iowa at Brave New Films

Voices from the Iowa Democratic Convention

2008-07-24T08:24:59Z

Democrats from across Iowa gathered at the State Convention to discuss the direction of our country, the issues that shape our party, and our work to help us move forward towards honest solutions with common sense leadership.

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Obama Blasts McCain on Opposing Flood Prevention Funding

2008-07-24T08:48:40Z

MCCAIN AND BUSH BOTH OPPOSED FUNDING FLOOD PREVENTION

Obama blasted McCain for opposing funding flood prevention at the US Mayors Conference in Miami, FL, stating, "I know that Sen. McCain felt as strongly as I did, feeling enormous sympathy for the victims of the recent flooding. I'm sure they appreciated the sentiment, but they probably would have appreciated it even more if Sen. McCain hadn't opposed legislation to fund levees and flood control programs, which he considers pork."

McCain stood with Bush in opposing a bill that sets out to invest $23 billion in water projects.

The bill overwhelmingly passed Congress and was vetoed by Bush. Congress, for the first time of Bush's Presidency, voted to override the veto.

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Directly From The Butt Of Rush Limbaugh

2008-07-24T09:08:13Z

Update June 19, 2008 - OAKVILLE, Iowa - As floodwaters take aim at the tiny towns lining the Mississippi River, the heartland ethic of neighbors helping neighbors proved to be a potent force against the rising water Tuesday. Volunteers up and down the river in Illinois and Missouri joined sandbagging operations in the frantic effort to contain the Mississippi as forecasters predicted near-record crests from Quincy, Ill., to Winfield, Mo. "There's one thing about Midwesterners," said Don Giltner, mayor of Louisiana, Mo., a picturesque river town north of St. Louis where 40 square blocks were under water Wednesday, three days before the Mississippi's expected crest. "We're resilient as hell. We're all worn out. We've put in a lot of long days." Storms and flooding across six states this month have killed 24 people, injured 148 and caused more than $1.5 billion in estimated damage in Iowa alone — a figure that's likely to increase as river levels climb in Missouri and Illinois. More at Yahoo News... ---- I praise the resilience of these fine folks but unlike Limbaugh I don't need to thoroughly damn other American victims in order to give them praise. thethinkingblue --------- On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated coastal areas of the Gulf Coast states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, including the city of New Orleans. It was among the greatest of natural disasters to ever strike the United States. Katrina, which cut across Florida, had intensified into a Category 5 storm over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, reaching top winds of 175 mph (282 kph) before weakening as it neared the coast. Windspeeds over 140 mph (225 kph) were recorded at landfall in southeastern Louisiana while winds gusted to over 100 mph (160 kph) in New Orleans, just west of the eye. As the hurricane made its second landfall on the Mississippi/Louisiana border, windspeeds were approximately 125 mph (200 kph). Gusts of over 80 mph (129 kph) were recorded in Mobile and 90 mph (145 kph) in Biloxi, MS. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so true, but words are important just the same. What is happening in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region, is beyond pictures and beyond words. To see the human suffering, live on your TV and not see any help, has to be one of the most calloused happening of our time! Right here in America, the land of plenty, it is completely horrendous and unbelievable. The babies, old people, desperate mothers, hungry, thirsty little children and the dead bodies floating in the sludge mixture of the Pontchartrain river and filthy debris left in the storm's wake, played out a nightmare scenario that no movie set could have duplicated with more heart wrenching agony. All of us, who watched our TV screens displaying the suffering of people searing in the heat of the smoldering, hot southern sun, felt so helpless. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now, Limbaugh, an arrogant ideologue that loves Howard Kurtz and hates the black victims of NOLA. He wants you to understand, it was all their fault for not escaping Hurricane Katrina! Wake, up! You drive by media fools. They were lazy, lazy people that deserved their fate. If only they were white and responsible. Just listen to this horrific rant as Limbaugh is all 'agush' with admiration over the way in which Iowa and the Midwest has responded to the flood disaster that befell the area last week. But to just congratulate the residents in their determination and courage in fighting the disaster isn't enough for the AM talk blow hard. Limbaugh could not pass up the opportunity to once again trot out his old, well known disdain for poor blacks in the south who were victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. To hear Limbaugh describe it, Iowa is more American, more honorable ... you know ... more white than Louisiana. Also see video here: thethinkingblue.com/limbaughbutt.html

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Rush Limbaugh: People of IA & IL, Better than New Orleans

2008-06-27T18:40:25Z

Rush Limbaugh continues to hate Katrina victims as he compares them to flood victims in Iowa and Illinois.

