StupidiNews!

• Mitt Romney has unofficially collected enough delegates to win the GOP presidential nomination by winning last night's Texas primary with 69% of the vote.
• Musical legend Bob Dylan and former astronaut and Ohio Sen. John Glenn were among this year's Presidential Medal of Freedom honorees, awarded by President Obama.
• Peruvian President Ollanta Humala has declared a 30-day state of emergency in the country's southern Espinar province as violent protests over the expansion on the Tintaya mine enters their second week.
• Facebook chief Mark Zuckerburg has seen his net worth drop by nearly $5 billion as Facebook stock has dropped 25% to under $29 a share from it's initial offering of $38 last week.
• President Obama is taking in record donations from Silicon Valley, but Mitt Romney is making friends in the tech industry as well.

Last Call

If you haven't noticed by now, there's more than one way to conduct war against a country.  Iran surely has figured that out as in addition to the crippling economic sanctions leveled against its oil exports and central bank by the US, it seems they now have a bit of a computer virus problem to boot.

A cyber-attack that targeted Iran’s oil ministry and main export terminal was caused by the most sophisticated computer worm yet developed, experts have warned.

The virus appears to have been directed primarily at a small number of organisations and individuals in Iran, the West Bank, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates. This will inevitably raise suspicions that Israel or the US were involved in some way.

Analysts who have been decoding the computer worm, which is called W32.Flamer, have been unable to identify the source. But they say only a professional team working for several months could have been behind it.

The CrySys Laboratory, in Hungary, said: “The results of our technical analysis supports the hypothesis that [the worm] was developed by a government agency of a nation state with significant budget and effort, and it may be related to cyberwarfare activities.”It is certainly the most sophisticated malware we [have] encountered. Arguably, it is the most complex malware ever found.”

Orla Cox, a senior analyst at Symantec, the international computer security firm, said: “I would say that this is the most sophisticated threat we have ever seen.”

Flamer appears to be an advanced version of the Stuxnet worm that ravaged Iran's uranium processing centrifuges last year, and of course there's no way to prove who is behind it, but I'm betting that if we didn't do it, we know exactly who did.  Apparently it lie dormant for two years before waiting to strike, which it did last week.  Some brave warrior up in US Cyber Command got a case of Code Red and some King Dons for this, no doubt.

Welcome to the brave new battlefield frontier, folks.  Diplomacy through other means and all that.

A Long Bout With Chronic Suppression

Both the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP are finally doing something about the GOP suppression of African-American votes through the barriers of "Voter ID" and the removal of early voting laws by starting a massive campaign to register new voters and to help voters get the IDs they now have to have in dozens of states.  They key:  reaching potential voters through black churches.

African-American churches, historically at the forefront of the nation’s civil and voting rights efforts, are grappling this election year with how to navigate through the wave of new voting-access laws approved in many Republican-controlled states, laws that many African-Americans believe were implemented to suppress the votes of minorities and others.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus and several hundred clergy leaders from the Conference of National Black Churches are scheduled to hold a summit Wednesday in Washington to discuss the new laws, their potential impact on African-American voters and how churches can educate parishioners, help them register and help get them to the polls on Election Day to prevent any significant drop-off from 2008.

“We will have attorneys there who are well-equipped to provide the guidance to the clergy members,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., the Congressional Black Caucus chair and a United Methodist pastor. “They will understand, before they leave, about some of the new laws in certain states designed – as we interpret them – to reduce the turnout. The day is over when they could just stand in the pulpit and say ‘Go vote. It’s your duty.’ They’ve got to now be equipped with some sophisticated information to help inspire a turnout and protect parishioners from some of the schemes that are out there.”

Since last year, at least 15 states have passed a wide array of laws that they say are aimed at reducing voter fraud. Up to 38 states, including some of those 15, are weighing legislation that would require people to show government-approved photo identification or provide proof of citizenship before registering or casting ballots.

That's excellent news to hear, and I only wish it had begun sooner.  And hopefully the Congressional Hispanic Caucus can conduct a similar effort.  The Latino vote is only going to become more and more important for progressives as the elections wear on, but the GOP is doing everything they can to displace minority voters in order to maintain power.

No matter how you feel about GOP or Democratic party policies, the notion that we have to limit voting to only certain groups should greatly disturb all Americans.  Throughout our history, many have given their lives to help secure the right for citizens to vote.  Working now to reverse that trend is simply repugnant and an affront to their sacrifice.

