For some while the Pima County Democratic Party has been suing the Pima Elections Department for access to certain records relating to the disputed RTA election in late 2006. Now it seems that the records are “missing” and Pima County Brad Nelson Election Director is clueless. But we think the Judge has little choice now but to rule in our favor and then we think there will be plenty of clues!

Record of votes in ‘06 RTA election missing

Tape may confirm whether results were altered

GARRY DUFFY and BLAKE MORLOCK
Tucson Citizen

Potentially important evidence is missing in the Pima County Democrats’ lawsuit against the county Elections Division regarding how votes were handled in a 2006 election.

No one seems to know what happened to a computer tape record of the May 16, 2006 Regional Transportation Authority election. The tape was sent to the the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office after the election last year and reportedly was returned to the county.

The county elections director made the revelation in his testimony Wednesday in a Pima County Superior Court trial over the Democrats’ lawsuit.

The case goes to the heart of the democratic process – the security of voting and vote counting – and is one of several that have played out across the country since the 2000 presidential election results were disputed in Florida over the counting of “hanging chad” ballots.

Use of computerized voting machines and vote tabulating systems has heightened worries that ballot boxes and vote counting can be tampered with in ways not available with old paper ballot and hand-counting methods.

In Wednesday’s trial testimony, County Elections Director Brad Nelson said the Secretary of State’s Office sent the county a box of computer tape records of elections dating back to 2001.

The box was mistakenly delivered to the county Recorder’s Office, then sent to the Elections Division, Nelson said.

Nelson said the box was delivered to “the counter” at elections offices and that he never saw the records tape.

“The tape should have been in there,” he said in response to questions from Bill Risner, the lawyer representing Democrats in the lawsuit.

They filed their suit after county elections officials refused to give party computer consultants a copy of the database, which Democrats say could show if the election ballot or eventual results were altered.

It was unclear Wednesday whether the missing computer tape would have provided the Democrats with any of the information they’re seeking.

Wednesday’s session was the second of a planned three-day trial, and Risner finished calling witnesses to support the Democrats’ effort to get Superior Court Judge Michael Miller to order the Elections Division to give Democrats the database.

Both Democrats and the county last summer asked for an investigation into whether the 2006 election may have been tainted.

The county hired a computer consultant, who recommended numerous changes in security in the Elections Division but found no evidence of vote tampering.

In court Wednesday, Risner also questioned Bryan Crane, the Elections Division’s chief computer programmer, who has been under fire for allegedly removing elections data on tapes and taking compact discs to his home over several recent election cycles for safekeeping against fire.

Crane was criticized for printing election summaries before polls close on election day. That was done to check to see if the voting system was correctly tabulating votes, witnesses said in testimony Wednesday.

Click here to read more in the Tucson Citizen.

This post is from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.

Since the release of the new Iran NIE on Monday, we’ve been debating just when the president and his key advisors know the basic gist of what the new report would show. Take them at their own word and they really didn’t know anything until just this last week. As soon as they knew, we knew, they would say.

Sure Mike McConnell mentioned something to the president back in August. But he had no way of knowing that this “new information” would dramatically undermine the claim that Iran was on the brink of going nuclear. And as the president said yesterday, “He didn’t tell me what the information was.”

Yet I’m hearing from a lot of directions that the basic gist of the report — that the Iranians aren’t nearly as close to going nuclear as we’d been led to believe — has been circulating at least in intelligence circles for some time. In other words, this NIE has been sitting either literally or figuratively on the president’s desk for months.

Now, along those lines look at this September 22nd post from a site called Swoop, which I hear is put together by some pretty knowledgeable DC insiders.

