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We have been making lots of noise in support of the people of Iran who have been protesting a rigged election there last month.  Well, last night, a new organization called Iranian American Youth invited us to a rally in DC’s Freedom Plaza where they expressed their outrage at the mistreatment of Iranians by the authorities in their native country. VR interviewed many of the participants and captured their passion in this YouTube video. We want to give them a wide voice on the internet and so will be posting more footage over the next few days.

It took almost eight months, but the Minnesota Supreme Court finally said what we all knew in November — Al Franken won the Senate race against Norm Coleman. The point we want to make here has been overlooked by the mainstream press: The reason that the election contest in Minnesota was unassailable and upheld 5-0 by the Supreme Court is that Minnesota uses paper ballots and every vote is counted by hand in a recount.  This should be a nationwide standard so that elections cannot be manipulated and confidence can me maintained in our election system.  Kudos to Minnesota and its elections chief, Mark Ritchie.

This morning, we held a press conference at the National Press Club to announce the filing of three new disciplinary complaints against three lawyers from the intelligence community who advocated the use of torture on detainees in violation of the law.  Two of these lawyers, John Rizzo and Jonathan Fredman, still work for the United States Government.  The third, Scott Muller, has left to work for corporate America.

VR board attorney Kevin Zeese called on President Obama to fire Rizzo and Fredman: "These lawyers have no business practicing law, especially under salary in the federal government, given their involvement in furthering the torture of detainees." He noted that the normal checks and balances written into the Constitution have not applied to hold those involved in torture accountable and therefore, the VR campaign, Disbar Torture Lawyers, has stepped in by filing the now 15 torture complaints.

Bruce Fein, a former senior Justice Department official in the Reagan administration, called on whistleblowers to come forward with what they know. "In Watergate, John Dean was a lawyer. He said 'there's a cancer on the presidency.' he finally decided 'I'm not going to participate in the cover-up, in the obstruction of justice.' John Dean was why the rule of law ultimately prevailed, and led to the discovery of the White House tapes. Where is the John Dean in the White House or in the Justice Department now? Where's the Elliott Richardson? Where is anybody who will stand up and say 'I'm not doing this, Mr. President.'"

"If [government photos showing abuse of detainees] are not disclosed, how do we know exactly what abuses we may or may not be prosecuting for?" civil rights attorney Shahid Buttar asked. "And without knowing that, how can the debate around the prosecution have any legitimacy? How do we take comfort, for instance, in the reluctance to prosecute when the extent and scope and scale of the prosecutable behavior remains unknown?"

Fein invoked the memory of another dark episode in American military history. "Can you imagine President Nixon saying, 'We have to cover up the My Lai Massacre because we shot all those women and children in the ditch, and we can't disclose it because it'll make people angry.' You prosecute Lieutenant Calley for that, you don't cover it up," he said.

"This is President Obama saying 'Well, we have to cover this up, because there's such terrible torture things we did, people will get angry about it.'

That's why we prosecute it, you don't conceal that. That's what the Soviet Union would do, that's what China would do, not the United States of America," Fein said.

Today, we sponsored a press conference at the National Press Club to bring more attention to our Restore Justice At Justice campaign. It was a big success with coverage by the mainstream press and live coverage by C-span.

Elliot Mincberg, chief counsel for oversight investigations of the House Judiciary Committee, insisted that all the investigations are continuing into the politicization of the justice system by the Bush White House and Department of Justice.

Retired Chief U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon of Birmingham, the first African-American federal judge in Alabama and one of the first in the South, said that nothing can compare to the abuses of people’s rights that occurred during the Bush years. He indicated that his home town newspaper, The Birmingham News, has always been on the wrong side of history in the fights for justice. “I believe with every fiber in my body that when the awesome power of the greatest nation on god’s green earth is brought to bear against an individual or a group of citizens, there ought to be ample grounds for their prosecution.” But that was not the case in U.S. Attorney Alice Martin’s attempt at the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, which he called “a glaring exception to the general rule.”

Clemon accused Martin of going on a “shopping spree” for a Republican judge to oversee the case against Siegelman but it was finally assigned to him.

After reviewing the charges against Siegelman, which alleged a conspiracy, Clemon held a hearing and heard testimony from a number of witnesses who said there was no conspiracy. He ruled the government failed to provide substantial proof of a conspiracy, of a quid pro quo, and the case was dismissed “with prejudice.” But that did not stop the Bush Justice Department from bringing another case in Montgomery.

Clemon said he recently talked to President Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder after writing a letter to him asking for an investigation into Siegelman’s prosecution, and he said Holder assured him there would be a “full investigation” by the Obama Justice Department.

