Defending the Freedoms of July 4, 1776: America's Hope for the World

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_paul_leh_070704_defending_the_freedo.htm

From Paul Lehto

You gotta stand for something,

Or you’re gonna fall, for anything.


--John Cougar Mellencamp


Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.

--Tom Van Meurs


If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

–William Somerset Maugham


All Power, Freedom, and Democracy comes from rights. Starting on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence changed forever how the world thinks of rights, and thereby became one of the most important political documents in the history of the world.


The Declaration of Independence especially was intended not just for Americans, it was declared for the benefit of all of humanity. Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Our cause is the cause of all mankind, and…we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.”


The American Declaration of Independence boldly declared Independence from King George III as a matter of inalienable human rights, and rejected kingly tyranny under claim of divine right. By shifting the idea of who holds rights away from the king, the government and the British East India Corporation and instead in favor of the human beings in We the People, it was as though the Founders had diverted a Nile River of rights. Instead of the blessings of the Creator fertilizing the king’s divine rule, the Founders declared that all people were born with rights, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and created “self-government” by We the People.


These rights were planted in individual people, who instead had an inalienable human right to create, alter and abolish their forms of government, in addition to various inalienable rights involving life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.


As President Ronald Reagan put it “Ours was a philosophical revolution that changed the very concept of government.” The critical second paragraph of the Declaration also tells us governments are only legitimately created through the will of the people and the very reason, the sole reason, governments are instituted is “to secure these rights.” Thus, it is the government’s #1 job to secure you your inalienable rights, to guarantee them and make them real.


Many historians also say that our Nation was the first nation consciously founded upon ideals, instead of race, nationality, religion or class. Enormous faith was placed in the ability of any independent person to use the rules of reason and the principles of liberty and justice in order to “become their own Governors” as John Adams put it. In one word, it was Self-Government or republicanism that was the key to the American Revolution. In two words, the very same thing as republicanism is “representative democracy” (as distinguished from direct democracy, which the Founders generally opposed).


These ideals of We the People were not just being fought on behalf of the 13 colonies, they were sought on behalf “of all mankind.” The subsequent Constitution, arrived at using the Rule of Reason by representatives of the People, was declared by Henry Clay as a gift to “endless, perpetual posterity.” That is, unlike the temporary Articles of Confederation, this Constitution was intended to give principles that could guide America for all time, for perpetual posterity.


Given that the Founders consciously intended to change the history of the world for all of humanity and for all time, they of course did not set out ideals that could be achieved in a day. They set out principles and ideals that could be the guide stars to orient ourselves by. As Carl Schurz wrote: “Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.”


By maximizing individual human rights and dignity and maximizing liberty, the founders unleashed the greatest colossus of ingenuity and freedom and progress the world had ever seen. The guide stars of liberty and democracy, though not fully achieved, nevertheless worked to inspire ever greater progress. The political history of America can easily be told in terms of making the promises of the Declaration of Independence real, as women and minorities expressly insisted on their rights, citing our Declaration of Independence in support. Thus, while some say that the Founders had some faults, it adds considerably to accuracy to state that in setting forth ideals intended to benefit all of humanity for all time, they could not and did not set out standards that could be achieved in the 1700s or even the 1800s.

And indeed, considering the highest of political moralities and 620,000 civil war dead, President George H.W. Bush (Sr.) wrote: "I sometimes wonder if we've forgotten who we are. But we're the people who sundered a nation rather than allow a sin called slavery, and we're the people who rose from the ghettos and the deserts." Bush Sr. also wrote: " America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation, and gentler the face of the world." Whether or not one supported President George H.W. Bush, his evocation of American ideals is consistent with the noble intent of 1776, and the guidance those ideals intended throughout all of history. If any President of the United States wants to accomplish something in our country, for better or for worse, he will invoke this power of American idealism, as George W. Bush did once again in his Second Inaugural Address:

"Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul." These ideals are so powerful, they are even used with success in convincing the American public to go to war. Countless millions have died in the name of freedom and democracy or self-government by We the People. President Woodrow Wilson said "Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. … America is the only idealist nation in the world." Americans are often called by their leaders to aggressively achieve American ideals: Indeed, "the American," as President John F. Kennedy said, "builds best when called upon to build greatly." Americans started by building a great Declaration of Independence and Constitution that were intended, as Founder Henry Clay put it, "for endless perpetual posterity." Ideals can indeed work forever because they guide us or remind us even when not yet fully achieved.

