In honor of Molly Ivins birthday (August 30, 1944)

"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there." - that's from her last column, January 11, 2007.

Can Journalism Be Saved?

If you are troubled by the downward spiral of print, television and radio journalism, listen to this presentation by Robert McChesney and John Nichols at PULSE - Can Journalism Be Saved?

LOCAL NEWS: THE NO ACCOUNT RECOUNT

Now is the Spring of our discontent....

Haik Bedrosian/BurlingtonPol.com had it first about Kurt Wright's call to end the IRV Mayoral Recount. The reasons for stopping the count last night are given in today's Burlington Free Press/Briggs story.

City Councilor Kurt Wright called off a recount Tuesday night and conceded his instant-runoff loss to Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss.

With about half of the wards tabulated, Wright congratulated Kiss on his victory and asked for the recount to be halted, Chief Administrative Officer Jonathan Leopold said late Tuesday.

Leopold said that with about 43 percent of the votes recounted, the difference between the hand count and the March 3 machine count was about five votes.

“It was clear that the totals were coming in so accurately compared to the machine count that it wasn’t going to affect the outcome,” Leopold said.

Wright said earlier in the day that he requested the recount, “not for me, but at the request of a tremendous amount of citizens who really strongly urged me to do it. I was ready to move on.”

Wright, a Republican, lost to Kiss by a final margin of 252 votes, 4,313 to 4,061 on March 3. That difference amounted to 2.8 percent of the 8,976 valid ballots cast, well within the 5 percent difference in votes established by the Legislature as the threshold for recounts. Only 27 percent of registered voters participated in the election.

Wright called for the recount, in part, to test the accuracy of the instant-runoff system that propelled Kiss, a Progressive, to re-election.

“I hope the recount will confirm the integrity of the process and give citizens a level of comfort with how the system works,” he said.

Huh?

This report doesn't jive with Wright's email to Haik last Friday:--

... I do agree with people like yourself Haik who believe this is the right opportunity to take a close look at how the system worked. This is not about me, it is about the process. I accept the result and am gratified to have come so close...

If Kurt had already accepted the results of the vote on March 3, why did he concede last night? He didn't think the recount would change the outcome. Clearly in his email to Haik, he wanted the recount to test the process. But how can we be contented with the process when when the recount was called off before completion? 43% is not "about half."

“It was clear that the totals were coming in so accurately compared to the machine count that it wasn’t going to affect the outcome,” Leopold said.

When the recount was halted, we were told that the difference was 5 votes. How can it be claimed that "the totals were coming in so accurately"? How does this compare to other recounts when an IRV recount has never before happened in Burlington? The votes from Wards 4 and 7 have been left uncounted; it is from these wards where Kurt received most support. Why weren't those crucial votes recounted?

CBS ON ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Apartheid and Israel in the same sentence.


Watch CBS Videos Online

This report appeared on one of the most-watched Sunday evening programs and is groundbreaking for "respected" US television journalism. However, it is flawed. It portrays Livni as a moderate (she is more interested in removing Arabs from Israel then Israelis from the the West Bank). The report fails to mention the illegality of the settlements and that half a million settlers are in East Jerusalem.