Other speakers at the conference included Harper’s magazine contributor Scott Horton; Charles “Champ” Walker, son of Georgia Senate Majority Leader Charles Walker; former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, twice acquitted in prosecutions that imprisoned trial lawyer Paul Minor; Puerto Rico State Senate Minority Whip Eduardo Bhatia (D), representing acquitted former Gov. Anibal Acevedo; Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron; Project Save Justice Executive Director Gail Sistrunk, discussing the group’s video, “The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove”; Investigative reporter Andrew Kreig; Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck, and McClendon Group President John Hurley.

Yesterday, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, without any recount of the results, stated that the Iran election was not rigged, and that any more protests would trigger violent crackdowns by security forces, including the thuggish Basij militia which has reportedly already killed a number of demonstrators. Today, tens of thousands of riot police and militia are in the streets attacking citizens with tear gas, water cannon and batons.

We condemn these threats and acts of violence against Iranian citizens who peacefully seek redress of grievances. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iran is a party specifically permits peaceful assembly and prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention. It is the authorities who need to be warned against violence rather than the citizens. A proper resolution of the election contest would be to allow independent elections experts to conduct a recount of the vote and to recommend a solution based on that analysis.

We support free and fair elections everywhere as well as the fundamental right of citizens to speak and protest. The actions of the authorities in Iran are the antithesis of this — opacity regarding all phases of the election, arbitrary arrests of opposition figures, shutting down of various forms of mass communication, blocking satellite transmissions of TV and radio, and gratuitous attacks by government sponsored militia.

We urge Iranian citizens to continue their peaceful protests and calls on all security forces in Iran to refuse orders to attack, arrest or intimidate them. Crackdowns cannot hold back the will of the Iranian people and any officials who harm those citizens must be held accountable.

The bad guys never learn — steal elections and sooner or later it comes backs to haunt them. It happened in Ukraine with the Orange Revolution and it happened in the United States with the Obama Revolution. And now it’s happening in Iran.

There is a vast amount of information in the press about the Iran election, the protests and the fraud. Therefore, we will only point to a few things of interest that have not been widely reported.

• The best coverage of the entire matter is on the alternative press, namely Huffington Post in a terrific blog by Nico Pitney.
• Where Is My Vote is keeping track of all the Iran election protests around the world.
• Mohammad Asgari, who was responsible for the security of the IT network in Iran's interior ministry, was killed yesterday in Tehran after he reportedly leaked results that showed the elections were rigged by government use of new software to alter the votes from the provinces. Asgari was said to have leaked information that showed Mousavi had won almost 19 million votes, and should therefore be president.
• Authorities have tried to shut down the media from reporting the facts in Iran but citizens are using new technology to get around these restrictions. The most effective software is aptly named “Green Tsunami,” and circumvents political censorship on Internet by repressive regimes.

We wish the citizens of Iran the best in their quest for a free and fair election. And alas, we wish that in 2004, John Kerry had taken the strong leadership stand taken by Iranian opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The people were ready, they just needed him to lead.

Earlier this week, Federal Judge Jeffrey White issued a 42-page decision holding that leading torture lawyer John Yoo can be sued for damages by torture victim Jose Padilla. In short, the judge held that Yoo’s advocation of torture in legal memos demonstrated that he understood that his analysis would lead to torture. The judge found that Padilla’s suit stated various claims that Yoo violated his constitutional rights, and that war does not suspend those rights. Our friend, Marcy Wheeler, has a terrific analysis of this opinion here.

Our campaign to disbar 12 torture lawyers just got a lot stronger with this opinion, and we plan to formally notify each disciplinary committee to take this opinion seriously.

Ironies of ironies, while reviewing the Patriot Act to see if it could apply to the terrorists attacking reproductive providers and clinics, we came across section 811 of the Act which amends the Federal Criminal Statute prohibiting torture, 18 USC 2340, to prohibit conspiracy to commit torture, and the same penalties apply as if the person actually committed torture.

Section 811(g) TORTURE- Section 2340A of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
`(c) CONSPIRACY- A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.'.

So the same Bush lawyers who drafted the Patriot Act included a provision that can be used to imprison everyone from George Bush and Dick Cheney down to the DOJ and DOD lawyers  -- for conspiracy to commit torture.

On June 9, 2009, we filed supplements to all of the initial 12 bar complaints adding important new information including:

A copy of the Gonzales Supplement is here. All the supplements are posted at www.disbartorturelawyers.com.

In a stunning development in the Don Siegelman case, retired Chief U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon of Birmingham wrote to AG Eric Holder seeking a probe of misconduct by federal prosecutors including their alleged "judge-shopping," jury-pool "poisoning" and "unfounded" criminal charges in an effort to imprison Siegelman. Judge Clemon, a highly respected jurist and one of the first African American judges in the South, took this unusual step because he felt duty bound to report corruption that occurred on his watch.

