The Deepening Criminal Cover-Up of Ohio’s Stolen 2004 Election
The illegal destruction of federally protected 2004 election materials by 56 of 88 Ohio counties has become a fraudulent “dog ate my homework” farce of absurd justifications and criminal coverups.
The mass elimination of the critical evidence that could definitively prove or disprove the presumption that the 2004 election was stolen has all the markings of a Rovian crime perpetrated to hide another one. Indeed, under Ohio law, that’s precisely what must be presumed here.
But what makes the situation downright pathetic is that Ohio’s new Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has publicly stated she sees “no evidence” of intentional destruction in the disappearance in more than 60% of the state’s counties of the ballots from the 2004 presidential election.
So once again, as did Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, the Democrats seem poised to cave to the on-going GOP coup that has redefined America, and that now involves the criminal destruction of contested evidence in one of the most controversial vote counts in US history.
Ironically, in Florida, under Jeb Bush, the ballot records from the 2000 election in all but one of the state’s counties were successfully preserved. They are now stored in a state repository in Tallahassee. An unofficial recount conducted by the national media concluded that Al Gore rightfully carried Florida, and thus the presidency, in 2000.
A parallel preservation was ordained by federal and state law for the election records from Ohio 2004, where a similar examination has been viewed as inevitable.
But a series of excuses that range from the lame to the pathetic to the obviously criminal have left us shocked—shocked!—to learn that despite the protection of established federal law, a federal court order, long-standing Ohio laws, two directives from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office, and legal notification letters from plaintiff’s attorneys to hold the evidence, a precise recount of Ohio’s stolen 2004 election may no longer be possible.
In short, Brunner has informed us that 56 of Ohio’s 88 counties have mostly “inadvertently” destroyed all or some of their records from the 2004 presidential election.
Are we surprised?
Wait ’til you hear how these mostly Republican directors say it happened!
The materials were under legal protection “from birth” on November 4, 2004, shielded by national law, acknowledged by Brunner, by Ohio Revised Coded 3505.31, then by a federal court decision in the now-legendary King-Lincoln-Bronzeville lawsuit (in which we are attorney and plaintiff).
The Ohio Revised Code specifically states that in presidential elections “the board shall carefully preserve all ballots prepared and provided by it for use in that election, whether used or unused, for twenty-two months after the day of the election.” In this case, that would have been through September 2, 2006.
These records were also essential to reconstructing a credible recount that was most pointedly stifled by then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. Brunner blamed the destruction of documents on Blackwell, “…for not giving counties clear instructions and for not notifying them quickly enough about U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley’s September 7, 2006 order,” according to the conservative Columbus Dispatch.
But many of the ballots were destroyed soon after the election in a series of events whose descriptions grow stranger and more implausible by the day.
In October 25, 2004, just prior to the election, Blackwell issued directive 2004-43, reminding all county election officials of the federal 22-month holding period for presidential ballots. That meant all election-related materials would be under federal protection until September 2, 2006.
On August 23, 2006, plaintiff’s attorneys in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville case hand-delivered a letter to the Secretary of State’s office and faxed notices to all 88 county Board of Elections offices that the ballots were to be evidence in the forthcoming civil rights suit against Blackwell.
On August 31, 2006 that suit was filed in Marbley’s federal court in Columbus. The AP reported that same day that Blackwell “has signaled his willingness to keep ballots from the contentious 2004 election beyond their scheduled September 3 destruction date in response to activists who plan to sue him in federal court today.”
Ohio laws also require that noticed—for election-related materials and other public records—be offered to the Ohio Historical Society and other public repositories before they are destroyed. Public record forms must be filed and Ohio law requires a Certificate of Destruction. Nonetheless, Blackwell erroneously told the Dispatch the next day that he was “willing to ask the boards not to destroy ballots, but the decision ultimately is a local one.”
But under applicable law, the decision was definitely not “a local one.” Indeed, Judge Marbley ordered all of Ohio’s 88 counties to “…preserve all ballots from the 2004 presidential election on paper or in any other format, including electronic data, unless and until such time otherwise instructed by this court.” Thus anyone destroying such records, from Election Day until the time you read this, may have broken various federal or state laws, and be in contempt of a federal court order.
