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Election Observer Arrested in Arizona
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Stopping Students From Voting in Virginia

Volume 55, Number 14 · September 25, 2008

Obama: The Price of Being Black

By Andrew Hacker

Restoring the Right to Vote

by Erika Wood

Brennan Center for Justice, 34 pp., available at www.brennancenter.org

Crawford v. Marion County [Indiana] Election Board

US Supreme Court, April 28, 2008

Florida State Conference of the NAACP v. Browning

US Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit, April 3, 2008

In May, Hillary Clinton described many of her core supporters as "hard-working Americans, white Americans." Primary voting in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia confirmed her surmise. Her remark seemed, without saying so, to claim an advantage over Obama that was due to his race. But there's more we need to know. We can see how being a farmer or a bond trader or a gun collector might influence your vote. And we understand why black Americans would want a person of their race in the Oval Office. But just what is there about being white that might incline someone toward one candidate instead of another?

Senator Clinton implied that this identity was salient for some voters and that she could appeal to it. Polls showed that some 15 to 20 percent of white voters in those three states said that "race" was a factor in their vote, and we are left to wonder just how much of a factor and how many more would have said the same if they had been frank with the interviewer. People are uneasy talking about the subject of race, but the feeling persists that Obama's half-ancestry could tip the scales on November 4.

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Postmodern John McCain: the presidential candidate some Arizonans know — and loathe

By Amy Silverman

Published on August 07, 2008

I once stood in John McCain's kitchen and watched Cindy cook eggs for their kids.

It was still dark outside when I arrived at the McCains' north-central Phoenix house on a winter day in early 1994. I remember terra cotta tile and overstuffed plaid couches and wondering whether Mrs. McCain regularly got up before dawn to make breakfast.

I was following her husband around for the day, for a story I was working on about his role in Arizona Republican politics. I'd been gathering examples of McCain's strong-arming, and I needed some face-time with the senator, to ask about that and also to describe his personality. That day, we drove to Tucson so McCain could sit in as guest host on a local talk-radio show.

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Related

Stasi Chief Hired By Homeland Security

By aaron in Uncategorized on July 2nd, 2008

Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet | July 2, 2008

Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado, Arizona and California to watch for “suspicious activity” which is later fed into a secret government database.

According to a Denver Post report, “It’s a tactic intended to feed better data into terrorism early-warning systems and uncover intelligence that could help fight anti-U.S. forces. But the vague nature of the TLOs’ mission, and their focus on reporting both legal and illegal activity, has generated objections from privacy advocates and civil libertarians.

“Suspicious activity” is broadly defined in TLO training as behavior that could lead to terrorism: taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements or notes, espousing extremist beliefs or conversing in code, according to a draft Department of Justice/Major Cities Chiefs Association document.”

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"McCain's botched revenge has solidified his reputation in Arizona's Republican circles as a divisive, untrustworthy and even dangerous figure. Haney hopes the general public meets this side of McCain before his penchant for angry reprisals is invested with the powers of the presidency. "This just shows that McCain is mentally unstable and out of control and vindictive," Haney told me. "If he is determined to go through that much trouble to attack a district committee chairman, what does that say about his ability to handle real political problems?""

McCain Mutiny

By Max Blumenthal

This article appeared in the March 5, 2007 edition of The Nation.
February 21, 2007

Max Blumenthal: VideoNation's report from this year's Conservative Political Action Committee meeting in Washington reveals the ugly side of right-wing politics.

Who is Rob Haney? He is the Republican state committeeman in Arizona's District 11, McCain's home district. In the past, Haney and his fellow committee members would meet from time to time to review their annual budget, vote on bylaws and pass resolutions. If anyone represents Arizona's Republican Party, advancing the causes of faith, family and freedom, it is the folks from District 11. Yet their importance, let alone their existence, seemed to matter little to their state's famous and ambitious senior senator.

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McCain Gambles with Awkward Joke

June 27, 2008 7:38 AM

In an interview with the Las Vegas Sun, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was asked by columnist Jon Ralston why he didn't choose Gov. Jim Gibbons to chair his Nevada campaign.

"I appreciate his support," McCain said. "As you know, the lieutenant governor is our chairman."

Why snub the governor? Ralston asked. 