This development comes days after new evidence revealed that Siegelman’s trial judge, Mark Fuller, was chosen to preside over the trial because he had a “grudge” against Siegelman which bordered on hatred because Siegelman appointed an investigator to look into Fuller’s shady activities. Moreover, the new evidence makes a strong case that Judge Fuller labors under conflicts of interest because he owns a majority share in Doss Aviation, which receives hundreds of millions in contracts from the military and has ties to CIA activities.

Last week, VR called for the removal of Siegelman’s prosecutor, Laura Canary, and for an investigation into the activities of Judge Fuller, both which now have been echoed by Chief Judge Clemon in his letter to Eric Holder. What more does it take, Mr. Holder, to clear the stench of corruption from this case? Step in and enforce the rule of law, now.

Today, a broad coalition of organizations dedicated to accountable government, and representing over one million members, filed disciplinary complaints with state bar licensing boards against twelve attorneys who advocated the torture of detainees during the Bush Administration.  These detailed complaints with over 500 pages of supporting exhibits have been filed against John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Stephen Bradbury, Alberto Gonzales, John Ashcroft, Michael Chertoff, Alice Fisher, William Haynes II, Douglas Feith, Michael Mukasey, Timothy Flanigan, and David Addington. The complaints, filed with the state bars in the District of Columbia, New York, California, Texas and Pennsylvania, seek disciplinary action and disbarment.  Copies of the complaints and exhibits are available at www.disbartorturelawyers.com.

The individually tailored complaints allege that the named attorneys violated the rules of professional responsibility by advocating torture, which is illegal under both United States and international law.  Specifically, the Geneva Convention, UN Convention Against Torture, the Eighth Amendment, the Army Field Manual and the United States Criminal Code against torture and war crimes all prohibit torture of detainees.   The memos written and supported by these attorneys advocating torture have now been repudiated by the Department of Justice, the White House, the Department of Defense and other experts in the field.  The recently released Senate and Red Cross reports on detainee treatment provide uncontroverted evidence that the torture techniques advocated by the attorneys were used on human beings over an extended period of time.

In testimony at a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Former State Department counselor Philip Zelikow told a committee panel that Bush administration officials engaged in a ‘collective failure’ on detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists.   He called the torture memos “unsound” because “the lawyers involved ... did not welcome peer review and indeed would shut down challenges even inside the government.” Another witness testified that the legal policy constituted “an ethical train wreck” because it violated constitutional, statutory and international law.

Kevin Zeese, the attorney for the coalition who signed the complaints, said, "It is time to hold these lawyers accountable for violating their legal oath. Just as the bar would suspend an attorney who advised a police officer to torture and brutalize a detained immigrant or criminal defendant, the bar must suspend these attorneys for advocating and causing the torture of war detainees. The disciplinary boards that hear these complaints must act or they will be seen as complicit in the use of torture. This is an important step toward the ultimate accountability of criminal prosecution."

The coalition expects these twelve complaints to be followed with others after the involvement of additional attorneys is confirmed.  We urge organizations and individuals to sign on the this new campaign at www.disbartorturelawyers.com.

We have been very vocal in trying to bring justice to ex-Alabama Governor Don Siegelman who was targeted for political prosecution by Karl Rove and his cronies for being a popular Democrat.  See our Restore Justice Campaign. A few months ago, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out several of his convictions and ordered that he be resentenced from his original seven year sentence.

Well, incredibly, the same vindictive prosecutors who railroaded Siegelman in the first place have now asked that his sentence be increased to 20 years, which amounts to a death sentence for the 63 year old Democrat. And now, new evidence has been reported in the past few days pointing to even more disturbing information about the corrupt federal judge who sentenced Siegelman. According to this report, Judge Fuller had a personal grudge against Siegelman that bordered on hatred.

Enough is enough. President Obama, you promised to clean up the DOJ. VR calls on you to act now. You must remove all the bad Bush United States Attorneys like Laura Canary, who is Rove’s best friend in Alabama. You must also order a major investigation into the workings and history of Judge Fuller who has been surrounded by allegations of corruption and criminal activity going back decades. If Judge Fuller is dirty, he needs to be removed from the bench and prosecuted. If he is clean, then an independent prosecutor, after conducting a comprehensive investigation, should say so. Confidence in the judiciary is the foundation of our democracy, and clearly Judge Fuller lacks that confidence.

In an interesting twist to the Michael Connell investigation, two of his sisters have told a Michigan newspaper that they have doubts about his cause of death. Both Mary Jo Walker and Shannon Connell do not believe that his death was an accident. "At first, it was really hard for me to believe Mike was dead because somebody wanted him dead," says Shannon, a buyer for a local children's resale shop. But as time goes on, it's hard for me not to believe there was something deliberate about it." Mary Jo agrees: "It doesn't seem right to me at all."