King-Lincoln alleges a wide range of civil rights violations perpetrated by Blackwell and many of Ohio’s 88 county boards of elections based on race, economic status, political inclination, wrongful denial of absentee ballots (as in Harvey’s case) and more.
Here are some of the stories the counties are telling about the destruction of their ballots: (View the original state documents in a 19.5MB PDF )
Hancock County says it “received verbal directions” from Secretary of State Blackwell’s office that unused and soiled ballots “did not have to be retained and these items were destroyed.”
But any election audit requires a complete set of used and unused ballots to ensure that the unused ballots weren’t stuffed illegally into the ballot box. The law refers specifically to “all” ballots.
Putnam County apparently understood this all too clearly. That’s why they informed Brunner that “all unused ballots were destroyed for security purposes.”
In Warren County, on Election Day, the board of elections declared a Level 10 Homeland Security alert for which neither the Homeland Security Agency nor the FBI has any documentation or explanation. The alert served as cover for moving the vote count to an isolated warehouse, away from the media. Bush emerged from Warren County with a huge majority, far in excess of what he received in 2000.
Some twenty-two thousand officially unused ballots from Warren County are now mysteriously missing.
Warren County Board of Elections Director Michael E. Moore has written Brunner, stating that, in complete defiance of the law, “They were not accidentally destroyed. They were destroyed pursuant to standard practices that had been used by the Board of Elections for many years in Warren County regarding unused punch card ballots.” Moore notes that “The unused ballots were destroyed 60 days after the 2004 election.”
Warren, along with neighboring Clermont and Butler counties, provided Bush with more than his entire 118,775 winning margin in Ohio 2004. Thus these three counties were singled out for allegations of fraud in the election contest case Moss v. Bush (though only after surviving the first-ever Congressional challenge to a state’s entire Electoral College delegation). The allegations of fraud on a level that could have decided the presidency were thus never tested in court…and now the evidence has been destroyed.
Clermont County “could not locate” the unused ballots, according to Mike Keeley, Board of Elections Director.
Butler County cannot provide the “2004 General Election Ballot Pages.” Director Betty McGary says that “at no time was anyone specifically instructed to discard these items. Our staff unintentionally discarded boxes containing Ballot Pages as requested in Directive 2007-07 due to unclear and misinterpreted instructions.” For complex reasons having to do with Ohio’s precinct ballot rotation law, the ballots from Butler County cannot be recounted with the “Ballot Pages” missing. The pages match the punches to the candidates.
Holmes County BOE Director Lisa Welch wrote Brunner that “a shelving unit collapsed in the Board of Elections storeroom on the morning of Friday, April 7, 2006. That shelving unit held the voted ballots, stubs, soiled and defaced ballot envelopes, and ballot accounting charts from the 2004 General Election. The shelves and stored items collapsed onto a side table holding a working coffee maker. The carafe on the coffee maker was full at the time of the incident. Many of the stored items had to be destroyed due to the broken glass and hot coffee. The ballot pages and unused ballots were stored on a neighboring shelf and were not damaged.”
Holmes County was rendered infamous by Karl Rove’s legendary spin claiming there was an unprecedented massive turnout of homophobic old order Amish voted for Bush and against gay marriage. (It is well-known that the Amish as a community rarely vote).
Allen County “labeled all voted ballots and placed [them] in our vault for the required 22 months of storage,” according to Keith Cunningham, Director. Cunningham distinguished himself as a pro-Bush and Rove mouthpiece when he testified at then-Congressman (now-felon) Bob Ney’s cursory March 2005 hearing into the 2004 Ohio election.
Cunningham told the Secretary of State that in the “…latter part of 2004 and into 2005… [we] began to experience problems with storm water migrating and subsequently penetrating our primary storage areas including our vault.” He told Free Press reporter Paddy Shaffer that the vault had been flooding for “six years,” and he had to put the 2004 presidential ballots on the floor because he needed the shelf space.
Cunningham added that: “As a result of these events, much of what was stored in our vault, including the 2004 general election ballots, were compromised by water damage and subsequently destroyed on or about August 20, 2006. Pursuant to the recommendations of the Allen County Health Department the boxes displaying mold or mildew were set aside to be discarded. Unfortunately, the contractor hired to remove the damaged boxes also accidentally removed the undamaged boxes as well,” stated Cunningham, who did manage to save 498 write-in ballots.
The Health Department records recommended destruction or isolation as a solution.
