We are the Conscience of America

Sure, there is strength in unity. Yes, it makes a people strong to have grounding in moral principles. Indeed, a leader who has proven himself in the world of commerce does have abilities that could be useful in government. Certainly, it is vital to demonstrate iron resolve and conviction.

Just make Sure that you are adhering to a code of righteousness as you conduct your business. Never let defects of character such as temptation, greed, fear or hatred interfere with the just dispensation of your duties. Never forget that we are all God's children, no matter what we look like, what we wear, where we live, how we re-create ourselves.

And Just make Sure that you Never succumb to lying, cheating, stealing, killing, destroying or torturing, and that you adhere to principles of righteousness instead, as prophets and philosophers the world over, down through the ages, have mandated.

We will be watching. The millions of us. We will continue to seek truth and justice, and we will readily protest when we see those values undermined, denied or repressed.

We are the Conscience of America.

-- Mark Frankenberg

Free Bumper Sticker! Demonstrate wherever you go!

www.justsaynotofascism.com/bstick.htm

movie "The Corporation" is a must-see

If you haven't seen it yet, by all means, do. I
strongly recommend it. If you have seen it, by all
means, tell someone else about it.

Learn the Nature of the Problem
"The Corporation" opens at Tampa theatre on December
10th

http://www.thecorporation.com/

Statistical Analysis may indicate Kerry Win in Ohio after Re-count

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0412/S00167.htm

"
Ohio Recount Affidavit - Richard Hayes Phillips
Monday, 13 December 2004, 10:55 am
Press Release:

OHIO RECOUNT

AFFIDAVIT
December 10, 2004
From: http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/supreme.htm

I, RICHARD HAYES PHILLIPS, do swear and affirm the following:

1. I hold a Ph.D. in geomorphology from the University of Oregon. I am a professional hydrologist and am well versed in standard techniques of statistical analysis, with special expertise in spotting anomalous data. A copy of my curriculum vita is attached to this Affidavit as Exhibit A.

2. I have analyzed unofficial precinct level results from the November 2, 2004 general election in nine Ohio counties, including Cuyahoga, Franklin, Warren, Butler, Clermont, Miami, Montgomery, Hamilton, and Lucas. In have compared these results with those from the November 7, 2000 general election where such data is available. I have examined the unofficial and official results for the November 2, 2004 election, county by county. I have examined, in Franklin County, data on the number of voting machines deployed in each precinct. I have also examined United States census data for 2000 and 2003.

3. There are numerous examples of incorrect presidential vote tallies in certain precincts in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County. These irregularities include at least 16 precincts where votes intended to be cast for Kerry were shifted to other candidates’ columns, and at least 30 precincts with inexplicably low voter turnout, including 7.10%, 13.05%, 19.60%, 21.01%, 21.80%, 24.72%, 28.83%, 28.97%, and 29.25%, and seven entire wards where voter turnout was reportedly below 50%, even as low as 39.35%. Kerry won Cleveland with 83.27% of the vote to 15.88% for Bush. If voter turnout was really 60% of registered voters, as seems likely based upon turnout in other major cities of Ohio, rather than 49.89% as reported, Kerry’s margin of victory in Cleveland has been wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes.

4. The systematic withholding of voting machines from predominantly Democratic wards in Columbus, many of them with high black populations, severely restricted voter turnout in these wards and cost John Kerry 17,000 votes. I have meticulously compared election results with the number of registered voters per voting machine for each precinct in Columbus, and for each ward in Franklin County. In Columbus, the median Bush precinct had a 60.56% turnout, while the median Kerry precinct had only a 50.78% turnout. County wide, the 73 wards with fewer than 300 registered voters per machine had a 62.33% turnout; 58 were in the suburbs, and 54 were won by Bush. The 73 wards with 300 or more registered voters per machine had a 51.99% turnout; 59 were in Columbus, and 58 were won by Kerry. In addition, there were 68 machines not provided to anyone, according to data provided by the Board of Elections.

5. It has been widely reported that in Warren County, the administrative building was locked down on election night and no independent persons were allowed to observe the vote count. Based upon the official Board of Elections reports, there has been a 15.51% increase in voter registration in eight months time, and voter turnout was reportedly above 80% in 55 precincts. Since the 2000 election, voter registration was reportedly up by 79.0%, 38.3%, 32.4%, 31.0%, 29.7%, and 28.4% in six townships that provided 68.75% of Bush’s margin of victory in Warren County. While the county population has increased by 14.75% since the 2000 census, 87 of 157 precincts had shown declines in voter registration at other times since the 2000 election, and yet every single precinct, 157 of 157, showed increases in voter registration since March 2, 2004. In Butler County, there are nine precincts and two entire townships where Kerry received fewer votes than Gore despite a sharp increase in voter turnout; and there are precincts with reported increases in voter registration, since November 7, 2000, of 177.9%, 143.5%, 69.3%, 65.5%, 64.5%, 48.2%, 43.3%, 38.8%, 36.9%, 34.3%, 34.0%, and 33.8%, compared to an increase in population of only 3.12% county wide. In Clermont County, where the population has grown by 4.39% since the 2000 census, voter registration was reportedly up by 85.4% and 67.6% in two precincts, and down by 49.4% in another precinct, all in the same township; there were 23 precincts where turnout was up, but Kerry got fewer votes than Gore. All these data are indications that votes may have been shifted from Kerry to Bush. According to the official results certified by the Ohio Secretary of State, these three counties combined provided Bush with a plurality of 132,685 votes, which is 13,910 votes more than his statewide plurality of 118,775 votes. Given that George Bush carried these counties by 95,575 votes in 2000, the net loss for John Kerry could be as high as 37,000 votes.

6. It is my professional opinion that there is compelling evidence of fraud in Miami County. Early on election night, when 31,620 votes had been counted, and later, when 50,235 votes had been counted, John Kerry had exactly the same percentage, 33.92%, and the percentage for George Bush was almost exactly the same, dropping by 0.03%, from 65.80% to 65.77%. The second set of returns gave Bush a margin of exactly 16,000 votes, giving cause to question the integrity of the central counting device for the optical scanning machines. Compared to 2000, voter turnout increased by 20.86%, while the population increased by only 1.38%. Voter turnout was reported at 98.55% and 94.27% in two precincts in Concord, numbers nearly impossible to achieve. Voter turnout was reported to have increased by 194.58% and 152.78% in two precincts in Troy compared to the 2000 election, and by more than 30.0% in ten other precincts. There are no data for voter registration in 2000, so the ballots cast offer the only meaningful comparison. Comparing the results of the 2004 election to the results of the 2000 election, there is one precinct where the reduction in turnout exactly matched the reduction in votes counted for the Democratic presidential candidate. It is my professional opinion that these numbers are fraudulent, in that the true election results have been altered. Given that Bush officially carried Miami County in 2004 by 16,394 votes, and that Bush carried Miami County in 2000 by 10,453 votes, the net loss to John Kerry could be as high as 6,000 votes.

7. In Toledo, Lucas County, there were 50 precincts with less than 60% reported turnout. All of them were won overwhelmingly by John Kerry, by a margin of better than 5 to 1 in the aggregate. There were 45 precincts with more than 80% reported turnout; 12 were won by Bush, 33 were won by Kerry, and most were competitive. When the precinct numbers are combined into totals for each ward, data not provided by the Board of Elections, a clear and unmistakable pattern emerges. The 14 wards with the highest reported turnout were won by John Kerry by a margin of 11 to 7 in the aggregate. The 10 wards with the lowest reported turnout were won by John Kerry by a margin of 6 to 1 in the aggregate. It is my professional opinion that the election in Lucas County was rigged, most likely by altering the vote totals in each ward by a percentage chosen for that ward, plus or minus, based upon voting patterns in past elections. If turnout in Toledo had been as high as that reported elsewhere in the county, John Kerry’s plurality would have been 7,000 votes larger.

8. There are still 92,672 uncounted votes in Ohio, exclusive of any uncounted provisional ballots. According to unofficial results provided by the Ohio Secretary of State, there were 5,574,476 ballots cast, and 5,481,804 votes counted, which leaves 92,672 regular ballots (1.66%) still uncounted. The official results, now certified, do not include these ballots, but differ from the unofficial results only in the addition of provisional ballots and some absentee ballots to the tally. In Montgomery and Hamilton counties, these uncounted votes come disproportionately from precincts that voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry. In Montgomery County there are 47 precincts, all of them in Dayton, where the percentage of uncounted ballots is 4% or more. Kerry won all 47 of these precincts, by a margin of 7 to 1 in the aggregate. County wide in Montgomery County, the percentage of uncounted ballots was 1.70%. In Hamilton County there are 26 precincts, 22 of them in Cincinnati, where the percentage of uncounted ballots is 8% or more. Kerry won all 26 of these precincts, by a margin of 10 to 1 in the aggregate. Altogether there are 86 precincts in Cincinnati where the percentage of uncounted ballots is 4% or more. Kerry won 85 of these precincts, by a margin of 5 to 1 in the aggregate. County wide in Hamilton County, the percentage of uncounted ballots was 2.34%. Although I have not yet had time to examine similar data for Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Akron, Youngstown, Canton, or elsewhere, it is possible that the same pattern will emerge in these cities as well. If these 92,672 uncounted votes were cast for Kerry by a 5 to 1 margin, this would reduce the statewide margin between the candidates by another 61,781 votes.