Shannon and Mary Jo both say their brother, a devout Catholic, seemed upset in the weeks before his death. Mary Jo feels he was "stressed out and depressed" on his birthday last November; Shannon says he atypically did not respond to an email she'd sent. She calls the crash that killed him "very suspicious." Michael was an experienced pilot, and his plane had recently been serviced. Plus there's the timing — "after the deposition and before the trial. It just seems very convenient."

We too find Connell’s death suspicious and convenient and we will continue to investigate Connell’s ties to election manipulation and Karl Rove. See www.RoveCyberGate.com.

We sadly report that our friend and colleague John Gideon passed away suddenly yesterday after contracting viral menengitis and collapsing at his home in the Seattle area.  John has been a big part of the foundation of our election integrity movement for the past five years and the unwavering author of the Daily Voting News that everyone who cared about this issue read with interest.

We first met John five years ago in Washington DC when he attended an election reform conference.  He was an impressive and committed activist who wanted to “get it right.”  He sought out Michelle Mulder at the conference because she was working for Congressman Rush Holt on election issues and  passionately urged her to ensure that Congress enacted “real election reform.”  While he had her ear, someone snatched Mulder’s purse and took off down the hallway.  That, of course, did not go over well with John, a veritable giant of a man, who quickly put together a posse of of election activists to scour the hallways looking for the thief.  John was not able to finish his conversation with Mulder, but his actions earned him her respect and ours too.

Since then, John has been involved with most of our key election integrity campaigns, many of them originating with his ideas.  He has pulled weight where it counted, largely in the background, and his wisdom and advice have been invaluable.  John will be sorely missed and his passing shrinks the pool of leaders in this election integrity field.  It will be impossible to fill his shoes, but we now pledge to continue his work and his vision.

For more information and to leave comments, please click this link to The Brad Blog.

Just one week after we launched our new RestoreJusticeAtJustice campaign, demanding that Attorney General Holder vacate the convictions of politically prosecuted defendants, seventy-five state attorney generals have signed on to a letter Holder asking for a broad investigation of prosecutorial misconduct in the Don Siegelman prosecution. In the letter, the attorneys general said Mr. Siegelman's defense lawyers had raised "gravely troublesome facts" about his prosecution that raise questions about the fairness and due process of the trial. "We believe that if prosecutorial misconduct is found, as in the case of Senator Ted Stevens, then dismissal should follow in this case as well," the group said in the letter, which was organized by Robert Abrams, a former attorney general of New York.

Our campaign has now been signed on by organizations representing over a million members and by almost 800 individuals.  Clearly, this issue is not going to go away and the sooner the Attorney General addresses it, the better.  

Today a broad coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to an honest and accountable government led by VR launched “Restore Justice At Justice,” www.RestoreJusticeAtJustice.com, a campaign to clean up the Department of Justice’s sad record of political prosecutions under the Bush Administration.  These organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of members, have a strong track record of spurring action on crucial issues.  The coalition has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, available on the Restore Justice At Justice website, requesting that he quickly investigate and identify those targeted, and vacate their convictions, beginning with Alabama ex-Governor Don Siegelman and Attorney Paul Minor.

Under the Bush administration, the Department of Justice was driven by ideology, and prosecutions were often used to settle scores and intimidate the opposition.  The GOP, under the direction of Karl Rove, used the DOJ to target political enemies including Democratic contributors and those who were a threat to GOP electoral gains and big business interests.  The Department was used as an arm of the White House to destroy these Democrats.  This political profiling resulted in the criminal prosecution of many on the GOP list, including Don Siegelman and Paul Minor.  

“Last week, Attorney General Holder ordered the dismissal of charges against Senator Ted Stevens because of prosecutorial misconduct,” said coalition spokesperson Brad Friedman.  “Because targeted political prosecutions also constitute prosecutorial misconduct, AG Holder should apply the same standard to Siegelman, Minor, and all the others identified as targeted by the Bush DOJ,” said Friedman. "Siegelman and Minor were targets of political profiling, which is as unjust as racial profiling. President Obama and Attorney General Holder promised to return justice to the Justice Department and free the Department from politics. We demand that they do so."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the signers at RestoreJusticeAtJustice.com, has stated publicly that “Paul Minor is an innocent man” who was targeted by Karl Rove, prosecuted by “crooked Justice Department prosecutors,” and sentenced to “a breathtaking 11-year sentence for non-violent, white collar crimes he did not commit," while Minor’s wife of 41 years lies in a hospital dying from cancer, unable “to utter the word l-o-v-e to her husband.” Kennedy summarizes the case this way:  “Karl Rove's crooked henchmen at the U.S. Justice Department have turned this dignified gentleman's life into a horrible ordeal that is a disgrace to American democracy.”

** Paul Minor’s wife died late Monday without him by her side after the DOJ opposed his bail pending appeal and a compassionate bedside furlough.

VR has filed Freedom of Information record requests for all information related to the death of Michael Connell as well as his contracts with the State of Ohio and United States congressional committees.  These were filed with the following agencies:  CIA, FBI, FAA, NTSB, Congressional Administration, Ohio Secretary of State and Ohio State Police.

We have already received hundreds of pictures and documents.  An irony is that Connell appeared to have regained control of his aircraft a few feet above the ground when a wing hit an American flag pole causing the plane to flip over, smash into a playground and catch fire. That was the Left Wing that hit the flag pole.

Late today, a three judge panel issued a comprehensive decision in the election contest of the recount in the Franken/Coleman Senate race from Minnesota.  In short, the court ordered the canvassing board to review an additional 400 ballots for possible counting.  This, according to experts, will favor Franken. http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7033 The count will occur on April 7, 2009. Coleman has promised to appeal and the GOP has threatened WWIII if Franken is seated.

In explosive testimony last month before the Election Assistance Commission, CIA Agent Steven Stigall confirmed that the CIA has been gathering intel about election rigging through the use of computers for the past five years.  He used examples from Venezuela, Ukraine, Georgia and Macedonia to show the different methods that have been used.  As Greg Gordon first reported for McClatchy, "Stigall said that voting equipment connected to the Internet could be hacked, and machines that weren't connected could be compromised wirelessly.” http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/64711.html Agent Stigall made official what Mr. Spoonamore had been asserting for years about the unreliability of e-voting and about the ease of rigging elections when a candidate controls the election levers.

Brad Blog has a comprehensive analysis of Agent Stigall’s presentation and how it ties in with all the red flags we have been waving for five years about the threat of evoting.  http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7021 A full copy of the testimony can be found here.

But our question is, why now?  Clearly the CIA has had this information for years yet waited until just days after George Bush left office to disclose it.  Was Stigall given the nod by Leon Panetta to come forward as a hint to look deeper into this matter?   Was the CIA pre-empting something that will be exposed soon about election rigging?  

We found Stigall’s statements about the 2004 rigged election in Ukraine especially enlightening.  He said that pro-Russian candidate Victor Yanukovich stole that October 2004 election by secretly placing a (man in the middle) computer in the central tabulation facility and flipping the results (by 14% according to other sources).  This rigging was suspected because the exit polls favored Victor Yushchenko by 11%.  However, it was only proven by taped phone calls between Yanukovich’s campaign managers discussing the rigging and the attempted coverup.  This led the Orange Revolution (and the naming of VR).

What interested us is that Yanukovich’s campaign team (managers) at the time (and still) were Rick Davis and Paul Manafort, the owners of a lobbying/PR firm called 3eDC. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/20/new-questions-over-mccain_n_108204.html John McCain used 3eDC to oversee its campaign's Web site and online fund raising. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118515181783374359.html Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff has revealed that John McCain’s presidential campaign paid nearly a million dollars for web services to 3eDC. http://www.newsweek.com/id/161218 3EDC’s bragged that it had five “strategic partners” going into the 2008 election campaign. http://web.archive.org/web/20070304101901/www.3edc.net/partners/

    * Campaign Solutions, run by Mike Connell’s partner, Becki Donatelli
    * Integrated Web Strategy, another Connell affiliated company that works with Chamber of Commerce Institute of Legal Reform, which has been found by courts to have engaged in illegal election manipulations
    * New Media Communications, Chief Political Strategist and CEO Mike Connell, co-founder of Connell Donatelli Inc., with Campaign Solutions Chairman R. Rebecca Becki Donatelli
    * Airnet , owned by Jeff Averbeck, which is the parent company of Smartech, which was used to route the 2004 Ohio election results through, and
    * Dynology Corp which has a heavily military client list in three parts; “a majority of our staff hold security clearances that allow access to Secret and Top Secret classified government information.” Their “Corp HQ and Dev Lab” at 8000 Towers Crescent Drive, Ste 1350, Vienna, VA, seems to be a maildrop, judging by the dozens of other tenants in the “suite”.

So, Rick Davis was involved with the Ukraine election rigging and he still works for Yanukovich.  McCain knew about this relationship and about the vote rigging when he hired Davis to be his campaign manager.  In short, McCain’s campaign was run by a man directly involved with the theft of the Ukraine election, and that man was partners with both Mike Connell and Jeff Averbeck (who owns Airnet as well as Smartech), both of whom have been tied to rigging Bush’s elections. And according to evidence from the King Lincoln case in Ohio last fall, McCain planned to rig the vote in ten states with the help of Connell and Averbeck.  Wow, this is really amazing.  

Four years ago, VR launched its Divestiture for Democracy Campaign, taking on the major vote machine companies for fraudulent, opaque and undemocratic policies. Over the years, our campaign has helped (1) expose just how bad the Diebold vote machines are, (2) to cause the ouster of Diebold CEO Wally O’Dell, (3) persuade elections officials to investigate the vote machines, and (4) convince investors to dump Diebold stock.

