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National Laboratory for Bad Government

AUSTIN -- Here in the National Laboratory for Bad Government, it's Duck and Cover time -- the Legislature is in session. The Can't-Shake-Your-Booty bill passed the House, saving us all from the scourge of sexy cheerleaders. But nothing else is getting done. The state is being run by people who do not know how to govern. Keep in mind that based on past form, whatever lunacy is going on in Texas will eventually sweep the country.

Rarely are the words of one state legislator worth national attention, but when Senfronia Thompson, a black representative from Houston, stalks to the back mike with a certain "get-out-of-my-way" look in her eye, it's, Katie, bar the door. Here is Thompson speaking against the Legislature's recent folly of putting a superfluous anti-gay marriage measure into the state constitution:

"I have been a member of this august body for three decades, and today is one of the all-time low points. We are going in the wrong direction, in the direction of hate and fear and discrimination. Members, we all know what this is about; this is the politics of divisiveness at it's worst, a wedge issue that is meant to divide.

Fired Ohio Election Board staffer defiant over "retribution"

Sherole Eaton is as defiant as ever and determined to stand up for democracy. Despite recovering from recent carotic artery surgery and scheduled for brain surgery on June 6 for a brain aneurysm, Eaton, perhaps Ohio’s most well-known whistleblower, refuses to resign as Deputy Director of the Hocking County Board of Elections.

Eaton made national news last December during Ohio’s election recount when she swore in an affidavit that a Triad voting machine technician replaced the hard drive on Hocking County’s central “computer and tabulation machine.”

“I still can’t understand what he was doing there on his own time replacing the hard drive on our computer, our brain, where all the county’s voting information was, in the middle of a recount,” Eaton offered.

Lisa Schwartze, Director of the Hocking County Board of Elections, told the Free Press that Eaton has until June 30 to resign. Initially she told the paper that Eaton was “on vacation” but, the Logan Daily News reported that Eaton was fired on Thursday, May 19 after a five hour meeting.

Globeweek

I have good reason to believe my life is in danger

My name is Bruce Tetley. I am a nobody, a middle aged musician who has never cleared more than $10,000 a year in this life. Born and raised in Syracuse, N.Y., I moved to Florida in 1996, then I moved to Maui in November of 2004. I have good reason to believe my life is in danger.

In the past week my bank accounts have been emptied electronically and my credit cards maxed out. As far as the banks are concerned, all transactions were legally done and I have no recourse. In the past year I've had two very omi- nous, threatening phone calls and two symbolic but no less threatening "messages". One was a dead rat at the foot of my bed back in Florida, and the other was a penny, painted red, at the foot of my bed yesterday. (Not worth a red cent) Let me begin to explain with some history.

I have not trusted the government of this nation for as long as I can remember. Actually, it started in 1960 during the Kennedy-Nixon debates. Even as a 10 year old, I didn't trust "tricky Dick". When Kennedy was murdered in '63, I knew something was terribly wrong and wasn't shy about say- ing so. I read the Warren Report from cover to cover. (It

RE: Rev. Rod Parsley

The piece you did on Rev. Rod Parsley I just read today and you didn't mention one word about who is joing Parsley on his World Harvest crusade. I was disappointed to hear that you did not mention anything about liberal critic and loudmouth Ann Coulter, who is touring with Parsley and Alan Keyes. I don't mean to be harsh or anything, but are you really that afraid to bash Coulter and her right-wing views? Don't tell me you're going to chicken out on letting Ann Coulter have it? As far as I'm concerned, Coulter should be an enemy of the people alongside Parsley and Jim Petro. I am so sick and tired of hearing her whine about how the Dems are destroying Democracy. I don't care whether or not if Coulter is from Ohio, her trash-talking against the Dems and other liberals deserves an immediate retaliation. I would hope you'd agree with my philosophy, Mr. Fitrakis.

To be honest, I don't care who wins the Ohio GOP primary for governor in 2006. I don't care for either 3 of them. I would, however, like to see a Coleman v. Blackwell showdown for governor in 2006.

I certainly hope you'll take more potshots at Ann

News Media and “the Madness of Militarism”

Media activism has achieved a lot. But I don’t believe there’s anything to be satisfied with -- considering the present-day realities of corporate media and the warfare state.

