Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=33264"><span class="small">Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, TIME</span></a>
Wednesday, 03 August 2016 14:30
Abdul-Jabbar writes: "The Khan family and other courageous people have rejuvenated and invigorated me for the fight ahead. It's a fight that must be won."
Khizr Khan holding his personal copy of the US Constitution while addressing delegates on the fourth and final day of the Democratic National Convention at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 28, 2016. (photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty)
The Khans Should Be America's Wake-Up Call
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, TIME
03 August 16
The Khan family reinvigorated me for the fight ahead to defeat Donald Trump
hizr Khan’s impassioned speech last week at the Democratic National Convention about the heroics of his Muslim-American son didn’t just shame Donald Trump’s crude lack of American values—it reminded us of a quaint concept that we haven’t paid too much attention to lately: sacrifice. Since John F. Kennedy in his 1961 inaugural speech encouraged Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” we haven’t really had much of a national discussion about the role sacrifice plays in maintaining a free society.
Mr. Khan reminded us of that noble ideal when he talked about his son, Army Capt. Humayun S.M. Khan, a Muslim-American who sacrificed his own life in Iraq in 2004 to save other soldiers. Mr. Khan, of Pakistani heritage, had moved to the U.S. in the 1970s for “freedom and opportunity,” the two ideals that Americans feel proudest of providing. Mr. Khan told us that had it been up to Trump, his son never would have been permitted into the country.
“Have you ever been to Arlington cemetery?” he said directly to Trump. “Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.” Mr. Khan’s passion for justice was contagious, but his story of sacrifice was as inspiring as JFK’s call to action. Days after Mr. Khan brandished his pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution, that same edition became the number two bestseller on Amazon (behind the new Harry Potter book), 80,000 copies were downloaded through the American Civil Liberties Union and views of the National Constitution Center’s Interactive Constitution increased by 16 percent. Mr. Khan had made the U.S. Constitution hip again.
The Khan family’s national presence couldn’t have come at a better time for America—and for me personally.
Although I have been politically active for most of my life, especially in civil rights, this year’s Democratic National Convention was my first. I was excited to contribute, but a part of me had been disheartened in the months leading up to the convention. I had begun to feel like America was trapped in a nightmarish Alien sequel, with Donald Trump starring as the toothy creature who feeds on America’s insides until bloated with our vital organs, ultimately destroying the host.
Much of my dystopian despair was the result of watching the Republican National Convention. I observed with shock and embarrassment mobs of people rally behind a man who gazes out at America with eyes, as Yeats put it, “as blank and pitiless as the sun.” My anguish wasn’t a left wing-right wing thing or blind loyalty to a particular party. It was a patriotic thing. I liked to believe that these conventions were about groups coming together to create a platform that reflected us striving to be our best selves—our most humane, most “American” selves. We would discuss how we could go forth in the coming four years applying the principles of the U.S. Constitution by choosing a person to champion those principles. Instead, I was standing by watching in HD clarity while reasoned loyalty was being set ablaze by combustive rhetoric, as if it were a witch being burned at the stake.
So when I arrived at the DNC, I worried that this going to be just another exercise in preaching to the choir. The lines had been drawn, the sides already chosen. However, I met so many enthusiastic and hopeful people who were dedicated to bringing about their vision of a diverse and inclusive American society that I couldn’t help but get caught up in their enthusiasm. No one was talking about who we hate, who we should blame, who we should exclude, who we should punish. They were talking about justice, freedom, and opportunity. All of that was well and good, but I couldn’t shake the knowledge that a whole lot of Americans supported the man who contradicted a whole lot of American values.
But all that apprehension fell away as soon as I heard Khizr Khan speak.
Whatever doubts, depression, or disgust I felt before were washed away by Mr. Khan. I realized that Capt. Khan’s sacrifice—as well as the sacrifices made by so many others to protect our Constitution—demanded that we don’t indulge in lazy melancholy or hipster cynicism, but work twice as hard to make sure those sacrifices are not in vain. The day after Mr. Khan’s speech, Trump responded in the typical non-sequitur fashion: “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices… I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve done, I’ve had tremendous success.”
So, my first time attending the DNC changed me. But the Khan family and other courageous people have rejuvenated and invigorated me for the fight ahead. Because it’s a fight that must be won. No matter the sacrifice.
Bouie writes: "Republican leaders will challenge Trump's statements and hope that he 'pivots' to a more sober-minded approach. But they won't undermine him in ways that hurt; they won't rebuke him in the kind of language they used to attack Democrats and ideological opponents."
Rep. Paul Ryan. (photo: Joe Raedle/Getty)
Is Trump Really a GOP Anomaly?