9. There are still provisional ballots uncounted in Ohio. On election night the Ohio Secretary of State reported that 5,481,804 ballots had been counted, and 155,428 provisional ballots had been issued. According to the official results, now certified, 5,625,621 votes have now been counted, an increase of 143,817, which represents the number of newly counted ballots. Some of these were absentee ballots. The reported count of provisional ballots was 79,482 for Kerry, and 61,505 for Bush. This would leave 14,441 provisional ballots uncounted.

10. In summary, it is my professional opinion that John Kerry’s margins of victory were wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes in Cleveland, by 17,000 votes in Columbus, and by as many as 7,000 votes in Toledo. It is my further professional opinion that John Kerry’s margins of defeat in Warren, Butler, and Clermont counties were inflated by as many as 37,000 votes in the aggregate, and in Miami County by as many as 6,000 votes. There are still 92,672 uncounted regular ballots that, based upon the analysis set forth above of the election results from Dayton and Cincinnati, may be expected to break for John Kerry by an overwhelming margin. And there are 14,441 uncounted provisional ballots.

11. My research into the topics discussed in this affidavit is continuing, and I reserve the right to modify my conclusions as new information becomes available.

TO THIS I SWEAR AND AFFIRM,

___________________________________

Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.


"

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0412/S00167.htm

Based on the summaries in Paragraph 10, this could indicate that John Kerry will defeat George Bush, and thus in the United States, by a margin of about 36,000 votes.

Tedd Rall, Political Cartoonist, censored

The Washington Post fired him. The New York Times leaves an Orwellian blank space where his strip used to be: http://www.ucomics.com/rallcom/

Visit your State Capitol Sunday 12 December 2004

http://www.51capitalmarch.com/
"
...protest the theft of our votes and our voting rights in the 2004 election.
"
http://www.51capitalmarch.com/

Goering

Learn the Nature of the Problem

"The Corporation" opens at Tampa theatre on December 10th

http://www.thecorporation.com/

"THE CORPORATION, an unprecedented box office hit in Canada, is now playing across the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Italy, the UK and Ireland. Winner of nine audience choice awards including one from the Sundance Film Festival, the film inspires people to ask: What can I do now?"

http://www.thecorporation.com/

"I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.." -- Adolf Hitler

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/12/far04041.html

"God Is With Us": Hitler's Rhetoric and the Lure of "Moral Values" by
Maureen Farrell

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/12/far04041.html

Aren't politicians civilians?

"There should be a federal investigation of the vote count in Ohio, with the partisan secretary of state removing himself from the scene."

http://www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse30.html
"
Something's fishy in Ohio

November 30, 2004

BY JESSE JACKSON

In the Ukraine, citizens are in the streets protesting what they charge is a fixed election. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell expresses this nation's concern about apparent voting irregularities. The media give the dispute around-the-clock coverage. But in the United States, massive and systemic voter irregularities go unreported and unnoticed.

Ohio is this election year's Florida. The vote in Ohio decided the presidential race, but it was marred by intolerable, and often partisan, irregularities and discrepancies. U.S. citizens have as much reason as those in Kiev to be concerned that the fix was in. Consider:

In Ohio, a court just ruled there can't be a recount yet, because the vote is not yet counted. It's three weeks after the election, and Ohio still hasn't counted the votes and certified the election. Some 93,000 overvotes and undervotes are not counted; 155,000 provisional ballots are only now being counted. Absentee ballots cast in the two days prior to the election haven't been counted.

Ohio determines the election, but the state has not yet counted the vote. That outrage is made intolerable by the fact that the secretary of state in charge of this operation, Ken Blackwell, holds -- like Katherine Harris of Florida's fiasco in 2000 -- a dual role: secretary of state with control over voting procedures and co-chair of George Bush's Ohio campaign. Blackwell should recuse himself so that a thorough investigation, count and recount of Ohio's vote can be made.

Blackwell reversed rules on provisional ballots in place in the spring primaries. These allowed voters to cast provisional ballots anywhere in their county, even if they were in the wrong precinct, reflecting the chief rationale for provisional ballots: to ensure that those who went to the wrong place by mistake could have their votes counted. The result of this decision -- why does this not surprise? -- was to disqualify disproportionately ballots cast in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County.

Blackwell also permitted the use of electronic machines that provided no paper record. The maker of many of these machines, the head of Diebold Co., promised to deliver Ohio for Bush. In one precinct in Franklin County, an electric voting system gave Bush 3,893 extra votes out of a total of 638 votes cast.

Blackwell also presided over a voting system that resulted in quick, short lines in the dominantly Republican suburbs, and four-hour and longer waiting lines in the inner cities. Wealthy precincts received ample numbers of voting machines and numerous voting places. Democratic precincts received inadequate numbers of machines in too few polling places that were often hard to locate; this caused daylong waits for the very working people who could least afford the time.

In Ohio, as in Florida and Pennsylvania, there was a stark disconnect between the exit polls and the tabulated results, with the former favoring John Kerry and the latter George Bush. The chance of this occurring in these three states, according to Professor Steven Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania, is about 250 million to 1.

In one of dozens of examples, Ellen Connally, an African-American Supreme Court candidate running an underfunded race at the bottom of the ticket, received over 257,000 more votes than Kerry in 37 counties. She ran better than Kerry in the areas of the state where she wasn't known and didn't campaign than she did where she was known and did campaign.

There should be a federal investigation of the vote count in Ohio, with the partisan secretary of state removing himself from the scene.

In Cleveland, as in Kiev, Ukraine, citizens have the right to know that the election is run fairly and every vote counted honestly. Citizens have the right to nonpartisan election officials. Citizens have the right to voting machines that keep a paper record and allow for an independent audit and recount.

This country needs no more Floridas and Ohios. This shouldn't be a partisan issue. We call for a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to vote for all U.S. citizens and to empower Congress to establish federal standards and nonpartisan administration of elections. Harris and Blackwell are insults to the people they represent, and stains upon the president whose election they sought to ensure. Democracy should not be for export only.
"
http://www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse30.html

Take ACLU pledge : Refuse to surrender your Freedom

Join the ACLU in Refusing to Surrender your Freedom
http://www.aclu.org/refusetosurrender/

http://www.aclu.org/refusetosurrender/

moveon petition to investigate the vote

http://www.moveon.org/investigatethevote/
"
Questions are swirling around whether the election was conducted honestly or not. We need to know -- was it or wasn't it?

If people were wrongly prevented from voting, or if legitimate votes were mis-counted or not counted at all, we need to know so the wrongdoers can be held accountable, and to help prevent this from happening again.
"
http://www.moveon.org/investigatethevote/

Are you skeptical?

Would you like to believe that all is well in the good ole' U.S.A.? Would you like to think that we're sending our boys "over there" to spread freedom? Would you like to believe that our government is of, for and by us? Would you like to believe that the persons who are in charge of our government have nothing but the preservation of our freedom, our constitution, our lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness as their top priorities?

Well, so would I.

But I don't.

I urge you to speak out. This is not the time to stand by idly. Write a letter to your newspaper. Here are some points of contact:

St. Petersburg Times, Florida
http://www.sptimes.com/letters/

PetitionOnline.com
http://www.petitiononline.com/

New York Times
letters@nytimes.com

USA Today
editor@usatoday.com

Washington Post
letters@washpost.com

Here's some additional research I recommend:

http://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/

...we see the mainstream media still ignoring the largest story out there, the potential theft of a presidential election.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4478
"
by Anthony Wade

Silence. That is all we continue to hear from our media. There was a time in America when the media would actually practice journalism. They would investigate. They would corroborate. They would scrutinize. In modern day America , this must be proving to be too daunting for our faux media. It seems to be easier to create news, based on what is fed to them. It must be far simpler to just accept what the administration says, instead of actually digging a little to find out if the facts coincide. The problem is that the American people deserve better. They deserve the truth, not parroting of created news stories. Votergate 2004 continues to swell all around us, yet the silence remains deafening. It is beyond silent, it is insulting
...
"
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4478

A Petition to Congress requesting an investigation into the Presidential Election of 2004

http://www.petitiononline.com/uselect/petition.html
"
To: United States Congress
TO: All members of the Congress of the United States of America; all Senators and Members of the House of Representatives

A Petition to immediately and without delay open a joint investigation into potential wrongdoing in the Presidential Election of 2004, specifically to investigate the potential of voting machine manipulation or purposeful malfunction, especially electronic voting machines manufactured and supplied by Diebold, Inc.; Electronic Systems & Software (ES & S); Sequoia Voting Systems, and others, and also to identify and investigate all allegations of improper conduct by election officials, workers, observers, challengers and operatives and employees of both major parties concerning the voting process including intimidation, dissemination of improper information, manipulation of registration records, improper handling of actual voting ballots and, in general, any and all potential improprieties which could have led to improper or inaccurate election results.