War has become a constant of U.S. foreign policy, and media flackery for the war-makers in Washington is routine -- boosting militarism that tilts the country in more authoritarian directions. The dominant news outlets provide an ongoing debate over how to fine-tune the machinery of war. What we need is a debate over how to dismantle the war machine.

When there are appreciable splits within or between the two major political parties, the mainstream news coverage is apt to include some divergent outlooks. But when elites in Washington close ranks for war, the major media are more inclined to shut down real discourse.

Here’s an example: In late February 2003, three weeks before the U.S. invasion of Iraq began, management at MSNBC cancelled the nightly “Donahue” program. A leaked in-house report said Phil Donahue’s show would present a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.” The problem: “He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war,

Attack on election board whistleblower and leaked Blackwell threats re-fire Ohio's election theft scandal

The potential firing of Ohio whistleblower Sherole Eaton, Deputy Director of the Hocking County Board of Elections, has re-fired bitter controversy over the stolen 2004 presidential election.

And newly released documents confirming a pre-election threat by Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell against election board  officials has added to the mix, as has the dismissal of Blackwell's highly publicized sanction attempt against attorneys who challenged the election outcome.

A paid Hocking County Election Board staff official, Eaton gained national notoriety when she blew the whistle on a Triad vote count technician. The technician swapped-out a hard drive in the tabulating computer located at the Board of Elections office before a statewide recount could be completed. According to a December 3, 2004 affidavit sworn by Eaton, the Triad technician "advised" the Hocking County Board of Elections' Republican Director Lisa Schwartze on how to "post a 'cheat sheet'" to make the recount match the officially reported election total. Advocates of the recount complain that the unexplained intrusion by the technician compromised the integrity of the vote count.

'Revenge of the Sith' explodes into theaters, ends saga with a bang

Of the movie series of our time, "Star Wars" is among the best and most celebrated. Millions across America waited in line Wednesday, May 18 to celebrate the final installment in the series that evolved into a religious following. Nearly 30 years after the premiere of "Star Wars: A New Hope," director George Lucas has brought the saga to an end (or beginning) with a bang.

In "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," Lucas succeeded where both Episode I and II fell short. In contrast to the child geared "Phantom Menace" and the plot heavy "Attack of the Clones," "Revenge of the Sith" successfully blends stunning special effects and edge-of-your-seat action sequences with a complex and long awaited plot that, at last, answers the questions that have plagued the minds of Star Wars fans since the first movie was released.

Specifically, the movie focuses on showing the transformation of young Jedi Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) from Jedi to Darth Vader, lord of the dark side.

The movie picks up about a year after Episode II, with Skywalker and his teacher, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), tracking down

The GAP

omeone needs to supply Senate Democrats with a dictionary-perhaps even a thesaurus. They need to learn the difference between compromise and surrender.

Six so-called moderate Democrats and a half dozen Republicans of the same alleged reasonableness have formed a group with the charming moniker “The Gang of 12”. They have come up with a wonderful idea: the Democrats will allow up and down votes (absolutely guaranteed confirmations) of the five most conservative, ferociously reactionary judicial nominees, out of the seven resubmitted by President Bush. The other two would remain “on hold”. On hold does not mean never to be voted upon. It simply means that these nominees will have to wait a while longer until the Democrats figure out a way to give Il Duce all that he wants, without completely alienating those who have voted against this American Caesar repeatedly and in the sincere belief that the national Democratic Party opposes him as much as they do. A belief obviously belied by the evidence.

Harvey Wasserman's article about four phony wars

Dear Friends at Free Press: Harvey Wasserman is basically right about the Spanish-American War. But McKinley did call for an inquiry first, so it isn't correct to portray him as a warmonger. And the story of the "rape" of the Cuban Joan of Arc is tragi-comic in itself, because Hearst had laid the groundwork for it 15 years earlier at the Hasty Pudding Club at Harvard.

  All of this is covered in great detail in my book, The Lindbergh Syndrome: Heroes and Celebrities in a New Gilded Age. ... Beginning today, you can place orders directly with Wheatmark by calling 520-798-3306 in Tucson.

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