Guernsey County’s ballots suffered a similar twisted fate. According to BOE Director Jacqueline Newhart, “The unused ballots as well as the punch card ballot pages were destroyed in error” because “the county maintenance worker, when collecting trash, picked up the boxes” that contained them.
In allegedly mobbed up Mahoning County, the board of elections has blamed environmentalists for inadvertently destroying the ballots. Apparently the “Mahoning County Green Team picked up all recyclables in the storage room for disposal pursuant to the retention schedule,” according to Director Thomas McCabe. As a result, some 115, 936 ballots “were accidentally disposed of on Friday, March 23 of 2007.”
Down in Hamilton County (Cincinnati), home of the Taft family dynasty, the unvoted and soiled ballots were “inadvertently shredded between January 19th and 26th of ‘06.”
Perhaps the most egregious case of ballot destruction, and easiest to criminally prosecute, is Director Steve Harsman’s in Montgomery County. Researcher Richard Hayes Phillips reported in the Free Press that, “…the Board was eager to destroy them [the ballots]. The employees who handled the ballots for me brought up the subject themselves.”
Harsman conceded that the “Ohio Revised Code” required a 22-month “retention schedule.” Yet, he argues that since the “Certificate of Destruction” had already been “prepared” prior to his receiving the order from Judge Marbley that he had the right to destroy the ballots.
“We literally ran out of space to prepare, stage, and retain material for these elections. It was imperative that we process the 2004 materials for destruction under the guidelines of the 22-month retention. Therefore, all materials were properly destroyed in a timely manner and we were unable to comply due to these circumstances. We did not receive formal notice from the courts prior to preparing the certification of destruction,” Harman wrote.
Thus Harman admits to openly defying a federal court order and destroying evidence because he wasn’t notified “prior to preparing the certification of destruction.”
But Judge Marbley pointed out in his opinion and order of September 11, 2006 in support of his order of September 7, that the Ohio Revised Code 3501.16 makes it a fourth degree felony for, among other things, willfully or negligently violating election laws as a director of a board of elections.
The original story of the ballots being saved for litigation and history made the pages of the New York Times. But the blatant and bizarre destruction of Ohio’s 2004 ballots has been relegated to the back page of the Columbus Dispatch Metro & State section. The brief article by Mark Niquette ran below the fold and the weather map, and above an ad for Window World and the Ohio State Medical Center.
Matt Damschroder, the Franklin County (Columbus) Board of Election Director and former Chair of the Republican Party, assured the Dispatch that the “counties did nothing intentionally wrong.” Damschroder is the President of the Ohio Association of Election Officials and was suspended without pay for a month after he accepted a $10,000 check from a Diebold representative in his office, made out to the GOP on the day the bidding for e-voting machines opened.
His job was in jeopardy until Board of Elections President Bill Anthony, Chair of the Franklin County Democratic Party, intervened to save Damschroder from firing.
King-Lincoln-Bronzeville Attorney Cliff Arnebeck stated that “The nature and scope of the cover-up can tell a lot about the nature and scope of the crime. Destruction of relevant documents can create a presumption that such evidence would have helped the other side in litigation.”
Arnebeck also said White House advisor Karl Rove “has had the keys to the US Justice Department for some time. No wonder FBI investigations requested by US Rep. John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee went nowhere. He also used those keys to scuttle two years of work by the IRS and FBI of financial corruption at the Ohio Statehouse.”
Overall this blatant destruction of evidence only reinforces the widespread belief that the 2004 election was stolen. The loss of ballot materials in a few isolated counties might be an understandable random event. But for more than 60% of the state’s BOEs to have destroyed ballots or ballot materials amidst a series of bizarre, absurd explanations is a joke.
America has been robbed of its history here. The public has a right to know the true outcome of the 2004 election, and to have its laws about preservation of critical records honored.
Under evidence laws, the destruction of material that serves as evidence in a lawsuit is presumed to be fraudulent action by the destroyer.
But the Bush-Rove-Blackwell regime is about nothing if not contempt for the law. And its assault on the documents that could show what really happened in Ohio’s contested 2004 election seems yet another obvious confirmation that it was, in fact, stolen.
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman’s HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA’S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, available at freepress.org (where this article first appeared) along with the FITRAKIS FILES. HARVEY WASSERMAN’S HISTORY OF THE US is at www.solartopia.org.