Such inquiries should not be limited to any particular state, precinct or district but strive to examine the voting process in any and all areas in which there is even the slightest indication of impropriety, but especially in the states of Florida, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas and New Hampshire, and not limit such investigation, and expand such investigations to cover Senatorial races as well, especially those in Kentucky, Florida and South Dakota.

We, the undersigned, request that our elected representatives act in accordance with the Constitution of the United States of America in a legal, impartial and expedient manner for an open hearing before the people of the United States and if such wrongdoing, illegal practices, manipulation of voting records or processes is of such a nature to indicate egregious or extensive tampering, alteration or misappropriation of the voting process that the violators be brought to justice and remedies, potentially including a nationwide audit, recall, recount or new election be imposed by your bodies.

We feel it is our patriotic duty to request such action from you, our elected officials, and your duty to respond in a responsible manner.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned



"
http://www.petitiononline.com/uselect/petition.html

We demand clean elections.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4306
"
Why signing the Petition to Congress requesting an investigation into the Presidential Election of 2004 is vitally important

Rick Gagliano | November 13, 2004

While the media overlooks the obvious - that six Congressmen have called for a GAO investigation into electronic voting, that Ralph Nader has initiated a recount in New Hampshire, that the Green and Libertarian candidates are pushing forward with plans for an Ohio recount, that Bev Harris at BlackBoxVoting.org has filed a massive Freedom of Information Act request - the petition, started less than a week ago and already having garnered the support of 35,000 signers, may be America’s best hope discovering just exactly what went wrong on November 2nd.

The recounts are well-intentioned, but they may fail. The GAO investigation may take months even to get started and there’s no guarantee that it will result in full blown Congressional hearings. The FOIA requests will provide information - actual data on voting, but has no prosecutorial power.

For those reasons and others, that is why I wrote the petition in the first place and directed it to the full Congress. The petition (included below) calls for a complete and sweeping investigation and doesn’t stop at just electronic voting, but asks Congress to examine what went on before the election as well - to seek information relating to registration problems, disinformation, long lines at the polls, intimidation, and other tactics that were implicitly designed to keep people from voting.

The petition also names many states individually, in addition to Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, where many suspect tampering, but also in other states where odd discrepancies between exit polls and actual votes occurred and where voting patterns suddenly changed direction as the nation watched.

I was especially attuned to potential fraud in this election. I had been keeping up on electronic voting during the six months before the election and suspected that there would be tampering and that it may be difficult to detect. On election night itself, I paid attention to reports from Cleveland and elsewhere of long lines at the polls, computer glitches and other assorted oddities. But mostly I was paying attention to the projections by the networks. Early on, the race between Bush and Kerry was said to be "too close to call" in states that we’re even the so-called "battlegrounds" - Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and later, Missouri, Arkansas, Nevada and New Mexico. I was also shocked to watch the Kentucky Congressional race turn around, from a slim, but comfortable lead for challenger Democratic Daniel Mongiardo to an eventual victory for incumbent Jim Bunning. From 7:30 pm to the final tally there was a 5% swing in the vote. Bunning won by 2%.

When I finally went to bed on election night, the presidential race was still in doubt, but my suspicions over the propriety of the entire process were growing. On Wednesday, November 3, Kerry conceded and the nation breathed a collective sigh of either relief or exasperation.

In the aftermath of the election, stories began to pop up on the internet. Some of the made valid claims, others were hysterical and without merit. Still others began to examine how the election was won or lost, depending on perspective. By Sunday night, I had seen enough articles on the internet to convince me that there was at least enough REASONABLE DOUBT into the fairness of the election. Even though the mainstream press was in denial and had not even begun to report on most of the allegations being circulated, and had dismissed the glaring discrepancies between the exit polls and the final count with a glib consensus that "the polls were wrong," without any evidence on which to make that claim.

I worded the petition in such a way as to call attention to all aspects of the voting process and made it clear that the entire Congress needed to look into these allegations and get to the truth.

This petition also instructs Congress to bring any violators to justice and to provide appropriate remedies, which could include a nationwide audit, recount, recall or new election. The Congress is empowered with sweeping authority to investigate and bring criminal charges. They have at their disposal the Depatment of Justice, the FBI, the GAO in addition to subpoena powers and their own investigative tools.

Since that time over 35,000 concerned Americans have signed, but we need more exposure and more signatories. Not a single mainstream journalist has so much as mentioned the petition, though I have continually, throughout the past week, written articles and updates and sent emails to various news organizations as, I’m sure, did many others.

Time is growing short. A copy of the petition and the names of the signers must be delivered to Congress reasonably before December 7, the date by which states must determine any controversy relating to the appointment of electors. The electors will meet and the vote will be final a week after that on December 13.

That is why I have set a target date of December 2nd for delivery of the petition to Congress. It gives them a number of days to respond and also may raise enough doubt that the electors determine that there is indeed sufficient controversy to delay their vote until issues are resolved.

Please join me and other honest, concerned Americans in this effort to compel Congressional action, investigate the election in open hearings and take back our nation. This petition may be our last, best hope.

Much work needs to be done. Awareness of the existence of the petition needs to be at a much higher level. The printing of the petition and list of names needs to be printed and transported to Washington, D. C. The host of the petition, petitiononline.com, has conveyed costs to me for printing and they assure me that it will be professional and legally valid. These costs, must be paid, and while they are not overwhelming, I cannot bear them myself, though I gladly would if able. Of course, additional copies directed at every Senator and Member of the House - even though these could be simply the petition itself and the names by reference - will take time, effort and money to distribute properly.

But most importantly, more people must sign the petition.

Congress needs to know that the American people will not stand for lies, injustice and fraud in any aspect of our government. We must show, by force of numbers, that we will not sit idly by and have our rights abridged, trampled and destroyed.

I am not affiliated with any party. I am a citizen of the United States of America and proud of it. I did not write and post this petition for any kind of personal gain. I have no agenda other than to find the truth about what really happened on, before and after election day. These are dangerous times for America and we need to be courageous, righteous and above all, united.

Rick Gagliano
Downtown Magazine, Rochester, NY
dtmagazine.com
"
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4306

Join us in petition and rallies against fraudulent election

http://www.petitiononline.com/rdb1104/petition.html
"
...
We call upon federal, state and local law enforcement officials to investigate these crimes against democracy, and to use their subpoena power and other investigatory tools to break the conspiracy of silence.

We respectfully request that should the evidence of direct and deliberate involvement in an attempt to mislead the American people into believing they had chosen a candidate who did not, in fact, legitimately secure the presidency, that the criminals who conspired should be charged with treason against the United States of America.

Further, we respectfully request that the provision in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on the disenfranchisement of citizens be invoked, so that states that deliberately prevented citizens from casting ballots for the presidency or deliberately miscounted or misreported those votes should lose representation in the U.S. Congress in proportion to the number of citizens disenfranchised.
"
http://www.petitiononline.com/rdb1104/petition.html

Ukraine? What about U.S.?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704D.shtml
"
Watching the newsreels of Ukrainians taking to the streets by the hundreds of thousands to protest an election they believe was fraudulent, one has to wonder what Americans are thinking and feeling.
...
What do Ukrainians know that Americans don't?
...
But what are the implications of ignoring electoral corruption?
...
Like the Ukrainians, some Americans predicted our election would be stolen and even outlined how it would be done.
...
The battle which must be fought is one to save representative democracy from the final death blow that will be dealt by ignoring the widespread electoral problems of the past two presidential elections.
...
We still cling to the myth that
...
we are permanently immune to tyranny
...
We ignore millennia of history demonstrating that powerpaths will pursue whatever schemes necessary to maintain power. Indeed, they typically usurp power incrementally, pushing the envelope and testing the boundaries.
...
Considering the relative ease with which the Bush administration stole the 2000 election, deceived the congress and American people, and impudently committed crimes against the international community, why wouldn't they take steps readily available to them (via Diebold, Jeb Bush, Kenneth Blackwell, et al.) to stay in power by stealing another election?
...
We can inundate Congress with demands for investigations.
...
We can pressure news media to stop marginalizing election reform efforts by telling us to move on.
...
Proprietary trade secrets of Diebold and ES&S must be smashed in the courts and the legislatures lest democracy be smashed in the wake of the incestuous marriage of right-wing government and corporate power[read: FASCISM].
...
[We must] demand uncompromising reforms to our electoral system before it becomes irrelevant. It would be an abandonment of principles and duties to country if we didn't. Indeed, it would be unpatriotic.
"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704D.shtml

Help audit the election

http://www.blackboxvoting.org needs volunteers to do research, data entry and number crunching.

