Ed Note: The following request comes from Matthew Segal, who formed the Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE) following his experience voting as a student at Kenyon College in Ohio in 2004 where the last vote was not cast until after 2am on Election Night. Please take the time to read it, and use the opportunity to get some tough questions directly to the folks who will be on his panel this week! – BF
This Friday, July 25th from 11am-2pm ET, I will be hosting a Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE) press forum entitled “Asserting the Youth Voice”.
The panelists will be Thomas Friedman, national best-selling author of The World Is Flat and New York Times columnist; Judy Woodruff, senior correspondent for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer; Joe Scarborough, former U.S. Congressman and anchor of MSNBC’s Morning Joe; Eleanor Clift, contributing editor of Newsweek and regular panelist on The McLaughlin Group; David Broder, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist of the Washington Post; and Mike McCurry, former White House Press Secretary to President Bill Clinton.
We want YOUR help with questions to ask our panelists.
Roughly 200 young voters will comprise the audience and the central question the panelists will be asked to answer is: what can we as young voters do to make our voices heard, affirmed, and recognized in the journalistic community? Audience members and online viewers will also have the opportunity to ask issue-focused questions to further the discussion of youth involvement in the political process.
Here was the statement I issued regarding our forum earlier today:
A transparent and participatory democracy, which is fundamental to our mission statement, is not possible without an accountable and informative media; and therefore we are eager to sit down with some of the nation’s leading press figures to ask some tough questions. It is clear something is not working here: the approval ratings of Congress and the White House are at record lows, and according to a 2006 Gallup Poll, less than one-third of Americans express confidence in the quality and integrity of the media. Young people yearn for more accountability and we intend to take these matters into our own hands. Our press forum this Friday is one such step.
As I know The BRAD BLOG covers issues of press accountability closely, I’d love to share some of your thoughts, concerns and queries with the esteemed panelists we’ve assembled for this week’s important discussion.
Please send your questions to info@savevoting.org and/or post them in comments here and hopefully you can watch them answered live on C-SPAN.
Thank you!
Matthew Segal
Executive Director, Student Association for Voter Empowerment
Why do the media and the major polling outfits “adjust” the exit polls after an election to match the vote totals?. How can we tell if there is any funny business going on when we can’t even have an honest to goodness exit poll?
My question: Can we please start the revolution now?
Good question, Floridiot. I’d add to it: If the folks on that panel are entrusted to see the raw data from those exit polls, don’t they believe the rest of America can handle it? And will they call on their news organizations to release the raw exit poll data in the name of transparency in the ’08 election?
1.) Why does fascist corporate media refuse to investigate the pitiful failure and rigging of electronic vote tabulation devices, even though they pretend they know electronics / computing / software / firmware and it’s vulnerabilities?
2.) Would the fascist corporate media support an online “public file available for public comments” for each station, accessible by the public online 24/7 via a proxy operated by the fcc to hold comments anonymously yet actionable against the station that does not operate in the public interest; after being verified as a US Citizen via some form of ID?
3.) Will fascist corporate media ever treat zero budget PEG programming as legitimate as their own programming?
4.) Considering that in the past fascist corporate media has broadcast lies, disinformation, un-validatable facts, and all out propaganda, would they agree to having their “law enforcement approved” press pass’s, perks and other nonsense be revoked and place them on the same level as say someone airing a show on public access tv? e.g. when say the plastic orange fences go up for political nonsense, or just plain unconstitutional free speech zones, they go to jail just like us. Or better yet, they can be shot just like anyone else ala MacArthur Park fiasco?
I can go on an on…
But I actually got other things to do right now.
Do you believe that our votes should be counted on corporate-designed voting machines without a paper trail?
Sent the following email to the editor of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. To The Editor
Secretary of State Karen Handel uses contorted logic to prove a partisan point in her editorial “‘Partisan bulling’ unfounded in state photo ID requirement.†Her logic, since 90,000 people voted no one was turned away. This is equivalent to asking everyone who was not able to make the meeting to please raise their hand. Then seeing no hands raised, declaring that everyone who wanted to come is at the meeting. When in fact many people were not able to make the meeting for any number of reasons.
