I'm just going to post this without much comment because I haven't seen it noted anywhere yet -- but last night, just 5 minutes before the drop dead deadline of midnight PST -- the CA state secretary of state de-certified Diebold, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia voting machines.  They will not be used in the primaries.

After two months of unprecedented analysis of California’s voting systems and related security procedures, Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced some of those systems can continue operating in 2008 in California while others are too flawed to be widely used.

The Diebold, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia direct recording electronic (DRE) systems were all decertified.

Needless to say, this is a very big deal, but I'll leave the commentary to the experts.  

It's been blogged on prominent right-wing website that I represent the marketing interests of a massive, predatory fast-food corporation.

Sadly, I have to confess that the accusation is true.  I have allowed my image to be the silly, happy face painted to white-wash the insidious culture of "Big Fat".  The Big Macs I help sell lead to large-scale deforestation in the Amazon Basin and poison our bodies with anti-biotics.  I have endorsed industrial use of fertilizers in order to maintain vast grazing lands that create uncontrolled, toxic river-polluting run-off.  An empire of inhumane cattle-slaughter has been built upon my stripped shirt.

The irony of my prison-uniform costume never escapes me. I have been living a lie.

So we held two Governorships, smashed through Arnold's looking glass, and tossed out some radicals in local elections.  This feels good.  No this feels great.  But keep in mind we've only had a one good night in an off-year election.  We haven't won too much in a long time so I feel euphoric, too.  But this is a small win -- we should always expect to retain governorships. The GOP will gladly punt a loss in 2005 for win or even a hold in 2006.

The bad guys are in retreat, but they aren't beaten. And you know that the GOP plays for keeps and will fight back.

Keep the pressure on. Keep talking to your family, friends and co-workers.  Run for local office.  Keep giving to candidates and causes.  Sign petitions.  Or just visit progressive websites and signup for their email lists.

Let's get back to work.  Here are some links to visit today as we celebrate.  Please do consider adding your email address to any mailing lists you do not already beong too, and consider throwing some coin in one or many organizations.

Forgive me if this is a repeat.  I don't post much anymore, and don't have time to read many diary's.

Chris Lydon once hosted a major NPR talk radio show called "The Connection", and now has a new show called Radio Open Source.  He's devoted an hour today to the DSM, interviewing the Brit who broke the story.

MP3 | Radio Open Source Home

The broadcast is available in Mp3.  I'm not sure that this breaks any news, but it does help the drip drip drip of pushing the story forward in the US

There was a time when this community meant alot to me.  I relied on it for campaign news, great commentary and support.

Daily Kos bucked me up after the '02 elections and gave me hope for rebuilding the progressive left in the future.  It gave me my talking points as I rallied dozens of my off-line friends through the primaries for Dean -- and later in the general for Kerry.

At first, when Kos experimented with the technology to further open this community, we all prospered as long as certain un-enforcable rules of conduct (rules of both offline and online conduct, that is) were observed.  Decency, economy, respect, discretion, and reason.

But the other side of an open community, apparently, is anarchy. This wonderful digital society has fouled itself with unrestricted paranoia, zeal for purity, suspicion and just plain bad manners.

The worst offense of all now are wasted words and energy.  

I no longer spend much time here anymore -- not because I'm "leaving", I'll always check in -- but because the site simply is less relevant than it once was.  

The right has deployed a series of extra-legal tactics, or other quasi-legal machinations of power in order to seize control, or implement their agenda for a generation.

Like many American trends, this one started in California, too.  The 1978 Proposition 13 Ballot Tax Initiative enacted, in perpetuity, perhaps the most regressive, right-wing tax agenda in the history of western civilization.

Under Proposition 13, the real estate tax on a parcel of property is limited to 1% of its purchase price, forever, until the property is resold.

The result was the slow, but nearly total, destruction of the tax-base of California (Read Paradise Lost by Peter Schrag).  We still haven't recovered from the results as our highways fall apart, our libraries close, our schools run out of money, our universities fire faculty and raise tuition costs. And just as the majority of Americans re-elected bush last week, the majority of Californians approved this tax measure.

There was a Mandate.