Where Is The Airplane...That Crashed into Pentagon???

Where Is The Airplane...That Crashed into Pentagon???
Click on the below website and watch this film (http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon.php#Main )...do it quickly as it has been pulled off several websites already ... and YOU'LL SEE WHY! At the end of the film click on HOME
(or go to http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/)for more comments.

What do you think? Maybe it's worth asking some questions?

"It's not over until it's over."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112204A.shtml
"
Blackwell, who oversaw the election in Ohio, also served as co-chair of the Ohio Bush-Cheney reelection campaign.
...
all of the so-called "anomalies" in the voting results favor Bush.
"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112204A.shtml

Become a Paid Activist

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Become a self-employed book distributor, marketing "Just Say NO to Fascism: A Fable".

Your investment is $33.00 or less, up to what you determine. $33.00 gets you 5 copies of the book, which we recommend you market to individuals, coffee-shops, activist groups, retail-stores, bookstores, mail-order, others you determine, for $12.15 each plus shipping and tax.

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We are looking for volume movers who can help us bypass the corporatist press, but you are welcome to participate at any level.

Interested? Get started!

Go to http://www.justsaynotofascism.com/indyreps.html and SPREAD the WORD!

I Voted?

Stupidity Kills / Monopolized Media

http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=2026

"
The best question asked in the aftermath of the 2004 US election came from a British newspaper, The Daily Mirror, which inquired over a picture of George W. Bush, "How can 59,054,087 be so dumb?
...
is it really appropriate to compare the United States in 2004 with a warped media market like South Africa during apartheid days?

Actually, the comparison may be a bit unfair to South African media in the apartheid era
...
Years of consolidation and bottom-line pressures have forced even once responsible media to allow entertainment and commercial values to supersede civic and democratic values when making news decisions.
...
a lot of Americans voted for George W. Bush on November 2 on the basis of wrong assumptions.
...
a lot of what Americans know is wrong.
...
only 31 percent of Bush supporters recognized that the majority of people in the world opposed the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq.
...
Only 9 percent of Bush backers correctly assumed that Kerry was the world's choice.
...
72 percent of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47 percent) or a major program for developing them (25 percent)
...
75 percent of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda
...
tendency of Bush supporters to ignore dissonant information
...
good citizens who consume American media come away with dramatic misconceptions
...
Fox warps facts intentionally
...
CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, USA Today, the New York Times and the Washington Post
...
fed the American people an inaccurate picture
...
without aggressively and consistently challenging
...
misstatements of fact
...
taken as a whole, US media--with its obsessive focus on John Kerry's Vietnam record, its neglect of fundamental economic and environmental issues and its stenographic repetition of even the most absurd claims by the president and vice president--warped the debate in 2004.
...
Some of those 59,054,087 Bush voters may have been dumb.

But a far better explanation for the election result is summed up by the Weekly Guardian's observation that, "Maybe it's the papers they're reading."

"


http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=2026

Exit Democrat, Enter Green?

Did Kerry take a dive? Do you smell sell-out? It is very likely that many of us who voted for Kerry because he seemed to be the most likely way to get Bush out, will now migrate to the Green Party and work for genuine reform. Today the Green Party is actively working on the recounts. You can watch their progress, read "Mainstream" press articles ('xcuse me) about recount efforts and volunteer your support at http://www.votecobb.org/ There is still time but it is limited.

It's in your Face

Just Say No to Fascism.

Unlike these radicons, WE do not LIE, CHEAT, STEAL or KILL in the name of God. Not in the name of Jesus. Not in our name.

Just Say No to Fascism.

The way out of this mess is the way we got into it: through the Market. AirAmericaRadio.com is proof of this. DemocracyNow.org is proof of this. Michael Moore is proof of this. There is now a super high demand for, and a low supply of, Truth. The past election is proof of this. The Market will, in natural migration, seek out new outlets and avenues, exposing the lies of the entrenched, established propaganda machine, at a profit. More and more Americans are beginning to realize that ANYONE who uses "MAINSTREAM media" as a yardstick for validity on ANY issue is living in a DREAM WORLD of DENIAL. This differential of supply versus demand represents an awesome opportunity for true American innovators and persons of integrity.

The result is going to be increasing rewards for witnesses, truth-detectives, journalistic bounty hunters and investigative reporters. Groups will begin to pool funds to support and reward people who produce and broadcast accurate information leading to the arrest and conviction of the criminal Tories who have hijacked our nation and are endangering our species; and recognition with support for those who work to restore the validity of our democracy. This is why a Free Press is a key element in the foundation of America. This is where a Free Press rescues a country from tyranny. The Free Press is a safeguard against exactly what is developing today.

This is why the Press must be wrenched from the clutches of monopolists. There must be broad anti-trust initiatives regarding our means of attaining information, before the American Dream is consumed in despair and destruction borne of ignorance.

Just say NO to Fascism dot Com. Seek out the Truth. They are LYING to you.

Then when enough of us begin to realize how simply it can be done, we will standardize and make voter-verifiable our elections nationwide. The process will become as accurate and traceable as all the other transactions we routinely make. To preserve domestic tranquility, we will effectively eliminate and prevent future doubt as to the validity of our elections.

Then we will return power over the elections, from dumb capital, to The People; by outlawing any and all campaign contributions. By anyone. By any entity. From or in Any location. We will enforce equitable press-time for all popularly nominated candidates, and prohibit the purchase of campaign advertisements, as a condition of continued licensure of news-outlets. This will ensure that our government is returned to control of true representatives of the people and not of dumb capital.

This is America, Remember? Of, By and For the People. Not dumb capital.
Just Say NO to Fascism.

Corporatist radicals are dividing us using stereotypes of yokels versus elitists. They are using socio-economic groups as scapegoats. This is the same scam these people's grandparents pulled with Germany in the 1930's: Control the press, Divide and then subdue the people. A Yale Bush acting like a Texas bubba is an echo of Sinclair Lewis's "It Can't happen Here". Huey Long once said that "If Fascism ever comes to America, it will come wrapped in an American flag".

Or a cowboy hat.

It's in your face.

Just Say NO to Fascism. Dot Com. Tell Somebody.

In this past election and for a generation leading up to it, the Corporatists used class-resentment in a giant bait-and-switch. They took the suspicion that we all hold: that the super-rich are running the country; and they effectively re-directed that suspicion against civil liberties groups, unions, anti-war demonstrators, educated and informed people in general: EVERY SYSTEM THAT WE CREATED IN ORDER TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT OURSELVES. For YEARS. They flim-flammed the country enough to convince people to vote against their own interests, to get that 3-percent margin (the lowest for a standing president since Truman): close enough to steal their second election while permitting less access to observers than do Venezuela or Kazakhstan.

Without even giving us a receipt.

Now they're doing purges of anyone who doesn't toe the party line, thus further stamping out any chance of productive discourse in our government.

Beware. Talk to someone.

You'd think we would have learned by now. Two anesthetized coups on our own soil. A bloody coup in Haiti. Watch Venezuela. But, we are the "United States of Amnesia", to quote Gore Vidal. Ask a twenty-something why we fought World War II.

Feel scammed?

Just Say No To Fascism dot Com.

Tell Somebody.

Boycott the Propaganda Machine. Support real journalists. Tell others that you do.

Just Say No to Fascism. We have the moral high ground. We don't Lie, Cheat, Steal or Kill in the name of God.

Take action for media and elections reform.

And join the ACLU.

-- Mark Frankenberg, www.JustSayNoToFascism.com

P.S. It's not the doctors. It's not the Lawyers. It's the Insurance Corporatists.

Mandate

Mandate my @$$.

You have a MANDATE not to LIE, CHEAT, STEAL or KILL IN THE NAME of GOD.

blackboxvoting.org contacts

Blackboxvoting.org website keeps going down. To help them out:

Donate. Mailing address is Black Box Voting, PO Box 25552, Seattle WA 98165.

E-mail crew@blackboxvoting.org

Media calls: 206-335-7747

Recount! Subpoena! Kerry and Democrats Won!

Look. It's really very simple. You can pay your taxes through your computer or over the phone. You can buy anything through your computer or over the phone. You do the transaction and get a reciept or a confirmation number. There are countless ways to ensure anonymity.

Why shouldn't our elections be any different? We could reconcile our ballot online. And recount ourselves, if we wanted.

What do they take us for?

You know.. Fraudulent elections are a characteristic of Fascism. So is Militarism. Iraq is our Poland.

Remember, Stupidity Kills. It has and it will again. This is NOT the time to sit by quietly.

Sign Safety

Some of us are putting "www.justsaynotofascism.com" on our cars and trucks. I believe that it is an excellent way for all of us to excercise our First Amendment right to Free Speech.

