by Glynn Wilson

July 30 - Secretary of State Nancy L. Worley sometimes gets frustrated as a lone Democrat with an office in the old historic Alabama Capitol. She is surrounded by Republicans who have no shame when it comes to partisan politics.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Secretary of State Nancy Worley at work…

So when she made the news again this week, smeared by the corporate press and media in a misleading story about what is going on with Alabama’s election system, she did what any honest professional would do. She continued working doing the job she was elected to do.

In case you missed it, Worley was threatened last week by Gov. Bob Riley and Attorney General Troy King and accused of not fully implementing the Help America Vote Act. The Alabama Democratic Party called the move an unconstitutional Republican power grab.

The state’s newspapers and TV stations ran with the story and ignored the press release issued by the very Secretary of State who was under attack. And they call themselves “fair and balanced?”

“This has been a two-year battle and the real politics and greed are beginning to surface,” Ms. Worley said when asked about the situation.

For the record, here are the facts:

U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins ruled on July 21 that Alabama achieved a “reasonable level” of compliance with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and ordered Secretary Worley to continue with her plan to make the state’s current voter registration system as reliant and efficient as possible for the November 2006 election.

The decision ended the U.S. Department of Justice’s case against the state of Alabama and Secretary of State Nancy L. Worley in her official capacity for not fully complying with one aspect of HAVA: the requirement that the state implement a centralized, statewide voter registration database.

Judge Watkins also ruled that the court would adopt Secretary Worley’s proposed plan to implement a statewide voter registration database before the 2008 primary election, and would only modify the plan’s timeline and “non-substantive provisions.” The court will appoint a so-called “special master” to ensure that all relevant parties, including Alabama’s local election officials, work with Secretary Worley’s office to accomplish the goals set forth in the plan.

“Furthermore, because of the Secretary of State’s understandable reluctance to commit to the achievement of HAVA compliance within the court’s specified time frame, particularly where compliance is contingent on others not within the control of the Secretary of State, the Court hereby gives notice of the appointment of a “special master,” Judge Watkins wrote in his decision.

Secretary Worley said this weekend that she looks forward to the appointment of a special master by the court.

“The implementation of a statewide voter registration database that helps eliminate voter fraud is one of my top priorities as Alabama Secretary of State,” she said. “My staff and I will do everything in our power to see that Alabama implements such a system, and we look forward to receiving support from the special master in order to guarantee our success.”

Now, that should put the story to rest.

We urge Ms. Worley and everyone else involved in Alabama’s elections to ensure a transparent process. We also urge the use of a system that provides a clear paper trail. The last thing Alabama needs is a computerized voting fraud controversy or a hanging chad debacle like Florida had in November 2000.

We don’t usually publish pass around e-mails, but this one makes some sense - with some of our own edits and modifications.

* Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

* Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

* The United States should get out of the United Nations, but our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

* A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

* The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans’ benefits and combat pay.

* If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.

* A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

* Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

* HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart, as do oil companies.

* Global warming is junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

* A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

* Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

* The public has a right to know about Hillary’s cattle trades, but George Bush’s military records, druge use and driving record is none of our business.

* Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you’re a conservative radio host. Then it’s an illness and you need our prayers for recovery.

* What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the 1970s and ’80s is irrelevant.

Feel free to pass this on. If you don’t send it to at least 10 other people, we’re likely to be stuck with more Republicans in ‘06 and ‘08. Friends no longer let friends vote Republican.

PBS

Margaret Atwood

“If a god showed up every time you put a quarter in the prayer slot it wouldn’t be God, it would be a puppet that you could control by doing that…that would make the deity subservient to you. So it wouldn’t be a deity would it?”
- Margaret Atwood

Do you think a totalitarian theocracy siezing total power in the U.S. and the world is improbable or impossible?

Think again.

Margaret Atwood retells the story of Penelope and Odysseus in her latest novel The Penelopaid.

Read an excerpt and watch the full interview with Bill Moyers on PBS.

Now this is educational TV.

More at PBS.ORG

The Alabama Democratic Party filed an intervention in United States District Court today to prevent Gov. Bob Riley from assuming voter registration duties over the democratically elected Secretary of State, Nancy Worley.

“Republican Attorney General Troy King has once again placed politics over principle and partisanship over professionalism and is using his constitutionally empowered office to launch a Republican power grab,” the party said in a press release. “King, along with the Bush Justice Department, has singled out Alabama because our Secretary of State is an elected Democrat.”

In addition to Alabama, 19 states have faced similar obstacles in fully implementing the Help America Vote Act including Illinois, New York and California, which have publicly indicated that they will not be compliant.

Yet it appears the Justice Department has only targeted states where Democrats administer elections, according to the statement.

