Illiteracy in High Places? Not Forgetting (or Noticing) A Thing

Good Night Irene. We might as well lull ourselves to sleep every night to this classic as we lurch toward the next wave of bankster bailouts. It's almost too easy these days to find excellent sources of intelligently derived economic information that seem to have escaped the smarty pants (I'm looking at you, Rahm - yeah, and Tim, too) in the Obama administration (or not), so you have to admit that somehow people are not really trying to figure out what is taking place daily (in every evening's news!) affecting their future economic well being. Today's essay by Mark Crispin Miller commenting on Michael Collins' exposé of the Democratic Rethuglicans (okay, that's my title, but read it and determine where I'm going wrong) provides a very pointed case. (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

The banks continue to take trillions from the Treasury but Congress couldn’t pass a simple bill to save the homes of 1.7 million families. They forgot to cap outrageous credit card interest rates in the so called “credit card bill of rights.” We’re getting into a new “empire” groove in Afghanistan. There’s no new 911 investigation and the election system is still out of control. It’s all one party, The Money Party. Who do they think they’re kidding? Time for truth . . . . One party created the current disaster. The other has embraced the broadest parameters of the policies that created the disasters that voters want fixed — wealth transfers to the ultra rich while the vast majority gets just about nothing plus mindless, counterproductive fantasies of empire through war.

The two parties and the elitists who look down their noses on the overwhelming majority of citizens assume that the people will simply tolerate the creation of a catastrophe by one party and the perpetuation of that grave injustice to citizens by the other. When you’re broke, you know it. When you’re out of work, you know it. When there are no jobs, you know it. And when the country continues to fight overseas but does nothing to protect economic security at home, you know it.

Ex-Reagan Treasury official Paul Craig Roberts is just about around the bend this week as he tries to wake up the populace to what is happening to the US dollar. He says he thinks there is "illiteracy in high places," but I've got my doubts. There is nothing wrong with this man's ability to perceive economic truths (now, anyway), and I really enjoyed (darkly, of course) his mentioning of Geithner's Chinese audience laughing out loud at his (Geithner's, of course) ignorance. Those Chinese. What must they be thinking of us? (Emphasis marks and some editing added - Ed.)

If a person lives long enough, he can watch everyone forget everything they learned. Everyone includes Federal Reserve Chairmen, economists, Bank of America “strategists,” and even Bloomberg.com. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke thinks he can hold down US long-term interest rates by purchasing mortgage bonds and US Treasuries. Sixty years ago the Federal Reserve understood that this was an impossible feat. After an acrimonious public dispute with the US Treasury, in 1951 the Federal Reserve forced an “Accord” on the government that eliminated the Fed’s obligation to monetize Treasury debt in order to hold down long-term interest rates. John Snyder wanted to protect World War II bond purchasers by preventing any rise in interest rates, which would mean a decline in the price of the bonds. The Fed understood that monetizing the debt to hold down interest rates meant loss of control over the money supply. The policy of suppressing interest rates could only work until the financial markets anticipated rising inflation and bid down the bond prices.

If the Fed responded by buying more Treasuries, the money supply and inflation would rise faster. Since Fed Chairman Bernanke announced his plan to purchase $1 trillion in mortgage and Treasury bonds in order to help the housing market with low interest rates, interest rates have risen. When will the Fed remember that printing money does not lower long-term interest rates? According to Bloomberg (June 3), Bank of America strategists are recommending that investors buy Fannie Mae bonds because the rise in interest rates means the Fed will ramp up its purchases in order to prevent rising interest rates from adversely impacting the struggling housing market. When will financial gurus remember that printing money does not lower interest rates? Treasury Secretary Geithner is another economic incompetent. He told China that he stood for a “strong dollar,” but that China should let its currency appreciate relative to the dollar, which, of course, would mean a weaker dollar. He simultaneously told China that their investments in US Treasury bonds were safe. His Chinese university audience, being economically literate, laughed at Geithner. It apparently did not dawn on the US Treasury Secretary that if Chinese money is rising in value relative to the US dollar, the value of Chinese investments in dollar-denominated US Treasury bonds is falling. Congressional Democrats are proving themselves to be as stupid as the Republicans. According to the Associated Press, the Democrats have reached agreement to appropriate another $100 billion to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of the year. What are the Democrats thinking? The federal budget for this year is already 50% in the red. Why add another $100 billion to the red ink, which has to be monetized, thus causing inflation, higher interest rates, and a weaker dollar. The red ink that Washington is generating is a far greater threat to Americans than any foreign “enemies.” The hubris is extraordinary. A bankrupt government that has to send its Treasury Secretary begging to China thinks it can spend limitless amounts in a futile effort to control the culture, mores, and political system of distant Afghanistan.

