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Monday, March 21, 2005 Did Anyone Hear About T he Hearing In Ohio? Three hours from now, a hearing is scheduled to take place in Columbus, Ohio, and this time Katherine Harris...I mean...J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Ohio Secretary of State, is supposedly going to be able to fit it into his busy schedule (I imagine he's busy making speeches to fundies to get funds for his Governor race, probably speeches against those homosexuals who want to marry...I don't imagine he figures on foraging for funds from the African Americans whose votes he wouldn't count last November). Even though Rep. Bob Ney, the Chairman of the House Administration Committee, blasted Mr. Blackwell in February ( link) for not attending the last meeting held in Washington (Mr. Blackwell was in town - I believe looking up an "old" friend of Dick Morris'), the fact that he's got an R next to his name probably means nothing is going to come out of the hearing. Well, nothing we'll like anyway. I'm sure they'll figure out a bunch more tricky ways to bring back the Jim Crow laws on election day and earn money for voting machine companies so that they can give more money to the Republican Party and ensure that democracy remains the law of the land (what land I'm not quite sure). Speaking of election machines. The Raw Story reports that the tremendous work done by Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog and the Velvet Revolution has resulted in something that we will like: "Twenty-three members of the United States House of Representatives will announce on Monday their support for the Velvet Revolution Divestiture for Democracy campaign. The initiative, launched in February by a coalition of more than 80 progressive organizations, seeks to ensure transparency and accountability in American elections by forcing companies that manufacture vote-tabulation systems to open their technology to greater public scrutiny." California Rep. Maxine Waters and Michigan Rep. John Conyers (I live in Brooklyn but I claim Conyers as my Rep. too) are the two House members who did all the hard work making this happen. Here's the rest of the heroes' names and where they hail from (copy-and-pasted from the Raw Story report): John Conyers, Jr. (DMI), Maxine Waters (D-CA), Jim McDermott (D-WA), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Sam Farr (D-CA), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Rick Boucher (D-VA), Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), William D. Delahunt (D-MA), Lynn Woolsey (DCA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Corrine Brown (D-FL), Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Robert Wexler (D-FL), James Oberstar (D-MN), Ral Grijalva (D-AZ), Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Donald M. Payne (D-NJ), Barney Frank (DMA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), George Miller (D-CA), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) and Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ). Brad told The Raw Story that big names in the Senate will be signing on as well (I assume that means Boxer and Kerry, the best two Senators we have, and probably even that Senator from New Y who has been pissing ork me off a lot lately but if she signs on I'll blog something nice about her). (I'd like to give a shout-out to The Common Ills for being one of the few bloggers to blog about the Ohio hearing, as well as the report in The Times a few days ago about provisional balloting which T .C.I. e-mailed me about and I'll be blogging about shortly.) Comments (6) # posted by Ron Brynaert : 3/21/2005 07:12:00 AM Friday, January 14, 2005 Watching West Virginia
~A!, the editor of Watching The Watchers, has just posted the latest article in the series that we are concurrently conducting together which I especially like to call 50 States Mislead Their Voters (and ~A! calls.Voting Irregularities 2004...while some of my readers who hail from, say, here, might call it something else untiringly). While many (but not near enough) Websites out there are writing about election irregularities all across the country, I believe the work that ~A! are doing bares distinction because we are doing it in a completely non-partisan manner. We're going to try to document both sides (I should say all sides because the third parties definitely get the rawest end of the deal in our current rotten electoral system). ~A!'s article ("New West Virginia Governor Knee-Deep In Election Scandals") deals with a Democratic Secretary of State who was just elected governor, Joe Manchin, and it's worth checking out no matter what political affiliation you claim (or have recently disclaimed). Two announcements: United for Peace and Justice is one of the groups planning to peacefully protest Bushs Inauguration on January 20th. Visit Unitedforpeace.org for details and links. Velvet Revolution is a "non-profit organization that intends to bring together all the many progressive movements, organizations and people in the country to oppose the arrogance of power in Washington today. As our first call to action, we hope to bring together the many disparate groups and elements revolving around the questionable results of the 2004 presidential election. It's become very clear that it was an election rife with Anti-American disenfranchisement and countless "irregularities". There are many groups throughout the country who have worked hard on the issue for a long time without any centralized coordination. VR hopes to bring all those groups together and provide a means for citizens to stay informed and involved."

tas Ron Brynaert "Or take this guy, Ron Brynaert, a tenacious (lefty, stand alone) investigator with an instinct for where information and proof and the jugular are. He's a natural: Why isn't he on someone's Iteam?" Jay Rosen, June 6, 2005. Some Raw Story articles I've worked on: Cheney given power to preside over NSC meetings WaPo searching for bloggers from right and left Non-profit wrote editorials for Abramoff clients Miers provided misleading info to Judiciary Committee US changed Iraq policy to begin airstrikes before war WaPo Milblogger Controversy Beyond Abramoff: David Safavian Bush TANG bust unveiling delayed before war Coulter cribbed adult stem cell list for Godless Reporter editor say 'Jeff Gannon' , plagiarized article Note: In January of 2007 I was promoted to Managing Editor of Raw Story E-mail me!

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Comments (3) # posted by Ron Brynaert : 1/14/2005 01:11:00 AM

# posted by Ron Brynaert : 1/14/2005 01:11:00 AM

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