Want some political assistance? Come to www.theyoungturks.com

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Democracy Now Headlines- Tues. June, 17, 2008-1/2

2008-06-26T20:39:41Z

Headlines

* Senate Report: Military Psychologists Helped Devise Interrogations
* Report: US Wrongfully Imprisoned Many in Overseas Prisons
* California Performs Legally Recognized Same-Sex Weddings
* Al Gore Endorses Sen. Barack Obama
* McCain: Lift Federal Ban on Offshore Oil Drilling
* Taliban Seizes Seven Villages Near Kandahar
* Amnesty: Iraqi Refugee Crisis Worsening
* Countrywide Gave Two Democrats Discounted Mortgages
* Prosecutors Seek Indictment in US Attorneys Scandal
* Court to Rule Whether 9/11 Detainees Can Sue Ashcroft
* Ban Ki-moon Condemns Killing of Journalists
* Flooding in Iowa Forces Price of Corn to Record Levels
* Bush Accuses UK Journalist of Slandering America for Questioning Gitmo Policies
* More Headlines...

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Democracy Now Headlines- Tues. June, 17, 2008-2/2

2008-06-26T20:39:41Z

Headlines

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UNDECLARED MARTIAL LAW CONTINUES FOR IOWA FLOOD RESIDENTS

2008-07-09T11:19:04Z

Iowa residents have been striped of their 4 amendment rights as the Police & Military still make up reasons why people in Iowa cannot return home. They arrest anyone who questions their authority. They admit they are making it up as they go along. This shows you that you have no freedom and no rights. Anyone who thinks this is ok is sheep and needs to wake up. There needs to be a process. Our rights are being trampled on and soon Martial Law will go into order and there is nothing you will be able to do about it! Watch, Learn and remember for this time will soon fall upon all of us!!!
the real purpose of FEMA is to not only protect the government but to be its principal vehicle for martial law" and this is why "FEMA could not respond immediately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster — humanitarian efforts were no longer part of its job description under the Department of Homeland Security."
It appears Hurricane Katrina also provided FEMA with an excuse to "dry run" its unconstitutional powers in New Orleans, rounding up "refugees" (now called "evacuees") and "relocating" them in various camps. "Some evacuees are being treated as 'internees' by FEMA," writes former NSA employee Wayne Madsen.
Homeland Security spokesman John Erickson told the Indy Star residents are basically on their own. Erickson said Hoosiers should "start the cleanup process and don't wait for federal assistance at this point."
Hampton adds: "You heard it straight from the FEMA spokesman's mouth. Don't wait for them. They might not even show up at all. Pray they don't, or southern Indiana could wind up like New Orleans. Travel trailers, anyone?"
"In the current series of disasters," writes Jim Kirwan, "there are no [National Guard] troops here to help with evacuations, and the only help that FEMA is currently offering to victims of the Iowa flooding is: 'save all your receipts, because you'll need to prove what it cost you if you want any help after this is over.'"

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MARTIAL LAW the TRUE ROLE OF FEMA!

2008-07-14T21:18:10Z

It spent $1.3 billion building secret bunkers throughout the United States in anticipation of government disruption by foreign or domestic upheaval. Yet fewer than 20 members of Congress , only members with top security clearance, know of the $1.3 billion expenditure by FEMA for non-natural disaster situations. These few Congressional leaders state that FEMA has a "black curtain" around its operations. FEMA has worked on National Security programs since 1979, and its predecessor, the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency, has secretly spent millions of dollars before being merged into FEMA by President Carter in 1979.
Operation Cable Splicer, Garden Plot, and REX 84 (short for Readiness Exercise 1984) are programs long on the shelf, awaiting the appropriate "disaster" to be taken down and implemented. Garden Plot is a program designed to control the population, while Cable Splicer is a program engineered for an orderly takeover of state and local governments by the federal government. FEMA is the executive arm of the coming police state and will head up operations. The Presidential Executive Orders already listed on the Federal Register also are part of the legal framework for this operation, and include the following:
10990 (allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports), 10995 (allows the government to seize and control the communication media), 10997 (allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals), 10998 (allows the government to take over all food resources and farms), 11000 (allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision), 11001 (allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions), 11002 (designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons), 11003 (allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft), 11004 (allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations) and 11005 (allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities).
More recently, the National Defense Authorization Act, under Sect. 1042, allows the use of "the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies" and explicitly gives the executive the power to invoke martial law -- in other words, kiss Posse Comitatus good-bye. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order," Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle in February. Add to this the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and National Security Presidential Directive 51, allowing for "continuity of government" in the event of what NSPD-5 vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency," and the framework is in place for the imposition of martial law.
As a recent example of the sort of activity FEMA is engaged in, as they tell flood victims in the Midwest to fend for themselves, consider the $22 million per year the agency has spent "on a terror training program within a real town in New Mexico where helicopters buzz overhead in the middle of the night, mock nuclear explosions are drilled and 'suicide bombers' are taken down by SWAT teams who pull citizens out of their homes," writes Steve Watson. The Associated Press (see video) deems such events "unthinkable," and indeed they are, while floods and hurricanes are a reality.
FEMA has very little to do with the sort of natural disasters the people of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Indiana are currently experiencing and everything to do with martial law, thus DHS boss Chertoff's satisfaction "with the federal response to the massive Midwest flooding" is little more than a dog and pony show, a public relations gimmick slapped over the real face of FEMA.