The conclusion to be drawn here, it seems to me, is that the principle of free and fair elections, one person-one vote, is gone (that’s assuming it ever really did exit). Perhaps the question then becomes: where does that leave us? If the people can’t vote for change because the results will simply and subtly (or simply and not so subtly) be changed into victory for the government status quo and corporate elites, then the people have lost, democracy has lost and the people have lost their democracy. If voting doesn’t work, what do we have left?
What happened to RFK Jr’s law suit re the 2004 pres elction?
I don’t believe Bush & Cheney will permit another election. They’re drunk with power and ready to do anything to stay in the White House, like politely stepping aside for another terrorist attack, then declaring marshal law, cancelling the election and filling the detention camps with dissident Americans.
Escravo, could it possibly be because Wasserman & Fitrakis live in Ohio? And your right, Bush’s margin of victory was far less than Kerry’s victory margin in Michigan! So….what is your point. Please check out Bill Moyers interview with Gregg Palast. The last two elections were unquestionably rigged by the republicans.
What I find interesting about the Republican strategies is that they tout premises like personal responsibility but lie, cheat and steal their way into every position of power. Look how many have been indicted, are presently under indictment, or otherwise using contacts to offset that fate? If you have not read the piece posted yesterday by David Michael Green that looks deeper at the conservative mindset, I encourage readers to do so. Please pay special attention to the erudite comments posted by POWER OF LOVE in his explanation of this insidious sect and their numbers. It’s frightening the way their basic modus operandi presents so direct a challenge to democracy, liberty, and a free society. When people are thoroughly convinced of the RIGHTness of their positions, this type brooks no opposition. They see merit in loyalty to their own while slaying the rest of us. Religion (as authoritarian programming fostered by and through fundamentalist, patriarchal beliefs) plays heavily into this egregious MENTAL disease. Their brazen use of ends justify the means accords evil a place in U.S. society that it’s seldom won.
The margin of victory in Michigan may be less, but overt nature of Republican Rigging in the Ohio election is the issue. Perhaps what they tried in Michigan did not work. I don’t remember what the result in Nevada was, but there was substantial effort there as well by the Republicans to short circuit voters.
Perhaps EDP should quit his knee jerk comments here and go back to serving his true masters?
America has been robbed of more than its history. It has been robbed of legitimate government by the elimination of elections in all but pretense. The fact the Dimascraps have not gone all out to right the situation is telling in itself. Without major changes including traceable ballots and independent public running and monitoring of the electoral system, there is no point in participating in the sham and giving it a veneer of legitimacy
A society is by definition a social entity:
3a: an enduring and COOPERATING SOCIAL group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one another.
Notice that the definition reads “cooperating”, not competing.
No such entity exists in American today. There is instead a fascist enterprise, its’ sole purpose being the subjugation and exploitation, for profit, of every nation on Earth.
It is well on the way to achieving its’ goal.
Entelechy, I agree. No more elections. Otherwise the GOP would be running some really serious candidates and not this poor coterie of wish-washy wannabees. At what point W decides to inform the masses that elections are no longer necessary will be interesting. And, what will the reaction be? The Majority will probably heave a sigh of relief that they don’t have to listen to or pay for any more perpetual campaigning, no more so-called debates, just Bush and Co. At the same time it would probably be a good idea to dissolve Congress as it is totally usless anyway. Might have to hang on to the Courts just to keep everything above board and legal.
“If voting could change things they’d make it illegal”
We’re a bunch of Linus’s waiting for Lucy (The Democrats) to put another football away.
The first football was all the promises about getting us our of Iraq ASAP and holding those accountable that got us into this mess. And if not fulfilling that promise wasn’t bad enough they allowed the esculation of said war and held no one accountable.
It should be obvious that except for the few represetatives that are actually trying to do the people’s will - who are marginilized by the corporate media - the rest of the so-called opposition party front-runners are simple Republican-light, corporate bought whores.
I don’t pretend to have answers, but there are steps to take that are both short term and long to reclaim the Dream.
If (and this is a big “if”) the people finally realize that they need to get mad enough to stop what they’re doing - and I mean literally - and form General Strikes to bring this country to a standstill to be heard, otherwise the powers that be will continue to ignore us.