In our last key judgment on Iran, we noted that the main driver of possible military action has switched from Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program to Iranian activities in Iraq. This conclusion is hardening. Intelligence Community (IC) sources tell us that a new National Intelligence Estimate about Iran is near completion. This concludes that Iran remains many years – as much as 10 – away from a weapon. Thus, the WMD argument will not gain traction from the IC. Iraq, however, is a different story. Pentagon officials have told us that the stress on the Iranian threat to Iraqi stability in the Petraeus and Crocker testimony is entirely deliberate. These officials say that the Sunni elements with whom the US military has been cutting deals in Anbar province are violently “anti-Persian” and have convinced US commanders to see Iranian meddling as the source of destabilization. With Anbar representing the one clear success of the “surge”, the US military is highly motivated to protect it against the perceived Iranian threat. This was the source of Petraeus’ allegation that Iran is trying to build a “Hezbollah-like” anti-US militia in Iraq. A new US base is under construction near the Iranian border and checkpoints are being erected along roads leading from Iran. For immediate purposes, this does not change our assessment that military force against Iran remains unlikely in the short-term. But it does add a new source of tension alongside the WMD factor.

Just one blog post, definitely. But the key point is right there: word was out that the NIE deliver the goods for the Iranian bomb enthusiasts, that the “WMD argument” for war would not “gain traction from the IC (i.e., Intelligence Community).”

What it all comes down to is what the president says he didn’t know about until the beginning of December was already being chatted about on insider national security blogs back in September. Does anybody still believe he hasn’t known this for months?

Rather than hold our regular meeting this month, the SaddleBrooke Democratic Club opted to hold a holiday party at the home of Betty Jacob, long time member and Secretary of the Club. A wonderful time was had by all this past Saturday and we have the photos to prove it! This photo is of Jim Walsh with Betty Jacob.

Jim Walsh was recently appointed as Pinal County Attorney succeeding Carter Olson who was in turn appointed as Pinal County’s newest Superior Court Judge. Jim has most recently served as Chief Deputy Attorney for the State of Arizona for Terry Goddard. Next year, both Walsh and Olson will need to be confirmed in their posts by the voters of Pinal County.

“My country’s been responsible for obstructing the process here in Bali, we know that,” he said to enthusiastic applause from the crowd.

By Washington Post, Dec 13th

BALI, Indonesia, Dec. 13 — As former vice president Al Gore urged delegates here Thursday night to “go far, quickly” in reducing greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming, international negotiators remained at an impasse over how to construct a road map leading to a worldwide climate agreement by the end of 2009.

Gore pressed officials from across the globe to move ahead with a consensus statement despite the obstacles, arguing that leaving “a large open space in your document” would allow a future U.S. administration to work more aggressively than the Bush administration to curb global warming pollution.

“My country’s been responsible for obstructing the process here in Bali, we know that,” he said to enthusiastic applause from the crowd. “Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere where it is not now. You must anticipate that.”

Gore added that while he understood how some delegates might be tempted to abandon the process altogether, he cautioned that if the talks actually collapsed, “the entire world could lose momentum and could lose progress.” Instead, he suggested they “negotiate around this enormous obstacle, this elephant in the room.”

Click here to read more at the Washington Post.

Meanwhile there is a new warning about the accelerating melting of the arctic ice cap.  While the Republicans continue to deny scientific facts in favor of ever more profits for the oil industry, scientists warn that the Arctic ice cap may be gone in only five years.  Read more of this latest development from CBS News.

With spending at new highs for death and destruction abroad. As the richest country in the world we are still unable to provide basic health care for poor children. Shame on the Republicans!

Bush Vetoes Kids’ Health Bill Again

Rejection Of New SCHIP Bill Marks The President’s Sixth Veto This Year

CBS News, December 13th

President Bush vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have expanded government-provided health insurance for children, his second slap-down of a bipartisan effort in Congress to dramatically increase funding for the popular program.

t was Bush’s seventh veto in seven years – all but one coming since Democrats took control of Congress in January. Wednesday was the deadline for Bush to act or let the bill become law. The president also vetoed an earlier, similar bill expanding the health insurance program.

Bush vetoed the bill in private.

In a statement notifying Congress of his decision, Bush said the bill was unacceptable because – like the first one – it allows adults into the program, would cover people in families with incomes above the U.S. median and raises taxes.  Click here for more coverage from CBS News.

The United States is no longer the largest supporter of the World Bank.  That honor now goes to Britain.  White House denies that firing of Paul Wolfowitz has anything to do with this policy change. 

