties.

This short video analysis of Holt is brilliant!

http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.co...

Mark has asked that it be circulated widely for the cause, so please send it to your lists and post it on other sites.

Given the political realities, many say, we are still going to have some type of machines counting votes in '08, so our only options are to have slightly less hackable machines or slightly better audits.

I don't get it. We know that Bush has an approval rating under 30%. He and his minions couldn't win an election if their opponent was a jellyfish. We also know that the jellyfish currently in Congress aren't representing the majority of us who want impeachment, want the war to stop, want an end to torture, want checks and balances restored to government, want our civil liberties and Constitutional rights back, and want honest elections. So why aren't we impeaching or recalling them, or at least tarring and feathering them and running them out of town on a rail or whatever the proper procedure is for getting rid of representatives who don't represent?

Now that John Kerry has decided not to run in '08, and has, I believe even made some comments with regard to the '04 election, it seems timely to remind him of his promise to us.

I recently got into a discussion with someone who told me that by supporting the war, the Democrats were merely using communication and cooperation to reach out to Bush and the Republicans in the same way that Gandhi reached out to Hitler, and that anyone who criticizes the Democrats would "no doubt" think that Gandhi was a Nazi.

This is a quick easy action that everyone can take to help us restore democracy.

I'm a registered Green. I usually vote a straight Green Party ticket except for where no Green is running, and then I vote Peace & Freedom, Democrat, or for a write-in candidate.

So I had been intending to vote for Forrest Hill, the Green Party candidate for California Secretary of State. This is a very important position because the SOS is the person who decides if voting machines will or will not be used, which ones to certify if they are used, and what the elections procedures will be where they are not already part of the Elections Code.

The Democratic candidate for SOS, Debra Bowen, has held hearings on election integrity and really has a handle on the subject, so when I heard that a debate between them was scheduled Wednesday night here in San Diego, I was looking forward to it.

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A U.S. ammo dump blew up in Iraq, at Camp Falcon.

The first video was posted by an Iraqi news service. The largest explosion comes at about 3:57 into the video:

http://video.google.com/...

That news service was raided and many journalists there killed the next day.

Then another video, filmed by U.S. Marines was posted:

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The Let America Vote Act of 2006 is a piece of emergency legislation that, if passed, would ensure that we could still vote when the voting machines break down in November.

Notice that I didn't say "if" they break down. They are notorious for breaking down. It is about the only thing that you can confidently rely upon them to do. Here in San Diego we're going to be switching to a new type of voting machine in November. I can guarantee you that in many precincts they simply won't work at all, and in others they will break down before the polls close.

LAVA is an ingenious way to make sure that we can all  vote anyway, but who can we count on to co-sponsor it?

The Maryland trainwreck is apt to be repeated all over the country in November.

Brad Friedman has come up with an emergency measure that we need to push through Congress before the election.

A polished version will be available tomorrow, but in the meantime here's the draft version:

I've been running into some very interesting people lately.

They include doctors, lawyers, political candidates, donors, and precinct workers, and they have one thing in common: They're not donating any more money to the Democratic Party. Instead they're putting their money into election integrity lawsuits. Some of them are even contemplating the possibility of not voting Democrat for the first time in their lives.

They've gotten tired of watching the Democratic candidates whose campaigns they poured so much time, money, and energy into, graciously conceding stolen elections to Republicans. They're tired of voting for the lesser evil, only to watch them graciously concede a stolen election to the greater evil.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that if not for Ralph Nader Gore would have won in 2000.

It doesn't happen to be true. Gore did win in 2000. He even won in Florida in 2000, as was proven afterwards, but the Supreme Court stepped in and stopped the recount so that Bush could be installed and Al Gore graciously conceded.

But there are many people who still blame Ralph Nader and the Greens. And there are lots of people who watched Gore's movie about global warming and have been telling me what a wonderful guy he is. I have a response:

Tomorrow afternoon in San Diego Superior Court, Judge Yuri Hoffman will decide whether Congress can choose its own members or they have to be elected by the people of their state.

The issue arose when Barbara "Gail" Jacobsen and Lillian Ritt, voters from California's 50th Congressional District, filed suit against Representative Brian Bilbray and San Diego Registrar of Voters Mikel Haas. Bilbray was sworn in by Congress before the vote was certified and Congress has sent a letter to the judge saying that the Constitution gives Congress alone the power to decide the qualifications and elections of their members.

Attorney Paul Lehto disagrees: