Senator Diane Feinstein has recently released a "Ballot Integrity Act of 2007." The bill, co-sponsored by Senators Brown, Clinton, Dodd, Inouye, Kennedy, Leahy, Menendez, Obama and Sanders, presents an alternative of sorts to Representative Rush Holt's HR811 "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007."

Unfortunately, there are grave concerns about the Feinstein bill, as forwarded by scholarly election researcher Kathy Dopp in Utah. As Dopp concludes, “Feinstein's bill is a real disappointment if our goal is to ensure the accuracy of election outcomes, because no sufficient, independent election audits are required as compared to ...   more »

Once in a while an actual flash of reality peeks through the networks national evening news broadcasts. Night before last, the estimable Russ Mitchell had this to report on CBS about the music industry:

“There is more bad news for the record industry this week. CD sales are down 20 percent this year. It's one reason why ambitious musicians no longer dream of winning their first deal with a major label. These days, more of them would rather do it all by themselves, as we hear from Anthony Mason.

ANTHONY MASON reporting:

When the band Clap Your Hands Say ...   more »

With apologies to those people who tried to trackback, earlier: I unintentionally deleted a number of posts, and you are now welcome to trackback. This time I’ll click Approve instead of Delete.

Today is May 30, 2007. Part of the blog below consists of questions posted on this page on July 26, 2006. The questions have still not been answered, and they were not new at the time they were previously posted. In all seriousness, gentlemen and ladies, what was our National Security Agency (NSA) doing on September 11, 2001?

General Michael V. Hayden, now ...   more »

Of course Valerie Plame Wilson was undercover. Of course her status was covert. Working in her division within something called the CIA, those were the odds. But try telling that to the rightwing noise machine.

Still, once more unto the breach, dear friends . . .

As part of the government’s sentencing recommendations in the I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby case, an appendix describes Valerie Plame’s job at CIA and explains Plame’s undercover position:

On January 1, 2002, Valerie Plame Wilson worked for CIA as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations (DO). “She was assigned ...   more »

CBS correspondent Lara Logan, who along with other American reporters risks her life anew every time she returns to Iraq, is back there again. Discussing what she sees with Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation (the only halfway decent Sunday morning talk show/news broadcast) yesterday morning, she says there has been a change for the worse even between her last stint a few months ago and this one. The area of Baghdad is being turned into rubble, the desert is reclaiming the city, and the road from the airport looks like "Armageddon."

A similar and equally valid message from former ...   more »

The response of the government in USA v. Libby has been filed by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and it is illuminating. One part follows below.