Immediately there has to be Election Reform, for verifiable, uniform elections. Start with polls open on Monday and close on Saturday and scrape the Electoral College.
Dismantle the Federal Reserve Bank and put the money making powers back into the hands of the government. Also bye-bye IRS.
Long term, almost every problem we have can be solved through making our education system the best in the world again and make it free, along with free universal health care.
Do these things we’re on our way.
The problem is most people in this country are too lazy, too dumb, too busy, too misinformed, too scared to do anything until the it will be too late.
It may already be.
annabelle,
For Bush to become the dictator he so yearns to be, another terrorist attack is needed to justify the emergency powers now on the books in case of that event. So, Bush & Cheney will politely step aside and let AlQaeda make them President and Vice President for life.
What a pathetic string of excuses. “We have frequent water damage on the floor so that’s where we stored the ballots”. They don’t even have to worry about insulting our intelligence, no one’s paying attention. But I’m wondering why the Democratic Secretary of state Jennifer Brunner caved on this.
And again, the media ignores what should be a front page story. It’s hard to have any hope for this country. It’s been co-opted by the rich, they won’t give up without a fight, and there is no fight.
Wasserman and Fitrakis worked hard and long on this one, but now the evidence has been destroyed. The ballots in Florida are still there from 2000, not that it does any good. Nothing is coming out of that either.
The result in Nevada was a squeaker for Bush, but exit polls gave it to Kerry. Ditto New Mexico and Colorado. Of course, exit polls in this country defy the laws of physics, unlike anywhere else.
If every ballot had been counted truthfully in 2006 the Democrats would have had their veto proof majority in Congress. Read what Greg Palast has to say about 2008. He predicts the Republicans will succeed in stealing that election. They’re getting better at it. Pretty soon, every Democratic vote will morph into a Republican vote when counted and no one will notice. As it stands, they won’t even release exit polls until they have been “adjusted” to more accurately reflect the “actual” votes. Now we are a banana republic. We just don’t know it.
I finally realized that we have become a dictatorship, but no one is paying attention. Our constitution really is just a piece of paper. The only person who can save this country is Anthony Kennedy and he’s a question mark. If he supports the “unitary executive” in the upcoming court fight between Bush and Congress we’re done.
It’s only democracy. Who cares?
Obviously not the citizens of Dumbfuckistan.
The part that is truly odd to me about the American system is that its run by one party or the other. Why would anyone expect free and fair elections when a political party controls the board of elections and the machinery of the elections?
Most countries have figured out how to have fair elections. We even did it here for awhile. There are some basic principles.
– paper ballots … make them counterfeit proof with watermarks, holograms and the like.
– open and transparent counting of the vote. It should happen in the precinct at the end of the election and be open to the public. A member of each political party should participate. But basically you just put the ballots out on a table where everyone can see them and count them openly and fairly. Do this precinct by precinct.
If they can control the Internet, they have achieved total control.
Well..you know what? All of you shouls simply be preparing for Martial law..simple as that. Read the presidential orders for 2005 to the present, and recent REPUBLICAN Senate Bills(and in all fairness ALLOWED TO PASS BY DEMOCRATS)
Senate Bill 1878-Are you willing to allow yourself to be FORCED to be vaccinated by untested Vaccines..AGAINST YOUR WILL?
Presidential Orders:
10999- allows the Government to take over ALL modes and forms of transportaiton.
11000- Allows the Government to mobilize Civilian ‘Work Brigades’ under Government ‘Supervision’ (( Note: with Habeus gone and posse Commitatus gone..well..that’s that.))
11921- provides that the President can decalre a ‘State of Emergency’ that is NOT defined, and congress CANNOT review for 6 months.
And MANY more.
Another one just for giggles.Republican Fascist Congressman Sensenbrenners Bill (HR 1528) REQUIRES you to spy on your neighbors, including wearing a WIRE. REFUSAL TO DO SO WOULD BE PUNISHABLE BY A MANDATORY 2 YEAR PRISON SENTANCE.
The same kind of REPUGNICAN that can be relied upon to DESTROY EVIDENCE WITH ZEAL..US VERSUS THEM TAKEN TO NEW LEVELS..FANTICS,INDIVIDUALS WITH A DEGREE OF HYPOCRASY THAT IS SO ENORMOUS THAT IT IS IN FACT A KIND OF PSYCHOSIS.
