Where Are All The Military Absentee Ballots?
During one of the most hotly contested elections in recent U.S. history, the number of military absentee ballot requests is strangely down by staggering numbers compared to the 2008 election.
The information comes as KleinOnline confirmed this week that SCYTL, an international firm headquartered in Spain, has been contracted by seven states to provide secure online ballot delivery for overseas military and civilian voters for the upcoming presidential election. Michelle M. Shafer, SCYTL’s director of communications & government affairs, told KleinOnline that her company is contracted by the states of New York, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Mississippi to provide the overseas ballots.
She said the ballots will be delivered via online PDF files by SCYTL and not by the company’s U.S. subsidiary, SOE Software. SCYTL this past January purchased SOE Software, the leading U.S. electronic voting firm.
Next month’s election marks the second time that SCYTL will have provided overseas balloting. During the 2010 midterm elections, the company was contracted by the Defense Department’s Federal Voting Assistance Program to support overseas military and civilian voting in nine of the 20 states that agreed to participate in the program. SCYTL was the provider with the highest number of participating states during that election.
Occupy Movement Engaged
In A ‘Struggle For Its Soul’
Occupy is engaged in a battle for its soul against financial support from “the monied old left,” according to the Adbusters magazine website, which serves as one of the main planning hubs of the Occupy movement.
Reports Adbusters: “On September 17 last year a new crop of wild lefties took the crusty old guard by surprise … then, one by one, the old lefties came to Zuccotti to pay homage and offer their support. A struggle for the soul of Occupy has been percolating ever since.”
“At stake,” writes Adbusters, “is whether the young anarchic spirit and voice of Occupy will stay with the new left horizontals who launched the movement or whether it will move towards the monied old left.”
The magazine lamented the “disaster” of Occupy Wall Street accepting money from Ben & Jerry’s ice cream founder Ben Cohen to fund a passenger van rigged with a powerful projector to beam progressive messages onto the sides of buildings.
Cohen reportedly provided nearly $30,000 to fund Occupy’s projector van only to later demand more control over the automobile’s messaging, according to reports.
The projector van is known in Occupy circles as “The Illuminator.” It also goes by other alternative names, including the Occupy ProjectoVan, the Batmobile and an Art Car for the 99 percent.
NDAInfo.comreports that after lengthy arguments about message control, Occupy activists agreed to share the van with Cohen through the end of the summer and then hand it over to him on Monday.
Behind Obama’s ‘Economic Patriotism’
President Obama’s latest catch phrase, “new economic patriotism,” is neither new nor necessarily patriotic. In Europe, the term possesses a historically socialist connotation, having been used to describe the government takeover of private industry.
In a two-minute web advertisement released last Wednesday, Obama delivered a video message calling for a “new economic patriotism” that allegedly emphasizes the middle class while taxing the rich. Obama repeated the phrase in his opening remarks at the first presidential debate.
“It’s time for a new economic patriotism,” Obama declared. “Rooted in the belief that growing our economy begins with a strong, thriving middle class.”
Obama first teased the term several weeks before last week’s ad was released.
The use of the phrase “economic patriotism” did not originate with Obama. In Europe, the phrase routinely refers to the government takeover of private industries.
In March 2006, the European Report reported, “The reappearance of the old problem of economic patriotism and its protectionist undertones was the flavour of the month at the euro-zone Finance Ministers’ meeting in Brussels on 13 March.”
Alex Brummer reported in the London Daily Mail on the intra-European Union squabbles between England, France, and Italy:
“France has a long and honourable tradition of economic patriotism dating back to Jean-Baptiste Colbert in the 19th century.
“The difficulty is that its onesided approach to takeovers is opposed to the idea of the free and open markets espoused by the European Union.…