By Jamelle Bouie, Slate
03 August 16
If he is, why are the denunciations from Republican leaders so soft and mealy-mouthed?
t’s not hard to find Republicans to speak out against Donald Trump. On Sunday, Paul Ryan condemned the Republican presidential nominee for his attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of Humayun Khan, a Muslim American Army captain who was killed in 2004 while serving in Iraq. Khizr Khan spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, praising his son’s valor and condemning Trump for his statements against Muslims, as well as his proposed ban on Muslim entry into the United States.
Trump lashed out in anger, accusing Khizr of silencing his wife, which drew him into a battle of words with both the Khans and other families of fallen soldiers. Sensing a need to distance themselves from Trump’s rhetoric, Republican leaders such as Ryan moved quickly. “America’s greatness is built on the principles of liberty and preserved by the men and women who wear the uniform to defend it,” said the House speaker in a statement. “Many Muslim Americans have served valiantly in our military and made the ultimate sacrifice,” he continued. “Capt. Khan was one such brave example. His sacrifice—and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan—should always be honored. Period.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a similar response. “All Americans should value the patriotic service of the patriots who volunteer to selflessly defend us in the armed services. And as I have long made clear, I agree with the Khans and families across the country that a travel ban on all members of a religion is simply contrary to American values,” he wrote, restating his opposition to Trump’s Muslim ban.
On Monday, Sen. John McCain entered the fray with an even stronger statement. “Arizona is watching. It is time for Donald Trump to set the example for our country and the future of the Republican Party,” wrote McCain. “While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us.”
These are strong words from McCain, a former prisoner of war who won the Republican Party’s nomination in the 2008 presidential election. But you don’t have to look too carefully to see that something is missing from both this statement and those from Ryan and McConnell.
There’s no bite.
These statements have strong language, no doubt. But neither Ryan nor McConnell nor McCain is prepared to withdraw his endorsement or add any conditions to his support. The GOP’s nominee, their nominee, is railing against the parents of a dead soldier, and still they refuse to budge.
To a degree, this is understandable. Trump is not the only candidate on the Republican ticket this fall. There are hundreds of down-ballot races and dozens of candidates who stand a real chance of winning. But their successes depend on strong and ample turnout from Republican voters—turnout that may not happen if congressional leaders abandon the party’s nominee for president. So, in the name of preserving a GOP majority in Congress—and maybe even of electing a president who will sign off on tax cuts and other conservative legislation—key Republicans are sticking with the Trump ticket, even as their nominee weakens their party’s national standing. Even Marco Rubio, who blasted Trump as unfit to handle the nuclear codes, is on board. As of this week, he’s campaigning for Trump. “We have to make sure that Donald wins this election,” he said.
At best, these half-measures are a failure of political imagination, as dedicated partisans struggle to reconcile their commitment to the Republican Party as an institution with their obvious disgust with a nominee who rejects their ideals in favor of raw, bigoted appeals to an angry and embittered group of Americans. At worst, they are acts of cowardice.
Either way, the lackluster responses from Ryan, McConnell, and McCain and the outright submission of Rubio act as a confession of sorts. In their mind’s eye, the Republican Party is a vehicle for ideological conservatism, a tribune of limited government and traditional values. Trump has shown the extent to which this is not true. He has demonstrated that Republican voters will forgive any kind of ideological deviance as long as it’s paired with explicit prejudice toward assorted others, from Hispanic immigrants to Muslims to black protesters.
Republican leaders will challenge Trump’s statements and hope that he “pivots” to a more sober-minded approach. But they won’t undermine him in ways that hurt; they won’t rebuke him in the kind of language they used to attack Democrats and ideological opponents. They won’t deny the truth of what Trump has shown about their party.
Instead, GOP leaders—Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and others—have opted to reconcile themselves to that truth. Under Trump, the Republican Party is the party of ethno-nationalist rage, and its most prominent voices are OK with it.
FOCUS: The US Military Pivots to Africa and That Continent Goes Down the Drain
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=7517"><span class="small">Nick Turse, TomDispatch</span></a>
Wednesday, 03 August 2016 12:02
Turse writes: "What comes next for AFRICOM will play out on the continent and in briefings before the Senate Armed Services Committee for years to come. If history is any guide, the number of terror groups on the continent will not decrease, the senators will fail to ask why this is so, and the media will follow their lead."
AFRICOM soldier with US V-22 Osprey in background. (photo: AFRICOM)
The US Military Pivots to Africa and That Continent Goes Down the Drain
By Nick Turse, TomDispatch
03 August 16
Someday, someone will write a history of the U.S. national security state in the twenty-first century and, if the first decade and a half are any yardstick, it will be called something like State of Failure. After all, almost 15 years after the U.S. invaded the Taliban’s Afghanistan, launching the second American Afghan War of the past half-century, U.S. troops are still there, their “withdrawal” halted, their rules of engagement once again widened to allow American troops and air power to accompany allied Afghan forces into battle, and the Taliban on the rise, having taken more territory (and briefly one northern provincial capital) than at any time since that movement was crushed in the invasion of 2001.