But the fundamental freedom of American self-government, the very key of liberty, is being challenged like never before. The sole method of control of the government that Americans have is elections. And in the last several years, the counting of America’s votes has been rendered corruptly secret, invisible and outside the power of any citizen to observe, via the processes and contracts of computerized voting. Secrecy is always the total lack of accountability, because everyone needs information to make someone accountable.

Moreover, because this corrupt secret vote counting is being handled by corporations in invisible trade secrecy of computer software, a government insider that wants to throw an election can manipulate the election computers just as easily as we all manipulate our own personal computers. There is no such thing as security against our own computers that we possess or control. Essentially all of the talk about “security” of computerized voting machines has been restricted to taking them off the internet, which only protects the government against “threats” from the public, but does not do anything to protect We the People from insiders in our government who want to stay in power, sell elections, or have a political issue they strongly wish to favor.


As a result, even though the government’s #1 job and the reason it was formed was to “secure” our rights, our right to “alter or abolish” our government under the Declaration of Independence is totally unsecured, and in fact no longer exists wherever there is a criminal insider in elections. This is the main time if not the only time when we really need our inalienable right to “kick the bums out.”


Thus, the American people, not able to freely kick out the worst criminal cheaters, are not a free people. This is not a “threat” of loss of freedom, it is a present day reality wherever computerized voting and a criminal insider are present.


Given the many very important issues on the ballot, combined with the control of the world’s richest country, many billions in federal contracts, and control of the sole military superpower in the world at stake, it is both naïve and even unpatriotic to believe that nobody would desire to preserve or achieve power over America illegitimately. Our right to vote, and therefore to be master instead of slave, is rendered entirely meaningless if we can not secure an open and public count, controlled by We the People. The government sure can’t audit itself, investigate itself or elect itself, and the government gets 100% of its money and power from one source: elections.


The powerful role of We the People in self-government is, along with the inalienable right to alter or abolish the government, a self-evident fact. Self-evident means that we don’t need to prove these rights or facts, they prove themselves and are completely obvious. There is only one alternative to democracy where we are all tied for #1 most important citizen in the land on account of our equal votes, and that is inequality whereby one person or class rules over another with unequal rights. That is the essence of Tyranny and the opposite of freedom. That is categorically not what the Founders set out to accomplish for all of humanity and for all time.


Everybody wants to be #1 and many want to “rule the world” and so perhaps it is to be expected that corporations have captured our vote counts and made them their private property, literally kicking off We the People as trespassers, even though this is the very heart and soul and democracy. But as soon as we recall our past, recall the importance of freedom as a people, recall that all power emanates from rights, and that rights are supposed to inhere only in people and not kings, governments and soul-less corporations, we will re-invigorate the engines of human rights and freedom that have so excited the American people and the people of the world that they’ve acted as both prime political forces as well as facilitating economic progress by unleashing the enterprise of free individuals.


Americans, once they know what is at stake, will never tolerate a takeover of their country by forces hostile to the common good of the American people and dedicated legally and contractually solely to private profit. If a foreign country could not demand the right to count votes in secret, neither can corporations in America demand the same. Indeed, the two are the same and the effort by a foreign country to take over our elections would be unanimously resisted by all Americans, using the military if necessary. No corporation is our superior, there is no basis for them to have these special privileges of secret counting.


John Quincy Adams spoke on July 4, 1821: “America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.”


