US judge approves the politically motivated MS-DOJ settlement.

This proves one thing.  As a society, we are still in denial about corporate abuses of power.  Law, like any other system is prone to distortion by the views of the people that apply it.  

However, this decision is the end result of the previous decision to settle the case.  The debacle of the SEC/MS settlement, given the copious evidence to demonstrate abuse, shows that this adminstration (a nice way of saying BUSH) is in favor of business as usual.  Unfortunately that means corporate greed and malfeasance is here to stay.  Given our present economic circumstance, another round of scandal is likely to plunge us into a Japanese scenario.  That is a situation where a country is so unable to reform itself that it continues to select stagnation rather than face the pain that will result in growth.   It is a country were the general good is overcome by the needs of a select few. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

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Donna Warren on Three Strikes

Donna is the Green Party candidate for California Lt. Governor

November 1, 2002 

Today is the 5th year anniversary of my son’s murder.  At approximately 1130 a.m., Ricarrlo Porter in my home, pointed an assault weapon at my son and shot him point blank 9 times, 5 times to the body center.  The 10th shot whizzed over my head as I came from the kitchen to question why blanks were being shot in my living room.  What I saw was my beloved son crumpled to the floor, dying.  I bent to the floor, embraced my son and begged him not to die.  He took one last breathe without words and then he was gone.

I’m running for the second highest office in the State of California.  Included in my platform is a demand for amendment of 3 Strikes to violent felonies only, an end to the death penalty and an end to the bogus war on drugs. <more>

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I Voted Touchscreen!

That’s what the sticker says. They gave one after I voted today in Los Angeles at one of the twenty new touchscreen voting centers. They plan to roll them out county wide by 2004-5.

They are easy to use, especially for anyone with even a little computer expertise. And - no more dangling chads!

On Election Day, I will be an inspector at a local precinct, helping people vote, checking the residency against volumes of paper lists, determining what to do if say, a person brings in an absentee ballot but forgot the envelope it goes in (they then vote on provisonal ballot basis).

I went to the training session last night. While the County Registrar of Voters has certainly tried to make it simple, lemme tell you, the current system is deeply convoluted and uses way too many pieces of paper. Touchscreen voting will be a huge improvement. For example, voters can be looked up via computer to determine eligibility rather than by manually going through pages of paper at the precinct.

Connecticut, where I grew up, has used computerized voting booths since the late 50’s. No muss no fuss. Everything gets done quickly. Here in LA, each precinct, after close of voting, opens the ballot box, separates write-in ballots from other votes, and puts them in a red box (after removing the outer envelope from the non-write-in votes), then two precinct workers drive the ballots to a drop off location. After of course, totalling up the various types of votes manually and putting numerous other items in their respective colored containers.

Computerized touchscreen voting eliminates much of this tedious work, and allows quicker tallying of votes and less chance for error. Bring it on!

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Uh, oh

Preparing for the endgame on how to confront Iraq, the U.S. claimed Thursday that it has won two key swing votes on the Security Council — Ireland and Mauritius — giving it the necessary majority to pass its resolution. So, barring a veto by Russia, China or France, the UN will pass the resolution.

Does this vote matter to the Bush administration? I doubt it, as they are determined to have their war regardless of what the UN does. Colin Powell has already as much as said that.

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Republicans trying to depress Black voter turnout.

It is a shame that instead of trying to change minds, the Republicans are resorting to trying to keep people from voting: Such ads don’t suggest what Republicans would do if they replaced Democrats in office. Instead, they try to sow doubt among blacks about the sincerity and goodwill of White Democrats.

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Jeb Crow?

Investigative reporter Greg Palast finds that Jeb Bush is stealing votes for himself the same way he stole votes for his brother in 2000 - by getting blacks illegally dropped from the voting lists. 

Florida moves to bar 91,000 legal voters – mostly Democrats – from Tuesday poll

From the Salon.com article:

In December 2000, we reported that Florida’s use of a faulty and politically questionable list of felons and dead people “scrubbed” from voter rolls — half of them African-Americans — may have cost Al Gore the 537-vote margin of victory claimed by George W. Bush in Florida.

Fast-forward two years. There’s another close race in Florida. This time, younger brother Jeb is fighting to fend off a challenge from Bill McBride for the governor’s race. The Nov. 5 face-off could again come down to thousands, if not hundreds, of votes.

And even though the list has been widely condemned — the company that created it admits probable errors — the same voter scrub list, with more than 94,000 names on it, is still in operation in Florida. Moreover, DBT Online, which generated the disastrously flawed list, reports that if it followed strict criteria to eliminate those errors, roughly 3,000 names would remain — and a whopping 91,000 people would have their voting rights restored.

Eventually the list will be fixed, state officials have promised, in accordance with a settlement with the NAACP in its civil rights suit against Florida following the 2000 election. But not until the beginning of next year — and after Jeb Bush’s reelection bid is long over.  <From Greg Palast’s newsletter>

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Global estimate of endangered plant species triples

The number of plant species threatened with extinction may be more than three times higher than previously thought, a new study suggests. According to a report published today in the journal Science, between 22 and 47 percent of the world’s plants are endangered.

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Suicide bombers are war criminals, Human Rights Watch

The people who carry out suicide bombings are not martyrs, they’re war criminals, and so are the people who help to plan such attacks. The scale and systematic nature of these attacks sets them apart from other abuses committed in times of conflict. They clearly fall under the category of crimes against humanity.

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U.S. launches pro-American propaganda blitz in Indonesia

An American media campaign launched in Indonesia sends a clear message: Muslims in the United States could not be happier.

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Open Letter to the Democratic Party by Ralph Nader

The Democrats should have an easy time winning control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in next week’s election. Recession is deepening, unemployment is rising, and corporate corruption headlines are proliferating.

These should all help the Democrats win against the corporate-indentured Republicans marinated in corporate cash, soft on corporate and environmental crimes and demonstrably anti-labor.

Why then is the overall contest for Party control of Congress too close to call? Because Democrats are not clearly, relentlessly and aggressively emphasizing these fundamental issues to distinguish themselves from the Republicans. Why? Are they unaware, neglectful or torpid? No, their chronic ambiguity flows from being largely indentured to the same monied commercial interests as the Republicans.

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