Thirteen years after George W. Bush and his top officials, dreaming of controlling the oil heartlands, launched the invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (the second Iraq War of our era), Washington is now in the third iteration of the same, with 6,000 troops (and thousands of private contractors) back in that country and a vast air campaign underway to destroy the Islamic State. With modest numbers of special operations troops on the ground and another major air campaign, Washington is also now enmeshed in a complex and so far disastrous war in Syria. And if you haven’t been counting, that’s three wars gone wrong.
Then, of course, there was the American (and NATO) intervention in Libya in 2011, which cracked that autocratic country open and made way for the rise of Islamic extremist movements there, as well as the most powerful Islamic State franchise outside Syria and Iraq. Today, plans are evidently being drawn up for yet more air strikes, special operations raids, and the like there. Toss in as well Washington’s never-ending drone war in Pakistan’s tribal borderlands, its disastrous attempt to corral al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen (leading to a grim and horrifying Saudi-led, American-supported internecine conflict in that country), and the unending attempt to destroy al-Shabaab in Somalia, and you have at least seven wars and conflicts in the Greater Middle East, all about to be handed on by President Obama to the next president with no end in sight, no real successes, nothing. In these same years Islamic terror movements have only spread and grown stronger under the pressure of the American war machine.
It’s not as if Washington doesn’t know this. It’s quite obvious and, as TomDispatch Managing Editor Nick Turse, author of the highly praisedNext Time They'll Come to Count the Dead, points out today in his latest report on the U.S. military’s pivot to Africa, the pattern is only intensifying, something clearly recognized by key American commanders. What’s strange, however, is that none of this seems to have caused anyone in the national security state or the military to reconsider the last 15 years of military-first policies, of bombs dropped, troops dispatched, drones sent in, and what the results were across the Greater Middle East and now Africa. There is no serious recalibration, no real rethinking. The response to 15 years of striking failure in a vast region remains more of the same. State of failure indeed!
-Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch
Breaking the Camouflage Wall of Silence When AFRICOM Evaluates Itself, the News Is Grim
t’s rare to hear one top military commander publicly badmouth another, call attention to his faults, or simply point out his shortcomings. Despite a seemingly endless supply of debacles from strategic setbacks to quagmire conflicts since 9/11, the top brass rarely criticize each other or, even in retirement, utter a word about the failings of their predecessors or successors. Think of it as the camouflage wall of silence. You may loathe him. You may badmouth him behind closed doors. You may have secretly hoped for his career to implode. But publicly point out failures? That’s left to those further down the chain of command.
And yet that’s effectively exactly what newly installed U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) chief, General Thomas Waldhauser, did earlier this year in a statement to the Senate Arms Services Committee (SASC). It’s just that no one, almost certainly including Waldhauser himself, seemed to notice or recognize it for the criticism it was, including the people tasked with oversight of military operations and those in the media.
Over these last years, the number of personnel, missions, dollars spent, and special ops training efforts as well as drone bases and other outposts on the continent have all multiplied. At the same time, incoming AFRICOM commanders have been publicly warning about the escalating perils and challenges from terror groups that menace the command’s area of operations. Almost no one, however -- neither those senators nor the media -- has raised pointed questions, no less demanded frank answers, about why such crises on the continent have so perfectly mirrored American military expansion.
Asked earlier this year about the difficulties he’d face if confirmed, Waldhauser was blunt: “A major challenge is effectively countering violent extremist organizations, especially the growth of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia, and ISIL in Libya.”
That should have been a déjà vu moment for some of those senators. Three years earlier, the man previously nominated to lead AFRICOM, General David Rodriguez, was asked the same question. His reply was suspiciously similar: “A major challenge is effectively countering violent extremist organizations, especially the growth of Mali as an al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb safe haven, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and al-Shabaab in Somalia.”
All that had changed between 2013 and 2016, it seemed, was the addition of one more significant threat.
In the midst of Rodriguez’s 2016 victory lap (as he was concluding 40 years of military service), Waldhauser publicly drew attention to just how ineffective his run as AFRICOM chief had been. Some might call it unkind -- a slap in the face for a decorated old soldier -- but perhaps turnabout is fair play. After all, in 2013, Rodriguez did much the same to his predecessor, General Carter Ham, when he offered his warning about the challenges on the continent.
Three years before that, in 2010, Ham appeared before the same committee and said, “I believe that the extremist threat that's emerging from East Africa is probably the greatest concern that Africa Command will face in the near future.” Ham expressed no worry about threats posed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb or Boko Haram. ISIL in Libya didn’t even exist. And even that “greatest concern,” al-Shabaab, was, Ham noted, “primarily focused on internal matters in Somalia.”