Well, even more vindication has come to light recently with truly explosive revelations about Diebold.  Early this week, Diebold admitted to California officials that its machines dropped votes and its audit logs did not, in fact, audit important aspects of an election.  Moreover, a delete button allowed for the erasing of audit logs altogether. http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6995 These problems have been known by Diebold for at least four years but were not disclosed to elections officials in the 34 states where the Diebold machines are used.

After Humbolt County blamed the deletion of 197 votes from the November election on this Diebold flaw, Diebold retaliated by cancelling their license to use the machines even in an upcoming may 19th election. http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7016

And then to top off a very bad month for Diebold, its Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Krakora, resigned after being targeted by the SEC for insider trading. http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7018

Fortunately, this is what happens when a company is rotten to the core.

In a new study, researchers at MIT found that as many as five million people did not cast a ballot in the 2008 presidential election because they encountered registration problems or failed to receive absentee ballots, which is roughly the same number of voters who encountered such problems in the 2000 election, according to an academic study to be presented to the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday. Another two million citizens were “discouraged” from voting due to long lines and photo ID requirements. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/massachusetts_institute_of_technology/index.html?inline=nyt-org

According to Professor Mark Crispin Miller, however, “it is therefore very likely that the number of those disenfranchised in this last election, by whatever means, was actually far higher than the 4/5 million here reported. We may conservatively estimate that it was more like 7 to 8 million US citizens who couldn't vote; and we may add with confidence that most of those blocked voters would have voted for Obama, and also would have voted Democratic in their local House and Senate races.

And then there were those citizens whose votes were not suppressed, but electronically erased or altered: a type of disenfranchisement not noted by the researchers at MIT, who looked exclusively at vote suppression, not election fraud. But, just as in 2004 and 2006, so in 2008 there were numerous firsthand reports of voters seeing their votes "flipped" right before their eyes--a problem that afflicted many Democrats and just a handful of Republicans. And those reports point only to a fraction of the ballots altered electronically, since it's quite easy to flip votes without its being perceptible.”

VR has been working on a white paper of legislation that will correct many of the problems seen in the 2008 election.  We will keep you informed.

The International Criminal Court at THE HAGUE issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He is the first sitting head of state the court has ordered arrested. The three-judge panel said there was insufficient evidence to support charges of genocide in a war in which up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes. "He is suspected of being criminally responsible ... for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property," court spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29492637

Late last week, an investigative reporter, Glynn Wilson, working with VR, visited the GOP dominated SmartTech Corporation in Chattanooga to look into allegations that the secrets of the Bush Administration are hidden and backed up on the SmartTech computers.  It was SmartTech where Mike Connell set up off grid RNC email systems that were used by Karl Rove and others to get around the official White House email system.  It was SmartTech where Connell sent the 2004 Ohio election results on election night giving an unexpected win to George Bush.  www.rovecybergate.com.   It is SmartTech that has been identified by cyber expert Stephen Spoonamore as ground zero for GOP dirty tricks.

Reporter Wilson wrote his first article on his SmartTech visit along with long and a short video.  http://blog.locustfork.net/2009/03/01/white-house-rnc-email-backed-up-in-chattanooga/  He will be filing more reports and we will pass them along and hope that John Conyers is watching.

Attorney General Eric Holder has been setting some new priorities that we fully support.  Here are two in the past few days:  first, he ordered the Drug Enforcement Administration to stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries that are allowed under state law. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/26/holder-vows-to-end-raids_n_170119.html This will do much to help alleviate the suffering of those who use marijuana for medical purposes.

Second, he stated emphatically that the United States will not engage in torture, and specifically will not allow the use of “waterboarding,” which he calls a form of torture.   http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Holder_US_wont_justify_rationalize_condone_0302.html We have been calling waterboarding torture for years, so hats off to the new AG.

A new movement has really made its mark this week in Washington, DC. PowerShift09 is a grassroots campaign to push a shift from fossil fuels to clean technology fuels. http://powershift09.org And the Obama Administration is listening.  Speakers included Nancy Pelosi, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and Interior Director Ken Salazar. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php  For four days this weekend, over twelve thousand mostly young people came to DC for training, lobbying, and activism.  VR was there filming the speakers and the bands and interviewing the youth.

The message loud and clear is that the future of civilization depends on this generation getting it right by stopping pollution and global warming.  VR is part of this revolution and we urge everyone to get involved.

Two weeks ago, we made a major push to oppose Mark Gitenstein to head the DOJ's Office of Legal Policy.  We did a post on VR, sent out a press release to the national wires, personally contacted Gitenstein to ask him to withdraw his name, created and placed a web ad on BradBlog, and coordinated with Public Citizen, another org opposed to Gitenstein.  Our opposition was based on Gitenstein's lobbying and legal work for the Chamber of Commerce which was one of Karl Rove's main tools for corrupting elections nationwide.   Well, we succeeded. Yesterday, the Obama Administration announced that it was withdrawing Gitenstein from the job.  According to the Washington Post this morning, this was a big win since Gitenstein looked like a shoe-in because of his previous work for Joe Biden.