These rights are the tools of democracy. Each generation must use them or lose them. So far every generation of Americans has acted to make the promises of the declaration of independence more real. This one will too, as long as people take the time to remember what the American experiment is all about, remember to defend democracy, remember that compromises of our rights are the same as violations of our rights, and remember that the government has no excuse but to be our servant and guarantee us our rights, especially our #1 inalienable right to “alter or abolish” our own government, or kick the bums out.


If you believe as I believe, then you can see how the power of the Declaration of Independence has melted away the forces of history, bigotry, oppression, and been our guide star for centuries. We are not any longer a free people because of computerized secret vote counting, but this is so obviously improper and such a clear invitation to the grossest corruptions that it simply can not stand the light of day, or the sunshine of publicity.


Already, an August 2006 Zogby poll shows that 92% of the American public support a system of observable vote counting by citizens. This is a totally nonpartisan issue, and high support exists for observable vote counting across every political party and demographic. This is yet another reason why there is simply no excuse for Congress to deny the will of the people in favor of the corporate will to own the heart of our democracy as their own private property. There is also no excuse for asking us to trust these private corporations or officials, our system is not based on trust it is based on checks and balances.


Thus, in fighting to restore our freedom we are incredibly lucky in our generation, that the battle will only involve informing all of our fellow Americans, and watching these vote counting corporations and their election official defenders of secrecy melt before the power of the Declaration of Independence. Today, we have the unique privilege of knowing for sure that we are fighting for freedom and democracy, even as some who have served our country and sacrificed their lives might understandably have had a doubt whether it was truly necessary to sacrifice their lives. But as the Marines say “Ours is not to wonder why, ours is just to do or die.”


If you’d like to see the American Declaration of Independence be restored to its rightful course as the world’s beacon of rights freedom, for all of humanity and for all time, if you believe that America is real and that ideas matter, your help is very needed to spread the word to our fellow citizens, the true and rightful rulers of this country. To do this, please post, email or copy and paste this article in as many places as you can find, and talk about it with whoever you can. Do this today, tomorrow, and the next day, and keep going because the sacred inalienable rights of the Declaration are top news EVERY DAY, regardless of what anyone says.


In distributing this word, we need to let all American citizens know of the unfaithfulness of our government to the principles they are sworn to uphold, and that they are about to vote in the House of Representatives on HR 811 and in the Senate on S1487 which will institutionalize secret vote counting for Senators and Representatives IN THEIR OWN ELECTIONS. This too, this self-serving behavior, will not stand, and can not stand. It would be comical were freedom not so serious.

Many state constitutions and the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights state words directly to the effect that “a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is necessary to the preservation of liberty and free government.” See, e.g., Wash. State Const. Art. I, sec. 32. Thus, in passing word to your fellow citizens, you are literally doing what is necessary to preserve liberty and freedom: remembering the principles of the Declaration and using them as the tools of Freedom and the defenders of democracy.


Whether our freedom as a people is restored soon or not depends on how much each of you acts like Paul Revere and does your part. There’s a simple test here of your status: if you are a one of the co-equal ruler-citizens of this country, you will be alarmed by this and tell as many of your fellow rulers as possible to keep our eyes on the prize and put aside any partisan differences in order to preserve the freedom of ALL Americans on this issue On the other hand, if you have adopted the ways of the slave, you will be fearful, or depressed, or otherwise rationalize inaction in some way: you will not feel empowered. Indeed, rationalization is the process of surrender.

As Thomas Paine reminded America in Common Sense in 1776, “we have the power to begin the world all over again.” He also said “Be free, set up for yourselves, a great destiny is before you, show yourselves worthy of it.” We can all be tied for the most important citizen in our democracy, each with an equal vote, or we can be slaves bossed around by others with no real say, and a government we can’t change that stays stuck on the “Stupid” setting.