In other words, over these last years, each incoming AFRICOM commander has offered a more dismal and dire assessment of the situation facing the U.S. military than his predecessor. Ham drew attention to only one major terror threat, Rodriguez to three, and Waldhauser to four.
His Own Worst Critic
That said, Waldhauser isn’t the only AFRICOM chief to point a finger at Rodriguez’s checkered record. Another American general cast an even darker shadow on the outgoing commander’s three-year run overseeing Washington’s shadow war in Africa:
“AFRICOM’s priorities on the continent for the next several years will be... in East Africa to improve stability there. Most of that is built around the threat of al-Shabaab. And then, in the North and West Africa is really built around the challenges from Libya down to northern Mali and that region and that instability there creates many challenges... And then after that is the West Africa, really about the Boko Haram and the problem in Nigeria that is, unfortunately, crossing the boundary into Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. So those are the big challenges and then just the normal ones that continue to be a challenge are the Gulf of Guinea... as well as countering the Lord’s Resistance Army...”
That critic was, in fact, General David Rodriguez himself in an AFRICOM promotional video released on multiple social media platforms last month. It was posted on the very day that his command also touted its “more than 30 major exercises and more than 1,000 military to military engagements” between 2013 and 2015. It was hardly a surprise, however, that these two posts and the obvious conclusion to be drawn from them -- just how little AFRICOM’S growing set of ambitious continent-wide activities mattered when it came to the spread of terror movements -- went unattended and uncommented upon.
Waldhauser and Rodriguez have not, however, been alone in pointing out increased insecurity on the continent. “Terrorism and violent extremism are major sources of instability in Africa,” Assistant Secretary Linda Thomas-Greenfield of the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May. “Terrorist organizations such as al-Shabaab, Boko Haram (which now calls itself the Islamic State in West Africa), al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and al-Murabitoun are conducting asymmetric campaigns that cause significant loss of innocent life and create potentially long-term humanitarian crises.”
National intelligence director James Clapper, who called the continent “a hothouse for the emergence of extremist and rebel groups” in 2014, spoke of the dangers posed by the Lord's Resistance Army and al-Shabaab, as well as terror threats in Egypt, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, and Tunisia, and instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Congo, Burundi, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year.
And then there’s Brigadier General Donald Bolduc who heads Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA), the most elite U.S. troops on the continent. He painted a picture that was grimmer still. Last November, during a closed door presentation at the annual Special Operations Command Africa Commander’s Conference in Garmisch, Germany, the SOCAFRICA chief drew attention not just to the threats of al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Boko Haram, ISIL, and the Lord’s Resistance Army, but also another “43 malign groups” operating in Africa, according to another set of documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.
The growth of terror groups from the one named by Ham in 2010 to the 48 mentioned by Bolduc in 2015 is as remarkable as it has been unremarked upon, a record so bleak that it demands a congressional investigation that will, of course, never take place.
Questions Unasked, Questions Unanswered
U.S. Africa Command boasts that it “neutralizes transnational threats” and “prevents and mitigates conflict,” while training local allies and proxies “in order to promote regional security, stability, and prosperity.” Rodriguez’s tenure was, however, marked by the very opposite: increasing numbers of lethal terror attacks across the continent including those in Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Tunisia. In fact, data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland shows that attacks have spiked over the last decade, roughly coinciding with AFRICOM’s establishment. In 2007, just before it became an independent command, there were fewer than 400 such incidents annually in sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the number reached nearly 2,000.
While these statistics may be damning, they are no more so than the words of AFRICOM’s own chiefs. Yet the senators who are supposed to provide oversight haven’t seemed to bat an eye, let alone ask the obvious questions about why terror groups and terror attacks are proliferating as U.S. operations, bases, manpower, and engagement across the continent grow. (Note that this is, of course, the same Senate committee that Rodriguez misled, whether purposefully or inadvertently, earlier this year when it came to the number of U.S. military missions in Africa without -- again -- either apparent notice or any repercussions.)
In an era of too-big-to fail generals, an age in which top commanders from winless wars retire to take prominent posts at influential institutions and cash in with cushy jobs on corporate boards, AFRICOM chiefs have faced neither hard questions nor repercussions for the deteriorating situation. (Similar records -- heavy on setbacks, short on victories -- have been produced by Washington’s war chiefs in Afghanistan and Iraq for the past 15 years and they, too, have never led to official calls for any sort of accountability.)
Rodriguez is now planning on resting at his northern Virginia home for a few months and, as he toldStars and Stripes, seeing “what comes next.”
U.S. Africa Command failed to respond to multiple requests for an interview with Rodriguez, but if he follows in the footsteps of the marquee names among fellow retired four-stars of his generation, like David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, he’ll supplement his six-figure pension with one or more lucrative private sector posts.