If you do begin "Signing" like I do, I urge you do be extra vigilant while driving. The range of responses from other drivers is unlimited. It is a good idea to never make eye-contact with other drivers, to "always leave yourself an out" by avoiding having other vehicles directly beside you, and to only use a nod and a smile, or nothing at all, in response to one thumb (or finger) salutes. Use increased following distance because people may drive closely behind you to read your message.

There is hope. We've survived for 228 years.

"None dare call it voter suppression and fraud"

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/983

"
Bob Fitrakis

None dare call it voter suppression and fraud
November 7, 2004

Evidence is mounting that the 2004 presidential election was stolen in Ohio. Emerging revelations of voting irregularities coupled with well-documented Republican efforts at voter suppression prior to the election suggests that in a fair election Kerry would have won Ohio.

Democratic hopeful Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts conceded on November 3, based on preliminary postings by the highly partisan Republican Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. These unofficial results showed Bush with 136,483 more votes than Kerry, although 155,428 provisional ballots, 92,672 “spoiled” ballots, additional overseas ballots, and some remaining absentee ballots remained uncounted.

The day after his concession, Kerry drew 3,893 votes closer to Bush when a computerized voting machine “glitch” was discovered in an Ohio precinct. A machine in ward 1B in the predominantly Republican Gahanna, Ohio, recorded 4,258 votes for George W. Bush when only 638 people cast votes at the New Life Church polling site. Buried on page A6 of the Columbus Dispatch, the story also reported that the voting machine recorded 0 votes in a race between Franklin County Commissioners Arlene Shoemaker and Paula Brooks. Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder told the Dispatch that the voting machine glitches were “why the results on election night are unofficial.”

The right-wing New Life Church voting glitch is interesting. Free Press reporter Marley Greiner has been tracking Blackwell’s relationship with far right-wing religious forces like Biblical America and Christian dominionist groups that want to establish theocratic religious rule in America. Blackwell was campaigning around the state with the Reverend Rod Parsley as part of a “Silent No More” tour in support of amending the Ohio Constitution to outlaw gay marriage, on the ballot as Issue One. Many mainstream commentators claim it was the widely popular Issue One amendment campaign that brought out Bush voters in record numbers in rural Ohio. Gay marriage was already outlawed by state statute, and six of the seven Ohio Supreme Court justices are Republicans.

The nonpartisan Citizen’s Alliance for Secure Elections (CASE) is investigating various other voting irregularities in Ohio, among them:

# In Auglaize County, a letter dated October 21 under the signature of Ken Nuss, the county’s former deputy director, alleges that Joe McGinnis, a former employee of Election Systems & Software (ES&S), violated election protocol with his unauthorized use of the county’s central tabulating computer that creates ballots and compiles election results. Nuss, who resigned on October 21, alleges that McGinnis was improperly granted access to the computer the weekend of October 16.

# In Miami County, with 100% of the precincts reporting at 9am EST Wednesday, Nov. 3, Bush had 20,807 votes (65.80%) and Kerry had 10,724 (33.92%). Miami reported 31,620 voters. Inexplicably, nearly 19,000 new ballots were added after all precincts reported, boosting Bush’s vote to 33,039 (65.77%) to Kerry’s 17,039 (33.92%). CASE is investigating why the percentage of the vote stayed exactly the same to three one-hundredths of a percentage point after nearly 19,000 new ballots were added. CASE members speculate that it’s either a long-shot coincidence with the last three digits remaining the same, or that someone had pre-set a database and programmed a voting machine to cough up a pre-set percentage of votes. Miami County uses an easily hackable optical scanner with the central counter provided by the Republican-linked vendor ES&S.

# In Warren County, administrators and election officials locked down the county administrative building and prohibited all independent election observers from watching the vote count. County officials cited “homeland security,” according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. WCPO-TV Channel 9 News Director Bob Morford told the Enquirer that he had “never seen anything like it.” Morford asserted that throwing the media and independent observers out of the centralized counting area under the guise of “homeland security” was a “red herring.” He said, “That’s something to put up when you don’t know what else to put up to keep us out.” In Warren County, Bush picked up an additional 12,000 votes over his 2000 election total.

# In Franklin County, where Franklin County Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder is also the former Executive Director of the county’s Republican Party, the county Board of Elections building looked like a bunker. Scores of city buses blocked parking spaces on the street outside, numerous concrete barricades surrounded the parking lot, and a metal detector was stationed at the only entrance. A phalanx of armed deputy sheriffs swarmed the only site where provisional voters could cast a guaranteed ballot. The Columbus Dispatch confirmed an Election Day Free Press story that far fewer voting machines were present in predominantly black Democratic inner-city voting wards than in the recent primary election and the 2000 presidential election, with their lighter turnouts. The reduced number of machines caused voters to wait up to seven hours and wait an average of approximately three hours. One Republican Central Committee member told the Free Press that Damschroder held back as many as 2000 machines and dispersed many of the other machines to affluent suburbs in Franklin County.

# In rural Drake County, Kerry received 78 less votes than Al Gore in 2000, but Bush received 3000 more votes. Drake is the only county in Miami Valley where Kerry’s votes was less than Gore’s and where Bush’s vote rose dramatically.

Prior to the discovery of these irregularities, investigative reporter Greg Palast, who exposed the systematic disenfranchisement of Democratic voters in Florida in 2004, wrote an article entitled, “Kerry won.” Palast and numerous other observers point to the fact that the exit polls showed Kerry winning. Palast concludes that the exit polls were correct, but Kerry votes were far more likely to remain uncounted on election night.

Unofficial Ohio presidential results provided by the Secretary of State’s Office show 155,428 provisional ballots cast. Blackwell was all over the national news telling everyone who would listen that these ballots were randomly distributed and not disproportionately for Kerry. As former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani raved on national TV demanding Kerry’s concession, a basic analysis of the provisional ballots suggested that they were disproportionately for Kerry.

Historically, provisional ballots are far more likely to be cast by poor and minority voters, who live in the urban centers and move more often. Ohio has 88 counties, the vast majority of them rural. Kerry won 15 counties in Ohio, virtually all large urban centers. In those counties, 85,096 provisional ballots remain uncounted. Past elections point to the fact that these provisional ballots are hardly ever cast in the affluent, primarily Republican municipalities, but are overwhelmingly from the central city. Also, an additional 17,038 provisional ballots are from Hamilton County and Wood County. Bush won Hamilton with 53% of the vote and Wood County with 53.5%. Traditionally, the provisional ballots in Hamilton County come from Cincinnati and its poor central city areas. These are areas where John Kerry won handily on Election Day.

Thus, 102,134 of the provisional ballots, nearly two-thirds (65.7%) in all probability come from solidly pro-Kerry areas and are most likely cast by pro-Kerry supporters such as African Americans and the poor. These fit the same socio-economic demographics and racial profiles of voters targeted by the GOP for challenges in Ohio.

Palast also points to the 92,672 so-called “spoiled” ballots in Ohio that have yet to be counted, and may never be tallied. The most famous spoiled ballots were the 2004 Florida punch cards that could not be machine read, but when looked at manually the voter’s intent could be determined. Expert statisticians who investigated spoilage in the 2000 election in Florida found that 54% of these discarded ballots were cast by blacks. In Ohio, most of the spoiled votes were lost through punch card ballots in 2004.

By Blackwell directing county Boards of Elections not to count the provisional ballots for 11 days, it benefited the Bush campaign since an immediate counting would have no doubt made the race tigher between Kerry and Bush, and perhaps prompted Kerry to request a recount. This would have the 92,672 discarded "spoiled" ballots that were also likely to favor Kerry.

Daniel Tokaji, Professor of Law at the Ohio State University College of Law commented: "One other point. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has reportedly said that provisional ballots won't be counted for 11 days. I'm not sure where he's getting this, but he may be relying on ORC 3505.32. This statute provides that the boards of election are to begin canvassing election returns between 11 and 15 days after the election and ‘continue the canvass daily until it is completed.’ Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see how this precludes provisional votes from being counted earlier than that, even if the canvass doesn't begin until the 11th day."

Spoiled ballots will only be counted if someone with standing, such as five Kerry electors or the Ohio Democratic Party, demands and legally qualifies for a recount. Thus, the exit polls may have been correct. A majority of people voted for Kerry in Ohio; but 250,000 votes were not counted, most favoring Kerry over Bush. If Kerry had won by even one vote in Ohio, he would be the next President of the United States.

Irregularities in other key battleground states have prompted three U.S. representatives to urgently request that the Comptroller General of the United States David Walker and the General Accounting Office “immediately undertake an investigation of the efficiency of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election.” Tom Hartmann, in his post election article on CommonDreams.org (“Evidence mounts that the vote was hacked”), reminds readers that Bev Harris, who started blackboxvoting.org, showed Howard Dean how to hack a county “central tabulator” computer in 90 seconds live on CNBC.

