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POPSRNC to File FEC Complaint on Obama The Newsweek report says that earlier this year the Obama campaign returned $33,000 to two Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip who had bought T-shirts in bulk from the campaign's online store -- purchases that count as campaign contributions. The brothers had listed their address as "Ga.," which the campaign took to mean Georgia rather than Gaza. At the heart of the RNC complaint is a federal fundraising rule that lets campaigns accept donations under $200 without itemizing the names and addresses of the donors on its campaign finance reports. The rule was intended as a matter of practicality -- it did not seem reasonable to ask a campaign to gather that information from every five-dollar donor. But the Obama campaign has raised more than $200 million this way, a staggering sum for donations that will not be subjected to outside scrutiny.
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POPSOur Hackable Democracy Last month, Princeton researchers submitted a report based on their study of the machines' security, part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic against the state government aimed at decertifying Sequoia machines. The results of the study still aren’t known: A judge placed a gag order on the researchers that prevents them from publishing their work. "Any reasonably talented security researcher can compromise these machines" In fact, California's study of Sequoia's machines found that any poll worker with access to Sequoia's machines could quickly change the results of an election. In 2006, researchers at Princeton found that a Diebold machine could be hacked in less than a minute. (In the six states) There's a possibility their votes will be hacked, lost or miscounted. But that's no excuse not to vote, argues Smith. "You'll just have to take a chance," she says. "The only way to be sure your vote won't count is not to show up.
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POPSChristmas Countdown Widget This Christmas countdown widget is totally awesome. I love widgets anyway and had this puppy placed on both MySpace and Facebook within just a few minutes. It's free, so start counting down the holidays.
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POPSBranchflower Report: Contradicts Itself: Ignores Facts and Law
No, indeed, Sen. French and Mr. Branchflower dearly hope most Americans won't look past the headlines generated by this ridiculous farce of a report. French and Branchflower hope that Americans will be misled into thinking this report is from someone whose judgment or opinions actually count for something — instead of being from a hitman hired to complete a political hatchet job, as it actually is. This report changes absolutely nothing, except that it will be manipulated politically by Obama supporters and Palin haters in an attempt to drive more potential voters into taking sides with Trooper Mike Wooten — a proven child abuser (Tasered his own 10-year-old stepson on a lark) . . . . UPDATE Even the Anchorage Daily News is misrepresenting I just received an email update from it in which it claims that "Today Alaska legislators found Palin did abuse her power in the 'Troopergate' controversy." That's absolutely false — the Alaska Legislature is not in session
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POPSWords, words, words Time’s Karen Tumulty, who spotted racist goblins in the recent McCain ad criticizing Obama for seeking advice from Fannie Mae corruptocrat Franklin Raines. A parade of congressional witch hunters for Obama also detects the specter of George Wallace behind every policy bush. Democratic New York Gov. David Paterson says conservative criticism of Obama’s community organizing days is code for “black.” Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks complained to the New York Observer: “They are trying to throw out these codes.” In the same piece, Democratic Rep. Yvette Clark divined segregationist intent in Palin’s references to Joe Six-Pack and hockey moms. “It leaves a lot of people out.” And Democratic Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid echoed Time’s Tumulty on the McCain camp’s Obama/Raines broadsides: “The only connection that people could bring up about Raines and Barack Obama is that they both are African-American, other than that there is nothing.”
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