What comes next for AFRICOM will play out on the continent and in briefings before the Senate Armed Services Committee for years to come. If history is any guide, the number of terror groups on the continent will not decrease, the senators will fail to ask why this is so, and the media will follow their lead.
During his final days in command, AFRICOM released several more short videos of Rodriguez holding forth on varioius issues. In one of the last of these, the old soldier praised “the whole team” for accomplishing “a tremendous amount over the last several years.” What exactly that was went unsaid, though it certainly wasn’t achieving AFRICOM’s mandate to “neutraliz[e] transnational threats.” But what Rodriguez said next made a lot of sense. He noted that AFRICOM wasn’t alone in it -- whatever it was. Washington, D.C., he said, had played a key role, too. In that, he couldn’t have been more on target. The increasingly bleak outlook in Africa can’t simply be laid at the feet of AFRICOM’s commanders. Again and again, they’ve been upfront about the deteriorating situation. Washington has just preferred to look the other way.
FOCUS: California Court Upholds a Method to Detect Election Fraud
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=26125"><span class="small">Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Wednesday, 03 August 2016 10:41
Simpich writes: "A recent ruling in a San Diego election integrity lawsuit should set a new trend in fighting voter suppression. Many citizens are concerned about the accuracy of voting machines, but feel powerless to challenge their findings. The court’s ruling upholds the viability of the '1% manual tally,' a method for citizens to test the machine results by comparing them to the paper ballot tally."
Southern California Shredding truck. (photo: Andrea Beth Damsky)
California Court Upholds a Method to Detect Election Fraud
By Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News
03 August 16
recent ruling in a San Diego election integrity lawsuit should set a new trend in fighting voter suppression. Many citizens are concerned about the accuracy of voting machines, but feel powerless to challenge their findings. The court’s ruling upholds the viability of the “1% manual tally,” a method for citizens to test the machine results by comparing them to the paper ballot tally.
Ray Lutz is the director of Citizens Oversight, a nonprofit “dedicated to enabling citizens to provide needed oversight to our democracy.” When he hasn’t been leading the fight to decommission the San Onofre nuclear power plant, Lutz has put significant time into tracking the disastrous 2016 primary election in California.
Lutz noticed that the California election code required that 1% of “all ballots cast” must undergo a random audit comparing the ballots to the electronic tally.
He then noticed something else – that the San Diego registrar, Michael Vu, was not including the provisional ballots or the late-arriving VBMs (votes by mail) in his tally. This was about 37% of the entire vote – a discrepency of 285,000 votes that were not audited.
Lutz and Citizens Oversight filed suit days after the primary due to Vu’s failure to randomly sample the votes to check for fraud. Lutz’s attorney, Alan Geraci, emphasized that “the intention of the elections code is obviously to create an audit so that the people can know that the election has been done properly.” The county argued that seven other California counties were doing it the same way as Vu.
Michael Vu has a bad track record for election integrity. In 2004 Vu was the registrar in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, a swing state in the George W. Bush/John Kerry presidential race. Official vote counts gave the state – and thus the presidency – to George W. Bush by about 118,000 votes out of 5.5 million counted. A statewide recount, paid for by the Green and Libertarian parties, was marred in 87 of the state’s 88 counties by illegalities that led to felony convictions for two of Vu’s staff. During that election two female employees working under Vu illegally chose sample precincts for recounting ballots where they knew the count would yield a predetermined result.
This rendered the recount meaningless, according to Bob Fikrakis, an attorney, political science professor, and expert in election voting controversies. The workers were fired, indicted, and convicted. In 2007, shortly after the convictions, Vu was forced to resign by Cuyahoga County. Vu immediately moved to California and landed a job in San Diego weeks later.
Judge Joel Wohlfeil wasn’t impressed by Vu’s performance this time around either. The judge ruled that although his ruling was “moot” as the primary had been certified by the secretary of state, he would address the issues raised in the suit. He held that the registrar had the duty to follow the law and that no excuses were available.
Citizens Oversight will continue to execute legal remedies to get San Diego to either complete the rest of the audit encompassing the 37% of the ballots cast that were left out, restart the 1% manual tally audit from the start, or seek a complete 100% audit of the election. Similar action may take place in other parts of the state.
The group is also looking for volunteers to assist in oversight teams in the largest California counties. It is important to ensure that the 1% tally is properly conducted throughout California in the general election – and to make sure that the rights of election observers to view every aspect of the count is zealously protected. Throughout the state, hundreds of observers were denied the right to watch the count – they were separated by glass barriers from seeing what was going on and were frequently barred from taking photographs. This practice of suppression of observers resulted in the nullification of Austria’s general election on July 1.
In San Diego, the observers were able to see that election officials were modifying ballots with the use of white-out, with no checks or balances to the procedure. This YouTube video shows that Bernie Sanders’ name was whited-out in this process, with no good explanation as to why.