We are each free to do nothing for our country. But in this case that may be the last decision the American people are allowed to make by their masters. So please study paragraph 2 of the Declaration of Independence, find out more places to learn at www.psephos-us.org and spread the word. Tell every state and federal politician that it is corrupt to have secret vote counting at all, and unbelievably improper to vote for it for their own elections. It will only be a matter of months, if we all do this, before politicians are doing their rightful job of falling all over themselves to fully restore citizen control of our own elections.


It’s our country, our government, our elections, our representatives, our ballots, our votes, our tax dollars, and our opinions that count. The government has never received a single legitimate tax dollar, or power, except from We the People. They are public servants, not the public’s masters. So educate everyone first, then later on in late summer we’ll have to have a talk with them about who’s really in charge of this country: a refresher course in Independence.


Paul R Lehto

Attorney at Law

lehtolawyer@gmail.com

Thom Hartmann On Stealing Elections

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_thom_har_070621_the_ultimate_felony_.htm

The hot story in the Blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states) weren't erroneous at all - it was the numbers produced by paperless voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?

Maybe Florida went for Kerry, maybe for Bush. Over time - and through the efforts of some very motivated investigative reporters - we may well find out. Bev Harris of www.blackboxvoting.org just filed what may be the largest Freedom of Information Act [FOIA} filing in history), and bloggers and investigative reporters are discovering an odd discrepancy in exit polls being largely accurate in paper-ballot states and oddly inaccurate in touch-screen electronic voting states Even raw voter analyses are showing extreme oddities in touch-screen-run Florida, and eagle-eyed bloggers are finding that news organizations are retroactively altering their exit polls to coincide with what the machines ultimately said.

But in all the discussion about voting machines, let's never forget the concept of the commons, because this usurpation is the ultimate felony committed by conservatives this year.

At the founding of this nation, we decided that there were important places to invest our tax (then tariff) dollars, and those were the things that had to do with the overall "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" of all of us. Over time, these commons - in which we all make tax investments and for which we all hold ultimate responsibility - have come to include our police and fire services; our military and defense; our roads and skyways; our air, waters and national parks; and the safety of our food and drugs.

But the most important of all the commons in which we've invested our hard-earned tax dollars is our government itself. It's owned by us, run by us (through our elected representatives), answerable to us, and most directly responsible for stewardship of our commons.

And the commons through which we regulate the commons of our government is our vote.

About two years ago, I wrote a story for these pages, "If You Want To Win An Election, Just Control The Voting Machines," that exposed how Senator Chuck Hagel had, before stepping down and running for the U.S. Senate in Nebraska, been the head of the voting machine company (now ES&S) that had just computerized Nebraska's vote. The Washington Post (1/13/1997) said Hagel's "Senate victory against an incumbent Democratic governor was the major Republican upset in the November election." According to Bev Harris, Hagel won virtually every demographic group, including many largely black communities that had never before voted Republican. Hagel was the first Republican in 24 years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska, nearly all on unauditable machines he had just sold the state. And in all probability, Hagel run for President in 2008.

In another, later I also wrote an article at the request of MoveOn.org and which they mailed to their millions of members, I noted that in Georgia - another state that went all-electronic. "USA Today reported on Nov. 3, 2002, 'In Georgia, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll shows Democratic Sen. Max Cleland with a 49%-to-44% lead over Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss. 'Cox News Service, based in Atlanta, reported just after the election (Nov. 7) that, "Pollsters may have goofed" because 'Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland by a margin of 53 to 46 percent. The Hotline, a political news service, recalled a series of polls Wednesday showing that Chambliss had been ahead in none of them.'" Nearly every vote in the state was on an electronic machine with no audit trail.

In the years since those first articles appeared, Bev Harris has published her book on the subject ("Black Box Voting"), including the revelation of her finding the notorious "Rob Georgia" folder on Diebold's FTP site just after Cleland's loss there; Lynn Landes has done some groundbreaking research, particularly her new investigation of the Associated Press, as have Rebecca Mercuri and David Dill. There's a new video out on the topic, Votergate, available at www.votergate.tv.