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Ernest Hancock 

Website: www.ernesthancock.com
Date: 06-17-2008
Subject: Police State

For Immediate Release

Contact: Senator Karen S. Johnson (602-926-3160)

Gov. Napolitano Approves Prohibition on Real ID

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano signed a bill today that prohibits the implementation of the REAL ID in Arizona. SB2677 received a Final vote of approval in the House last week by an overwhelming margin of 51 to 1. Napolitano’s signature was uncertain until today when she signed the bill into law.

The bill prohibits implementation of the REAL ID Act of 2005, which was passed by Congress as part of a supplemental spending bill for tsunami relief and the War on Terror. The bill did not receive a hearing in either the House or the Senate, and the public was largely unaware of it until it had already been signed into law.

“Everyone thinks that the REAL ID is just about protecting us against terrorism,” said co-sponsor Senator Karen Johnson (R-18). “But it really represents a cash cow for technology companies as well as the birth of the National ID card, complete with all the biometric information that technology can handle – face recognition, fingerprints, etc.” 

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Death Threat Against Senator Karen Johnson On YouTube!

For speaking out for the 9/11 truth movement, Senator Karen Johnson has been threatened with (immediate?) death by a YouTube user named "kookloons". Someone make sure the police sees this. Senator Karen Johnson Brings 9/11 Truth To Arizona

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For Immediate Release:

Contact: Senator Karen S. Johnson (602-926-3160)

In a formal Floor speech in the Arizona Senate tomorrow (Tuesday, June 10), Senator Karen S. Johnson plans to blast Congress for their failure to defend U.S. citizens who were killed on September 11, 2001, and their failure to properly investigate those attacks.

“It has been nearly seven years,” says Johnson, “and we are faced with new evidence that turns the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission upside down. We are fighting a war because of 9/11 – and we still don’t really know what happened. We have spent billions of dollars on the war, with an additional $340 million per day. Thousands of U.S. servicemen and women have lost their lives, not to mention the lives of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians.”

Johnson revealed in a committee hearing in April that she did not accept the official report of the 9/11 Commission and has since defended supporters calling for a new independent investigation of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “Ground Zero was treated like little more than the site of a building demolition – which, of course, is exactly what it was,” says Johnson. “Everyone who has studied it recognizes that the Twin Towers and Building 7 came down as a result of controlled explosions – not because of the airplanes and fires.”

Johnson has joined forces with local 9/11 activists who for more than two weeks have been staging a protest outside the Phoenix office of presidential candidate U.S. Senator John McCain. One protestor, college professor Blair Gadsby of Scottsdale, began a hunger strike on May 26 to bring attention to the need for Congress to re-open the investigation into 9/11. Gadsby plans to fast until Senator McCain agrees to meet with experts who will present evidence that the WTC buildings came down through controlled demolition. Tomorrow will be Day 16 of the Hunger Strike. Senator Johnson has invited Gadsby to the Senate to listen to her Floor speech.

“The U.S. government is constantly interfering with states in matters that are none of its business,” said Johnson. “Yet when it comes to the one really significant job the Constitution assigns to the government -- defending our nation – the federal government failed miserably. Not only did they fail to put up any sort of a defense after the first plane struck the North Tower (Tower 1), but they failed to mobilize the air defense system, they failed to protect the President, who sat reading in a public school for 20 minutes while the attacks continued, and they failed to defend our most important military installation – the Pentagon. The public is sick to death of do-nothing politicians in Congress who forget what their job is the minute they arrive in Washington. Finding out what happened on 9/11 and bringing the perpetrators to justice is the job of Congress and the Executive branch. We need to know what happened to Building 7. We need to get answers to the many unanswered questions that still exist. We need an investigation – especially of the new evidence. It’s time for Congress and our President to act.”

9/11

Related
Johnson says federal investigation of 9/11 fell short

June 10, 2008

By Luige del Puerto, luige.delpuerto@azcapitoltimes.com

A Republican senator from Mesa today publicly asked for a re-investigation of the September 11 terrorist attacks, saying the three World Trade Center buildings that were destroyed that day collapsed because of demolitions explosions, not because of the two jetliners that crashed into the buildings.

