The top elections-heist investigators in the USA need your donation, here today, to complete our comic book, our elections guide book and our film exposing the attempt to Steal 2012 by a combination of billionaire’s hidden cash and vote heists.
In 1996, Greg Palast filmed the first investigation of The Koch Brothers.
In 2000, Palast uncovered how Katherine Harris purged 56,000 African-Americans from Florida voter rolls.
In 2008, Palast, with Bobby Kennedy, busted the Karl Rove attack on ballots – from ID games to firing US prosecutors.
And now, in 2012, there’s once again a full-scale attack on the right to vote.
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If we can get $15,000 right now, we can just make our May 3rd deadline to draw and print our BILLIONAIRES AND BANDITS comic book with genius pen man Ted Rall.
The funds will also allow us to edit and broadcast our film shot over the past four years from all over the USA on Karl Rove’s $200 million game to suppress the vote.
Jonah Lehrer has been described as a kind of “one man third culture” – after training in Neuroscience at Columbia with Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, he studied literature and philosophy on a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. Since then, he has written three books that examine and blur the boundaries between science and art, reason and imagination. His latest: IMAGINE: How Creativity Works, looks at the neuroscience and the real-world phenomenon of creativity in case studies ranging from the emotional and spiritual burnout that led to Bob Dylan's brilliant album Highway 61 Revisited to the invention of the Swiffer.
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Here, Lehrer talks with Big Think's Jason Gots about failure as an integral, essential part of the creative process, and why American schools are so good at killing creativity.
Phi Beta Iota: Tip of the Hat to Berto Jongman for this find. Lehrer is an M4IS2 master — “the brain is a category buster.” Honorably priced to begin with, Amazon has taken another $10 off, this book is a major bargain in hardcover at $15.00.
Last edited Tue Apr 17, 2012, 02:30 PM USA/ET – Edit history (3)
Mitt Romney, guilty of voter fraud?
Posted on April 17, 2012
Mitt Romney faces up to five years in jail and a $10,000 fine if he did not live in his son’s unfinished basement in 2010
In January 2010 the former Massachusetts governor proudly cast a ballot for Republican Scott Brown in the special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. He didn’t own property in the state at the time, and had registered to vote listing his son’s unfinished basement as his residence. Massachusetts law defines a residence for voter registration purposes as “where a person dwells and which is the center of his domestic, social, and civil life.” Anyone found guilty of committing voter fraud faces up to five years behind bars and a fine of $10,000. See Romney Voter Fraud Liability?
Is this exactly like that ‘voter fraud‘ thing that the Republicans are always trying to pretend the Democrats participate in? Except that the Democrats don’t?
If that’s true, Romney showed a true commitment to voting for Republican Senator Scott Brown in last year’s special election, since he owns a $12.5 million home in La Jolla, Calif. and a $10 million home in New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee – but no home in the state he was once governor.
Not that he was exactly roughing it. Romney’s son Tagg and his wife greatly improved the property in recent years adding an in-ground pool and a jacuzzi to the rebuilt property that spans three old lots, bumping its assessed value up to $3.8 million.
Still, as Belmont, Mass. property assessment records I dug up show, the basement is unfinished – hardly the standard the former investment banker would be used to. Here’s a portion of the property record (Belmont Property View). I have edited the image to highlight the basement description. Here is the full record: Belmont Property View Full. As a public record you can find the full report also through the town of Belmont here. The property was last inspected by the town on June 21, 2010, well after the state’s January special election that filled Ted Kennedy’s old seat.
Of course, as Karger argues to the Massachusetts Secretary of State, Romney likely didn’t live in the basement, so it appears like voter fraud, a crime punishable by up to five years in jail and a $10,000 fine.
Phi Beta Iota: Combined with the wife's statement that they lived in California, and a careful examination of Romney's actual travels during the year, it is easily determined if he committed voter fraud. If he did, he should be ineligible to be the Republican nominee for president. We certainly hope someone with integrity in Massachusetts runs this down fast — perhaps the Ron Paul contingent could help? Investigating, indicting, and convicting Romney for voter fraud in the next six months would be a study in the resurrection of democracy.
I write to let you know that I have decided not to attend the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates on 23rd-25th April, 2012, in Chicago, USA.
