Monthly Archives: June 2010

John Perkins, author of “Confessions of an Economic Hitman,” brought to animation:

An Oilman’s dream come true?

Today’s elections in California are important, even though there is no national race on our ballot.  Volunteer poll watchers have taken it upon themselves to monitor problematic precincts, and have already encountered disenfranchised voters.

At the Venice Methodist Church on Lincoln and Victoria in Venice/Mar Vista, there are two tables for two different precincts.  This morning, only one of those precinct tables was set up and serving voters, while the superintendent of the other table apparently quit and did not deliver the necessary materials — poll books, voting machines, ballots, more.  Read More »

This weekend at the Guys’ Choice Awards for Spike TV in Los Angeles, history was made.

If you live in California and have been overwhelmed by all the mailings from vaguely legitimate groups about the upcoming propositions on Tuesday’s ballot, here are a couple you should know about and share with your friends and lists.

YES on Proposition 15, for Clean Elections.

This proposition does two significant things: It starts a pilot program wherein candidates for Secretary of State for California in 2014 and 2018 will have the option of accepting public funds for their race instead of seeking donations. Contrary to what many of these mailers have been repeating, these funds are not from taxpayers. Where does the money come from? Lobbyists. The current state fees for lobbyists to register to be able to collect money to affect elected officials is cheaper than it is to apply to college. This prop will make California lobbyists registration fees closer to (but still not as much as) the cost of auto registration in California.  Read More »

Not that there is much credibility left to Diebold, the ATM banking machine company that did to voting machines what BP did to off-shore drilling–which is to say, brilliantly convince even their most steadfast defenders that they should not even be in this industry, ultimately requiring federal intervention from supremely reluctant politicians that have been taking their money all this time.

With the SEC lawsuit and $25 million settlement with Diebold, as well as its investigation of three top Diebold executives, there are still numerous investigations into the legitimacy of Diebold being able to sell off their voting machines division, Premier Election Solutions, to their only other competitor, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), thereby creating a voting machine maker monopoly.

If Diebold’s top leadership has been found by federal investigators to be guilty of inflating their profits, is it unreasonable to be able to ask if their number-crunching company approach has carried into their administration of numerous elections that have long stood out as dubious? Read More »