The Diebold Corporation, which helped count the Ohio vote with e-voting machines and optical scan machines, is run by a notoriously pro-Republican CEO, Wally O’Dell. Last year O’Dell wrote a letter to Ohio Republican donors telling them that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year.” O’Dell is a proud member of Bush’s Pioneer and Ranger team of major donors who visit the Crawford ranch. The other major election vote counting firm is ES&S, which is being investigated for allegedly having a machine that subtracted votes when the totals surpassed 32,000.

On Election Day, the Election Protection Coalition observers who covered 58 polling places in central Ohio, documented thousands of voter complaints over long lines and recorded numerous people leaving the polls for work or because they were elderly or handicapped and physically unable to wait for hours to vote. Professor James K. Galbraith, of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, wrote the following summary of Election Day in Ohio: “. . . I drove a young African-American voter, a charming business student, seven months pregnant, to her polling place at Finland Elementary School in south Columbus. We arrived in a squalling rain to find voters lined up outside for about a hundred yards. . . . The real problem was a grotesque shortage of voting machines.”

Ohio State University Law Professor Edward B. Foley told the New York Times, “When your lines get to two or three hours, it’s system failure.”

Other bizarre tactics emerged in the run-up to the election:

# Under an archaic Ohio law, both the Republican and Democratic Parties, or any slate of five candidates, may embed official election challengers inside polling places. The New York Times reported on Oct. 23 that the Republican Party intended to place thousands of lawyers and other GOP faithfuls inside the polls to challenge voters. Republican insiders confide here that the key goal was to jam lines and frustrate new voters. After two federal judges rejected the GOP challengers, Republicans got a favorable ruling from the Sixth Circuit, which allowed them to place challengers in Ohio polling places. Michael Beaver, Deputy State Commander with the Election Protection Coalition says, “We now believe that the challengers were a smokescreen to hide the real plan to orchestrate a machine shortage in Democratic wards.”

# The Republican Party sent letters challenging thousands of Franklin County registered voters who requested absentee ballots. Franklin County is home to Columbus, the state's largest city and its capitol. Though it is also home to Ohio State University, thousands of local students go to schools outside the county or state. The GOP targeted young voters for challenges. The GOP pre-challenged an estimated 35,000 voters and rented arenas in Cleveland and Columbus to conduct the challenges. The GOP sent registered letters to registered voters’ addresses and when they failed to pick up a letter from the Republican Party in primarily Democratic areas, they were challenged for fraud. A federal judge disallowed the challenges less than a week before the election.

# The Franklin County Board of Elections has called or written an undetermined number of voters who obtained absentee ballots, challenging their addresses. In at least one case, after a series of angry phone calls, the Board admitted there was nothing wrong with the address in question and re-instated voting rights. The voter in question was a registered Democrat. His wife, an independent at the same address, was not challenged. It is unclear how many others have been wrongly knocked out.

# Even if they are counted, Franklin County's absentee ballot forms are designed in ways strikingly reminiscent of those notorious butterfly ballots in the Florida 2000 presidential election. On Franklin County absentee ballot forms, Kerry is the third name on the list of presidential candidates on the left side of the ballot. But, the punch card is designed to fit in the middle, so the actual number you punch for Kerry is hole "4." If you mistakenly punch hole "3" you've just voted for Bush.

# Damschroder, Franklin County's right-wing Elections Director is insisting on e-voting machines that have malfunctioned in at least two Congressional elections. The machines have no paper trail and one subtracted 3% from former Rep. John Kasich’s and added 3% to Ed Brown, a six-point shift. The November issues of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics Magazines ran the following headlines on their covers, respectively: "E-vote emergency: And you thought dimpled chads were bad'" and "Could hackers tilt the election?" Vigorous protests against the paperless machines have been staged here, but many will be used, rendering a meaningful recount impossible.

# Twenty GOP-dominated Ohio counties have given wrong information to former felons about their voter eligibility. In Hamilton County, home of Cincinnati and the Republican Taft family, officials told numerous former felons that a judge had to sign off before they could vote, which is blatantly false.

# Franklin County, which normally cancels 2-300 registered voters a year for felony convictions, has sent at least 3,500 cancellation letters to both current felons and ex-felons whose convictions date back to 1998. The list includes numerous citizens who were charged with felonies but convicted only of misdemeanors.

# Republican Secretary of State Blackwell reversed a long-standing Ohio practice and is barring voters from casting provisional ballots within their county if they are registered to vote but there's been a mistake about where they are expected to cast their ballot. In this year's spring primaries, Blackwell allowed voters to cast provisional ballots by county, even if they were in the wrong precinct. But this fall, voters had to leave if they were in the wrong precinct and find their way to the right one even though they had waited in line two to three hours. Blackwell hopes to succeed Republican Bob Taft as governor, and has labored hard to install Diebold e-voting machines with no paper trail throughout Ohio. Blackwell is being widely compared to the infamous Katherine Harris, who handed Florida to George W. Bush in 2000 and was rewarded with a safe Congressional seat. Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones accused Blackwell of seeking “to disenfranchise the people of the state of Ohio.” Tubbs Jones pointed out that the 2000 census had caused massive redistricting, particularly within inner city precincts, which would lead to many people ending up at the wrong voting site.

# The October 22 Columbus Dispatch, which endorsed Bush, and WVKO Radio have both documented phone calls from people impersonating Franklin County Board of Elections workers and directing registered voters to different and incorrect polling sites. One individual was falsely told not to vote at the polling station across the street from his house, but at a "new" site, four miles away. Under Blackwell's new rules, such a vote would not be counted. Nor do the precinct locations make much sense in the inner city. Someone living on the northwest corner of Bryden and Wilson, instead of walking half a block to the polling site at Franklin Alternative School, must vote seven blocks northeast at the Model Neighborhood facility polling site. The previous polling site for the precinct was two blocks west before the Republicans consolidated several inner city polling places in the 1990s.

# In Cincinnati, some 105,000 voters were moved from active to inactive status within the last four years for not voting in the last two federal elections. This is not required under Ohio law, but is an option allowed and exercised by the Republican-dominated Hamilton County Board of Elections.

# Secretary of State Blackwell ruled that any voter registration form on other than 80-pound weight bond paper would not be accepted. This is an old law left over from pre-scanning days. Many voters who had registered on lighter paper, had their registration returned, even though the forms had been officially sanctioned by local election boards.

# On Election Day, fliers littered the inner city telling voters that Republicans were to vote on Tuesday and Democrats on Wednesday.

No Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio. The voting irregularities suggest that Bush is the first Republican President to win the presidency without winning the actual Ohio vote. Kerry won the vote in Ohio. The exit polls are correct. The mainstream media, instead of investigating the massive irregularities, are busy concocting theories as to how all the exit polls, the safeguards for fair elections, were all wrong on election night in the Buckeye State. None dare suggest voter suppression and fraud.

--
Bob Fitrakis is a Professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Columbus State Community College. He has a Ph.D in Political Science and a J.D. from The Ohio State University Law School. He is the author of seven books, an investigative reporter, and Editor of the Columbus Free Press (freepress.org). He has won ten major investigative journalism awards including Best Coverage of Politics in Ohio from the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists. He served as an international election observer in the 1994 presidential elections in El Salvador and was the co-author and editor of the report to the United Nations. He served as legal advisor for eight polling locations on Columbus' Near East Side for the Election Protection Coalition.
"


http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/983

"Why do they Hate Us?"

On Election Day, I listened to Rush Limbaugh (Holding my nose) for a couple minutes. I can't listen for more than a couple minutes at a time because blatant lies generally anger me. He imitated a caller wondering "Why do they Hate Us", to which he replied "I don't CARE why they hate us", in his Fred Flinstone, wannabe dictator tone.

If you wonder "why do they hate us" there are some explanations in this book:

Available at
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?isbn=1576753018

Was the Election a Scam?

Let's find out!

On Election Day, Greg Palast (who wrote "The Best Democracy Money Can buy", which details the Florida felon-purge fiasco in the 2000 election) said that if this time the vote came within 3 percentage points, "Call the Cops". It's time.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

This organization was instrumental in exposing offshore ownership of some of our voting technology, the vulnerability of much of it, and the blatant conflict of interest concerning Diebold, Inc. and Ohio. Before the election.

As we speak, Black Box Voting is conducting the "most massive Freedom of Information action in history".

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

Remember Watergate? I would volunteer that the stakes are somewhat higher today.

Bush, Rove, Schwarzenneger Nazi association

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1006-08.htm
"
George W. Bush's grandfather helped finance the Nazi Party. Karl Rove's grandfather allegedly helped run the Nazi Party, and helped build the Birkenau Death Camp. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian father volunteered for the infamous Nazi SA and became a ranking officer.
"
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1006-08.htm

These folks helped during the McCarthy era Too:

"The re-election of George W. Bush, whose administration has shown a profound
disregard for fundamental rights, means our work is now more essential than ever.