“THE CONSTITUTION IS JUST A GODDAMN PIECE OF PAPER.”
-G.W. BUSH- NOVEMBER 2005
Finally, and this bothers me..but what else is there..maybe it’s time WE..the actual NON-HYPOCRASY types..who can lose gracefully and demand only that the playing field be level and that FIRST AND FOREMOST THE CONSTITUTION BE THE LAW OF THE LAND…maybe it’s time that we who believe those simple tenants..begin to DESCRIMINATE AGAINST THOSE WHO ARE SO EAGER TO ENGAGE IN WINNING AT ANY COST..this cannot be allowed to continue without those commiting these actions just going home after work without any shame..maybe it’s time we pointed them out as the..well..fascists that they are..the Media won’t do it..it used to be that you could rely on the Fourth Estate to publish the misdeeds of those who lie and cheat and steal while calling the rest of us names..but no more..so we need to do it…what would happen if they were Shunned at work, descriminated against at the supermarket..’oh you..the guy who destroyed evidence of a Republican election fraud..sorry you can’t shop here..’ or simply spit on them in the street..at the very least it might be a little satisfying..believe me there is a great deal of satisfaction in spitting on the car of a scumbag local official..I do it every time i go out on my run..right by city hall..and I like to spit on the door of the Repugnican headquarters too…it’s FUN..spit..the last great statement..
If only it made a difference… now if we all got together, half the country or so, we could make change. Get these damn red coats out of office. Dixie needs to be dragged down again. Don’t get me wrong I come from a line of britts but we landed here in 1620 for a reason. Is anyone in this country for another reason?
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ONEPARTY August 4th, 2007 12:57 pm
What happened to RFK Jr’s law suit re the 2004 pres elction?
YESSS!!!! I had forgotten about that????
Very good question…..I hope someone out there can answer that.
Oh…..jrcrumb……I fuckin’ love the spitting thing.
Can’t say it will change the world, but I KNOW it would make me feel better. I PROMISE you that I will do it the next time I am at the courthouse. In fact the next time I am anywhere NEAR the courthouse I will detour in order to spit on the car door handles of the local politicians.
I live in Alabama, so they are all Repugs:).
TOO FUNNY!!!
all the best
I find it very difficult to hit the urinal when I’m in a public building. My aim is impaired in there.
Those who vote have no power. The power is in the hands of those who count the votes.
Does this article really matter? After what Dems have so far done after winning 06, who really cares if they were robbed in 04?
Kerry deserved to lose. Cowards always do.
No, Kerry did not “deserve to lose,” and he didn’t lose, he won the election for a political position inside a democratic society, which means he deserved to assume that office for his term; so did Gore, and so did Hamas in Palestine, so did Chavez in VA.
Kerry conceded the election so fast even his running mate was disgusted. That qualifies as cowardliness. And cowards deserve to lose.
But you missed my point, election theft in America is an irrelevant issue, since the ‘choices’ are hand-picked by the corporate elite and NOT real choices. Whoever ends up elected is irrelevant.
We really don’t have elections, we have auctions. It’d be nice to cut the foreplay and just have the next presidential selection on ebay.
Sorry, the dog ate my democracy…
Democrats need to get tough! It’s time that they establish some really serious benchmarks for Republicans to make progress toward free and fair elections.
LOL! Democrats need to get tough? That’s the funniest line of this thread. They need to get honest first. They’re not ’spineless’ like most think, they’re utterly corrupt, greedy and dishonest, just like their clones, the Republicans.
You’re funny, redxblack (is that checkers or chess?). You know things are bad when when our elections go from being an outrage to a joke. Sounds like the good old USSR. My father was right on time. Back in 1958 he said “In 50 years the US will look like Russia and Russia will look like the US”.
rbrisbane, whatever the Democrats need they are not going to get because they have a slew of enablers who keep voting for them, so why should they change their behavior? But they sure are full of empty promises. And more to come. And more true believers to fall for them. Finally the pendulum will swing back (ho hum) and the corporations will continue to run off with our money while the bridges keep falling.
We’ll know whether or not these people are serious when we see arrest warrants issued and elections “Supervisors” doing the Perpwalk.