From the New York Times, Mark Landler

BERLIN — Overcoming earlier misgivings about its direction and leadership, the World Bank said Friday it had raised $25.1 billion in aid for the world’s poorest countries, a record sum that includes donations by China and Egypt, nations that were once recipients of such aid.

For the first time, Britain overtook the United States as the biggest donor, a highly symbolic change given Washington’s traditional influence in choosing the bank’s president and charting its policies.

Bank officials said the change in rankings was partly due to currency swings, since the dollar has dropped in value against European currencies. But the willingness of the United States to cede its top spot was clearly the most closely watched element of the negotiations held here in Berlin.

Britain’s pledge of $4.2 billion, as well as $2.2 billion from Germany — both big increases — suggested that the rift with Europe has been healed. German officials heaped praise on Mr. Zoellick, who skipped the negotiations to attend the United Nations meeting on climate change in Bali.

Click here to read more at the New York Times.

Never fear my friends, Politics remains at center stage of the Department of Justice’s priorities.

From the New York Times, David Stout

Mukasey Rejects Demand for Information

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has firmly rejected Congressional demands that he provide information about the Justice Department’s investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency’s destruction of videotapes showing interrogations.

Mr. Mukasey also rejected suggestions that he appoint a special prosecutor to look into the matter, declaring that he was “aware of no facts at present” that would make such a step necessary.

The recent disclosure that the videotapes showing the questioning of Al Qaeda suspects were destroyed within the C.I.A. is the latest flare-up in the long-running controversy over what methods have been used in interrogations, and in particular whether any should be considered torture. Click here to read more in the New York Times.

After months of vigorous legal defense, the Pima County Board of Supervisors is defeated in court. Told to release voting databases that may have been tampered with by Pima County Elections officials. A huge scandal has been brewing for more than a year, concerning the possibility that Pima County elections have been highjacked by computer criminals. The concern centers around a transporation tax election that was held in 2006. The Pima Democratic party has established that an election official downloaded sensitive vote count files prior to the elections, took them home and may have manipulated the results. It is not certain whether today’s court ruling will allow the Pima County Democratic Party to verify the reported results of the election, but time will tell….

From the Arizona Star, December 19th. Ms Andrea Kelly

County records release ordered

Judge rules Democratic Party has right to inspect ‘06 election files

Pima County will have to turn over electronic database records from past elections to the Pima County Democratic Party, a judge ruled Tuesday.

The county must release records requested a year ago, including copies of the Diebold GEMS databases for the 2006 primary and general elections, because they fall under state public-records law, Pima County Superior Judge Michael Miller said. That means the Democratic Party will have a chance to inspect the records for transparency and security.

Without the records, the party cannot fully monitor elections, a job political parties are required by statute to do, Miller wrote in his ruling. That outweighs the risks associated with making the records public, he wrote.

The party requested the records to fulfill its duty of election monitoring, said the party’s attorney Bill Risner.

The Pima County Democratic Party sued the county this year for the electronic databases from past elections. The party requested the databases and passwords be released according to Arizona public-records law. Pima County denied that part of the request, while turning over other records the party asked for.

Click here to read more from Ms. Kelly’s story in the Arizona Star.

Yeah, the economy is doing swell….Yesterday the Bush Administration moves to pull down public housing projects in Louisiana, today, we guess they are getting ready to arrest foreclosed homeowners gathered in a tent city in suburban Los Angeles. Way to go george!

ONTARIO, California (Reuters) – Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits “tent city,” a terminus for homeless people. It is not, as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming suburbia of Southern California.

The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the U.S. housing crisis.

The unraveling of the region known as the Inland Empire reads like a 21st century version of “The Grapes of Wrath,” John Steinbeck’s novel about families driven from their lands by the Great Depression.

As more families throw in the towel and head to foreclosure here and across the nation, the social costs of collapse are adding up in the form of higher rates of homelessness, crime and even disease.

While no current residents claim to be victims of foreclosure, all agree that tent city is a symptom of the wider economic downturn. And it’s just a matter of time before foreclosed families end up at tent city, local housing experts say. Click here to read more from the Associate Press and Yahoo News.