Congressman Rush Holt introduced a bill into Congress requiring a voter-verified paper ballot be produced by all electronic voting machines, and it's been co-sponsored by a majority of the Democratic members of the House of Representatives. The two-year battle fought by Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay to keep it from coming to a vote, thus insuring that there will be no possible audit of the votes of about a third of the 2004 electorate, has fueled the flames of conspiracy theorists convinced Republican ideologues - now known to be willing to lie in television advertising - would extend their "ends justifies the means" morality to stealing the vote "for the better good of the country" they think single-party Republican rule will bring.

Most important, though, the rallying cry of the emerging "honest vote" movement must become: Get Corporations Out Of Our Vote!

Why have we let corporations into our polling places, locations so sacred to democracy that in many states even international election monitors and reporters are banned? Why are we allowing corporations to exclusively handle our vote, in a secret and totally invisible way? Particularly a private corporation founded, in one case, by a family that believes the Bible should replace the Constitution; in another case run by one of Ohio's top Republicans; and in another case partly owned by Saudi investors?

Of all the violations of the commons - all of the crimes against We The People and against democracy in our great and historic republic - this is the greatest. Our vote is too important to outsource to private corporations.

It's time that the USA - like most of the rest of the world - returns to paper ballots, counted by hand by civil servants (our employees) under the watchful eye of the party faithful. Even if it takes two weeks to count the vote, and we have to just go, until then, with the exit polls of the news agencies. It worked just fine for nearly 200 years in the USA, and it can work again.

When I lived in Germany, they took the vote the same way most of the world does - people fill in hand-marked ballots, which are hand-counted by civil servants taking a week off from their regular jobs, watched over by volunteer representatives of the political parties. It's totally clean, and easily audited. And even though it takes a week or more to count the vote (and costs nothing more than a bit of overtime pay for civil servants), the German people know the election results the night the polls close because the news media's exit polls, for two generations, have never been more than a tenth of a percent off.


We could have saved billions that have instead been handed over to ES&S, Diebold, and other private corporations.

Or, if we must have machines, let's have them owned by local governments, maintained and programmed by civil servants answerable to We The People, using open-source code and disconnected from modems, that produce a voter-verified printed ballot, with all results published on a precinct-by-precinct basis.

As Thomas Paine wrote at this nation's founding, "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery."

Only when We The People reclaim the commons of our vote can we again be confident in the integrity of our electoral process in the world's oldest and most powerful democratic republic.

Thom Hartmann (www.thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann .com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," "We The People: A Call To Take Back America," and "What Would Jefferson Do?: A Return To Democracy."

This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached and the title is unchanged. Published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1104-38.htm

Martians Actually Landed

Nice perspective Paul!
From Paul Lehto, Lawyer In the Bilbray Busby debacle in San Diego.


In 1938 when Orson Welles' War of the Worlds scared the bejesus out of the United States, the Martians actually landed, as reported on the radio, (according to the blog below) right near Congressman Rush Holt's Princeton, New Jersey district office. Give or take a mile, it seems to me. But that's close enough for government work.

The Martian landing is commemorated by a plaque in Van Ness Park, and you can see the plaque in a picture on this blog. http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2007/06/can-you-spot-martian.html

It is not known if the invasion directly or indirectly caused any of the provisions in HR 811. In any case, HR 811 sounds so much like reform, it fools a lot of people!

Also within a mile or so of the Martian landing and Congressman Holt's district office are the offices of the vendor Avante. http://www.google.com/maps?hl=en&pwst=1&q=avante&near=Princeton,+NJ&cid=0,0,2084074158486265394&ll=40.346984,-74.654380&spn=0,.02&sa=X&oi=local&ct=image Avante calls itself "the world's first" maker of voter-verified paper records for DREs -- and is clearly an employer in Rush Holt's congressional district. http://www.avantetech.com/ It's doubtful that any Avante executives contribute to Holt's campaigns in any way, no sense in looking into such things.