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Democracy Now Headlines- June, 16, 2008

2008-06-26T06:38:56Z

Today's Headlines

* Iowa Flooding Leaves 36,000 Homeless
* Flooding in China Kills 70 People
* Al-Maliki Warns Iraq May Not Sign US Forces Agreement
* Karzai Threatens to Send Afghan Troops into Pakistan
* McCain: Gitmo Ruling One of Court's "Worst Decisions" Ever
* McCain Fundraiser Compares Rape to Bad Weather
* Report: AQ Khan Had Electronic Blueprints of Nuclear Weapon
* Memorial Unveiled for Journalists Killed
* Reuters Calls on Israel to Release Findings of Killed Cameraman
* FCC Chair to Support XM-Sirius Merger
* Los Angeles Dismisses "Afro-centric" Teacher
* Progressive Philanthropist Stewart Mott, 70, Dies
* "Meet the Press" Host Tim Russert, 58, Dies

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IOWA FLOODING RESIDENTS NOW UNDER MARTIAL LAW

2008-07-08T16:42:19Z

Residents in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, were allowed to return home briefly on Sunday to retrieve keepsakes and other items, but authorities later determined the neighborhoods were no longer safe, even for a quick visit. Police set up checkpoints to keep people away from the affected neighborhoods.
Evacuees waited in line at the checkpoints Sunday to receive special wristbands that allowed them to go home and gather their belongings. Authorities set a curfew and asked the residents to stay out of the neighborhoods between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., so people stuffed what they could into plastic bags and returned to the checkpoints.
The checkpoints -- manned by police and the Iowa National Guard -- remained in place Monday, but Brown said authorities would not be letting residents check on their homes.
Residents have been getting angry with the authorities who are keeping them from their homes, she said, but she understands safety comes first.
"They have Red Cross, police department, fire department, and the people who they brought in -- the Marines and stuff, the National Guard -- have been excellent," she said. "They are keeping us out of our homes even though we're getting upset with them. We have no right because they're trying to protect us."

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Iowa Shares Connection

2008-07-24T08:44:06Z

I made this for Iowa Shares featuring one of their member groups, Home Connection.

www.iowashares.org for more info

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6 on 6 Basketball

2008-07-24T08:44:06Z

This segment aired in March 2003, ten years after Iowans watched the last high school girl's basketball six player championship game.

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Interview with Dr. Mary Gilchrist

2008-07-24T08:44:05Z

This is a short clip from a half-hour program that will air April 30th, 2007 at 7:30pm on PATV.
Bio-terrorism, pandemic H5N1 avian influenza and the University Hygienic Laboratory will be discussed with Dr. Mary Gilchrist.
Gilchrist will be sharing photos from her recent trip to Egypt, Nepal, and Thailand where she evaluated labs for their preparations to detect H5N1 avian influenza.

She will also talk about her lawsuit against UI President Gary Fethke and her ongoing campaign for a better state public health lab in Iowa.

More about Gilchrist's public health campaign at:

http://www.iowanswantthebestlab.org/

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Kao Kalia Yang's "The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir"

2008-07-24T08:44:05Z

Kao Kalia Yang's first book, "The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir," is available from Coffee House Press.