Until then, it’s all just posturing and pretense. “A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Well, listen, if it came down to a struggle for power in this country, who do you think the military would side with? The “security” mongers. Then it’d be all over. So, the Democrats can only push this thing so far. Look at Jimmy Carter’s capitulating to Reagan’s October Surprise, “for the good of the country.” And Gore’s and Kerry’s capitulation to Bush. Institutions of any age get to have a life of their own, drawing lifeblood from the members. It gets its blood one way or another.
Oh my god… “Anarchy!!!!!!!!!” Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes!
Is that all people are afraid of?
Read “Mutual Aid” by Kropotkin to dispel the “bomb-thrower” anarchist image.
The American Revolution would never have happened if the current Democrats had been in charge.
Some random thoughts…
Florida x 9/11 + Ohio + (Iraq + New Orleans) x Blackwater + Haliburton built ‘detention’ camps + ‘computerised voting’ - constitution - habeus corpus x (Abu Grahab + Guantanamo) x (presidential signing statements + executive orders) + new ‘terrror’ threats = Bush junta dictatorship for life.
Simple equation, no?
Want to eliminate election fraud? Try this…
“A Better Election System” By Paul Magill Smith 3-8-2K6
“To begin with, in the United States there must be a powerful demolition of the old political order: We need elections where all votes are cast and counted. The campaign against voter repression is the essential civil rights struggle of our time, even though most progressives don’t seem to realize it yet. Prevailing will require fundamental reform such as the introduction of nationwide vote-by-mail (the Oregon system). Without that, and also many relentless prosecutions, nothing else will be achieved”.—JAMES K. GALBRAITH March 30, 2006 “Taming Global Capitalism Anew”—(April 17, 2006 issue of The Nation Magazine)
James K. Galbraith, chair of the board of Economists for Peace and Security, teaches at the University of Texas and is senior scholar with the Levy Economics Institute
The latest round of corruption in our government stems from the biggest executive crime of all. In collusion with the Supreme Court our glorious president/dictator/tyrant “stole” the election of 2000, with another criminal (Tom DeLay) “stole” a majority in the house through re-districting, and with corporate henchmen in Diebold & Company “stole” another presidency in 2004. Whether you agree with the presidential election results or not there were statistical anomolies, and thousands of citizen complaints that should have required greater scrutiny & inquiry.
Since the 2000 presidential election our national coffers have been looted to the tune of trillions of dollars, and with almost three more years to go in this theocratic oligarchy there is still much more damage to come. Our financial ruin, through an unsustainable balance of trade deficit, massive fiscal deficits, and a consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few individuals & corporations, bodes ill for generations of Americans to come—IF there are generations to come after the effects of global warming, a state of perpetual global war, and depleted uranium have their way with us.
A bleak picture-yes-but there is cause for hope. Going under the assumption most Americans have a streak of common sense, and an inbred respect for ‘the rule of law’, the first step toward retrieving our now stolen democracy is restoring honesty to our electoral process. Accountability, verifiability, and transparency are not luxuries; they are necessities if democracy in America (the world) is to be viable.
With these considerations in mind I propose an entirely new election system for this country. It uses, for the most part, existing equipment & technology already in place throughout the entire country, and would only require the development of some software. Election expenses would be reduced, election theft would become a thing of the past, and national referendums on key issues would become a possibility. The ‘will of the people’ would become king, instead of the preferences of King George/Dick/Karl/Donald/ etc.
So here is the idea. Currently in the US there are 368,000 ATM machines. They are easy to use (even from a car), provide a paper trail, accessible by use of a card with security features, and very accurately keep track of billions of transactions every month (a 1% accuracy error, which is acceptable for most elections, would land bankers out of their jobs & very likely jailed).
OK, so the first part deals with voting at ATM’s, except when they are being used for elections they would become AVM’s (Automatic Voting Machines).
The issue of verifiability would be very simple also. Since each registered voter would receive their own magnetic credit-card type, individually numbered card (requiring a personalized identification number-PIN-to make it work), each voter would have a specific number, and security that they were the only one who had the secret code to access the AVM. Following an election their unique number, along with the way their vote was recorded would be published in the local paper & on the internet at a specific site. Since all the voter numbers could be placed in numerical order it would be easy to scan down the list to your number and verify your vote was cast for the person you wanted it to be.