Avante also has a bunch of interesting Homeland Security products, like the "Baggage Handling And Air Transport Security Solution" Plus an ID tag that allows folks to be tracked. It looks like they've got TRAKKER trademarked several times. ACCESS-TRAKKER, LIVESTOCK-TRAKKER and (yes, indeed) Vote-TRAKKER (world's first voter verified paper record!!). Of course, the Vote-TRAKKER won't track who you are or HOW you voted, or anything else. That's why it's called TRAKKER, silly!!

Daniel Hopsicker suggests that war of the worlds was actually a psych warfare experiment. See, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_%28radio%29 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(novel ) OThers say that's bull.

I only wish this would have been disclosed so that we would know that HR 811 was an important Homeland Security TRAKKER project, I would have realized more readily the need.

Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor

DIALING 911 FOR DEMOCRACY AND REALLY SCREWING IT UP

See the methods and the means via the RNC server originating the results November 3rd, 2004.

We do not concede.

http://neocon-panic-attacks.blogspot.com/2007/04/gops-cyber-election-hit-squad-from.html

Once again we ask for your input dignifying our existence in this country as a
citizen and a responsible voter. Please ask for the rejection of the Holt bill HR811!
Send a letter to your congress people! Here!

http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=638

DIALING 911 FOR DEMOCRACY AND REALLY SCREWING IT UP
by Paul R Lehto
June 14, 2007

I don't know anybody who thinks a post-HR 811 (Holt bill) world is secure against insider fraud. That alone is a fatal flaw for both freedom and democracy, as explained more below.

In fact, it's absurd to think that an election insider could not find 59 seconds to swap out the chips in an e-voting machine, as demonstrated in this 59 second demonstration video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EowKalRT3lc

I'm not really all that concerned about "voter fraud" (by citizens) because that is far more difficult. Yet that is what HR 811 concentrates its efforts against by shutting down Internet connectivity, etc.

HR 811 (the Holt bill) does essentially nothing against insider fraud, because it CAN'T: Voting machines can't be made secure against insiders any more than your own personal computer can be made secure against YOU .

Elections uniquely require a kind of 2-way security that doesn't exist: Computer security inherently gives some insider trusted Admin-level access to everything, while keeping out those nasty outsiders. But with elections, it is the insider government officials who have the most to gain or lose: Every ounce of their power and money comes directly or indirectly from elections.

In the end, one can only raise the cost of penetrating a computer system, one can't make it "secure." Once we've raise the cost sufficiently high, only large corporations, governments, and CIA/KGB type organizations can manipulate elections: but those are precisely the ones we are concerned about the most from the beginning.

Thus, as long as there is admin level access to computerized voting systems with trade secret counts, we've got no security at all. We are powerless to kick out criminal cheating insiders, yet that is exactly when we need our voting rights most of all !

And if we the people can't be guaranteed that we can kick out a criminal cheating insider, we are not a free people.

This is not really anything to "compromise" on. At least not if you believe in our country's founding principles, and believe that some vigilance, even eternal vigilance, is the price of maintaining Liberty.

Nothing less than Freedom, Democracy is at risk, and Half Freedom, and Half Democracy is not freedom or democracy at all. And even Peace is at risk (because if we can't change governments peacefully, then there's only the method of 1776). Because these are inalienable rights, they are to be defended, not compromised. A compromise of a right is simply a violation of that right.

The government has no excuse for lecturing us that HR 811 is the only "realistic" option, the government in the USA was "instituted to secure these Rights" per the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, under HR 811, not only is the government failing to secure our rights, it is going so far as to vote itself secret vote counting in THEIR OWN ELECTIONS, in effect claiming the absurdity that We the People want to keep vote counting secrets FROM OURSELVES. In fact, an August 2006 Zogby poll suggests precisely the opposite: Up to 92% of the American public prefers observable vote counting and the public's right to obtain information about vote counting. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1163

"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them . . ." --Patrick Henry

"Give me Liberty, or Give me Death." ---Patrick Henry

In a nutshell, HR 811 is totally out of touch with the American public today (the Zogby poll) as well as the principles this country was founded upon. Who in their right mind wants to compromise Democracy, compromise Freedom? Why would ANY government fail to secure this basic right for us? Inquiring American minds want to know.