"The widely expected nomination of Mark Gitenstein, a longtime aide to Vice President Biden, for the job of assistant attorney general for legal policy, the point office for judicial selections, is not happening. The choice of Gitenstein, a highly regarded Washington lawyer and longtime chief Democratic counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Biden formerly chaired, had been considered a done deal, what with his Biden connection and many friends in the legal community. But liberal opposition, including a campaign against him by Public Citizen, was sharply critical of his legal work for a number of business clients and most especially for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That forced the White House to reconsider the nomination, Roll Call reported Wednesday. That opposition overcame strong support for Gitenstein from other liberals and also from influential Obama campaign insiders, a source told us yesterday. There are other lawyers who might like the job, including George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton, a leading Democrat and big-time bundler of contributions for the Obama campaign." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/26/AR2009022603391.html

This turn of events now has Spencer Overton as the top contender for the job.  Mr. Overton has been a friend of the election integrity movement for years after he, as a member of the Baker-Carter Commission on election reform, led the opposition to that report and actually wrote a dissenting report.  Mr. Overton is another terrific, black, Harvard grad law professor at George Washington University. He has been a vociferous opponent of voter photo ID laws and voter suppression.

According to a new soon be released report by the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, ex-Bush administration lawyers who crafted the legal framework for waterboarding and other interrogation tactics – and assert that they do not constitute torture – may be on the verge of a bit of legal trouble themselves. http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Justice_Department_probe_blasts_Bush_lawyers_0215.html

At least three former top Bush lawyers face possible disciplinary action from state bar associations for what a former Justice Department official has called "deeply flawed" and "sloppily reasoned" legal analysis.

Jay Bybee and John Yoo – who wrote last month that Bush's torture programs were initially designed to outwit crafty defense attorneys – have been "sharply criticized" in an internal Justice Department report, according to Newsweek. A draft of the report from the Office of Professional Responsibility, the department's watchdog unit, was submitted during the waning days of the Bush administration, but former Attorney General Michael Mukasey objected to it, because it did not include a response from the targeted attorneys.  

We strongly support prompt action by the state bars that granted those lawyers their licenses.  The lawyers should have their licenses suspended in order to hold them accountable, to act as a deterrent, and to prevent them from causing further harm to our democratic processes.

We have long been urging a get tough policy against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for his participation in the genocide in Darfur.  Well, finally, the International Criminal Court appears to be ready to indict him for war crimes and crimes against humanity. That is, if the autocrats of the world don’t get in the way.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/16/sudan-war-crimes-split-international-community

Russia, China, Islamists and a host of repressive African regimes are trying to block the prosecution of al-Bashir. Of course, these countries have never stood up for human rights and using their rationale, the ICC should never be able to prosecute because that would destabilize something, somewhere. But it is Mr. Bashir who has destabilized the region by killing and displacing over two million people. Where were these countries when Mr. Bashir was engaging in genocide? No, it’s time, way past time for Mr. Bashir to be held accountable for his final solution.

Senator Patrick Leahy recently proposed a Truth Commission to look into the abuses of the Bush Administration.  http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18603.html  Although some have said that this will allow a whitewash like the 9/11 Commission did, we believe that this is a good step.  As we recall, it was the Watergate investigations that led to criminal charges of the Nixon Administration.  It was the Church Commission that led to exposing other abuses during that Administration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

We do not believe that immunity should be granted for wrongdoing unless it leads to the conviction of a higher-up.  We do believe that accountability should apply to anyone regardless of position. We do believe that the evidence should be followed to where ever it leads. We agree with Don Siegelman that we have to look back so we can proceed forward. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/reporting/sam-stein

Senator Leahy has asked people to support his call for a Commission. http://ga3.org/campaign/btcpetition?rk=Z1rFTgnagXL6W We need to keep the focus on the crimes of Bush Administration and this is a good start. At the same time, we are pursuing our investigation of Karl Rove and his manipulation of elections at the behest of corrupt politicians and big business.  More on that very soon.

Obama’s potential nominee to head The Department of]Justice’s Office of Legal Policy, Mark Gitenstein, worked as a lobbyist for the Chamber of Commerce between 2000 and 2008, helping his law firm earn more than $6 million in fees, according to federal lobbying records. Obama has set forth strict rules against lobbyists working for him and so Mr. Gitenstein will have to get a waiver.  VR Is vehemently opposed to this appointment because of the obvious conflict of interest under which Mr. Gitenstein will labor and because of his work for the Chamber, an organization has been engaged in pervasive illegal and corrupt activity regarding elections nationwide at the behest of big business and Karl Rove.  