It's good to see the CBC and the NAACP rejoin this fight.  Sadly, it seems that even in 2012 that fight will never end.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/28/150182/congressional-black-caucus-rallies.html#storylink=cpy

Minnesota's Burn Notice

A Minneapolis church famous for acceptance of gay rights and progressive causes just happens to burn to the ground during an election year where same-sex marriage is on the ballot.  That's not suspicious in the least.

According to the StarTribune, the Walker Community United Methodist Church caught fire around 8:20 p.m. Five of the firefighters who battled the blaze for hours were taken to the hospital, but their injuries were not life threatening.

“Some people at the scene Sunday night speculated lightning was the culprit, while close neighbors said they thought it could be arson,” the paper reported.

Walker Methodist Church is known within the Minneapolis progressive community as a meeting place for various activist groups. Communities United Against Police Brutality CUAPB, Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) and the Welfare Rights Committee all had offices in the building.

In June 2011, the church adopted a statement supporting LGBT rights and marriage equality. 

And now a year later, the church is gone.   But don't dare call the other side bigots, extremists, or hypocrites, because I'm sure anti-gay churches famous for their stance on LGBT issues like Westboro Baptist in Kansas get burned down all the time by extremist liberals, right?

Or you know, maybe God just enjoys burning down his own churches.  Who knows.  Hey, accidents happen, just like at southern black churches in the 60's, right?

It's Surprising What One Can Do

Especially when one doesn't care what is labeled "impossible" and tries anyway.

A German 16-year-old has become the first person to solve a mathematical problem posed by Sir Isaac Newton more than 300 years ago. Shouryya Ray worked out how to calculate exactly the path of a projectile under gravity and subject to air resistance, The (London) Sunday Times reported. The Indian-born teen said he solved the problem that had stumped mathematicians for centuries while working on a school project. Mr Ray won a research award for his efforts and has been labeled a genius by the German media, but he put it down to "curiosity and schoolboy naivety". "When it was explained to us that the problems had no solutions, I thought to myself, 'well, there's no harm in trying,'" he said.

His father taught him advanced math at an early age, and not only gave him knowledge but the desire to apply his talent.  At this point, the 16-year-old used math that is far above his father's reach, and is humble enough to play it down.

Well done, sir.  Well done.

Delta Blues

Delta Airlines has introduced a "basic economy" plan that supposedly offers a no-frills option.  Except it doesn't.

The airline tries to spin it like a boon for customers, with phrases such as "it's all about choice" and options.  But there are a few major flaws with basic economy, and travelers will find the meager savings a poor value.

First, you can't change your itinerary.  At all.  Even if you were willing to pay the exorbitant $50 fee to change your plans, it's simply not an option.  The customer's choice is to pay full price ticket to the next destination, or take the bus.

Customers can also choose to travel light, because they will pay even for carry-on bags under this plan.  It's reassuring to know that those traveling with only the clothes on their back will not be stuck with baggage fees.  There's so many of them, you know.

There are other minor sacrifices, such as being assigned seating upon check-in, but the major drawback will be the inability to change travel plans, even for circumstances beyond the traveler's control.  Delta says they are offering a choice, but to me it looks like they are charging a convenience fee to give you the right to pay $50 to change your plans and have a carry-on bag.

According to the article, it wasn't even a $20 savings on a trip from Detroit to Fort Lauderdale.  I expect this to be a black eye for them, at a time when it's hard enough to fill planes.  Delta is given the jackass tag for good reason.

The Invisible Sledgehammer In The Invisible Hand Of The Market

Johnny Volcano tell the truth again:

In defending Mitt Romney’s private sector experience Sunday, top surrogate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) explained that capitalism can be “cruel.”

“This is the free enterprise system. The only place in the world that I can recall where companies never failed was the old Soviet Union,” McCain said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And yes, the free enterprise system can be cruel.”

It exists to cull the weak and endorse the rich, who invest and decide who wins and who loses.  And Mitt Romney wants to do that to all of America.

The Obama campaign has run attack ads highlighting jobs lost at companies owned by Bain Capital, which Romney led. Host Wallace dug up quotes from McCain’s GOP primary campaign against Romney four years ago in which he criticized his Bain Capital record as well.

“He managed companies, and he bought and he sold, and sometimes people lost their jobs,” McCain said at the time.

McCain stood by that comment Sunday, arguing that that’s how capitalism works. McCain cited the example of Bain Capital investing in Staples, a successful Bain investment, before turning to attack President Obama. It’s a lack of investment in small businesses that is stifling job growth today, McCain contended.