How many people did not go to vote because they had no picture ID be they in Fulton county to south Georgia? There are many people who don’t have photo IDs because they. What Ms. Handel forgets is that there are people that don’t fly, don’t drive and have never needed a photo ID. In fact they probably have never been more then 25 miles away from where they were born.
Why is the media not making this statement?
I have two questions:
1. On January 6th, 2005—when Representative Tubbs Jones and Senator Boxer stated their ‘Objection To The Certification Of Ohio’s Electoral Votes’—
why did the majority in the media immediately respond with scorn, ridicule and a precipitate demand for proof, when it is a basic and widely-accepted societal tenet that proof normally emerges AFTER an alleged crime is investigated, rather than before?
2. Who in the media has examined—at the length and with the fairness and seriousness it deserves—the sworn testimony, affidavits and other evidence that has been amassed since that date—evidence which has been exhaustively researched and documented at bradblog.com—in relation to the numerous crimes that have been alleged during the 2004 election as well as numerous subsequent elections in numerous states across the country?
Somebody PLEASE ask these nice people those two questions.
Q #1: Looking around the table, who amongst you do you feel has done the most damage to our country?
Q #2: Why should anyone pay any attention to any of you after having been so wrong for so long?
Q #3: Do any of you believe in Karma? If so, do you think your actions will result in a smack down equal to the damage you have each done?
Q #4: How is one considered an “expert” and “serious” on a subject when they are always wrong on said subject? What does it take for a journalist to lose his status as an expert after that crown is placed on their head (besides being too right too early)?
Q #5: Do you consider it “fair and balanced” to give equal weight to both sides of a story when one side is the truth and the other is a provable lie? Should it be up the the public to investigate the issue further to find the truth?
Q #6: Do think think the fact that the Corporate Evening News ratings being in a long and steep decline has anything to do with the fact that issues that are important to typical Americans are NEVER covered?
Q #7: Do any of you think the voting problems of the last decade, if actually investigated, would lead to a true outpouring of outraqe with the American people and that may be why these things are left alone?
Q #8: Does the phrase “suck on this” hold any special meaning to anyone at the table?
Q #9: Could “Dean Broder” please retire, soon, PLEASE?
5.) Since this insanity that has been allowed to continue keeps continuing to wreck our lives and give us grey hair and no health care…
Don’t you agree, it’s high time we put a stop to it? Oh?! AM I BEING TO VAGUE?
6.) Who’s the most likely out of you to get a bloody nose?
7/) Who among you is the most likely to die of a heroin overdose?
okay, back to my work..
Did I say one last question? One more.
8.) Considering the Senate is getting ready to rape us with with House Bill HR 3221, where do you invest your money so that it doesn’t get stolen?
9.) Did any of you notice a difference in the US Constitution between the way it is now and the way it was nine years ago? If so does it piss you off enough to start fighting for the people or do your corporate fascist masters dictate your fate?
With this final question I shove my Stargate SG-1 (cough cough I mean Atlantis) dvd in, to escape this nasty reality and go to sleep hoping that some of you still believe enough in our country to do the right thing. But I doubt it, therefore I will keep on your ass’s.
How can every network be recording kerry ahead and then magically your all wrong without any followup coverage? Thanks to Palast we know the tricks then used, but where’s the coverage on DRE’S?
But really, you could start out with “Do you know who Bev Harris and Brad Friedman are, and why not when it comes to election integrity?”
Maybe my question should be why is election integrity, the backbone of our once great nation, below the radar with you smart folks?
Where is the subject of impeachment?
Has McCain lost all his bearings as evidenced by his many gaffes?