She was in Iowa City to give a reading at Prairie Lights Bookstore.

http://www.coffeehousepress.org/

http://www.prairielights.com/

http://atomburke.com

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Postville, Iowa: A National Disgrace

2008-07-22T10:17:47Z

What's going on in the small town of Postville, Iowa is a national disgrace. Last Monday, ICE agents raided the Agriprocessors, Inc. kosher meat packing plant in pursuit of illegal immigrants. They arrested 300 undocumented workers—the largest single-site raid in the country—which has left the town of less than 3,000 people in utter chaos.

According to Nightprowlkitty at Docudharma (cross-posted at Daily Kos), families are unable to reach or receive any info about their detained loved ones. Lawyers can't access these workers either. Children are afraid to leave their homes to go to school. And to top it all off, federal authorities have the ability to ship these detainees across country for deportation without any notice.

Postville epitomizes the dire state of our national immigration system. You have undocumented workers who are subjected to inhuman labor practices because they can't come forward, can't unionize. And you have an ailing national economy that relies on the labor of undocumented workers, just like in Postville. You also have detainees being mistreated, even perishing, at the hands of grossly mismanaged private detention facilities, which make huge profits at the taxpayers' expense. Meanwhile, the families of these detainees (including children who are here legally by birthright) are left in the dark.

With an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country, is Postville what we're going to see from now on?

Daily Kos also has ways to send aid to the Postville families impacted by the raids.

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Christian Immigrants Seek Refuge At St. Bridget's

2008-07-24T08:38:22Z

Postville, IA -- Fearing the return of I.C.E agents, hundreds of Christian Immigrants wait at St. Bridget's Catholic Chuch in Postville,Iowa for any word on their missing family memembers.

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Iowa ICE Raids Solve Nothing

2008-06-07T09:37:00Z

The ICE raid of Agriprocessors, a meat packing plant, is the largest in the history of Iowa, leading to the arrests of about 390 workers on charges of aggravated identity theft, unlawful use of Social Security numbers and other related offenses. And yet again, the employers of these undocumented migrants, Agriprocessors Inc., would probably walk away scot-free, hiring more undocumented workers when the raids are forgotten. After all, Agriprocessors Inc. has a history of non-compliance with federal and state laws, and since the owner is a major contributor to the Republican Party, Agriprocessors has been allowed to operate with small fines now and then.

Rounding up migrant workers to arrest and charge them is not the solution to stopping illegal immigration. It rips families apart, spreading a climate of fear throughout the community, shutting down more businesses, while opening up jobs for a new pool of undocumented workers to fill up. Postville, Iowa, has turned into a ghostown—the raids putting the town into serious economic jeopardy according to residents. If ICE was serious about stopping illegal immigration, the agency would focus on reducing the incentives for undocumented migrants, which includes making it tougher for employers to hire them and getting UCSIS to resolve the issue of visa backlogs.

Did John McCain Call His Wife a C**t?

2008-06-06T15:34:53Z

At a town hall meeting in Iowa yesterday, Baptist Minister Marty Parrish asked McCain:

"This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I've been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a (expletive)?"
McCain: "Now, now. You don't want to... Um, you know that's the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don't, there's people here who don't respect that kind of language. So I'll move on to the next questioner in the back."

Apparently, Parrish was escorted out of the town hall for asking this question, then detained by Secret Service before being released. To me, that suggests a total hypocrisy at play. McCain can use this expletive to refer to his wife, but if an average citizen questions him about it publicly, he's taken into police custody, forced to leave a public forum, and questioned by the Secret Service?!

Parrish, who used to work for Joe Biden's campaign, explained the reasons for his question: "What I am worried about is his temper. Our country is in a serious crisis. This election is the most significant one since 1860. It appears America is asleep -- so I stood up and asked the question."

Cliff Schecter, who first revealed McCain's misogynistic mindset in his book, The Real McCain, has more on the town hall exchange at FireDogLake.

