A Verifiable Way To Prevent Vote Fraud And Miscounting?

David Bismark: E-voting without fraud
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_bismark_e_voting_without_fraud.html

David Bismark demos a new system for voting that contains a simple, verifiable way to prevent fraud and miscounting -- while keeping each person's vote secret.

--
Your remedy is in the courts - learn civil litigation with Jurisdictionary®

I Refuse To Comply With The Unconstitutional Demands Of The Federal Government
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.

Government is only as strong as those who allow themselves to be governed are weak.

"The 'art' of politics is diverting attention from what's really happening. What
separates politicians from other criminal organizations is superior public relations."
- Marc Stevens

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free it expects something that cannot be."
- Thomas Jefferson

Re: Gay marriage support knocks 3 Iowa justices off the bench after spiteful campaign against them

all benefits, rights, protection of tangible and intangible properties; again with a few documents, I can remedy, fix, guarantee, make right, and protect.

A couple years ago, a lesbian couple and their children were about to take a Caribbean cruise leaving from Miami.  They had all the necessary paperwork with them - power of attorney, health care, "Civil Union," etc.  One woman became ill and was hospitalized.  The partner and children were denied any contact with the patient because they were deemed non-relative.  The partner presented all the documentation and she was told "You're in Florida now."  When the woman died, it was without the physical presence and emotional comfort of her family.

If two metals can be married, why can't two people?  Who officiates?  Must it be performed in a House of Worship?  Do the metals need a marriage license beforehand and get a certificate after the ceremony?

If "marriage" is a religious rite, how come it requires a license from the government?  How come certain people are allowed to practice a marriage rite and others are refused the right to the rite? 

Is a common law marriage from one state recognized in all the other states? Would a utility bill in both names be acceptable as proof?  What if opposite gender roommates have recreational carnal knowledge, are they considered married?

The way many heterosexuals do it, holy matrimony with its vows (until death do us part) seems to be the first step to divorce.  Similar to washing hair, they repeat the sacred ritual.

---

From: Keith In Tampa <keithintampa@gmail.com>
To: politicalforum@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, November 5, 2010 6:25:36 AM
Subject: Re: Gay marriage support knocks 3 Iowa justices off the bench after spiteful campaign against them

Other than your support for "Gay Marriage",  I tend to agree with you Greg.  We have discussed this a good bit here, (you were hanging out across the street when we did...<Grin>!)  but in a nutshell, the only thing that I could not change for two individuals who choose to cohabitate as a couple;  today, as the laws currently are, with just a few documents, is the Federal Tax Code.

 

Other than that, all benefits, rights, protection of tangible and intangible properties; again with a few documents, I can remedy, fix, guarantee, make right, and protect.

 

 

On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 9:19 AM, GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> wrote:

I happen to support gay marriage.  I also live in Massachusetts, where
it was the courts that validated gay marriage too (but our judges are
not elected).  For the record, it was DEMOCRATS who shat themselves
over that ruling, and attempted to change the state constitution to
overrule it.

The real issue is that states acknowledging gay marriage is basically
meaningless until the fed does, and the fed does NOT.  4 years of a
dem congress, 2 of which with a dem president, and the ever so
tolerant ones haven't lifted a finger on DOMA - a dem law as well -
and that includes Massachusetts' very own, and proudly gay, Barney
Frank.

Right here, we have Dean Hara, married to former congressman Gerry
Studds (D-MA).  Gerry died.  Dean applied for his pension and benefits
from his departed spouse.  The fed said, "Not a fucking dime, you were
never married".

And Barney and his tolerant friends are still mum.

--

Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.politicalforum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
 
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

Re: Keith Olbermann suspended over political donations

First David Shuster and *now* Keith Olbermann??

Good thing Olbermann isn't a journalist. That should help him in any
upcoming legal battles but I imagine the ethics clause in his contract has
this sort of thing covered. An educated guess. :-))

There was a time when the very bright people in this group would challenge
every ridiculous statement you and Tommy and others make. I haven't had
much time to play in the baby pool lately (been busy helping to get a new
governor elected) but I must ask at this time for you to provide a list of
(with links) ethics violations you perceive Fox news to be guilty of. If
you are unable to do this, you need to STFU.

Olbermann was MSNBC top ratings getter LOL. He does lag behind Nancy Grace
on most nights but does beat that awful Parker Spitzer.