Sure.  And Mitt Romney wants to run America's government like a for-profit enterprise.  The sick, the poor, the elderly, well, they're a net drain on profits.

We'll have to downsize them under a Romney government, of course.

Behind Every Successful Democrat...

...is a Villager telling him You're Doing It Wrong.  This week's contestant:  New York Magazine's John Heilemann, who is horrified to discover that the Obama campaign isn't rolling over for the hundreds of millions of dollars in GOP super PAC ads already crushing the airwaves in swing states.  He's so horrified that President Obama is fighting back that he completely turns on him:

But if the Obama 2012 strategy in this regard is all about the amplification of 2008, in terms of message it will represent a striking deviation. Though the Obamans certainly hit John McCain hard four years ago—running more negative ads than any campaign in history—what they intend to do to Romney is more savage. They will pummel him for being a vulture-vampire capitalist at Bain Capital. They will pound him for being a miserable failure as the governor of Massachusetts. They will mash him for being a water-carrier for Paul Ryan’s Social Darwinist fiscal program. They will maul him for being a combination of Jerry Falwell, Joe Arpaio, and John Galt on a range of issues that strike deep chords with the Obama coalition. “We’re gonna say, ‘Let’s be clear what he would do as president,’ ” Plouffe explains. “Potentially abortion will be criminalized. Women will be denied contraceptive services. He’s far right on immigration. He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage.”

The Obama effort at disqualifying Romney will go beyond painting him as excessively conservative, however. It will aim to cast him as an avatar of revanchism. “He’s the fifties, he is retro, he is backward, and we are forward—that’s the basic construct,” says a top Obama strategist. “If you’re a woman, you’re Hispanic, you’re young, or you’ve gotten left out, you look at Romney and say, ‘This fucking guy is gonna take us back to the way it always was, and guess what? I’ve never been part of that.’ ”

Thus, to a very real degree, 2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear. For many Democrats, this is just fine and dandy, for they believe that in the Romney-Republican agenda there is plenty to be scared of. For others in the party in both politics and business, however, the new Obama posture is cause for concern. From the gay-­marriage decision to the onslaught on Bain, they see the president and his team as coming across as too divisive, too conventional, and too nakedly political, putting at risk Obama’s greatest asset—his likability—with the voters in the middle of the electorate who will ultimately decide his fate.

Whichever side is right, one thing is undeniable. For anyone still starry-eyed about Obama, the months ahead will provide a bracing revelation about what he truly is: not a savior, not a saint, not a man above the fray, but a brass-knuckled, pipe-hitting, red-in-tooth-and-claw brawler determined to do what is necessary to stay in power—in other words, a politician.

And it goes on for another six and a half pages or so.  The gist is that it's not Mitt Romney you should be afraid of, but Extremist Black Radical Barack Hussein Obama, who can't possibly be a centrist, but an awful politician and not a maverick like Romney.  Indeed, Heilemann goes on to soft-pedal Romney's record as McCain without the anger, a perfectly reasonable, perfectly sensible centrist...and you're not going to vote for...that other guy...are you?  You don't want to be one of the America-destroying partisans, do you?  Heilemann even has his own term for these awful people:  Obamans.

And according to Heilemann, the Obamans are desperate, scared, arrogant, delusional...and going to lose.

What’s clear is that an Obama victory could have profound political implications for the future of the Democratic Party. When 44 arrived in office, some forecast that he might usher in a New New Deal. (Nope.) But if he gains reelection by consolidating his party’s position with the electorate’s ascendant demographic forces, Obama may succeed in creating a viable post–New Deal coalition on which Democrats can build for years to come. “Ronald Reagan turned a whole bunch of people who are now seniors into Republicans,” says Messina. “What is happening now is that young people, women, and Latinos are becoming Democrats. That’s the coalition Obama brought; demographics brought it, too. And for the next 30 years, it is going to be a real challenge for Republicans.”

Of course, if Obama loses, all such grand talk will be consigned to the ash heap of history—and hubris.

The Village has to have their horse race, after all.  What better way than six months of OBAMA IS DOOOOOOOMED pieces in liberal news sources?   After all, these guys don't give a damn who ends up President:  they win either way.

StupidiNews!