Nope. It's really not that hard to keep up. Doing something about it, on the other hand, is tougher. But what are we waiting for? Suzan ___________________

The Tyranny Inherent in Election Fraud (Parts 1 & 2)

Michael Collins (catch that name!) has performed an immense public service in making two essays on "the tyrannical rule by the Bush-Cheney administration" available to us at Scoop Independent News (and Truthout.org) entitled Election Fraud and Tyranny: Parts 1 and 2. The depictions of outright vote changing (stealing) will have you running for the exits to report it to the authorities! He also gives us a new book to read in Mark Crispin Miller's Loser Take All (and other sources), which "identifies and analyzes election fraud, the foundation of extremist power in the United States since 2000." (Emphasis marks are mine.) __________________________________________

Election Fraud and Tyranny: Part 1 Monday 14 July 2008 Michael Collins Scoop News Florida scrubbed 91,000 legitimate voters from the voter rolls while disputes about hanging chads on ballots dominated the news coverage. Washington, D.C. - Mark Crispin Miller's new book, "Loser Take All," identifies and analyzes election fraud, the foundation of extremist power in the United States since 2000. Manipulated elections have enabled everything we've experienced from the Iraq war to the current economic meltdown. None of that would have been possible without the ongoing series of "surprise" wins for extremists and their enablers following the outright theft of the 2000 presidential election. Miller illustrates his overarching analysis with a collection of carefully chosen essays. They map the rise of what key figures on the right and left refer to as tyrannical rule by the Bush - Cheney administration. Through a sequence of critical elections from 2000 on, Miller shows the particular outrages in each that enabled the retention and expansion of power. In doing so, he defines the basis for our current troubles. A Sequence of Outrages Loser Take All is organized sequentially beginning with the critical election of 2000 through 2006. In addition, we're given predictions of anticipated problems in 2008. Just part of what we learn is how: Gore lost Florida 2000 even before election day; key Georgia voting machines were modified before the stunning losses by Gov. Barnes and Sen. Cleland in 2002; and, Bush won 2004 in the big cities, if you believe the national exit poll. Part 1 of this series covers the 2000, 2002, and 2004 federal elections. 2000 Air and Land Assault Florida 2000 The Bush ascendancy and the tragedies that followed began with the "shock and awe" of a combined air and land assault worthy of our greatest generals. There were no weapons or troops involved just public officials, various bureaucracies, party operatives, and "the machines." Lance Dehaven-Smith outlines the cooperation between Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Catherine Harris and the national Republican campaign starting well before the election. A database vendor, DBT, was charged with purging felons from the rolls of Florida voters. Like many states, Florida felons were effectively denied the vote for life. The task consisted of matching felon lists from Florida and other states, most prominently Texas, with names on Florida's registration rolls. The standards used to match registered voters with the combined list of felons were so loose nearly 91,000 legitimate voters were wrongly eliminated as registered voters. When they showed up to vote, they were told to go home. Before and during the process, the Florida Department of Elections was warned by DBT that the criteria was producing "false positives" - voters tagged as felons who were not true matches with the felons on the lists used. After the lists were distributed to county boards of elections, several election administrators offered serious warnings about inaccuracies. Nothing was done to correct the errors. The removal of tens of thousands of legitimate voters from Florida's election rolls before the election sealed candidate Al Gore's fate. More than half of those excluded were minority voters, predominantly black. Given the turnout rates and Gore's huge advantage with black voters, nearly 9 to 1 in Florida, a clean election would have given Al Gore the presidency in 2000. David B. Moore describes the "air" war against democracy in 2000. The critical moment in the public perception of the campaign came when Fox News called the election in Bush's favor. It didn't matter that Gore won the popular vote. That was not "hot news." What did matter was that Fox declared Bush the winner prematurely. Wasn't there some sophisticated polling analysis to justify this call? Only if you consider