CW
----- Original Message -----
From: "nominal9" <nominal9@yahoo.com>
To: "PoliticalForum" <politicalforum@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, November 05, 2010 03:02
Subject: Keith Olbermann suspended over political donations

Wonder what the Policy is over at Fox.......Apples and Oranges.....At
Fox they probably couldn't spell ethics... let alone have any...
MSNBC is in the gunsights of Comcast for corporate takeover, or some
such thing.. I'm thinking this Phil Griffin guy... may be trolling to
keep his job.... if and when that may happen.....
Besides... isn't the "right" to contribute to the political candidates
of your choice.... sort of a sacred cow?.... legally, I mean....
nominal9

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40028929/ns/politics-decision_2010/ns/politics-decision_2010

Msnbc TV host Keith Olbermann was suspended indefinitely on Friday for
making campaign donations to three Democratic congressional
candidates, apparently in violation of NBC News ethics policy.

The announcement came in a one-sentence statement from msnbc TV
President Phil Griffin: "I became aware of Keith's political
contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and
standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay."

The donations were first reported by the Politico website earlier in
the day.

Olbermann acknowledged the donations in a statement to Politico,
saying he gave the maximum legal donation of $2,400 to Arizona Reps.
Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords and Kentucky Attorney General
Jack Conway, who waged an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate
against Tea Party standard-bearer Rand Paul.

Like most news organizations, NBC News, parent of msnbc TV, prohibits
political contributions by its journalists without prior approval of
the president. (Msnbc.com, a joint venture of NBC News and Microsoft,
also has a policy against its journalists contributing to political
campaigns.)

"Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside
activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her
standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the
appearance of a conflict of interest," it reads. "Such activities may
include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or
groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any
such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of,
the president of NBC News or his designee."

Politico noted that the donations to Grijalva and Giffords were made
on Oct. 28, the same day that Grijalva appeared on Olbermann's
"Countdown with Keith Olbermann" show. Grijalva won re-election on
Tuesday, while Giffords on Friday was clinging to a narrow lead over
Republican Jesse Kelly in a race that the Associated Press has not yet
called.

In his statement to Politico, Olbermann said he did not encourage his
viewers or other staff members to donate to the candidates.

"I did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to
these campaigns, nor to any others in this election or any previous
ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any
level," he was quoted as saying.

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

Federal Aid = Federal Control -- and We’re Shocked?

Federal Aid = Federal Control -- and We're Shocked?
Posted by Bill Anderson on November 5, 2010 12:54 PM

Christianity Today recently had an article in which it noted that the U.S. Department of Education is trying to control the curriculum of Christian colleges through a set of new rules. Obviously, people at Christian colleges are alarmed at what is likely to come down the pipe, especially at colleges in states like California and New York.

Unfortunately, I think that people are going to drawn the wrong conclusion: they will claim that this is yet another example of the "Godless Democrats/Obamaites" attacking evangelical Christianity. While I have no doubt that lots of Democrats would love to launch a full frontal attack on Christian organizations, nonetheless there is a much bigger issue here: This is what happens when these colleges accept government aid for students.

Grove City College more than 20 years ago lost a case on federal control, but hardly any Christian colleges followed GCC's example of getting out of the federal money business altogether. This means that places like Wheaton College, Covenant College, and others are going to have face head-on the federal train that has been barreling down the tracks at them for years. However, leaders of these colleges ignored the obvious or claimed that the government never would try to do this.

Well, that day has arrived, and it only will get worse. Furthermore, look for the IRS in the future to demand that churches rewrite their theology to fit the boundaries of Political Correctness -- or else lose their tax-exempt status. That day is coming, too.

xxx

New Rules Worry Christian Colleges
Government's solution to for-profit problems may threaten schools' autonomy.
Naomi Schaefer Riley | posted 11/01/2010 10:35AM

Today the Department of Education (DOE) will finalize a new set of regulations that have many private colleges and universities concerned and religious institutions downright alarmed. Formulated in response to allegations of financial-aid fraud at some for-profit institutions, these 80-odd pages of rules contain 14 different directives, one of which could provide a back-door threat to the ability of Christian colleges to control curriculum, admissions, and hiring standards. (Another rule, requiring for-profit universities to demonstrate a minimal rate of post-graduate employment, has been delayed after it drew protests.)

The directive, mandated for implementation by July 1, 2011, asks states to develop a procedure (if they don't already have one) to license private educational institutions. The procedure must be a "substantive" one, and if schools do not comply the states are required to take "adverse action" against the institutions. (Under current law, as long as a school is approved by a federally recognized accreditor and is allowed to operate in a particular state, that school will be eligible to receive Title IV financial aid for its students.)