During one press conference on June 28, this video shows a giant shredding truck that was parked right in front of the registrar’s office, and which drove away when citizens started taking photographs.
Raymond Lutz. (photo: Reader Supported News)
Vu said no materials were removed from the registrar’s office. But why in the world would any registrar allow a shredding truck to come to the elections office in the midst of a count?
These concerns with electronic voting equipment are not theoretical. but extend throughout the United States. A research paper on the subject of possible election fraud has been recently released. One of the collaborators was Fritz Schueren, former president of the American Statistical Association and a statistics professor at George Washington University. Schueren said, “As a statistician, I find the results of the 2016 primary election unusual. In fact, I found the patterns unexpected [and possibly even] suspicious.”
Ray Lutz and Citizens Oversight have provided to all of us an invaluable tool to ensure election integrity.
Bill Simpich is an attorney in the San Francisco Bay Area who knows it doesn’t have to be like this.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=15336"><span class="small">Dennis J Bernstein, Consortium News</span></a>
Wednesday, 03 August 2016 08:30
Bernstein writes: "Before there was Donald Trump and his promise of a 'beautiful wall' across the U.S.-Mexican border there was Sheriff Joe Arpaio from Arizona who pushed cruel treatment of illegal immigrants and other Latinos."
Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County. (photo: unknown)
Sheriff Arpaio Paved the Way for Trump
By Dennis J Bernstein, Consortium News
03 August 16
Before there was Donald Trump and his promise of a “beautiful wall” across the U.S.-Mexican border there was Sheriff Joe Arpaio from Arizona who pushed cruel treatment of illegal immigrants and other Latinos, reports Dennis J Bernstein.
epublican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s embrace of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has built a national reputation for his harsh treatment of undocumented migrants and U.S. citizens of Mexican descent, is a clear signal of how Trump plans to treat Latinos if he becomes president.
While the federal courts have taken legal steps to restrain Arpaio’s most flagrant actions, the elected sheriff has set the tone for the right-wing debate on immigration and has paved the way for Trump’s promise to deport all 12 million undocumented people from the United State and build “the most beautiful wall you’ve ever seen.”
For more than seven years, Salvador Reza, a Phoenix-based indigenous rights leader and long-time human rights activist with Tonatierra, has gone head to head with Arpaio and was appalled to see the sheriff on stage at the Republican National Convention. Dennis Bernstein spoke with Salvador Reza.
Dennis Bernstein: Could [you] begin by just giving us a bit of background in terms of the kind of work you’ve been involved in, what your struggle has been over the last 10 and 20 years?
Salvador Reza: Well, Tonatierra is an indigenous rights organization, and we see immigration tolerance through that lens. We see that we have been here for thousands of years, and these are the lands where the Aztecs migrated from. So when we defend anybody that’s being persecuted by Joe Arpaio or by this racist law, we do it from that context.
We’ve been fighting Arpaio since 2007, when he started deporting day laborers massively from a furniture store. We were able to get him out of there, basically by almost breaking the store financially. We’ve been instrumental in putting pressure on Joe Arpaio everywhere he turns. He arrested me twice, once voluntarily and the second one because he wanted to teach me a lesson. And the litigation is still going on.
But then [State Rep] Russell Pierce arrested me too, for opposing his racist policies in the state legislature. So, I hate to say it, but with Trump, you know, getting up there and possibly becoming the next president, the same policies that started here in Arizona are going to be implemented nationwide. With the exception that, now with Donald Trump, you don’t have a sheriff that’s relying on taxpayers’ money. He’ll be relying on corporate money plus tax payers’ money. So that makes him more dangerous. […] So he doesn’t care whether the justice department, the judge, whatever puts pressure on Arpaio or what he stands for, because Donald Trump basically stands for Arpaio.
DB: That was a good way to set the scene for your multiple confrontations with Arpaio and the policy that he, and now Trump, represent. But let me, for a moment, ask you to give us your reaction when you heard both that […] Arpaio would be a major supporter [of Trump], and then that [Arpaio] was given a platform [at the Republican National Convention] leading up on the day that Trump would speak. What did that mean to you? What went through your mind? How did that reverberate in your community?
SR: Well, what it means to us, and what it means to our community, is that the racist policy in Arizona, at the national level, are going to be massively pushed by the Trump administration if he gets elected. The thing is that Trump is only like a mini-me of Arpaio, with the exception that this mini-me is actually more powerful than Arpaio. Cause Arpaio is local at a county, and Donald Trump will be at the international level and the national level.
So what it means to us, the way we saw it, is very dangerous. What we predicted would happen is happening now. We didn’t stop it in Arizona, we were able to squash it a little bit, but we were not able to stop it. And SB 1070 is the law of the land right now. Any police force, any police officer, can stop you for what they consider reasonable stop, and basically ask you for your documentation. And that’s what is about to happen, nationwide. And to ask what it meant to us, it’s a very dangerous precedent. People better hold on, because I don’t think they’re ready for what’s coming.