Gitenstein, a partner at the Mayer Brown law firm in Washington, was a longtime senior aide to Vice President Joe Biden. And he has a good civil rights record. In recent years, however, he also has served as counsel to the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform, which pushed for changes in federal litigation rules and adding business-friendly judges to state courts. http://www.tortdeform.com/archives/2009/02 is_obamas_office_of_legal_poli.html#trackbacks Many of the same front groups which joined the Chamber ILR legal reform 'coalition' were involved in the organization's turn to full-blown rightwing partisanship and were responsible for putting George Bush into office and keeping him there.

The litigation by Ohio Attorney Cliff Arnebeck regarding the manipulation of the 2004 election in Ohio uncovered evidence that long time Bush IT expert  Mike Connell created front groups for the Chamber (on behalf of Karl Rove?) in an ongoing pattern of corrupt activity to defraud elections. http://thejournal.epluribusmedia.net/index.php/state-news/ohio-news/121-ohio-attorneys-to-assert-rico-claim-against-karl-rove-for-orchestrating-theft-of-2004-election?q=connell. Mr. Arnebeck was able to tie the Chamber to Connell’s activities because Arnebeck had sued the Chamber earlier for creating front groups that illegally funneled and laundered money to attack Ohio Supreme Court Justice Alice Resnick. http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=3781

Mississippi Judge Oliver Diaz wrote to us recently to complain about being targeted by the Bush DOJ in a political prosecution directed by Karl Rove.  He wrote, “election fraud is a major concern to me.... In my last election, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce funneled about $1 million to defeat me.  This is part of a strategy to stack out courts with conservative shills for big business. They have refused to disclose their donor list.”  

So now, Obama wants to have Mark Gitenstein, who lobbied for the one of the most partisan, corrupt and opaque organizations in the country, decide what judges are to be put on the federal bench.  The same Chamber that coordinated attacks on Democrats nationwide for suing Big Tobacco, such as Don Siegelman. What kind of ethics and integrity can Mr. Gitenstein have lobbying for such an organization?  We urge everyone to contact their Senators to express disapproval for this possible nomination.  

Note: Mr. Gitenstein also lobbied for AT&T, collaborator of FISA.  http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/02/tell-me-about-that-pledge-again-mr-president-former-chamber-of-commerce-lobbyist-to-head-dojs-opd/

OK, we have been hearing all the gush out of Washington about how the new Administration will make a clean break from the barbaric practices of the Bush Administration vis a vis the rule of law.  And it is true that Obama has been saying the right things and issuing orders that we support regarding torture, rendition and Gitmo.  However, earlier this week, his representative for the Department of Justice argued in a case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the Obama DOJ was maintaining the position espoused by the Bush DOJ on state secrets—i.e., that the case alleging torture had to be dismissed because allowing it to proceed would disclose state secrets.  The case, Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen, was brought on behalf of five men who were kidnapped and secretly transferred to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas where they were tortured.

Last week, Britain's High Court of Justice ruled evidence in the U.K. civil case of Binyam Mohamed, one of the plaintiffs in the Jeppesen case, must remain secret because of U.S. threats to cut off intelligence sharing. On Saturday Britain's Telegraph reported that "Mohamed’s genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, 'is very far down the list of things they did'." On Sunday Britain's Daily Mail reported that Mohamed "was identified as a terrorist after confessing he had visited a 'joke' website on how to build a nuclear weapon. ... [He] admitted to having read the 'instructions' after allegedly being beaten, hung up by his wrists for a week and having a gun held to his head in a Pakistani jail."

So what we have here is either Obama just giving us all lip service or Bush DOJ holdovers trying to sabotage the new Administration.  Whatever it is, let’s get it straight—torture is criminal and covering up for torture is criminal.  Please phone and Email Attorney General Eric Holder right now to ask him not to coverup torture: 202-514-2001 AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

Last year, Senators Edward Kennedy, Patrick Leahy, and Arlen Specter, and Representative Jerrold Nadler, introduced the State Secrets Protection Act, which would severely limit the use of the "state secrets" claim. Please call and ask them to reintroduce this bill right away: Kennedy, 202-224-4543; Leahy, 202-224-4242; Specter, 202-224-4254; Nadler, 202-225-5635.

Yesterday,
House Judiciary Chair John Conyers issued a subpoena to Karl Rove requiring his testimony about the US Attorney firings, the Don Siegelman case, and other politicizing of the Justice Department. Today, Rove's attorney indicated that Rove would still assert executive privilege.

We believe that President Obama should reject any attempt by Rove to avoid testifying under oath about his conduct in manipulating the rule of law. As Don Siegelman pointed out, "those who abused their power must be held accountable otherwise their misuse of power will be more likely to happen again."