If it was an election with candidates in a number of positions your vote would read as a multi-character number. An example would be 1324113 in which you voted for 7 different people for as many electable posts. The AVM would have given you a hard copy receipt to be used to verify against the posted list.
ATM’s are already linked to central computers, so collection of the total votes from all the machines should present very little problem. Election officials would be necessary at these institutions to verify all the votes were retrieved, but the elimination of officials at each precinct polling place would eliminate much of the costs of holding elections as with our current system. As a further dis-incentive to election fraud, caused by computer tampering, if a certain percentage or number of voters provide their AVM receipt to election officials, and their vote code doesn’t match that of the central computers, the election results are AUTOMATICALLY declared void, resulting in a new election.
Since I have only begun thinking & writing about this new system I am sure there are many details to be considered and worked out. The bottom line is the current election system is broken, with millions of Americans lacking confidence in the extant election process & results.
As the world’s oldest democracy, holding our ‘system’ up as a model for budding or want-to-be democracies around the globe, it behooves us to make sure our own system is the best we can possibly make it, and the one others will wish to emulate. “Do as I say” is not good enough. If America is to ‘talk the talk’ we must ‘walk the walk’ also.
Paul Magill Smith
Richmond, VA
Rockitz.net
Seriously, we are gonna have to have some kind of revolution in this country. We all know what’s happening, and we all know that nothing is being done about it. Forget the politicians. Forget the next election. We, the citizens, are going to have to make that change ourselves. It’s time to stop talking about it.
Talk of revolution is ridiculous. That is exactly what the blackwater types are praying for. They are very well prepared for that eventuality.
That would give them the excuse they are looking for to impose martial Law and slaughter us all in the name of Jesus.
We need EVOLUTION, not revolution. We need to grow up! Become more than we have ever been. It is very easy to make things a lot better. HOWEVER it involves sacrifice. We would have to sacrifice our cushy jobs, our fat-cat lifestyles, our isolation, our divisiveness, our competitiveness and our meritocratic elitism. And we would have to BUILD. We would have to build true community, solidarity and indestructable housing.
What are the odds?
huckleberry, I guess you might not have been around during the Viet Nam era killings of four students during that ‘other’ illegal war, but that is one of the main events that galvanized opposition to it. Parents seem to frown big time on their prodegy being gunned down in the streets for expressing outrage over the actions of a bunch of criminals (The Nixon Gangsters). To mention the words of Jefferson, we had the blood of patriots (the students, not the soldiers), and parents finally woke up to demand the blood of the tyrant (Nixon). Unfortunately, the students’ was the only blood, but to a powermonger like Nixon his eventual abdication, and ruined ‘legacy’ & reputation (despite a shameful presidential pardon by Ford) was akin to a life sentence, often more insufferable & penalizing than a death sentence.
We are faced by a similar situation now, with some differences. The gangsters are still around except it is The Bush/Cheney Gang. Some of the thugs now are the same ones in the prior gang, and their strategies & tactics are similar. One thing that is different, and this is a major one, is the absence of a draft, one of the galvanizing factors in the Viet Nam era anti-war movement. Another is it seems the youth today are even more spoiled, ignorant, & complacent than those of the past era. They are also fatter & lazier, and (if possible) more self-centered. To be honest, part of this is not their fault because they have grown up in an electriconic environment completely dominated by a corporate media, (who are) enemies of humanity, unpatriotic, and who view them not as fellow citizens, but consumers to be taken advantage of in any way possible.
Sure, there are Blackwater mercenaries out there, who get their rocks off gunning down anything that moves, but there is also our military, who are now thoroughly pissed off at being duped into a quagmire, paid scantily compared to contractor types, are uncertain if they will receive adequate medical care should they have problems, and had their families suffer from curtailed services, extended stressful tours, military honor besmirched through incidents of torture instigated by a gang of chickenhawks. Polls indicate they are finally aware they have been trading their blood for someone elses oil to be stolen, so a very few fat cat corporate scum ((EXXON, Mobil, etc) & government connected elite arms merchants (Carlyle Group, NBC, etc) can line their own pockets.
Why do you think the current gang are so adamant about not letting our troops come home? Sure the gang wants to keep soaking the taxpayers for billions, but did it ever occur to you they might actually fear having them back in the US close at hand instead of stuck thousands of miles away? Many tyrants have been taken down by a military who turned against them, and they know this. Just some thoughts.