Editor's note:
One of the most detailed looks at the problems of DRE voting machines occurred in the challenge of Franklin County Domestic Relations Judge Carole Squire to the certified election results in her 2006 election. Note the long list of problems documented through legal discovery and through expert witness testimony. This is typical with e-voting problems in Franklin County as well as in Cuyahoga County. By looking at e-voting results on the micro level, we better understand why the results are so unreliable. At the macro level in all elections since 2000, this case is a testament to why we need hand-counted paper ballots.

Bob Fitrakis, Editor

Read the whole document as a PDF.

When Hamas members were elected as the majority bloc of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and as it became apparent that a US-led international embargo would be an adjoining price to that victory, I contacted many intellectuals and writers in Palestine, mostly those who often positioned themselves as part of the Palestinian Left. I asked them to solidify behind the collective choice of the Palestinian people and to shield Palestinian democracy at any cost.

PARIS -- You do not need to speak good French to understand the meaning of noblesse.

            Just look at how swiftly Scooter Libby avoided prison time. Nothing lost in translation there.

            Same for what the Germans call Schadenfreude. That's when someone takes pleasure in someone else's misfortune, such as the outing of a covert American spy just to watch her tattletale husband squirm.

            It was Machiavellian how the neo-cons let the melodrama unfold in public, starting with letting Patrick Fitzgerald believe justice would prevail, followed by Valerie Plame's testimony, along with some congressional grousing. As though any of it would make a difference to our imperial co-presidency.

            As they say in Mayberry, USA, "Au contraire, Aunt Bea."

            Dubya thought it unfair that the veep's consigliore should do time pending appeal. So on behalf of Cheney Inc.'s fall guy, the Prodigal Compassionate Conservative Son returned.

The Starwood Festival, held July 24th-29th, 2007 at Brushwood Folklore Center in Sherman, NY (about 30 miles South of Jamestown) features over 15 performances of music, drumming, dance and theatre. Its a multiversity featuring over 150 classes, workshops and ceremonies offered by teachers from many fields, disciplines, traditions and cultures. Its a magical family camping event with tenting and hiking, a pool and a hot-tub, a food court, co-op child care, a Kid Village and multimedia shows. Starwood is also a social event with costume parades, jam sessions, merchants, parties, all-night drumming and much more, including our hugely fabulous and infamous Bonfire!

In all the hand-wringing about George Bush's ghastly commutation for Scooter Libby, the name that should resonate most is that of Leonard Peltier.

While the junta's henchmen walk free, this great Native American activist still sits in a federal penitentiary after thirty-one years.

In 1977, Leonard was wrongly convicted in the killing of two FBI agents. The case is so laden with fraud and illegalities as to tear at the fabric of our entire criminal justice system. Any president since Jimmy Carter---including Bill Clinton---could at least have granted him a fair trial.

Evidence weighed by Amnesty International and a very wide range of other powerful and prestigious global observers confirms that the FBI intimidated witnesses, withheld evidence, falsified affidavits and did every other dirty trick in the book to get Peltier convicted. Thirty-one years later, the FBI is still withholding over 140,000 pages of critical documents about this case, in violation of a wide range of federal laws. Peltier's sentence has been wrongfully extended. And his repeated requests for a retrial have been routinely denied.