I mean millions, literally, of Americans have worked their lives and died for democracy. And we should accept the word of some unnamed people in Congress that anything less than corrupt secret vote counting is "unrealistic" for the greatest democracy in the world? Before we give up this experiment in freedom called the USA, they ought to at least tell us to our faces that the government is more trustworthy than We the People. This is much worse than a bad joke on the American people. This is basically treason against democracy, because the indispensable characteristic of democracy is not elections, but the reality that all power comes from the people, and that the people are sovereign and in control when they select THEIR governmental servants/representatives.

In light of the above, here is HR 811 defined: Dialing 911 for Democracy and really screwing it up. And I don't think it's very funny.

--
(Permission granted to forward freely in whole (and post, blog, etc.), and with attribution preserved)
Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor
lehtolawyer@gmail.com
425-422-1387

!!!!!DIALING 911 for DEMOCRACY !!!!!

Go here to sign a petition to your National representatives to stop the secret election machinery (STOP Holt Bill HR811) and read reasoning behind it. Please forward, it is your democracy at stake.

http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=638

WE need to get this Issue front and center people if Democracy is still alive?

Otherwise it is dead, NOW, for Real! Say your prayers come election time you will need them, if they will even help becauswe you didi not help yourself.

WE can say if it continues as is we are done. Can we give up? Should we give up?

Are we War Weary Democratic Soldiers for fair open elections??????

Are we going to let our idealism die with us, crushed under the foot of the fascist state of election fraud?

Important Message From Paul Lehto:

Brad Friedmann, myself, Nancy Tobi and Bev Harris and Mark Crispin Miller have all dialed 811 for a debate on democracy, and all we get is a busy signal, or nobody at home. All key supporters of Holt's bill have so far refused to debate.

Mariann Gould has properly written this up as a remarkable situation. There was even the possibility of a television deal being worked on by a person in California if David Dill would agree, but he emphatically and repeatedly refuses to debate.

Privileges come matched with duties and responsibilities. If we wish to exercise the privilege of being a key actor in changing the mechanisms of democracy, the minimal accountability of a public debate is necessary, at the very least.

Now I understand that politicians sometimes think that if they are ahead they should not give their opponents a platform such as a debate to score points with. But this situation is entirely different, because

(1) HR 811 proponents are purporting to design something FAIR to all voters, and transparent to all, not aiming to win at all costs like a political campaign, yet this is their response to the call to debate

(2) Common Cause, for example, said they would appear on Mariann Gould's show after the markup of the bill and then after the markup they said it was too late.... What?

(3) Changing voting systems has more impact than just about any political race, yet there's not even so much disclosure as the League of Women Voters or the state would provide for a dogcatcher's race -- with balanced views in opposition -- and there won't even be an *attempt* to do so even in a small way

(4) David Dill stated in writing to me that he's already "won" this, and I can only wonder who voted in that election, how the votes were counted, was the computerized voting done on Dill's personal computer and who "audited" that election victory, and how in a democracy anyone can claim to have "won" any public question at all without submitting it to the public on an informed basis so they can then inform their representatives how to vote?

(5) All of the facts regarding secret vote counting software being in the possession or control of the government are undisputed --- creating a situation where we do not have guaranteed to We the People the right to throw crooked politicians out of office who are willing to cheat on e-voting, knowing that the evidence of the cheating is trade secret. There are many ways for this cheating to survive a 3% audit.

Democracy surely deserves a debate. Will any supporter of Holt agree to face me, Brad, Nancy, Bev and Mark in a debate? If not, what transparency, disclosure or arguments are they afraid will help the anti-811 position win?