• A powerful earthquake rocked Italy early Tuesday, leaving at least three dead in a region that saw nine people killed by a quake last week.
• Scientists have discovered traces of radioactivity in tuna off the US west coast, the contamination apparently from Japan's doomed Fukushima reactor 6,000 miles away.
• A blast in downtown Nairobi is being blamed on Somalian Islamist group al Shahab as the al Qaeda offshoot retaliates for Kenya's military intervention in Somalia.
• Greece's Democratic Left Party may be the deciding vote in a new coalition government in June, but they want guarantees Greece will stay in the eurozone first.
• NASA's advice to LunarX moon mission competitors?  Good luck with your projects, and please stay away from our Apollo 17 moon landing site.

Last Call

Ladies and Gentlemen, my senator, Rand Paul:

Mr. President, today I'm offering an Amendment to the FDA. I'm troubled by images of armed agents, armed FDA agents raiding Amish farms and preventing them from selling milk directly from the cow. I think we have bigger problems in our country without sending armed FDA agents onto peaceful farmers land and telling them they can't sell milk directly from the cow.

My Amendment has three parts, first, it attempts to stop the FDA's overzealous regulation of vitamins, food and supplements by codifying the First Amendment's prohibition on prior restraint. What do I mean by that? The First Amendment says you can't prevent speech, even commercial speech, in advance of this speech. You can't tell Cheerios that they can't say that there is a health benefit to their Cheerios.  Under our current FDA laws, FDA says if you want to market prune juice, you can’t say that it cures constipation.

You can’t make a health claim about a food supplement or about a vitamin, you can do it about a pharmaceutical, but you’re not allowed to do it about a health supplement.

I think this should change. There have been several court cases that show this goes against not only the spirit but the letter of the law of the First Amendment. So this amendment would change that.
This amendment would stop the FDA from censoring claims about curative, mitigative effects of dietary supplements. It would also stop the FDA from prohibiting distribution of scientific articles and publications regarding the role of nutrients in protecting against disease. Despite four court orders condemning the practice as a violation of the First Amendment, the FDA continues to suppress consumers’ right to be informed and to make informed choices by denying them this particular information. It’s time for Congress to put an end to FDA censorship.

In other words, if the food giants and the drug giants want to lie and say their product cures cancer, they should be allowed to.  If the product doesn't do what the claims say they do and actually ends up killing you, well then the free market will step in and consumers will put that company out of business.  Furthermore, the FDA saying "But these claims aren't true, you can't use them" is robbing our precious mega-corporations of the Founder's God-Given Right(tm) to bilk you out of billions with false data and misleading studies.  After all, if you're not smart enough to be able to judge the claims on your own, you deserve to have the Invisible Hand take your wallet.

Freedom to be fleeced for everybody!  What's more American than that?

Olympic Sized Tool

The pressure on Syria is ratcheting up since this weekend's awful massacre in Houla by the twisted al-Assad regime.

The killings of more than 100 Syrian civilians, including nearly 50 children, provoked outrage around Syria and worldwide Sunday as horrific images of the bodies in Houla spread across the internet.

Videos posted Sunday on YouTube show demonstrations in cities around the country, including Damascus, Daraa, Idlib, and the suburbs of Hama.

"Oh Houla, we are with you until death," protesters chanted in Daraa. And a demonstration in Idlib showed a U.N. vehicle among protesters. In the Hama suburbs, demonstrators called for President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

The UN Security Council condemned the massacre on Sunday, and now the UK is strongly considering barring Syrian officials from the 2012 London Olympics.

[Deputy PM] Nick Clegg has said that the government would stop Syrian military figures accused of human rights abuses from visiting the UK during the Olympics.

He said on Sunday that the government had recently changed the rules so that there was now a presumption that those individuals “shown to have abused human rights” would be banned.

Clegg was speaking after a Syrian general close to President Bashar al-Assad told the Times that he was determined to come to the Olympics in his capacity as president of the Syrian national Olympic committee. General Mofwaq Joumaa, who is hoping to lead a 31-strong Syrian delegation at the Games, said that it would be unfair if he was blocked because of his military background.

That's a pretty big move on the part of Clegg and the UK and the least they can do to make it clear that Syria's bloodthirsty goons won't be tolerated by the rest of the world.  Something's going to have to happen about Syria and soon.  I think it will.

Greek Fire, Part 57

And as the problems in Spain are accelerating, the biggest risk of collapse right now in Europe remains Greece.  Spain's economic disintegration would be far worse, but Greece's is far more likely, measured now in possibly weeks, not months before the Troika has to step in yet again or risk eurozone meltdown...and a global crisis.

