And furthermore …

Lately, it never fails that The Scallion finds something else salient to say just after having made a post. With that, we give you two items: our own take on what would happen if corporations were granted true personhood and a post from the web describing 20 (count ‘em!) amazing facts about voting here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Happy reading; keep the faith; and do something to save democracy EVERY DAY!

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From the “Ye want it? Ye can have it (almost)!” department, The Scallion presents

If corporations were granted true personhood

While we of The Scallion acknowledge that granting corporations true personhood would be disastrous for human persons everywhere, we would at least like to point out a few aspects where corporate personhood wouldn’t be quite as peachy as corporations now envision it.

For example, if corporations were granted true personhood …

… corporations would be subject to the laws governing ordinary human citizens and would therefore be prohibited from harming human persons, their environment, and other corporate persons.

… they would be subject to the same federal and state income tax brackets as human persons; for example, those corporations making over $160,000 would owe 35% federal tax on their 2005 income. This aspect of corporate personhood alone would constitute a huge shift in the current corporate tax structure, where most corporations -- even (perhaps especially) those earning record profits -- do not pay any taxes! In fact, our largest, most profitable corporations actually receive sizeable refunds from the federal government. The implications are stunning. If corporations were granted true personhood and had to pay taxes like true persons, America’s deficits would vanish in the wink of an eye! We of The Scallion believe we speak for the vast majority of Americans when we say, “Bring it on!”

… the “nanny tax” would apply to corporations, so they would be obligated to pay social security and other taxes and benefits for their employees. No more hiring illegal workers and (not) paying them under the table.

… corporations would be accorded the right to free speech under the First Amendment, but they would also be subject to laws for liable (e.g., negative advertising against each other), and they would be subject to prosecution for false advertising (e.g., just as sole website owners are pursued by the FDA for making health claims for herbal products).

… they would not be allowed to own each other because that would constitute slavery. Therefore, buy-outs and hostile take-overs would be illegal, and subsidiaries resulting from past buy-outs would have to be spun off and granted their freedom.

… each corporation would be allowed one merger (i.e., marriage) with one other consenting corporation per lifetime while both partners lived. However, similar corporations would be prohibited from merging in states where same-sex marriage is illegal.

… corporations would be subject to the same limits on campaign contributions as individuals. No more lobbying!

… any corporation found guilty of breaking the law would be subject to the same penalties as human persons. This includes having to serve time in prison. The implications of corporate incarceration are significant: while incarcerated, corporations would effectively have to shut down -- they would be barred from conducting business just as human persons are confined while in jail. Thus, the potential cost to a corporation of having to serve jail time is staggering. Corporations would be prohibited from voting while incarcerated. In many states, convicted corporations would lose the right to vote for life, even if they migrate in from other states where voting rights are restored after the debt to society has been paid. With such laws in place, it stands to reason that Florida will be home only to the most upstanding corporate citizens.

… Wal-Mart would be convicted and executed for murdering so many of its own kind -- thus becoming the corporate-person cannibal and serial killer poster child. Microsoft would be convicted for similar offenses. Amazon would be convicted for attempted “man”-slaughter of Barnes and Noble. The list goes on …

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Third-world voting anomalies? Only in America …

If this post from the website below doesn’t raise your hackles as an American, nothing will! We of The Scallion remind you, however, not to be discouraged: despite rampant Republican voter fraud and vote machine tampering in Pennsylvania in the 2004 presidential elections, the only damage that was done was to narrow the margin for Kerry! In other words, if enough of us anti-Bush voters turn out and vote, there won’t be anything the Republican machine can do to stop our ultimate victory! Let us Un-Americans take this as a reminder to vote early and to vote absentee, by paper.

http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:YOpN-VVvoDoJ:
www.nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html
+Voting+in+America&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=6

20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA

by Angry Girl
Nightweed.com

Did you know...?
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold


2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html


3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html


4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886


5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html


6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26

http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php


7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm

http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html


8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html


9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html


10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm


11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm


12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml


13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm

http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf


14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf


15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html


16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here: http://www.bbvdocs.org/videos/baxterVPR.mov.)

http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190


17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml


18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html

http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm

http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm


19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html


20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/
ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm

http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/
policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html

http://uscountvotes.org/


NOTE: Please copy the above list and distribute freely!
LET THE FACTS BE KNOWN! Thank you!

Want a cheap, fair, reliable, and efficient alternative? It exists!
Check out the Swiss Voting System
at http://www.swissvs.org

DECEMBER 2004 GALLUP POLLS
1 in 5 Americans believe the elections were fraudulent.
That's over 41 Million Americans.
You are NOT alone!