this phrase science: "Jebbie says we got it. Jebbie says we got it." That's what John Ellis, head of the Fox decision team, told his crew shortly after 2:00 am. Why would Fox be getting such an odd message from the Governor of Florida, Jeb ("Jebbie") Bush? Because Ellis was his first cousin. Fox made the call based on Gov. "Jebbie" and created a perceived advantage for Bush that remained unchanged even after Fox withdrew its irresponsible election call two hours later. For the entire election, Gore had been on the defensive as a result of a media tear down that betrayed news reader and network loyalties to their corporate pay masters. It was the perfect lie to accompany the imperfect crime. Moore and Dehaven-Smith offer much more in their well written essays, required reading for anyone who wants to know how election 2000 began the process of mindless war and torture and domestic neglect. 2002 Surprise Attack Barnes, Cleland and Their Stunning "Losses" Robert Kennedy Jr. tells the compelling story of the 2002 Georgia election where two popular incumbents, with solid leads four days before the election, lost in stunning reversals. Click here for table showing different percentage lead and actual votes tallied. How could two popular incumbents, in the same state, with leads like these, both experience rarely seen reversals? Under pressure due to uncounted votes in the 2000 election, the Georgia Secretary of State virtually turned over the election to the state's touch screen e-voting vendor, Diebold. Chris Hood was a Diebold technical consultant who bravely reported that he and others applied a software "patch" to Diebold voting machines just before the election. This patch was so important that the president of Diebold, Bob Urosevich delivered it in person to Diebold technical personnel in Georgia. State law required that any changes to e-voting machines be cleared by the state. This was not done. When questions were raised after these highly improbable election results, Urosevich claimed the patch simply changed the clock on the voting machines, a claim deemed not serious by whistle blower Hood. The state failed to mount a thorough investigation and the Democrats were largely silent. This bold move in the Georgia elections was a major alarm that was ignored and dismissed by the press and Democratic leadership. The Beginning of the End for Don Siegelman There was another 2002 outrage that also failed to gain the attention of the national media and federal authorities. Larisa Alexandrovna and James H. Gundlach provide the narrative and analytic proof that incumbent Democratic Governor Don Siegelman's 2002 election night win was, in fact, just that. On election eve, state wide results showed that Siegelman taking a narrow victory in a hard fought campaign. That wasn't good enough for heavily Republican Baldwin County. Election officials there recounted the votes in the very early morning after Election Day. The wee hours recount reduced Siegelman's Baldwin County total from 19,000 to 12, 000 votes, just enough to give the Republican challenger a 3,000 vote victory. Gundlach efficiently deconstructs the improbable election and turns it into a case study of high probability election fraud. 2004 Sealing Our Fate Bush Wins it in the Big Cities Miller reveals a more sophisticated election theft in 2004 I wrote the chapter, "Election 2004: The Urban Legend" (by Michael Collins, see disclosure*) based on research by Internet poster " anaxarchos " who discovered some remarkable anomalies in the final exit poll for 2004: Bush won reelection in the nation's "big cities" (500,000 > pop.). The national exit poll is sponsored by the Media Consortium consisting of the Associated Press ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and CNN. It provides the acknowledged source of national data on who voted, where, and why. There was great controversy generated by the unintentional release of a late Election Day exit poll showing Kerry winning by 3%. The official version, released the day after the election had Bush winning by 3%. We examined the official exit poll and discovered data that casts serious doubt on the claimed vote totals. According to the official version of the exit poll: 2004 was not a red versus blue election, as reported. The rural sector in 2000 was 23% of the total vote but in 2004, it was just 16%. Bush total votes were down by two million in 2004 compared to 2000 in that segment. Bush lost significant ground in red states in 2004 and started the election in the hole. Bush made spectacular gains in "big cities" (pop. 500,000 or greater) going from 26% to 39% of the total votes in that segment. According to the official exit poll, he picked up these gains largely with the help