Thank you for taking the fight to the heart of the right-wing.

For bringing a record amount of democrats to the polls.

For sacrificing 2 years of your life to run for president.

For giving our allies in the world hope that all of America has not yet turned their back on logic, reason, and enlightened principles.

For making me proud to be a Democrat.

For 20 years of service in the Senate, and your lifetime of public service.

For standing up for a women's right to choose.

For believing in civil rights for all.

For protecting social security and other social safety nets.

For putting your money where you mouth was in financing some of your own campaign.

For your honorable service in Vietnam.

For withdrawing from the campaign with honor and dignity.

Don't fall for it.  Fight back.

Please consider the following:

A) If you knew you were going to lose PA, and we're planning a legal challenge after the election -- how would you begin to lay the foundation of that legal argument?  Possibly by staging fraud, even if at first glance it seemed benefit your guy.

B) How did Drudge have the detail of the Bush pre-votes?  Possibly leaked, or planted.

C) If you really wanted to steal an election, why would do something as obvious as planting machines with votes -- something that is simple to detect in the pre-poll opening procedures.  And why would you do that in Dem strongholds?  Possibly, because you intended to be caught.

Smells like a classic dirty trick to me.  This is an attempt to cast doubt on the entire states' election.

Anything to this?  Who knows.  One thing is for sure: Bill O'Lielly loves to sue people.

During a meeting Morelli had with Fox and News Corp representatives, he showed them a draft of the complaint containing lengthy quotes that came from O'Reilly. The suit charged that the length of the quotes and the "specific verbiage" made it appear that Mackris had taped O'Reilly.  

And what was O'reilly's response:  A classic "Blame the Victim" countersuit.

Fox and O'Reilly charged in their suit that the defendants' actions were motivated by greed and Morelli's Democratic political connections.

I really did, so that means I've paid for this rant that will follow.  But this will be my last donation if he fails in NH (Where I live).  

Here's why:

So much of what I believed to be true about the Dean campaign fell apart last night.  It could be that Iowa was a mirage all along -- that Dean's natural support just doesn't exist there in "viable" numbers, or that Gep took us down in his personal whirlpool to oblivion, and it could be that Dean was gang-tackled by a smirking national media who simply hates him, or that his message has been co-opted by Kerry (it has, and Kerry has shown himself to be a genius in this).  

It also could be that I'm scared and hysterical -- but I'm no more hysterical today than Dr. Dean was last night.  We win now only if we face facts, retool  -- and fast.

So, today I face up to "The Myths of the Dean Campaign vs. The Creeping Reality"

1. Dean will bring enormous amounts of new Democratic voters to the polls.  Yes, but they voted for Edwards or Kerry in Iowa.
2. Dean's use of the Internet will translate into a real ground force.  No.  Dean struggled to be viable all accross Iowa, including in urban centers.
3. Young people support Dean.  No, Dean and Kerry tied for these voters.
4. People who opposed Iraq War support Dean.   No, they voted for Kerry.
5. Educated Liberals from urban centers College towns will support Dean.  Again, they voted for Kerry and Edwards.
6. Dean is running a different kind of campaign.  So when did Trippi decide it was a good thing to whore for endorsements?  Why did we robo-call our 1's to the point where they stayed home in frustration?  Why did we go negative?  Who produces these fucking lousy ads on my TV
7. Trippi is a Jedi.  Trippi either lied about his hard-count, was incompetently wrong, or raised expectations unreasonably.

Dean still has my vote on Tuesday.  But my gut says that Dean will sink in NH like a rock to a deep third behind Kerry and Clark.  There's something happening here in the liberal Upper Valley -- right on the Vermont border, long considered Dean's base, and where Dartmouth College dominates the culture.  Deaniacs are giving the Gov and 2nd look, and everyone is talking about it at work, at the pub, etc.

I've been with Dean since March.  I've put a lot of my personal prestige (and cash, too) on the line with co-workers, friends, family telling them about Dr. Dean, his plans, his movement -- and he embarrassed me last night.  I've contacted all of my friends about Dean in the past 6 months, convinced some to give money, others simply to vote -- and I even estranged a friend who compared me to an "Amway salesmen" because of my dedication.