The fact is, without a vigorous, spirited movement for freedom, their
unrelenting assault on civil liberties could change the face of our democracy."

I strongly urge you to join the ACLU.

You Get what They Paid For

The republic is sick. It has devolved into empire, and now theocracy, just like Rome did.

We expected Ohio to go wrong since the CEO of Diebold, inc. said he'd hand the Ohio vote to Bush.

We expected things like the computer-bug in Florida electronic voting machines yesterday, that made it necessary for some voters to select Kerry repeatedly to override an apparently erroneous resulting Bush vote (then walk away without a reciept). We suspect that many Bush votes likely resulted from that alone, thus in part explaining huge differences in official election results,from the exit polls.

We sensed a faint odor when such progressives as Ralph Nader, Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton were effectively neutralized and silenced.

So now, You get the manufactured consent that the moneyed interests paid for.

My God, help us.

In the future, My God willing, there will be a standardized, voter-reconcilable elections system.

In the future, My God willing, there will be a de-corporatization of all political parties through the complete prohibition of private campaign finance.

In the future, My God willing, our Press will be returned to the service of the public good, as determined by an effective FCC, monitored and controlled by a legislative branch once again truly representative of the people of the United States.

In the future, My God willing, there will be myriads of investigative journalists like Greg Palast, Michael Moore, Seymour Hersh and Amy Goodman, to shine the light of truth and scatter or destroy the vermin of corruption and injustice.

In the future, My God willing, no longer will lying, cheating and stealing be the accepted means for securing power and influence over others; and that benevolence will prevail.

We respectfully ask our President and Commander in Chief, our senators and representatives, and our judges, to honor their oaths of office and thus preserve justice, liberty, and the Constitution of the United States.

America is Liberal

"As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality."
-- George Washington

Just Say NO to FASCISM

Click here to Find Out More about this book by Mark Frankenberg

"Fascism is again rising in America, this time calling itself "compassionate conservatism."

from http://boards.historychannel.com/threadedout.jsp?forum=30048&thread=300021037
"
The Ghost of Vice President Wallace Warns: "It Can Happen Here"
by Thom Hartmann

The Republican National Committee has recently removed from the top-level pages of their website an advertisement interspersing Hitler's face with those of John Kerry and other prominent Democrats. This little-heralded step has freed former Enron lobbyist and current RNC chairman Ed Gillespie to resume his attacks on Americans who believe some provisions of Bush's PATRIOT Act, his detention of American citizens without charges, his willingness to let corporations write legislation, and the so-called "Free Speech Zones" around his public appearances are all steps on the road to American fascism.

The RNC's feeble attempt to equate Hitler and Democrats was short-lived, but it brings to mind the first American Vice President to point out the "American fascists" among us.

Although most Americans remember that Harry Truman was Franklin D. Roosevelt's Vice President when Roosevelt died in 1945 (making Truman President), Roosevelt had two previous Vice Presidents - John N. Garner (1933-1941) and Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945). In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, "write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?"

Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.

"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word "fascist" - the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)

As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled "The Doctrine of Fascism" he wrote, "If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government." But not a government of, by, and for We The People - instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.

In 1938, Mussolini brought his vision of fascism into full reality when he dissolved Parliament and replaced it with the "Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni" - the Chamber of the Fascist Corporations. Corporations were still privately owned, but now instead of having to sneak their money to folks like Tom DeLay and covertly write legislation, they were openly in charge of the government.

Vice President Wallace bluntly laid out in his 1944 Times article his concern about the same happening here in America:


" If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."
Nonetheless, at that time there were few corporate heads who had run for political office, and, in Wallace's view, most politicians still felt it was their obligation to represent We The People instead of corporate cartels. "American fascism will not be really dangerous," he added in the next paragraph, "until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information..."

Noting that, "Fascism is a worldwide disease," Wallace further suggest that fascism's "greatest threat to the United States will come after the war" and will manifest "within the United States itself."

In Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," a conservative southern politician is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host. The politician - Buzz Windrip - runs his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy as anti-American. When Windrip becomes President, he opens a Guantanamo-style detention center, and the viewpoint character of the book, Vermont newspaper editor Doremus Jessup, flees to Canada to avoid prosecution under new "patriotic" laws that make it illegal to criticize the President.

As Lewis noted in his novel, "the President, with something of his former good-humor [said]: 'There are two [political] parties, the Corporate and those who don't belong to any party at all, and so, to use a common phrase, are just out of luck!' The idea of the Corporate or Corporative State, Secretary [of State] Sarason had more or less taken from Italy." And, President "Windrip's partisans called themselves the Corporatists, or, familiarly, the 'Corpos,' which nickname was generally used."

Lewis, the first American writer to win a Nobel Prize, was world famous by 1944, as was his book "It Can't Happen Here." And several well-known and powerful Americans, including Prescott Bush, had lost businesses in the early 1940s because of charges by Roosevelt that they were doing business with Hitler. These events all, no doubt, colored Vice President Wallace's thinking when he wrote:


" Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after 'the present unpleasantness' ceases."
Fascists have an agenda that is primarily economic. As the Free Dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com) notes, fascism/corporatism is "an attempt to create a 'modern' version of feudalism by merging the 'corporate' interests with those of the state."

Feudalism, of course, is one of the most stable of the three historic tyrannies (kingdoms, theocracies, feudalism) that ruled nations prior to the rise of American republican democracy, and can be roughly defined as "rule by the rich."

Thus, the neo-feudal/fascistic rich get richer (and more powerful) on the backs of the poor and the middle class, an irony not lost on author Thomas Frank, who notes in his new book "What's The Matter With Kansas" that, "You can see the paradox first-hand on nearly any Main Street in middle America - 'going out of business' signs side by side with placards supporting George W. Bush."

The businesses "going out of business" are, in fascist administrations, usually those of locally owned small and medium-sized companies. As Wallace wrote, some in big business "are willing to jeopardize the structure of American liberty to gain some temporary advantage." He added, "Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise [companies]. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself."

But American fascists who would want former CEOs as President, Vice President, House Majority Whip, and Senate Majority Leader, and write legislation with corporate interests in mind, don't generally talk to We The People about their real agenda, or the harm it does to small businesses and working people. Instead, as Hitler did with the trade union leaders and the Jews, they point to a "them" to pin with blame and distract people from the harms of their economic policies.

In a comment prescient of George W. Bush's recent suggestion that civilization itself is at risk because of gays, Wallace continued:


" The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice. It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination..."
But even at this, Wallace noted, American fascists would have to lie to the people in order to gain power. And, because they were in bed with the nation's largest corporations - who could gain control of newspapers and broadcast media - they could promote their lies with ease.

"The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact," Wallace wrote. "Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy."

In his strongest indictment of the tide of fascism the Vice President of the United States saw rising in America, he added, "They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

Finally, Wallace said, "The myth of fascist efficiency has deluded many people. ... Democracy, to crush fascism internally, must...develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels."

This liberal vision of an egalitarian America in which very large businesses and media monopolies are broken up under the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act (which Reagan stopped enforcing, leading to the mergers & acquisitions frenzy that continues to this day) was the driving vision of the New Deal (and of "Trust Buster" Teddy Roosevelt a generation earlier).

As Wallace's President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said when he accepted his party's renomination in 1936 in Philadelphia, "...out of this modern civilization, economic royalists [have] carved new dynasties.... It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction.... And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man...."

Speaking indirectly of the fascists that Wallace would directly name almost a decade later, Roosevelt brought the issue to its core: "These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power."

But, he thundered in that speech, "Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power!"

In 2004, we again stand at the same crossroad Roosevelt and Wallace confronted during the Great Depression and World War II. Fascism is again rising in America, this time calling itself "compassionate conservatism." The RNC's behavior today eerily parallels the day in 1936 when Roosevelt said, "In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for."

It's particularly ironic that the CEOs and lobbyists who run the Republican National Committee would have chosen to put Hitler's fascist face into one of their campaign commercials, just before they launched a national campaign against gays and while they continue to arrest people who wear anti-Bush T-shirts in public places.

President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace's warnings have come full circle. Which is why it's so critical that this November we join together at the ballot box to stop this most recent incarnation of feudal fascism from seizing complete control of our nation.
"
from http://boards.historychannel.com/threadedout.jsp?forum=30048&thread=300021037

Kerry 4, Bush 0

John Kerry looks like our next president. We need a man of integrity and ability. He is that man.

It was easy to see that George Bush had been heavily schooled prior to this last debate. No more rants, no more scowls (although I caught him winking and silently clowning with someone in the audience a couple of times. Boys will be boys, I guess).

I think that it was revealing when Bush blamed the failings of our healthcare system on litigation. He and his supporters want to limit our ability to achieve justice in court. This is a continuation of the Bush Administration's attack on our judicial system.