DB: Can you talk … [about] the level of violence that Joe Arpaio perpetrated on the people of Arizona, and brown people across the state […] and very specifically, because a lot of people don’t understand. I know that you were put in jail a couple of times. But just remind people some of the brutalities. Some of them led to fatalities that Arpaio propagated, forced, pushed as sort of a vigilante operation. Just so we have a taste of what he’s doing on the ground, why you were able to be a little bit successful, in the courts.
SR: Arpaio, the type of damage that he inflicts upon our community, is first of all psychological– the climate of fear. That is daily for a child. For example, when a parent leaves, [the child] doesn’t know if he’s going to have the parent back home that afternoon. The parent goes to work, he doesn’t know whether he’ll come back from work place, right? And, more than that, the tent city is an area where at a temperature of 115 – 120 degrees on the outside, getting to be 140 – 150 [degrees] under the tents. And that type of scenario…
DB: So, he created a tent city to house, and essentially subtly torture, the community that he was arresting en mass.
SR: Exactly. And then he marched them for all the media to see, and humiliate them, and basically say, “Look, I am tough on illegal immigration. This is the way it is supposed to be.” And even in [Trump’s] speech [at the RNC] he said that in this nation people care more about illegal aliens, for the lives of “illegal aliens,” than U.S. citizens. And there was Arpaio saying it, exactly when the judge saying he could not be arresting people on the grounds of their status.
The thing is, the torture for the community here, and the violence against the community, is very bad. Like Arpaio, he has two, three people getting killed in his jails, that we know of. And then there’s people that die, and we don’t know of[…]. Every year there’s 2 – 3 people that get killed in jail.
DB: What’s an example? How do they die in the jails? Explain to us why it’s suspicious.
SR: Well, sometimes it’s not even suspicious, they basically beat them to death. Like this veteran that […] had PTSD. He goes in there, he’s complying. And they surround him, about ten deputies, and beat him into unconscious. And they basically left him there at the powder room […]. And then another deputy actually steps on somebody, on their neck. He puts him on a table, gets on top of the table, and steps on his neck.
And those are the ones that we know of. The ones we don’t know of, I don’t know what it is. But the thing is, Arpaio is bad on his jails, Arpaio is bad on enforcement, Arpaio is bad on the psychological warfare against the community. Yet that’s what Donald Trump stands for. That’s a problem. Donald Trump is just like Joe Arpaio, except magnified by a lot more power.
DB: We’re talking about the kinds of policies that are now being threatened by Donald Trump, by his close relationship with Joe Arpaio. He is now an advisor to Trump, an informal advisor, a supporter. [He] was featured at the convention the day leading up to Trump’s statement and acceptance of the Republican nomination for the presidential convening.
Now we know, Salvador, that under the Obama government, [Obama has] been referred to as the deporter-in-chief. Essentially, Arpaio has a friend, in that the prison industrial complex, the private prison industry has blossomed. And it exists now to torture the kinds of people that Joe Arpaio arrests, and sort of torture at the local level. That’s part of the whole national security program that is inspired by this kind of policy. How do you respond to that?
SR: Well, I’ll just tell you that Arpaio, for 18 years, was on the 18th floor of the Wells Fargo building here in Phoenix, Arizona, living in corporate offices, because Wells Fargo is one of the biggest investors in the prison industrial complex. So, he basically sent people to the jails, and they get something like $200/day for everybody they send there. So, that tells you a little bit about that.
And the difference between the two parties, to me, the Democratic party and the Republican party, it doesn’t matter who gets up there, the[y] will be still under the influence of the prison industrial complex. And they will continue this type of immigration policies, including [how] Obama deported 2.5 million people, that I know of, during his tenure. That’s more than anybody else […] and we’re talking about the massive deportations in the 30’s and massive deportations in the 40‘s, the massive deportations anytime. I mean he has deported more people than anybody else. Yet, he’s supposed to be our friend.
So, to me, the Democrats and the Republicans or any party, in reality, they will all have to basically kowtow to the prison industrial complex. So, we have to organize on our own, and put pressure [on] whatever party is up there, because maybe one will deport more than the other. But, […] to me, 2.5 million people deported in eight years is a lot of people.
DB: And are you getting some of the same reports that we’re getting, that the treatment of folks who are being arrested by the government, taken into custody by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], being swept up, are being brutalized at various levels and in many ways?
SR: Oh, yeah. I mean people die all the time under custody. They are punished severely if they protest. If they try to organize in any way, shape, or form they basically put them in the hole. People whose only crime was to work, all of a sudden they have to deal with being thrown in the hole, in solitary. So, it’s not nicey-nice, like they say.