of four million white big city voters, ghosts so to speak, who rose from their graves and other hiding places to hand the election to Bush. According to the official exit poll, the Bush big city magic took place amidst a 66% increase in big city voter turnout compared to a more modest 16% national turnout increase using reported vote totals. There was no 66% increase in big city turnout. Actual big city vote totals, available election eve or shortly thereafter, show big city turnout slightly below the national average. The exit poll's 66% turnout increase and the four million white ghosts were the only way to make the poll agree with the election results, neither of which was accurate. According to the official exits, Bush became the first president to be re-elected while both losing significant ground in his base and, at the same time, making it up in hostile territory, the nation's big cities. The same people who gave us this mess did the exit polling for the 2008 primaries and will conduct the 2008 national exit poll in November. Electronic Ballot Box Stuffing On a more pragmatic level, Miller includes two chapters that define how things were done at the state and local level. Activist John R. Brakey was so shocked at what he saw on Election Day 2004, he began gathering extensive data. The more he saw, the more he was convinced that there was systematic election manipulation in Arizona's Legislative District 27 located in Pima County, Arizona. When the distinguished research physicist David L. Griscom came on the scene, he had more than enough data to demonstrate the specific techniques that switched votes from Kerry to Bush. The model on "how to stuff an electronic ballot box" is sufficiently detailed for application across the nation in case anyone in the government is interested. Credence for The Griscom-Brakey findings was just provided by recent events in Pima County. Making Nevada Safe for Touch Screens 2004 also featured the state of Nevada as a demonstration project to legitimize the now totally discredited touch screen voting devices. Brad Friedman and Michael Richardson tell us how touch screens were introduced to Nevada with claims of accuracy and federal certification, when neither claim applied. This is a cautionary tale repeated across the country in the era of elections outsourced to vendors and unelected bureaucrats. Ironically, in the gaming capitol of the world, the voting machines were not nearly as secure as the slots. "Mission Accomplished" By Nov. 2, 2004, the mission of returning the extremists to power and retaining their agenda was complete. The process of distortions began with the smears of Kerry by the "swift boaters," Bush partisans who mounted a relentless campaign against Sen. John F. Kerry. This wasn't new. Marginal groups attacking candidates are common in our elections. Full cooperation by the mainstream media with the vicious attacks was a first. The worst elements of partisan politics were willingly incorporated into the national dialog by the network talking heads and the shouting cable clones. And they treated it as business as usual instead of an unfair but devastating attack on the core character issue of Sen. Kerry's campaign, his service to the nation. At the same time, the 2004 reporting of the networks and press consistently ignored the obvious signs of looming election disasters around the country. Coverage of the partisan set up in Ohio for an Election Day melt down was inadequate. Little attention was paid to the biased Department of Justice handling of voting and civil rights violations. And, of course, there had been no correction whatsoever of the problems of Florida 2000, which were characterized by 175,000 spoiled ballots, largely in minority precincts. When it came time to vote on Nov. 2, 2004, the forces working for a perpetuation of illegitimate power swung into action and sealed our fate without even bothering to consult us. We were guaranteed four more years of decline and debasement, all enabled through election fraud on a scale never seen. It became the new business as usual with a bonus of more war, more torture, and a yet to be delivered economic melt down that would affect us all. Miller's latest effort bears witness to his ability to inspire others to investigation and action after looking into the abyss of extremist corruption that he has observed so well in the past. He provides an elegant framework for the collection of essays with his ongoing commentary forming the articles into a persuasive whole. If you want to understand how the tragedy of the last eight years began and developed into the current crisis, this book is one of your key resources. For Part 2, click here.

Suzan _______________________________________