On 10th April, Sec. of State H. Clinton appeared on video in US State Department Web announcing plans for the forthcoming Nobel Peace Laureates Summit and said ‘The US Department of State is proud to be an active partner in this event’.
Sec. Clinton gave details of how the US State Dept. is working with US embassies around the world, to bring twenty students and 4 teachers from 4 countries to Chicago and explained that video conferences and portals for live streaming of events, will be managed by US State department.
I have now decided, with some sadness, not to be associated in this Partnership as I do not agree with many of the Policies of the US State Department. Indeed I have, as a Nobel Peace Laureate, (and in the spirit of Alfred Nobel) often called for disbandment of NATO, end of militarism and war, and for Disarmament and demilitarization. I cannot therefore, in good conscience, be part of a Partnership with the US State Government (NATO). I also believe that my participation in such a partnership would compromise my position and put in jeopardy my work in the Middle East and other countries.
I am very disappointed that what is a great opportunity for young people, the Nobel Laureates and organizations to listen, learn, and exchange friendships and experiences, has been, I believe, seriously compromised in such a Partnership.
However, I hope it will be an enjoyable and educational summit particularly for all the young people, and I am deeply saddened not to be with you all.
Within the first few months of 2011, the U.S. and its allies lost three loyal “friends”: Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ousted by the parliament.
Inspired by these liberating developments, pro-democracy rebellions against autocratic rulers (and their Western backers) soon spread to other countries such as Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
As these revolutionary developments tended to politically benefit the “axis of resistance” (consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas) in the Middle East, the US-Israeli “axis of aggression” and their client states in the region mounted an all-out counterrevolutionary offensive.
Caught off-guard by the initial wave of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, the US and its allies struck back with a vengeance. They employed a number of simultaneous tactics to sabotage the Arab Spring. These included
(1) instigating fake instances of the Arab Spring in countries that were/are headed by insubordinate regimes such as those ruling Iran, Syria and Libya;
(2) co-opting revolutionary movements in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen;
(3) crushing pro-democracy movements against “friendly” regimes ruling countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia “before they get out of hand,” as they did in Egypt and Tunisia; and
(4) using the age-old divide and rule trick by playing the sectarian trump card of Sunnis vs. Shias, or Iranians vs. Arabs.
Phi Beta Iota: Meanwhile within the USA, Ron Paul has been bought off and firmly put back in place as part of the controlled opposition, and Occupy has been very successfully squelched by encouraging their inherent tendency to kum-ba-ya themselves to their own early demise. Now the 1% has what is left of Occupy competing for small scholarships to tread water and remain irrelevant. It is still possible to re-ignite the Electoral Reform Act of 2012 possibilities, but each month that passes without public coalescing around this ONE THING that the all can agree on and force upon the corrupt two-party tyranny in Congress, is another stake in the heart of the Republic.
Deena Metzger is a poet, novelist, essayist, storyteller, teacher, healer and medicine woman who has taught and counseled for over forty years, in the process of which she has developed therapies (Healing Stories) which creatively address life threatening diseases, spiritual and emotional crises, as well as community, political and environmental disintegration.
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She has spent a lifetime investigating Story as a form of knowing and healing. As a writer, she asks: Who do we have to become to find the forms and sacred language with which to meet these times?
She conducts training groups on the spiritual, creative, political and ethical aspects of healing and peacemaking, individual, community and global, drawing deeply on alliance with spirit, indigenous teachings and the many wisdom traditions. One focus is on uniting Western medical ways with indigenous medicine traditions.
With her husband, writer/healer Michael Ortiz Hill, she has introduced the concept of Daré, meaning Council, to North America. The Topanga Daré relies on Council, alliance with Spirit and the natural world, ancestor work, indigenous and wisdom traditions and teachings, music healing, dream telling, divination, kinship, and story telling to achieve personal transformation, community healing and social change.
She is the author of many books, including most recently, the novels La Negra y Blanca andFeral; Ruin and Beauty: New and Selected Poems; From Grief Into Vision: A Council; Doors: A fiction for Jazz Horn; Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing; The Other Hand; Tree: Essays and Pieces, A Sabbath Among the Ruins, Looking for the Faces of God andWriting For Your Life.