It’s not even supposed to be imprisonment. It’s supposed to be detention. But in reality it’s a long term detention, for a lot of people stay there for 1.5 – 2 years waiting to resolve their case. And they don’t let them out into the streets, even though they’re no danger to anybody, because they’re collecting money on it.
DB: We talked a little bit about this before, but I want to come back to the atmospheric pressure. Could you talk a little bit more about how people have really changed their lives, how they live more cautiously, how they live more in fear, how they perhaps act in ways that try and anticipate and take precautions against being arrested, being abused by these laws?
SR: Well, the people that get close to organizations where they know their rights, more than likely they’ll not get deported. More than likely they’ll just end up, one day, in a local detention center and let go. But the people that don’t know that, they end up being deported, because they’ll sign. Once they sign, they lose all their rights. In reality, the way people behave […] right now, they try to drive less. If they don’t have to, they won’t drive. They basically, something as simple as giving them a drivers license is something that is beyond the state of Arizona, or many other states.
And what happens is that [this law enforcement creates]…they say, “Okay, I’m going to make you a criminal.” And then when [immigrants] do their everyday stuff, and then they get criminalized, then they say, “Well, they got arrested because they violated the law,” when they created the law so that they could arrest people. It’s no different than apartheid in the Bantustan, and apartheid laws that basically were made so to keep a certain sector of cities. They wanted the labor of the African communities, the South African communities, but they didn’t want them there.
And, to me, the same thing [is happening] but at a global level, at the continental level. They want our labor but they don’t want us. So that type of situation, to me, is inhumane, immoral and basically goes to the very heart of our humanity. And, unfortunately, Trump seems to have at least close to 50% of the population of the United States wanting him to be president.
DB: Well, he’s up by a couple of points in the latest polls, that’s for sure. And I guess this thing about repression also goes to the
fact that people will be more hesitant to seek medical help when they need it. Or for a woman to deal with an abusive husband, or a man in the house, if they need the help. So this becomes a grave danger, given this kind of law and repression. This is what people who you work with feel like every day in Arizona, huh?
SR: Yes. And you know what’s really funny? Some of the local [police] chiefs in this area, don’t think that their job is to do immigration work. And they basically don’t like for the police officers to do immigration work. Yet, the law permits them to do it. And the thing is, you have very strong police officers’ associations that basically lobbied for the law, and they will fight, tooth and nail, for the officers to be able to deport people.
DB: Under ICE now, deportations are considered a national security action. And folks, everyday folks, people who do the hardest work in this country, who get abused every day for it, are all of a sudden become turned into national security risks, and thus it justifies the brutality of law enforcement. How do you respond to that?
SR: Well, it’s like one, they criminalize you, then they dehumanize you. When they dehumanize you, they can do anything they want to against you, and the population will applaud it, or a certain percentage of the population will applaud it. It’s no different than what Hitler did, you know? He demonized the Jewish communities, and then pretty soon people that had Jewish workers, or were working with Jewish people, then they started denouncing them, and then trying to save themselves from not being associated with them. And that’s what the laws do here. […] If you give somebody a ride that’s an “illegal alien” then you are aiding and abetting. Then the law says you become the criminal, even though you were giving a ride to a friend. That’s the type of situation that’s being created, unfortunately, nationwide, now.
DB: And, just finally, just so we’re fair and balanced here, we’re sort of dealing with the major candidates. I imagine that you have some real concern with Hillary Clinton besides her connection to Obama. The fact that she, as Secretary of State, supported the coup in Honduras, and policies, free trade policies, that have forced migration out of countries in Central America, and so on and so forth. I guess that’s a concern as well, on the other side.
SR: Well, like I said, both parties to me are the same. They’re just appendages of a capitalist system that only see profit. They don’t care about human beings. To me they’re the same. Now, what we have to decide is […] which one of the three is the worse evil. Because […] under this false democracy, that’s all that’s left. They leave us to…just to deal with who can we influence more, Hillary or Donald. And I really don’t know, in reality, which one is the best, because both of them are pretty bad.
The thing is, we have to make the decision whether we want […] somebody that’s going to be crazy enough to unleash the police forces throughout the United States, and then create a vigilante type of a movement, like we have here in Arizona. Or, do we want somebody that’s going to be more middle of the road, trying to look liberal? Where they’ll let you at least say a word or two, whether they listen to you or not, at least they give you an opening. So, that’s what we’re going to make a decision on. But to me, both parties are just the same face….two faces of the same coin.
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hizr Khan’s impassioned speech last week at the Democratic National Convention about the heroics of his Muslim-American son didn’t just shame Donald Trump’s crude lack of American values—it reminded us of a quaint concept that we haven’t paid too much attention to lately: sacrifice. Since 
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