Thomas Friedman, for anyone coming in late, is, one might say, beneath contempt. Try this:
The acclaimed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has often voiced enthusiasm for violent destruction by the U.S. government. Hidden in plain sight, his glee about such carnage is worth pondering.
…his July 27 column in the Times — after urging Americans “to thoughtfully plan ahead and to sacrifice today for a big gain tomorrow” — scolds the commander in chief for being too much of a wimp and failing to demand enough human sacrifice.
…Such a line of reasoning points to sending still more U.S. troops to Iraq. The result, predictably, would be even more mass slaughter from various directions. But there’s no reason to believe such a result would chasten Friedman, as long as the eminent pundit figures the Washington-backed killing is for a righteous cause. In recent years Friedman has expressed much enthusiasm — even relish — for launching and continuing wars underwritten by U.S. taxpayers.
During the last decade of the 20th century, Friedman was a vehement advocate of — in the words of a January 1998 column — “bombing Iraq, over and over and over again.” In early 1999, when he offered a pithy list of recommendations for Washington’s policymakers, it included: “Blow up a different power station in Iraq every week, so no one knows when the lights will go off or who’s in charge.” Such disruptions of electricity would have deadly effects, from hospitals to homes where vulnerable civilians live. Evidently, Friedman could not let those considerations get in the way of his snappy prose.
But is it unfair to say that Friedman seems to get a charge out of urging systematic infliction of pain and death? Well, consider his fixation on four words in particular. During the spring of 1999, as the U.S.-led NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia went on, Friedman recycled his witticism “Give war a chance” from one column to another.
Norman Solomon
7/28/05
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/5735
“Give war a chance”
Doesn’t that just warm the cockles of your heart?
Brad, not to object – I’m ready to back you on almost anything – but what are you doing sitting down with this specimen?
Why do exit poll / vote count differences in the Ukraine show electoral fraud but when it happens in America it doesn’t show electoral fraud ?
Why hasn’t Tom Feeney been questioned under oath about obtaining software to commit electoral fraud ?
U.S.
Powell: ‘Fraud and abuse’ in Ukraine vote
1) Have any of you read Bugliosi’s case for the prosecution of these thugs for murder?
2) And based on this irrefutable case (unless you are John Yoo), when do you think we can expect Congress to do their constitutional duty to uphold and defend the…Constitution?
Okay – two questions I doubt will even be asked, because they are too “Sensitive,” but which need to be answered if our Republic is even to survive.
Q.1 The sole Economist whose forecasts have been 100% accurate, who is respected and consulted worldwide, and even if some of his ideas are cockamamie (“There are NO limits to growth”) is the sole individual who appears to know what to do to get out of the disaster that confronts us – for starters, “The Home Owners and Bank Protection Act” is not even marginalized; he is carefully, one might even say criminally, censored. I would wager that many people do not even know he exists; but his ideas should be being considered in the Congress, and most of them enacted by veto-proof majorities. ou all know he is out there; why are you carefully avoiding mentioning his existence? You KNOW who I am talking about. His name is Lyndon LaRouche.
Q.2 Given the fact that Arizona politics is controlled top to bottom by the Lansky-Bronfman arm of the Organized Crime Syndicate, given the fact that untold billions in Mob Money is available to subvert the intentions of the People by control of the election machinery Nationwide, and that McCain’s entire political life is beholden to the mob, and his personal (well, his wife’s) fortune is a legacy from the Syndicate, WHY are these facts not even being mentioned, instead of, as they should be, shouted from the housetops? (Knowing that McCain has unlimited access (via “527’s”) to mob money, his ‘outrage’ that Obama opted out of “Federal Financing” is ridiculous. As the candidate from organized crime, he should not even be being considered. Is it true that there is a media conspiracy to pretend that he and Obama are running neck and neck so that a third stolen election will look believable?
Given all the problems that are readily apparent with electronic voting, what on Earth is wrong with hand-marked paper ballots counted publicly at the precinct level and then transparently tabulated before the citizenry? This is, after all, what the Canadians do with great confidence. In fact, it is the system we imposed on Germany and Japan in the aftermath of WWII. Not to mention the enormous financial savings associated with junking the machines that are destroying our democracy. Concerned citizens want to know…
Friedman and Scarborough!?
