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Voter record tapes recovered from trash bins in Tennesee

In Houston, 10,000 voting machines and associated data spontaneously combusts, incinerating the machines and tapes, and leaving a right-wing Republican's allegations of voter fraud standing with nothing to prove or disprove them.

In South Carolina, ES&S voting machines are used to nominate an unknown and non-viable Democratic candidate to run against Jim DeMint.

In Alaska, tea party candidate Joe Miller alleges vote tampering by the Murkowski campaign.

These are only a few of the stories we're not seeing about voting machines and their role in shaping government and politics, particularly in areas with heavy Latino and African-American populations. It could almost be called a pattern -- one that threatens to undermine the fundamental pillar of our democracy: one person, one vote.

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Jet Crashes Before Picking Up Elder Bush

By JUAN A. LOZANO, Associated Press Writer

HOUSTON - A private jet that was en route to Houston to pick up former President Bush (news - web sites) clipped a light pole and crashed Monday as it approached Hobby Airport in thick fog, killing all three people aboard.

The Gulfstream G-1159A jet, coming into Houston, went down about 6:15 a.m. in an undeveloped area 1 1/2 miles south of the airport, officials said. The former president had been scheduled to travel to Ecuador for a conference.

"I was deeply saddened to learn of the plane crash this morning," Bush said through spokesman Tom Frechette. "I'd flown with this group before and know them well. I join in sending heartfelt condolences to each and every member of their families."

The Stakeholder

Tom Delay Subpoenaed for Role in 2003 Texas Redistricting

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) was subpoenaed in Houston to an October 25, 2004 deposition concerning his role in the controversial dispute between Democratic Legislators and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) during last year's redistricting struggle. Texas State Representative Lon Burnam (D--Fort Worth) subpoenaed DeLay in his ongoing lawsuit challenging DPS's use of public funds to achieve political ends and for its destruction of documents following the exodus of Democratic Legislators from the State to prevent a quorum in a redistricting effort that Democrats claim was illegal.

Download | play Download | play (h/t BillW)

Houston Chronicle:

CNN said it shouldn't have used a former U.S. attorney who quit his job after allegedly biting a stripper as an analyst about New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's prostitution scandal.

No mention of Kendall Coffey's past was made when anchor Tony Harris interviewed him Tuesday on the legal questions surrounding Spitzer's case. Coffey quit his job in May 1996 after being accused of biting a topless dancer on the arm during a visit to an adult club after losing a big drug case.

Coffey talked on CNN about what kind of charges the New York governor could face. Spitzer is accused of having a high-priced call girl visit his hotel room during a visit to Washington last month.

While Coffey's past is known to CNN's booking department, it wasn't to the person who set up Harris' segment. CNN spokesman Nigel Pritchard blamed a "miscommunication."

"Coffey has been a guest on CNN in the past but was probably not the right one for this story," Pritchard said.

Oopsie! It's a little like having Bill "Phone sex with a loofah" O'Reilly lecture you about moral rectitude.

More pictures available here

Burnt Orange Report:

Early voting starts today in Texas. In Waller County, a primarily rural county about 60 miles outside Houston, the county made the decision to offer only one early voting location: at the County Courthouse in Hempstead, TX, the county seat.

Prairie View A&M students organized to protest the decision, because they felt it hindered their ability to vote. For background, Prairie View A&M is one of Texas' historically Black universities. It has a very different demographic feel than the rest of the county. There has been a long history of dispute over what the students feel is disenfranchisement. There was a lot of outrage in 2006, when students felt they were unfairly denied the right to vote when their registrations somehow did not get processed.

According to an article in today's Houston Chronicle:

Waller County has faced numerous lawsuits involving voting rights in the past 30 years and remains under investigation by the Texas Attorney General's Office based on complaints by local black leaders. Those allegations, concerning the November 2006 general election, related to voting machine failures, inadequate staffing and long delays for voting results.

The article adds,

"I was angry after registering to vote in the 2006 election only to be turned away at the voting booth," said sophomore Dee Dee Williams.

So what are the students doing?

1000 students, along with an additional 1000 friends and supporters, are this morning walking the 7.3 miles between Prairie View and Hempstead in order to vote today. According to the piece I saw on the news (there's no video up, so I can't link to it), the students plan to all vote today. There are only 2 machines available at the courthouse for early voting, so they hope to tie them up all day and into the night.

