Good thing Democrats control the White House, House and Senate, huh? Because we know they're working hard to correct these horrible income discrepancies!

Bueller? Anybody?

The gap between the wealthiest Americans and middle- and working-class Americans has more than tripled in the past three decades, according to a June 25 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

New data show that the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest parts of the population in 2007 was the highest it's been in 80 years, while the share of income going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level ever.

The CBPP report attributes the widening of this gap partly to Bush Administration tax cuts, which primarily benefited the wealthy. Of the $1.7 trillion in tax cuts taxpayers received through 2008, high-income households received by far the largest -- not only in amount but also as a percentage of income -- which shifted the concentration of after-tax income toward the top of the spectrum.

The average household in the top 1 percent earned $1.3 million after taxes in 2007, up $88,800 just from the prior year, while the income of the average middle-income household hovered around $55,300. While the nation's total income has grown sharply since 1979, according to the CBPP report, the wealthiest households have claimed an increasingly large share of the pie.

Arloc Sherman, a researcher for CBPP, said the income gap is expanding not because the middle class is losing income, but because the wealthiest incomes are skyrocketing.

No one with any sense at all believes Alvin Greene won the South Carolina primary fairly. It doesn't pass the smell test, not even the argument that his name was at the top of the ballot and was simply chosen by its place. There was a similar situation in my district in 2008, but the winner didn't win by 17 percentage points! Any way you slice this, it stinks.

Leave aside the question of how the hapless Mr. Greene found a checking account and over $10,000 for a minute. The machines used in the South Carolina primaries are ES&S IVotronic voting machines. These machines have quite a history.

Flipping, Missing, Uncounted and Uncountable Votes

In September 2002, spot checks showed that machines failed to record any votes of Miami-Dade voters in several precincts. When the main tabulations were compared with a backup, discrepancies emerged. In October, 2002, Texas voters reported that the vote flipped from one party's candidate to the other. In May 2003, software bugs invalidated votes in a North Miami Beach runoff election. The results could not be audited, recounted or certified. In January, 2004, ES&S machines recorded 134 undervotes in an election where the winner received 12 more votes than the loser. The loser requested a recount but because the votes were cast on electronic voting machines, there was no paper trail. Election officials determined that no recount was required. (VerifiedVoting.org) In 2008, voters complain that ES&S IVotronic machines flip votes from Democratic candidates to Republican. Also in 2008, ES&S machines added 5,000 phantom votes to the total count in Rapid City, South Dakota.

ES&S IVotronic Machines Proven Vulnerable to Hacks, Viruses, and Failures

A security evaluation of ES&S voting systems was performed at uPenn in 2007 (PDF) at the request of Jennifer Brunner. The 13-page evaluation should have served as notice to remove all ES&S machines immediately. While numerous problems were reported, I want to focus on two that could have affected the outcome of the South Carolina primary.

1. Altering data via the touchscreen interface

   This is perhaps the most serious practical threat to the iVotronic firmware. As discussed in Section 4.2, errors in the iVotronic’s PEB input processing code allow anyone with access to the PEB slot on the face of the terminal (including a voter) to load malicious software that takes complete control over the iVotronic’s processor. Once loaded, this software can alter the terminal firmware, change recorded votes, mis-record future votes, and so on throughout the election day and in future elections.

2. Viral compromise
   

   A compromised iVotronic can modify a PEB such that it carries a malicious payload which infects other iVotronics on which it is subsequently used. This iVotronic to iVotronic propagation can happen, for example, while a master PEB is being used to run Logic-and-Accuracy tests on the iVotronic terminals being used in a particular election.

Now keep those two possibilities in mind while I outline the specific irregularities that have come to light in South Carolina.

Continue reading »

Wonk alert! Official summaries and timelines for the rollout of health care reform are now posted on the Democratic Policy site. Presumably these do not yet include the changes made by the reconciliation bill now under debate.

One of the more striking highlights of this list: Each and every item on the list is a benefit to most Americans, which translates to an increase in disposable income or opportunity. It's going to be tough for Republicans to take this list to their constituents and threaten to repeal it.

2010 Provisions

Calendar year 2010

• Tax credit assistanceSmall businesses are eligible for a 35% tax credit; non-profits may receive up to a 25% credit.
• Medicare Part D "donut hole" begins to close. Seniors receive a $250 rebate for prescription expenses in excess of $2,830.00.
• Adoption Credit Increases adoption credit by $1,000, makes it refundable, and extends the credit through the 2011 tax year
• Health students' assistance - Expands student loan programs, scholarships and loan repayments for medical services students, also allows exclusions from gross incomes for health professionals serving in underserved areas.

March 23, 2010

Federal grants to states to implement consumer assistance for complaints

April 1, 2010

Medicaid - Allows states to opt to cover parents and childless adults up to 133% of the Federal Poverty Level and receive federal funds under the current (strengthened) formulas.

Continue reading »

The Agonist: The Iraq Study Group says the U.S. should leave one of these days...

BobGeiger.com: In what has become a routine event, the cultish bloggers for Bush have been proven wrong again...

The Brad Blog: An audit of Sarasota county's touch-screen voting machines has found several discrepancies, most prominently in Florida's disputed 13th Congressional District race

Hoffmania! "San Francisco Values"

The Intersection: Scalia, clown of Climate Science and self-confessed IDIOT

HOLY CRAP: Yet another Christianist pedophile (though not yet in rehab)...Alabama license plates...Catholic neocons went to Rome to try to sell the war to the Vatican...

Research Team Calls For Investigation

The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections

Statistical Analysis - the Sole Method for Tracking E-Voting - Shows Irregularities May Have Awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or More Excess Votes to Bush in Florida
BERKELEY, Calif., Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the University of California's Berkeley Quantitative Methods Research Team released a statistical study - the sole method available to monitor the accuracy of e- voting - reporting irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded 130,000-260,000 or more excess votes to President George W.Bush in Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting methods - what the team says can be deemed a "smoke alarm." Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance - the probability is less than 0.1percent. The research team formally disclosed results of the study at a press conference today at the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center, where they called on Florida voting officials to investigate.. More

Cronyism: Brown is a Fraud

"Now, an investigation by TIME has found discrepancies in his online legal profile and official bio, including a description of Brown released by the White House at the time of his nomination in 2001 to the job as deputy chief of FEMA. (Brown became Director of FEMA, succeeding Allbaugh, in 2003.)...read on"

The problem with this type of cronyism is that many human lives have been lost at the cost of his appointment. Brown should be arrested on the spot for fraud. Allbaugh can pass him shanks from the adjoining cell.

(Update): Kevin Drum has much more on Brown and the rest of his cronies."The story also notes a "brain drain" of experienced disaster professionals at FEMA's lower levels, "hastened in part by the appointment of leaders without backgrounds in emergency management." Wonderful....read on"

Recount Delays Iraq Final Election Results

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi officials said Wednesday they must recount votes from about 300 ballot boxes because of various discrepancies, delaying final results from the landmark national elections. Hundreds — perhaps thousands — of other ballots were declared invalid because of alleged tampering.

Wait till Chalabi somehow wins a seat in the government.

Suit files against Blackwell!

Jackson wrote the Ohio vote count was "marred by intolerable, often partisan, irregularities and discrepancies,” and added that "U.S. citizens have as much reason as those in Kiev to be concerned that the fix was in."

Video

Secretary Blackwell's media secretary was firing back... calling the column blatantly inaccurate: "We expect someone writing an Op-Ed and a syndicate distributing that Op-Ed would fact-check information and have a responsibility to the facts."