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"The Made-for-TV Election with Martin Sheen" clip 6

2008-06-09T09:35:35Z

www.themadefortvelection.com "Kennedy's Shah Blunder, Jerry Brown the Clown, Cameo Appearances and Bush's Big Iowa Mo" are several of the numerous television-based, "pseudo-realities" presented in this rare, never-before-broadcast documentary feature examining how TV changed the 1980 Presidential Election Campaign when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter. Watch how commercial broadcast networks use polls, gaffes, stereotypes and other show business values to create winners and losers in a drama of their own making to pump the ratings--and distract you from what you need to be an informed citizen and understand what's really happening in America. "Profoundly enlightening... a devastating look at TV's impact on the presidency." --Helen Thomas, Hearst News Service and "Dean Emeritus" of the White House press corps. Before Martin Sheen was playing President and winning elections in NBC's "The West Wing"... before the Supreme Court stopped the recount in Florida... before even the Internet--back when CNN was in its infancy--there was an election. It was an election that was made-by-TV, for-TV. We call it "The Made-for-TV Election." The year was 1980... the raw power of the Big Three TV Networks was at it's peak... CBS wore the Tiffany Crown and Walter Cronkite was "the most credible man in America." Jimmy Carter was stuck in the White House surrounded by gas lines... An actor named Ronald Reagan came out of the West promising "to get government off the backs of the people" and repeal the New Deal. And as had become the habit, the TV Networks put politics and show business together in a blender and branded the brew "Campaign 80": Carter's Crisis of Competence... The Kennedy Challenge... Chappaquiddick Revisited... The Shah Blunder... Jerry Brown the Clown... Bush's Big Iowa Mo... Reagan's Nashua Theatrics... TV's Maverick... The Rose Garden Strategy... The Dream Ticket... Carter the Loser... Reagan the Buffoon... Carter the Meenie... The Great Debate... The October Surprise... America Held Hostage Revisited... Election Night... Day 444... and other episodes that reveal TV's hidden hand in an election that radically changed America's course. "Pertinent, powerful and persuasive... handsomely produced.... brilliant..." former Los Angeles Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg. By revealing TV's role as catalyst, The Made-for-TV Election dispels the Made-for-TV myth that Ronald Reagan's landslide victory represented a "rising conservative tide in America" mandating the "Reagan Revolution" and "a sharp right turn in 1980, both from its own previous half century and, perhaps even more tellingly, from the economic, social and political norms of other developed countries..." This detour into business values, privatization and commercialization of the commons "has come at profound cost to Americans' common good. We work far longer hours, pay more for worse medical care, live shorter and more brutish (less educated, less leisurely, less informed, less equal, more polluting) lives than our European counterparts. That there are no easy solutions should come as no surprise..." From a review of Dean Baker's "The World Since 1980" by Leslie Thatcher, Truthout. "This film should be seen by every American in every city and town." -- Norman Lear, TV producer and Founder, People for the American Way. For US politics and news junkies everywhere, thanks to the Internet, this "must see TV" is coming soon to a screen very close to you. Look for DVD release in April 2008. www.themadefortvelection.com Copyrights 1986-2008 News Analysis Associates All Rights Reserved

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More false Bosnia claims from Clinton (12/29/07)

2008-06-12T21:30:32Z

Dubuque, Iowa

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Re: Barack Obama on Iraq

2008-07-24T08:20:59Z

He oppose the war in the beginning and he will end it when he is elected President of the United States of America...

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Pat Robertson Sees Self in Huckabee (But Prefers Giuliani)

2008-07-24T08:23:59Z

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2007/12/robertson_sees_1.html

Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president, but now that Mike Huckabee is using the same religious-right grassroots that Robertson built during his own campaign in 1988, Pat is getting nostalgic. But not enough to switch is vote. Dick Morris is Pat's interlocutor.

700 Club, 12/11/2007

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New Iowa Poll Highlights Electability Issue For Democrats

2008-02-23T09:50:32Z

A new poll of likely voters in Iowa by Survey USA may just afford us a peek into how heartland America will vote come November. It might also clearly illustrate why many pragmatic Democrats who don't see much difference between Obama and Clinton and hungry for a Presidential win, might seriously be considering the electability issue when choosing who to support in any given primary contest.

Obama 51%
McCain 41%

Clinton 41%
McCain 52%

I would be happy with either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton as President, a view expressed by many Democrats these days. The goal should be to win; the stakes are just too high to look at this election any other way. The alternative, a McCain presidency would mean a continuation of the extremist right-wing policies of the Bush administration, including possibly two more Scalias on the Supreme Court.

Accordingly, electability is not only a valid reason for supporting a candidate, it may be the best reason.

Iowa - Phone Banking for John Edwards

2008-07-24T08:18:51Z

As Senator John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth made a 36 hour whirlwind tour of Iowa, Steelworkers and other supporters were phone banking on his behalf. This is a stop at the Des Moines Steelworkers Hall on 01-01-08.

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FOX News Exposes Diebold Electronic Vote Flipping in Florida

2008-06-12T03:29:25Z

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