Greece's public finances could collapse as early as next month, leaving salaries and pensions unpaid unless a stable government emerges from the June 17 election, according to Lucas Papademos, the technocrat prime minister who left office after this month's inconclusive vote.

Mr Papademos warned that conditions were deteriorating faster than expected with cash flow likely to turn negative in early June amid a sharp fall in tax revenues and a loosening of spending controls during two back-to-back election campaigns.

Mounting anxiety that Greece is headed for further political instability and a possible exit from the euro has prompted many Greeks to postpone making tax payments, and has also accelerated outflows of deposits from local banks.

Athens bankers estimate that more than €3bn of cash withdrawn since the May 6 election has been stashed in safe-deposit boxes and under mattresses in case the country is forced to readopt the drachma.

That's terrifying news.  The slow-motion bank runs in Greece are well underway, and people are simply putting off tax payments with no real government in power right now.  There's no reason to believe June's elections will break the deadlock, either.  None.  The Greek Fire is now burning through the country's cash on hand reserves.  It's not going to be able to pay employees within weeks.  That's only going to increase the bank runs and delay more tax payments.

I don't see a way out of this now other than Yet Another Bailout.  And this time, I think Germany will say "nein".

On the other hand, Spain is in real trouble too:

Why has this piece of bad news terrified global elites? In the first place because it demonstrates that in addition to huge costs in bailing out its banking sector the insolvent Spanish central government is going to get hit with massive bills from not only Catalonia but its other regional governments. It is going to have to go to the financial markets hat in hand to borrow more money than expected — this is going to drive interest rates up in Spain (and probably in Italy and Belgium) just at the time when Europe’s financial markets were trembling on the brink of yet another panic. And it means that Spain is likely to come to the EU much sooner than expected with a much bigger bailout request than anybody thought.

It's a race as to which country will need that bailout first.   But Spain's day joining the rest of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece) in the Bailout Club is now a guarantee, folks.

It's getting scary.  Real bad.  And the Greek Fire is now picking up speed.

Dario Diary: I'm A Winner

Memorial Day weekend in this part of the country means the Indianapolis 500, arguably the most famous auto race on Earth, and Mr. Ashley Judd, Dario Franchitti, took home his third career trophy.  SI's Bruce Martin:

Before the start of Sunday's 96th Indianapolis 500, Dario Franchitti stood under an umbrella held by his wife -- actress Ashley Judd -- to shield himself from the scorching sun. He then leaned against the left-front tire to steal a moment of solitude amid a crowd of 350,000 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Judd's last words to her husband were, "I'll see you in Victory Lane."

Franchitti kept his date with his wife, driving into the history books with his third career Indianapolis 500 victory. He is just the seventh driver to complete that feat, and he did so in one of the most competitive Indy 500s in history.

There were 17 cars on the lead lap with a record 35 lead changes between 10 different drivers. The race was contested in 91-degree heat, which fell one degree shy of the all-time record (92 degrees) set in 1937.

As the laps dwindled, it appeared to be a two-man race between Franchitti and Target/Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon. The two traded the lead several times over the final six laps before Japan's Takuma Sato passed Dixon for second place. Sato went for the lead on the final lap, attempting to dive beneath Franchitti during the first turn, but his move didn't work. He lost control on the apron and crashed into the outside wall in Turn 1.

"I was going for the win, of course," said Sato, who was attempting to become the first driver from Japan to win the Indy 500. "I don't think Dario gave me enough room so I'm really disappointed. It was the very last lap and I drove in, but he didn't move up. I had nowhere to go, so I'm a little disappointed."

Franchitti crossed the finish line with the yellow and checkered flags waving. His two closet friends in the series, Dixon and Tony Kanaan, finished second and third respectively.

Give that man his milk bottle.  And Ashley Judd.  Yeah, there's a guy who won the lottery in this here universe.

Not Your Greatest Moment

MSNBC host Chris Hayes stepped in it Sunday when he said the following about Memorial Day and the US armed forces as "heroes":

“I feel… uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers, and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.”

It's a valid concern from a technical and word usage point of view, but as BooMan says, it's a pretty thickheaded thing to say on Memorial Day weekend on national TV.

 Now, some might say that calling all our dead soldiers 'heroes' is rhetorically proximate to legitimizing whatever they've been asked to do. If we call them 'heroes' then we are somehow making it more likely that we'll fight more stupid and unnecessary wars in the future. This is overwrought hand-wringing. We do have a problem when we make it taboo to criticize our soldiers or their missions. But we can segregate discussions of policy from maintaining some solemnity and respect for the dead. 