I love stories like this. In the face of an obvious ploy to suppress the vote, these young people stood up for their rights and showed that they will not be cowed. Republicans should be worried, because this is a committed electorate.

And the culture of life continues...

Via The Telegraph UK:

A man convicted of shooting dead a store clerk during a robbery has become the 400th person to be executed by Texas since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

The southern state accounts for almost a third of the 1,091 American executions over the last three decades, and this year it will be responsible for almost two thirds - 21 out of 35 judicial killings so far.

About 14 protestors gathered outside the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, as Johnny Conner - who has never confessed to his crime - was executed by lethal injection last night.

Conner, 32, was convicted in 1999 of killing Kathyanna Nguyen, 49, by shooting her in the face during an attempted robbery of the Houston petrol station and convenience store where she worked.

"What is happening to me now is unjust and the system is broken," Conner said as he lay strapped to the execution gurney. Read more...

George Bush has turned the killing of human beings into an art form, so it comes as no surprise that he and Alberto Gonzales are attempting to fast track executions nationwide by doing away with the appeals process for death row inmates. (h/t Dcup)

There’s just something amusing about the president’s penchant for vacations. As governor of Texas, Bush enjoyed an inordinate amount of “down time,” and he brought that style to the White House. When he’s at “work,” Bush leaves plenty of time for exercise and likes to knock off early. More importantly, he likes to get away from “work” more than anyone I’ve ever seen.

The amusing part of this, I suppose, is that one might assume that the president would have plenty to do. There is a war going on, and there are a variety of crises (economic, diplomatic, strategic) that demand real leadership. But Bush just loves to get away. (via TP)

President Bush tries to set an example for Americans whenever he can, in terms of physical fitness, faith, optimism and a certain overall moral rectitude. He also sets an excellent example on taking vacation.

On Thursday, Bush left for a weekend in Kennebunkport, Maine, and his family’s summer compound, Walker’s Point. On Monday, he heads to his Crawford retreat, where he has spent all or part of 418 days of his presidency, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS News White House correspondent and meticulous record-keeper.… Bush’s August sojourn will be his 65th trip to Crawford, according to Knoller.

The Houston Chronicle added, “The presidential vacation-time record holder is the late Ronald Reagan, who tallied 436 days in his two terms. At 418 days, and with 17 months to go in his presidency, Bush is going to beat that easily.”

It’s an interesting contrast with what the typical American worker faces.

  I tend not to dwell on the Oedipal complexities of the president’s relationship with his father — Maureen Dowd seems to have the beat pretty well covered — but the NYT had a noteworthy piece today on the complex family dynamic.

As to what is said in private conversations between father and son, no one can be certain. When phone calls come in from Houston or Kennebunkport, White House aides make themselves scarce. But [former White House Chief of Staff Andy] Card says it is clear to him that family talks were not always confined to family matters.

“It was relatively easy for me to read the sitting president’s body language after he had talked to his mother or father,” Mr. Card said. “Sometimes he’d ask me a probing question. And I’d think, Hmm, I don’t think that question came from him.”

Ouch. This certainly makes it sound as if Card believed intelligent inquiries from Bush were so unusual, he assumed the president didn’t think of them on his own.

From Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle:

(h/t to Scarce)

There's a delicious sense of schadenfreude to this story.

  Houston Chronicle:

From a wooden bench in front of a shop selling mementos of "The Western White House," tourist Chuck Yorde wondered aloud why he seemed to be the only visitor in town.[..]

The Youngstown, Ohio, resident was almost apologetic about his own presence in the town that hosts President George W. Bush's 1,600-acre ranch. He said he was visiting his sister in nearby Gatesville who's "a big Bush fan. ... She dragged me over here."

Shuttered storefronts and eroding retail sales figures show tourism and the Bush memorabilia business are slumping in this once-sleepy farm-and-ranch town of 732 residents.

A for-sale sign is the only thing in the smudged window of the turn-of-the-century, two-story brick building that once housed the Crawford Country Style store. "The numbers just weren't working," said Norma Nelson Crow, who closed the shop at the beginning of the year.[..]

Bill Johnson, owner of the Yellow Rose, Crawford's largest gift shop, said he has been stocking more Texana and Americana items in response to the drop-off in sales of Bush merchandise. "We're changing our mix," Johnson said. "As a business we have to do what we have to do to be successful."

 The comments attached to the article are worth a laugh or two as well...