Paul Lehto

PS. Just for Fun: It's said that we've really got to "rush" because 2008 is coming up, in order to put a "Holt" to election fraud. But if you "rush" dialing 911 for democracy, don't be surprised if you screw it up and get 811, instead of 911.

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Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor
plehto@psephos-us.org
425-422-1387

Wanted: Election Fraud Bounty Hunters (Where Is Karl R?)

Go here to sign a petition to your National representatives to stop the secret election machinery (STOP Holt Bill HR811) and read reasoning behind it. Please forward, it is your democracy at stake.

http://www.usalone.com/cgi-bin/petition.cgi?pnum=638

Thanks Paul!

A gift from www.psephos-us.org to

Interim Registrar Michelle Townsend, Registrar-Appoint Deborah Seiler, Asst. Registrar-Appoint Michael Vu, and, most importantly, a gift to

Diebold:

We Present to you, this 10 minute feature expose' on FOX TV in San Diego, to honor your corruption of the recounts in the 2004 presidential election, to give tribute to your secret vote counting software, to indict the entire electoral process in Ohio, to indict the entire electoral process in San Diego, to remember that thousands did not receive their ballots in Ohio, to condemn the loss of voter registrations, and to make damn sure that Judge Corrigan's comments (the trial judge in the felony convictions in the Ohio recount rigging in the 2004 presidential elections) are remembered and available on video:

On video, Judge Corrigan says to the convicted Ohio election officials: "Protecting other people, I don't know, it seems unlikely that your superiors didn't know." ---Judge Peter Corrigan

Then there is (not yet available on webstream) a five minute discussion interview that aired live in which Psephos pointed out that Vu was the superior, where Psephos attorney and co-founder Ken Simpkins pointed to the lack of accountability of these appointed election vendor apologists, and denounced the lack of checks and balances and lack of citizen control over elections. Consistent with earlier coverage of the San Diego Union Tribune quoting Psephos' Paul Lehto, Deborah Seiler's 12 years with Diebold and Sequoia were acknowledged for her skills as "one of the nation's foremost apologists for electronic secret vote counting." Ken rocked!

We also had a packed Supervisors in a mid-morning meeting with numerous public comments taking on the supervisors for approving secret vote counting, buying millions more in machines the day before this public comment, and being unresponsive to polls stating that over 80% of San Diegans want a transparent voting system. Some citizens were getting so upset two got ejected from the room, but each public comment in favor of democracy was greeted with enthusiastic applause, and even a comment by a Supervisor about the patriotic war in Iraq got greeted by widespread boos and hisses. Many local citizens and activists attended and a half dozen or more made comments.

Our press conference at 1030 was also well attended by TV and print media. Here's the Fox News link for the San Diego story (first half of it)

http://www.fox6.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=3def0250-dd22-4c12-ae5d-ded474dfa8a7

or go to www.fox6.com and choose the link to today's feature story QUESTIONABLE BACKGROUND.

A special salute to Ohio activists like Adele Eisner, and Kathleen Wynne who got critical video for the Cuyahoga case, and others who played key roles in developing the Ohio evidence against Vu.

Vu's record is now following him wherever he goes, as it should. Off the record, media is calling the whole thing "sordid."

You could say that the weather is San Diego is HOT. When the election PR department and officials refuse to respond to repeated calls for comment, they are IN HIDING.

But politicians should know that when it comes to elections, they can Run for office, but they can't Hide. They can't hide the vote counting -- nor can they hide from the cameras in San Diego either.

Paul Lehto, Co-founder, Psephos (SEA-foss)
Ken Simpkins, Co-founder, Psephos
Linda Poniktera, Co-founder, Psephos

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If you like this email and this FOX feature story, demolishing Vu and putting all the election officials in San Diego County on the run, please consider signing up on our website or making a donation to Psephos. Thank you. www.psephos-us.org
--
Paul R Lehto, Juris Doctor
plehto@psephos-us.org
425-422-1387

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