When Bush again addressed Kerry's various plans with the old "How do you intend to pay for it" attack, I couldn't help thinking of the gargantuan defecit and debt this administration has racked up, and I again noticed that feeling as though we've been robbed. This is the same feeling he evokes when he winks at some deep-pocketed cohort in the audience. It's the same feeling he evokes when he gets that look on his face that seems to say, "I stole from you and there's nothing you can do about it." Yeah, like Tony Soprano the gangster.

Healthy people will strengthen America. Kerry's "take it or leave it" health strategy is long overdue in this country.

Civil rights, equal opportunity and the preservation of personal liberties are key elements of the freedom we all hold sacred. I was left, again, with the conclusion that under George W. Bush these things are severely threatened; and that under John Kerry these defining American qualities will be better protected. The fact that Bush has not talked with the NAACP is symbolic. Bush would roll back what little progress we've made with regard to civil rights. He's already doing it through his upward redistribution of wealth through tax cuts for the top 1% of incomes in the country, effectively further broadening the gap between rich and poor and weakening the middle class.

Kerry's emphasis on fiscal responsibility is a trait real republicans used to have too.

I don't like Bush's plan to let young people take their social security money and give it to private interests. That would be the end of Social Security. Carving up the government of the people and selling it off doesn't work with money or with public natural resources like parks and wildlife preserves. It is theft.

I think Bush's undoing of the assault weapons ban is a way to get more prisoners in our legal system, a way to justify the further militarization of our police; both of which will accelerate America's decline into police-statehood.

Kerry's plan to achieve a "fair playing field" in business is encouraging. There is a lot we can do to get this, and I am encouraged in what I see that John Kerry can do it. Not subsidizing job-loss (moving them overseas) is an excellent first step. A hiring credit is another excellent idea.

I think that when Bush talks of government being out of line when telling "citizens how to live their lives", he's trying to create a phantom; and he's blowing a smokescreen over the patriot act and his fundamentalist religious agenda, including his interference with stem-cell research, and his attacks on womens' choice and states' marriage rights. I agree with John Kerry that "faith must not be legislated". It's smart to keep churches of any kind out of government, and it's part of what defines America.

When George Bush described a "culture of life", I wondered how this applied to Iraq, Guantonimo Bay and Abu Graib, the increasing hate-crimes against and mass deportations of hispanics and middle-eastern Americans, when he said it.

Bush's further mentions of "Legal Reform" were extended to product liability this evening. Not just healthcare. Corporate neo-conservative special-interests have wanted this for years. Beware.

Kerry was believable again when he stressed that partisan bickering should never interfere with reason. His history of cooperation with republicans such as John McCain is proof of this.

George Bush mentioned McCain-Feingold (campaign finance reform), in answer to Kerry's emphasis on the need for clean elections. What he didn't mention was that he grudgingly signed that bill, almost in secret, and that he virtually disabled it in its application, in his FEC.

I think Kerry could have said more on the elections issue, especially when Bush mentioned the 2000 election debacle. Watch Ohio this time around.

It comes down to integrity and credibility. Regarding these, again, Kerry won the debate hands-down.

When John Kerry prepared to give his closing statement, I caught myself silently prompting him, "My fellow Americans"; and he started with that.

As he should.

New John Kerry Movie

We just saw "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry" here in Tampa Bay (we get community radio: www.wmnf.org). I highly recommend it. Anyone who sees this will gain a fuller understanding of the humanity, capability and righteousness of John Kerry, and a glimpse of what we could lose if ignorance prevails. A very up-beat, inspiring movie with a positive message. Ebert gives it 3 out of 4 stars (this picture is from Roger Ebert's site):
Roger Ebert's review can be read here:http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041001/REVIEWS/409300303/1023

Kerry 3, Bush 0

I’m a former noncommissioned officer from Tampa Bay. We get community radio. Kerry 3, Bush 0.

John Kerry deftly exposed that Bush is "ceding veto power" to an institution / "article of faith" when Bush says that "to destroy life to save life" is unethical with regard to frozen embryos, but Bush had no problem lying to the country to take us into an un-necessary, preemptive war. This outs Bush's Moral Minority membership. Read about MM's in "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis.

Bush again made divisive remarks about THE PEOPLE: one about blacks being property in the Dred Scott case. This reminded me of the first debate when he mentioned that some people are against Muslims. Some people don't bother to learn what civil rights and the constitution are about. It's easier if you have "Internets". And no, it's the Declaration if Independence, not the Constitution that says, "All men are created equal". But you have to show up for class to learn that kind of stuff.

I suspect that George Bush and his "flock" don't even know what "liberal" means. Look it up. Read what Martin Luther King had to say about liberals. I know the two "flockies" we have at work, out of fifty, don't even own computers. They don't like me to bring it up though. They don't trust "Internets" either. (Beware. This is a credible threat to sanity in this country this time. Ever see "Blue Collar TV"?).

Bush wants a runaway free-market. He wants heavy deregulation. That's how you get pollution, corruption, more poverty, crime and incarceration, and big market-corrections. Fiscal irresponsibility is how you get deficit spending greater in one term than in the rest of the entire history of the country. Oh, the deficit, bigger than 1776 to Reagan, is because a bubble popped? Big Bubble, huh? Deregulation and market fear of an upcoming warmonger radical right president causes corrections / "bubble pops". Need some gum?

Bush typically fell back on his patent strategy of lies, fear and intimidation, demonstrating his incompetence, getting upset when put on the spot. This incompetence is proof that corporate and fundamentalist lobbies with a compliant press have inflicted this current administration on us.
Fear is how corrupt national leaders take away the freedoms of the people. Like in Chili and Guatemala. And over there in Russia with Bush's buddy Putin. Patriot Act sneak and peek double-speak. Did Pinochet wear a military flight-sui-, er, uniform..?..yes, he did. You can run but you can't hide.

He gave a tax cut to his rich buddies instead of using the money on civil defense.

I think George wants to be a general now, even though he shirked his duty as a pilot, losing his flight status in a cushy rich-kid guard slot and wasting the flight training we paid for, in favor of youthful indiscretion when he was young. Meanwhile, John Kerry served honorably and then had the additional courage and righteousness to speak out against an unjust war as a civilian, after learning first hand how wrong it was.

Kerry looked like the next president. Kerry should BE the next president. Bush looked and acted like a kid who had been caught doing something wrong. That's because he is a kid who has been caught doing something wrong, stubborn in the face of reason. Well, he did one thing right. He quit drinking and drugs apparently. I can find you thirty guys in a meeting down the street with more clean time than he has. And they didn't have to join a "flock" to do it.

When an incompetent boss keeps messing up and "owning up to it", I know he's going to get canned soon.

Take somebody to the polls. Don't let up! Think of your kids!

And wash that "tort-reform" out of your mouths, please, both of you.. no oppression, thank you. Good judges and a better court-to-case ratio. Not tort-reform.

Kerry 2, Bush 0

Again, I sincerely hope a lot of people saw this vice-presidential debate. www.cspan.org will keep playing it for anyone who missed it.

Edwards was direct, consise and clear.

Cheney was cynical, impatient, negative and in total denial. He acted outraged or insulted whenever he was faced with something he knew he couldn't dispute, like the fact that Americans are carrying 90% of the weight in the "coalition" of occupation in Iraq. He carried all the earmarks of one who is used to managing through intimidation instead of reason. He has contributed in large measure to the ugly face-mask America has been forced to wear, in the name of greed.

Notice how Cheney avoided the Halliburton issue Twice. And the way he dodged the Tora Bora failure, in which we could have gotten Bin Laden had not he, Bush and Rumsfeld been so eager to leave there and go after the oil and "better targets" in Iraq instead. Instead of hardening our domestic defenses and seeking out the real threats overseas, Bush and Cheney have created a new menace altogether in Iraq. And killed over a thousand of our sons and daughters in the process.

And No talk whatsoever about Caspian Oil pipelines or Unocal or THREATS, just before 9/11. He said the halliburton issue was a smokescreen. Where there's smoke there's fire. I encourage everyone to enquire further. Bush and Cheney didn't even WANT a 9/11 commission looking into what happened. We should all wonder, WHY?!

Like Kerry, Edwards is working to bring out the truth. They will bring some desperately needed credibility, humanity and good sense back into our government. In the spirit of the late Paul Wellstone, bless him.

And remember equal rights? Yeah.. Remember that?

Iraq was not the terrorists' home. Bush and Cheney have turned it into one. For Oil; and they won't even say it.

Cheney and Bush are unashamedly lying to you. To me. If we let them get away with this, we are doomed to Cheney's "extraordinary measures" (I almost fell out of my chair when he said that) in the form of military aggression and domestic paramilitary policing that is Un-American. Like a company that makes deals with the enemy. Like Halliburton. Like Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam.

Not in our name. Kerry '04. For your freedom. For America.

If you accept their lies they will enslave you. Do you see now what might ensue if Cheney ever became president?

Talk to others. Change somebody's mind. Take them to the polls. We can fix this. This may well be the most important election in our lifetimes.