Sen. Karen Johnson, in a floor speech today in the state Senate, called the theory that the buildings were demolished by explosives “rock-solid” and “confirmed by hard evidence.” She also pointed to the support the alternate explanation of that day’s events has received from “hundreds of scholars, architects, engineers and other professionals who have the education, training, and expertise to know what they’re talking about.”

It is one of many theories available on the Internet that questions official reports about the 9/11 attacks and seeks what their proponents say is still an elusive truth about what exactly happened that day.

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Related
9/11 Victims' Families Send Letter Decrying Politicization Of Guantánamo Military Commissions
AP: Arizona legislator wants McCain to hear Sept. 11 suspicions

Ex-Bush health chief's firm wins Sept. 11 work

By DEVLIN BARRETT – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Bush's health chief, Tommy Thompson proudly trumpeted millions of taxpayer dollars to help workers sickened by the Sept. 11 attacks at the World Trade Center, even amid complaints that his agency wasn't doing enough.

Now, Thompson's private company has won an $11 million contract to treat some of those same workers — the latest twist in a fitful government effort to determine how many people were made ill by the toxic debris — and to care for them.

The contract awarded by the Centers for Disease Control is aimed at tracking the health of between 4,000 and 6,000 workers who live outside the New York City area, where a separate health monitoring program is in place. The CDC is part of the Health and Human Services Department, which Thompson headed in Bush's first term.

--MORE--AP: Arizona legislator wants McCain to hear Sept. 11 suspicions AP: Arizona legislator wants McCain to hear Sept. 11 suspicions

Related
McCain's housing crisis, Rothschild-linked bank connections under investigation

Leading The News

FBI interviews Arizona staffers

By Susan Crabtree

Posted: 05/27/08 07:39 PM [ET]

Federal agents interviewed staffers for likely Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) as part of their corruption case against Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.).

U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Diane J. Humetewa and fellow prosecutors disclosed the interviews with aides for McCain and fellow Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl in a written response to Renzi’s attorneys, who asked for the contents of the interview to help prepare for Renzi’s upcoming trial, which is scheduled for October.

The aides were interviewed about land exchanges, according to an April letter from Humetewa filed with the U.S. District Court of Arizona late last week. The letter did not indicate when the interviews occurred.

A federal land swap critical to developing a $3 billion copper mine southeast of Phoenix is at the heart of the case against Renzi, who is facing 35 public corruption charges, including conspiracy, money-laundering, extortion and insurance fraud. Renzi is retiring at the end of this session.

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Related
AZ Senate votes to opt-out of Real ID Act

Friday, 09 May 2008

By Anca Gurzu, centretownnewsonline.ca

Surveillance cameras may help police with criminal investigations but wouldn't prevent crimes by themselves, according to one surveillance expert.

Josh Greenberg, a mass communications professor at Carleton University, who has studied the impact of closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance, says people support the idea because they believe it will help protect them from robberies, sexual assault or other violent crimes.

"The belief is that cameras would allow police to prevent these crimes from happening because they would get there in time," says Greenberg. "But there is no empirical evidence, from all the research I looked at, that shows that the kinds of crimes people are most afraid of are deterred by the presence of video cameras."

In Britain, which has more CCTV cameras per citizen than anywhere else in the world, Scotland Yard says a huge investment in surveillance cameras has not had an impact on the crime rate. For example, only three per cent of street thefts in London were solved using CCTV images, The Guardian newspaper reported a senior police official as saying.

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Tale of Building 7's collapse suggests official complicity, persistent obstruction

May. 3, 2008 12:00 AM

Regarding "Drinking the 9/11 Kool-Aid" (Editorial, April 24):

After three government investigations and more than six years, we still don't have answers on 9/11.

Why, for example, did Building 7 collapse? It wasn't hit by a plane, as the towers were. The 9/11 Commission Report completely ignores Building 7. The Federal Emergency Management Agency report discounts fire as a cause and concludes that the reasons for the collapse of Building 7 are unknown and require further research. But when FEMA issued this report, it already cleared the site and disposed of the dust and steel (evidence from a crime scene), thus possibly committing a felony and complicating any "further research."

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency, which evaluated the collapse of the towers, has yet to issue its report on Building 7. "We've had trouble getting a handle on Building 7," said the acting director of their Building and Fire Research Lab.

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