“What Republicans can’t do at the ballot box, they are trying to do through the courts,” Alabama Democratic Party Chair Joe Turnham said. “As an Alabama Democrat elected statewide, Republicans have targeted her for defeat.”

Worley received more votes than any other candidate, Democrat or Republican, including Bob Riley, in the June 6 primary.

“Republicans realize they must further attack and besmirch Worley in order for their preferred candidate Beth Chapman to have a chance in November,” Turnham says. “Chapman’s own record in regard to election administration is highly suspect, as she has publicly spoken out against reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This extreme position puts her in direct conflict with Alabama’s two Republican senators and President George W. Bush.”

At a July 15th meeting, the Alabama Republican Executive Committee unanimously urged the U.S. Congress to refuse to authorize the original version of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, although it was approved by both Houses of Congress recently and signed into law by President Bush.

Turnham objected to the appointment of Bob Riley as a “special master” due to his obvious political self-interest in the 2006 elections and his total lack of experience in administering elections.

“The full resources of the Governor’s office and the Secretary of State’s Office should be available to any special master the judge approves,” Turnham said. “But it is entirely inappropriate for Bob Riley to assume that responsibility in middle of a nip-and-tuck race against Lieutenant Governor Lucy Baxley. The integrity of our election administration is at stake and Alabama voters need to have full confidence that elections are run by individuals with expertise and without a personal, partisan agenda.”

In addition, the Rev. Jack Zylman of Birmingham says this is the same administration which has been trying desperately to force U.S. voters to use insecure voting machines from Diebold that have no paper trail, from a company known for corruption and owned by a Republicans.

“After all the harassment of Democratic elected officials and candidates that the Bush Justice Department has dragged into court, we now see that this cynical, corrupt department is attempting to take the supervision of voting in Alabama and give it to Bob Riley,” Zylman said. “This is the same Justice Department in the same Bush administration that has given us (at least) one stolen election and possibly another.”

As usual, the local press and media coverage of this issue has been less than comprehensable.

AP: State Election Job May Switch from Worley to Riley

Where are the editorials and columns calling this power grab what it is? Does the Alabama press care about fair and accurate election results?

Here we go, folks. There may be no diplomacy that can save the world from an all out religious World War III now.

Al-Qaida issued a call today for Muslims to rise up in a “holy war” against Israel and its allies and join the fighting until Islam reigns from “Spain to Iraq.”

In the message broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, said that al-Qaida now views “all the world as a battlefield open in front of us.”

The Egyptian-born physician said that the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and Palestinian militants would not be ended with “cease-fires or agreements.”

“It is a jihad (holy war) for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails” al-Zawahri said. “We will attack everywhere.”

Spain was controlled by Arab Muslims for more than seven centuries until they were driven from power in 1492.

Al-Zawahri accused some Arab regimes allied with Israel and the United States of being accomplices.

“My fellow Muslims, it is obvious that Arab and Islamic governments are not only impotent but also complicit,” he said. “You are alone on the battlefield. Rely on God and fight your enemies. Make yourselves martyrs.”

He also called for the “downtrodden” throughout the world, not just Muslims, to join the battle against “tyrannical Western civilization and its leader, America,” al-Zawahri said. “Stand with Muslims in confronting this unprecedented oppression and tyranny. Stand with us as we stand with you against this injustice that was forbidden by God in his book (the Quran).”

Kamal Habib, a former member of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad militant group who was jailed from 1981 to 1991 along with al-Zawahri, said the outreach to Shiites and non-Muslims was unprecedented and reflected a major change in tactics.

“This is a transformation in the vision of al-Qaida and its struggle with the United States,” he said. “It is now trying to unite Sunni Muslims, Shiite Muslims and calling for non-Muslims to join the fight.”

Al-Zawahri wore a gray robe and white turban in the video. A picture of the burning World Trade Center was on the wall behind him along with photos of two other militants. One appeared to be a bearded Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks. The other was Mohammed Atef, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri, a former top lieutenant of bin Laden who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in November 2001.

“The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli (weapons), but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition,” al-Zawahri said. “Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price.”

The message was al-Zawahri’s 10th this year. Bin Laden has issued five messages in a particularly active year of messages from the top al-Qaida leadership.

AP: Al-Qaida Calls for Holy War Against Israel

Analysis

Previously, these video messages have been followed by suicide bombings, including the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. So experts expect dramatic attacks to follow. But for reasons that can only be construed as political public relations in a mid-term election year, the U.S. Homeland Security Department has not ramped up the color-coded security alert system.

But be warned, especially if you live in one of the major population centers targeted by al-Qaeda. That means New York and Washington, D.C. in the U.S. If you have a bunker to escape to, get in it.

But first, call your Representatives in Congress and urge them to impeach Bush. It is his administration’s arrogant and incompetent policies that are responsible for this slippery slope to all out religious world war.