The new rule threatens to introduce another layer of bureaucracy to higher education. And while some states will probably exercise restraint in implementing new rules for universities, the concern is that others may not.

As Hank Brown, former president of the University of Colorado, and Bill Armstrong, president of Colorado Christian University, wrote in a recent op-ed in The Denver Post, "Who can doubt that various interest groups will soon begin to clamor for ideas to be mandated by law as requirements for college classrooms?" Armstrong said in an interview that the new regulations "could set the stage for the renewal of the culture wars" as various groups clamor to determine the content of the curriculum. Should states be involved, Armstrong asks, "in whether colleges teach evolution or intelligent design, or whether a family is a man and a woman or two men?"

Indeed, some states already impose a religious test in deciding which educational institutions receive funds from state coffers. Students at Houghton College and Nyack College, both in New York, are ineligible to receive certain state financial aid because the schools are considered "pervasively sectarian." So it would be easy to imagine states imposing similar tests for federal financial aid if they were made gatekeepers.

Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education (which represents over 2,000 schools that are public and private, for-profit and nonprofit), says he understands the government's desire to protect taxpayer dollars and ensure educational quality, but he worries that "state bureaucrats will use the new authority to go well beyond these mandates" and "get into the business of judging curriculum, student admissions, and faculty hiring."

For religious schools that often have particular approaches to all three, the implications are unsettling. Paul Corts, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, wrote in an email that new state regulations "could inadvertently or intentionally be especially onerous to our institutions that are trying to incorporate a Christian/biblical worldview in virtually every aspect of our institutional programs."

Organizations like ACE and the CCCU registered their objections during the public comment period over the summer (the directives were published in the Federal Register in June), but no response has been issued from the DOE. Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina circulated a letter to his colleagues in the House of Representatives on October 22 asking them to urge the DOE to delay the finalization of the rules. He suggested that the "sweeping regulatory remedies … may compromise the integrity, freedom, and flexibility of private colleges and universities across the country."

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee expressed concern that "increase[d] state government supervision" would reduce the "independence and autonomy" that undergird the strength of the U.S. education system. "Private colleges and universities are currently supervised by their accrediting agencies, and the Secretary of Education approves those agencies," he said. "If that system needs improvement, we should have that conversation­not hand over the management of private colleges and universities to bureaucrats in Nashville or Sacramento or Boston."

Jane Glickman, a spokeswoman for the DOE, said she was unaware of these objections. When asked whether there was a chance the department would be reconsidering matters, she responded, "Nothing is going to be delayed."

There was recent hope among some higher education leaders that the DOE would carve out an exemption for religious institutions to prevent the sort of interference discussed above. In a revised set of regulations released on Thursday, there was a very small exemption. If religious institutions were already exempted from state authorization by state law or the state's constitution, then that exemption would continue.

But in order to qualify for that exemption, schools must meet the DOE's new definition of a religious school. According to the DOE, "an institution is considered a religious institution if it is owned, controlled, operated, and maintained by a religious organization lawfully operating as a nonprofit religious corporation and awards only religious degrees or religious certificates including, but not limited to, a certificate of Talmudic studies, an associate of biblical studies, a bachelor of religious studies, a master of divinity, or a doctor of divinity."

This definition excludes colleges from Georgetown to Notre Dame and from Baylor to Wheaton. Not only are many of the country's religious schools not maintained or operated by a religious organization, but almost all of them award degrees that are not religious. And a few religious schools operate as for-profit institutions as well.

The almost 900 pages of new regulations released last week (which include comments as well as 82 revisions to the original document) have left many scratching their heads. Anne Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, says she doesn't understand how the introduction of state authorization would prevent the kind of problems that inspired the regulations in the first place. The fraudulent practices engaged in by a few for-profit schools are already illegal under federal law.

Hartle suggests that the fundamental problem with the regulations is that they fail to recognize how different American colleges and universities are from one another. "The more you try to fit all institutions of higher learning into a single box, the harder it gets to preserve the great diversity that is such a hallmark and strength of our system."


http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/novemberweb-only/53.11.0.html

Will Anti-Interventionist Congressional Republicans Please Stand Up

Will Anti-Interventionist Congressional Republicans Please Stand Up
Leon T. Hadar
Journalist and foreign affairs analyst
Posted: November 4, 2010 02:59 PM

Since the inception of Tea Party movement, pundits -- including yours truly -- have been trying to deconstruct the foreign policy direction of what is a coalition of many local and national groups that seem to share a commitment to libertarian economic policy agenda.