Ha! My question would be to SAVE: why they think asking a bunch a white faces from the beltway are deserving of being on the panel, or are they just wanting “access” to the propagandists.
How often do you put journalistic principles above the practicality associated (editors reflecting owners perspectives for example) with what you write?
Why do you think anyone should listen or read your reporting?
Will you admit to and state the biases your reporting is evidence of?
Who do you think your audience is?
Given the news availability associated with the internet, why do you think your reporting has any value?
Abacus @ #16 asked:
Actually, I’m not sitting down with them. I won’t be on the panel (though Matthew was gracious enough to invite me, I couldn’t get out there for it). Had I been able to, however, I’d have been delighted.
You can’t hold feet to the fire by ignoring the feet.
Sure you can! Just throw them in and walk away! 🙁
Maybe Brett Kimberlin has some ideas. Does he post here? Any movement on that half million dollar reward for election fraud whistleblowers?
Q: In recent history, lobbyists have written much if not most of the bills that reach the floor of Congress for a vote. It is generally held that the US government was unique in its time because it was created to serve the interests of the people and that political power resided in the citizens. Is it reasonable to expect that the broad interests of the common people will be addressed under the present election campaign and lobbying laws that allow so much money to flow in from corporations and inherited wealth? In light of the Supreme Court decision that equates money with free speech, what is your position on a Clean Money approach to full public funding of election campaigns (e.g., AZ and MA state elections)?
Brad # 24
You are well out of it.
“If you get down in the gutter to wrassle with a pig you and the pig both get muddy. The difference is, the pig enjoys it.”
“Give war a chance?”
This mindset is 200-proof neocon evil. Holding the feet of these types to any kind of verbal fire is pointless. They’re indifferent to criticism. The only thing that would make an impression is indictment as a war criminal. And this one is too insignificant to qualify.
Question for the panel: how could the following have come about?
“Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084
More from the source for my comment #28
Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s quote, calmly asserting that U.S. policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Arab children, has been much quoted in the Arabic press. It’s also been cited in the United States in alternative commentary on the September 11 attacks (e.g., Alexander Cockburn, New York Press, 9/26/01).
But a Dow Jones search of mainstream news sources since September 11 turns up only one reference to the quote–in an op-ed in the Orange Country Register (9/16/01). This omission is striking, given the major role that Iraq sanctions play in the ideology of archenemy Osama bin Laden; his recruitment video features pictures of Iraqi babies wasting away from malnutrition and lack of medicine (New York Daily News, 9/28/01). The inference that Albright and the terrorists may have shared a common rationale–a belief that the deaths of thousands of innocents are a price worth paying to achieve one’s political ends–does not seem to be one that can be made in U.S. mass media.
It’s worth noting that on 60 Minutes, Albright made no attempt to deny the figure given by Stahl–a rough rendering of the preliminary estimate in a 1995 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the sanctions. In general, the response from government officials about the sanctions’ toll has been rather different: a barrage of equivocations, denigration of U.N. sources and implications that questioners have some ideological axe to grind (Extra!, 3-4/00).
[…]
===
There is more…
This is what “let’s give war a chance” is about…
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084
{Ed Note: Thanks for the great link, abacus, but please read the rules for commenting. Not so heavy on the copy and paste please. –99}
Why doesn’t the media admit that John McCain whines and bitches twice as much as Hillary Clinton did.
Karl Rove! Karl Rove! Karl Rove!!!
Abacus #29, Why, that would be genocide.
Why would the Murcan citysins want to hear ’bout that and harm their ‘beautiful minds’? /s
The MSM has to start getting a grip and start showing what is being done in our name for oil.
Ask Eleanor Clift if the stench and sulfur fumes from
robert novack still linger on the set?