All this for a candidate who can't control himself from becoming a parody of himself on multi-network, live cable TV.

I now think that Dean will be remembered as the greatest super-nova in America Politics, a rise and flame-out surpassing even Hart in 1984.  We have never seen anything like his rise, nor will I ever see anything like his fall again.  He also, I believe, will be remembered as the "Oracle of Delphi' of this campaign who predicted exactly 1) how speak out about George Bush, 2) created the tone of the campaign, 3) made healthcare/balanced budgets themes for the general (election, not clark) 4) energized new recruits to the Democratic party, 5) excited the grassroots, 6) how to change the Democratic Party.  But Kerry or Edwards will pick up the torch now.  Dean's only chance nwo is as VP.

Someone, please, prove me wrong and that Dean still has a chance.

So much is striking about this election season, but to me nothing is more extraordinary than the powerful linguistic battle being waged by Dean to recapture the language of our political culture.

The story of the GOP used to be, "How did they do so much with so little?"  During the five Republican presidential wins from 1968-1984, the GOP never had better than 11% deficit in national party registration, never came marginally close to a House majority, and couldn't hold their slim Senate majority for long.

But the GOP had a near lock on the Whitehouse during this period -- and from that toe-hold were able to forge a policy consensus amoung their congressional delegation, cultivated strong new candidates, established well-funed policy think-tanks, adapted to governing (effectively) from the minority/veto, and generally chipped away at the Democratic lock in the congress.

I think this is because the Republicans forced the public discourse to be waged on their ground: Taxes, defense, communism, socialism, morality, liberalism, crime, quotas, abortion, guns, fiscal responsibility -- on and on -- turning these issues one by one on the Democrats -- so confusing the electorate that we lost our ability to communicate effectively to the nation, and to our own constituents.

Ultimately, the GOP was able to rhetorically define us on every major issue, and we gradually lost our national consensus to govern.

Their ideas weren't better, but their strategy was far superior.  The GOP has been masterful at combining various linguistic memes into powerful uber-notions.  Such as:

• Defined tax-cuts as a moral issue in a vague defense of liberty.
• Convinced middle-class and working poor that tax cuts for the rich creates jobs and balanced budgets
• Won the support of northern labour-union males and southern democrats (Reagan-Democrats) despite waging economic war on their interests -- simply because he was 'tough' on communism/foreign policy.
• Equated the Democratic Party with foreign policy weakness. Incredible considering Vietnam, WWI, WWII were wars largely entered into despite broad-republican opposition.

And the GOP successfully:

• Defined liberalism as a form of moral weakness. Permissive, soft-on-crime, anti-competitive, etc.
• Defined quotas as legally un-just, despite the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow
• Defined free-trade as benefit to workers, despite hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs
• Defined universal health-care as an assault on liberty.
• And on it goes.

As usual, facts had little to do with their strategy.  But the "fiscal responsibility" meme was the keystone for the GOP.  The electorate indulged the GOP with a wide array of moral/social issues because, I argue, the GOP best defined themselves as the party to be "trusted with the people's money."

Now, suddnely, we're ripping back fiscal-responsibility high ground, and we're waging a linguistic battle to equate economic justice with fair tax-policies and trade policies.  Many Conservative Democrats wrongly assume that foreign policy is the lynch-pin in the GOP rhetoric machine -- that they've been "McGoverning the shit out of us" since 1972.  But since the recent Neo-conservative coup over GOP foreign policy, Bush foreign policy has quickly evolved into a complex moral issue rather than just simple, easy-to-communicate issue of 'keeping America safe' -- and thus the GOP has left themselves open for attack here.  And better yet, this moral foriegn policy is being conducted in a vacuum of sound fiscal policy.

Without a strong, conservative fiscal policy, Bush is positioning himself as a moral crusader conduct both national and international social engineering (another meme for us to reclaim) -- who regards winning moral policy at the expense all else.  If this campaign shapes up to be one where the GOP is left only with social issues, we can win, and perhaps more than just the White House.  But we have to exploit this to the hilt.