Indeed, a recent study prepared by the Cato Institute refutes the popular notion that the movement is dominated by social-cultural conservatives. As David Kirby and Emily Ekins point out, "Libertarian attitudes are fueling roughly half the tea party activists" who believe that "'the less government the better' and don't see a role for government in promoting 'traditional values.'" This is a big reason "why the movement has largely focused on economic matters, resisting attempts to add social issues to its agenda," the two analysts note.

"Tea party libertarians are somewhat younger, better educated and almost twice as likely to 'never' go to church than tea party conservatives," Kirby and Ekins write. "On the issues, tea party libertarians are less concerned than conservatives about the moral direction of the country, gay marriage, immigration, job outsourcing and abortion," they conclude.

That split between libertarian and conservative tea partiers has been noted by other observers who have described it as a division between two camps: The conservatives who support former Alaska Governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and the libertarians who back Representative from Texas and former presidential candidate Ron Paul.

Interestingly enough, the main ideological split between Palin and Paul has less to with the social-conservative agenda and more with the direction of American foreign policy. "As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad,' Paul posted recently on ForeignPolicy.com Tea partiers cannot talk about fiscal responsibility and about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending while giving a green light to "spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world" and "without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. " Tea partiers cannot pat themselves on the back "for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined, " he stressed.

Not surprisingly, Paul like other libertarian figures and organizations, including the Cato Institute opposed the Iraq War and a possible war with Iran and has called for military disengagement from Afghanistan. On the other hand, Palin has been repeating the neoconservative foreign policy mantra since the day she was selected as John McCain's running mate: America needs to spread freedom worldwide, to stay the course in Iraq, to use military power against Iran, to get tough with Russia, and to give to the Generals in the Pentagon all the money they want. Moreover, Palin and former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, another favorite of the conservative wing of the Tea Party movement also echo in their rhetoric about the Middle East and Israel certain messianic overtones that seem to envision a long and costly civilizational struggle with Islam at home and abroad that would not only consume enormous military and economic resources but would also strengthen the power of the federal government.

During the election campaign most of the Republican candidates, and especially those backed by the Tea Party movement refrained from endorsing any coherent foreign policy agenda along the lines of the positions advocated by either Paul or Palin. If anything, their responses to questions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and about U.S. role in the world in general were at times very confused.. When pressed for her position on Iraq and Afghanistan, the former Republican Senate candidate from Nevada Sharon Angle explained that "You know, the two wars that we are in right now are exactly what we are in." And here is what Ken Buck, the former Republican Senate candidate from Colorado had to say about Afghanistan. "The first thing I think we need to do is to make sure that Afghanistan is not a safe haven for terrorists," Buck stated during a debate. "And when I say safe haven, I'm not talking about that there isn't a possibility of a terrorist in Afghanistan. I'm saying that when you look at other countries similarly situated -- Somalia, Yemen, other countries -- that Afghanistan is at least as safe as those countries," he explained.

The problem is that the focus of many of these and other Tea Party candidates that were elected (or not) to Congress has been almost entirely on the economy and that they are either uninterested in, or not knowledgeable enough about Afghanistan, Iraq and other U.S. military interventions that are consuming such a huge part of the federal budget. Under these circumstances, the foreign policy agenda of the Congressional Republicans could end-up being dominated by those Republicans that are very interested in, and knowledgeable about the issues, that receive their talking points on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Russia from interest groups, think tanks and media organizations that support a costly military interventionist policies around the world, and that are inclined to exploit the Palin's jingoistic rhetoric to rally the Republican troops behind their policies.

The danger is that the tendency of those Republican Tea Party members of Congress who are less inclined to focus on foreign policy issues would be to yield to the guidance and pressure coming from the leading Republican foreign-policy activists and "Palinites" who will probably try to integrate their militaristic and interventionist approach into the grand anti-Obama narrative which depicts the president as "un-American," weak and defeatist in his dealing with Iran and Islamofascism and an enemy of the Jewish State.

Let's hope that libertarians and conservative who understand the relationship between U.S. interventionist policies and the rising U.S. federal deficits will succeed in neutralizing this danger by explaining to the new generation of Republican lawmakers that any effort to reduce the power of the federal government will have to include major cuts in military spending. And that will require the rejection of the policies that rationalize these expenditures.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/will-anti-interventionist_b_779074.html