And Hayes did say he meant no disrespect to our men and women in uniform, true.  Choosing to say so on Memorial Day weekend, kind of a bad time to make that point.  Just saying.

On the other hand, if you want to be truly angry at someone who absolutely means disrespect for our fallen troops, there's freelance author and anti-war activist Charles Davis.

There is nothing honorable about serving in the US military. Good people join the armed forces, no doubt. But that's tragic, not heroic.

So on further analysis, Chris Hayes is off the hook, and Charles Davis is a complete asshole.  What a surprise, not all of the douchenozzles on the internet are conservatives.

If You Can't Steal A Presidential Election...

...suppress the vote beforehand to make sure the results will never be in doubt.

Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted in a state hunt to remove thousands of noncitizens from Florida's voting rolls, a Miami Herald computer analysis of elections records has found.

Whites and Republicans are disproportionately the least-likely to face the threat of removal, the analysis of a list of more than 2,600 potential noncitizens shows. The list was first compiled by the state and furnished to county election supervisors and then the Herald.

The numbers change by the day. The state's Division of Elections says it initially identified roughly 180,000 potential noncitizens by performing a search of a computer database that doesn't have the most-updated information.

About 58 percent of those identified as potential noncitizens are Hispanics, Florida's largest ethnic immigrant population. They make up just 13 percent of the overall 11.3 million active registered voters.

Those who have been flagged as potential noncitizens by the state are being contacted by county election supervisors. Many legitimate voters aren't happy with what they see as a needless hassle from a government using bad data.

"I'm upset, because if someone is an American citizen, it is his right to vote. How can they be asking for this?" said Juan Artabe, a 41-year-old Democrat from Cuba who said he became a citizen in 2009.

"Very poor job by the elections department," Artabe said. He said he was contacted last week by the Miami-Dade elections office and sent in a copy of his citizenship papers so he wasn't struck from the voter rolls.

Working as intended, folks.   Florida's Republican party has complete dominance over the state legislature and Gov. Rick Scott signs whatever he wants to.  There's literally nothing Democrats can do to stop this variation on voter caging,  assuming that tens of thousands of eligible Florida voters are in fact ineligible to vote unless they respond to the state's inquiry.  If you don't respond to the letter by the deadline, you're off the rolls and can only cast a provisional ballot.  And of course, these responses and provisional ballots are not only voter harassment, but could potentially be "misplaced" by Florida election officials.

"Oh," but you say, "states purge voter  rolls all the time."  Not like this, they don't.  Think Progress:

According to data from the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections obtained by ThinkProgress:

- 1638 people in Miami-Dade County were flagged by the state as “non-citizens” and sent letters informing them that they were ineligible to vote.

- Of that group, 359 people have subsquently provided the county with proof of citizenship.

- Another 26 people were identified as U.S. citizens directly by the county.

- The bulk of the remaining 1200 people have simply not responded yet to a letter sent to them by the Supervisor of Elections.

You can see a similar letter sent to alleged “non-citizens” by the Broward County Supervisor of Elections HERE. (“The Supervisor of Elections… has received information that you are not a citizen of the United States.”) If recipients of the letter do not respond within 30 days — a deadline that is mere days away — they will be summarily removed from the voting rolls. The voters purged from the list, election officials tell ThinkProgress, will inevitably include fully eligible Florida voters.

In short, an excess of 20 percent of the voters flagged as “non-citizens” in Miami-Dade are, in fact, citizens. And the actual number may be much higher.

Knock out a hundred thousand or so minority voters in Florida and Mitt Romney wins the state without having to lift a finger.  Republican Secretaries of State gave the election to Bush twice, once in Florida in 2000, and again in Ohio in 2004.  After Barack Obama's big win in 2008, they're not taking any chances now that they have control of even more state election boards, governor's mansions, and state legislatures.  The fix is in, and it starts in swing states controlled by the GOP at the state level.  There's no bigger single prize in that category this year than Florida.  Now that the state is fully under GOP control, they plan to permanently disenfranchise Democrats in the state so they remain in control unopposed for the foreseeable future.  And it starts with Gov. Rick Scott's "voter purge" of eligible minority voters.

We bemoan Egypt's rigged elections and say "Why don't they have a democratic process like we do?"  They do.  That's the problem.