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Tuesday, November 30
Jesse Jackson: It's Not Too Much to Ask
by
Trish Nelson
on Tue 30 Nov 2004 09:52 AM CST
 Rev. Jesse Jackson on the Ohio Recount: It's Not Too Much to Ask
OpEdNews.com
"We cannot be the home of the thief and the land of the slave."
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
COLUMBUS--Preaching to a packed,
wildly cheering central Ohio citizen congregation, Rev. Jesse Jackson
blasted the presidential election back into the national headlines
Sunday. Jackson said new findings cast serious doubt on the idea that
George W. Bush beat John Kerry in Ohio November 2. A GOP "pattern of
intentionality" was behind a suspect outcome, he said. At stake is "the
integrity of the vote" for which "too many have died." "We can live
with losing an election," he said. "We cannot live with fraud and
stealing."
Jackson
demanded the removal of Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell from
supervising the recount, which Jackson termed a case of "the fox
guarding the chicken house." Blackwell co-chaired the Bush-Cheney
campaign in Ohio.
Jackson said "the owner of the team
can't also be the referee." A broad-based legal team--now including
Jackson's PUSH/Rainbow Coalition as Plaintiff--is preparing to file an
election challenge asking the election results be overturned.
Jackson said the situation
"does not pass the smell test."
Before
some 500 supporters, Jackson preached a litany of doubt surrounding the
Ohio outcome. "You can't have public elections on privately-owned
machines, especially where one of the owners has vowed to deliver the
state for George Bush," Jackson added.
"We as
Americans should not be begging a Secretary of State for a fair vote
count. We cannot be the home of the thief and the land of the slave."
"This is
not about John Kerry versus George Bush," said Jackson. "This is about
Medgar Evers and Fannie Lou Hamer and Viola Liuzzo. About Goodman,
Cheney and Schwerner, and twenty-seven years in prison for Nelson
Mandela," he said, referring to heroes of the movements for equal
rights. "It's about a will to dignity. It's not too much to ask for our
vote to count."
* * *
Bob
Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of the upcoming ANOTHER
STOLEN ELECTION: VOICES OF THE DISENFRANCHISED, 2004 (freepress.org).
Fitrakis is publisher and Wasserman is senior editor of freepress.org.
Fitrakis is co-counsel for the Alliance For Democracy which has
announced that it will file a lawsuit to ensure a fair recount of the
votes in Ohio.
(click here to read the entire story)
Friday, November 26
Attempt to Stop Mandatory Mental Screening Fails
by
Linda Thieman
on Fri 26 Nov 2004 04:34 AM CST
 Attempt to Stop Mandatory Mental Screening Fails
WorldNetDaily.com
An
attempt by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, to add language to the omnibus
spending bill in Congress to require parental consent for any
mental-health screening done to children with federal money has failed.
...Critics
of the mental-health screening plan say it is a thinly veiled attempt
by drug companies to provide a wider market for high-priced
antidepressants and antipsychotic medication, and puts government in
areas of Americans' lives where it does not belong.
(Click here to read the complete article.)
*For further information, click here.
Thursday, November 25
12 Things Progressives Can Be Thankful For This Year
by
Linda Thieman
on Thu 25 Nov 2004 04:24 AM CST
 12 Things Progressives Can Be Thankful For This Year
by Linda Thieman
Thanksgiving can be a bit of a touchy subject in the progressive community. One
can never assume that everyone will simply gather ‘round the turkey or
the tofurkey and join in a celebration which reminds many of the
decimation of the Native American population. On the other hand,
there are many who believe that to express gratitude for the good
things we share serves to increase that abundance.
In
trying to reach a happy medium, Blog for Iowa (with much cribbing from
American Progress) has compiled a list of 12 things that we
progressives can be thankful for this year.
1) We’re thankful for outspoken leaders like Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich who keep the progressive torch lit.
2) We’re thankful for George Lakoff and his dissection and exposure of the GOP meme factory.
3) We’re thankful that the Democrats finally broke the stranglehold that the destructive neocons had on the Iowa Senate.
4)
We’re thankful that the Green Party’s Cobb/LaMarche campaign has used
their legitimate position on the Ohio ballot to pursue the proper
course of action for an Ohio presidential recount.
5) We're
thankful for Jon Stewart for using comedy to highlight the essential
truths – about the media, politicians, and – especially - Tucker
Carlson.
6) We're thankful for California's trailblazing on stem-cell research.
7) We're thankful for Rush Limbaugh, Bill Bennett, Jack Ryan, and Tom DeLay for helping us understand conservative moral values.
8) We're thankful for Costco, for showing Wal-Mart that you can offer rock-bottom prices without paying rock-bottom wages.
9) We're thankful for Canada, for picking up the slack and providing affordable drugs to America's seniors.
10)
We're thankful for Republicans like Senators Dick Lugar and Chuck Hagel for putting principles over partisanship.
11) We're thankful for Air America for taking on conservative talk radio…and winning.
12) And
last but not least, we are very thankful for the policy wonks who read
the fine print of the omnibus and stopped the turkeys in Congress from
reading our income tax returns.
And a personal thank you to Trish Nelson for stepping up to the Blog for Iowa plate and doing such an outstanding job.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Wednesday, November 24
Howard Dean: Global Suffering Demands Global Response
by
Trish Nelson
on Wed 24 Nov 2004 06:32 AM CST
 Howard Dean: Global Suffering Demands Global Response
SitNews.us
NOV 23, 2004
The Third World War
By Gov. Howard Dean, M.D.
The war in Afghanistan
was a victory for international morality, not only for taking away a
haven for terrorists, but also for ending the brutal suppression of the
rights of women that the Taliban had imposed.
Yet
before we congratulate ourselves too much, consider the tens of
thousands of women and men who have died as a result of a misguided
U.S. policy (the "gag rule") that denies family planning funds to any
organization that, in countries where abortion is legal,
provides abortion-related information or services (using private
funds), along with other reproductive health services. In some
countries, a third of the family planning clinics have closed as a
result of the withdrawal of U.S. funds.
Some
special interest groups are attempting to bring about a total ban on
U.S. funding for family planning services even by organizations
that abide by the gag rule by pumping out phony statistics and
misleading press releases implying that world population growth has
nearly stopped and is about to go into decline. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Net growth has slowed slightly, but the world's
population is still growing by 76 million per year - the equivalent of
adding a new U.S. population every four years.
The human suffering caused by these misguided policies and inadequate funding is staggering:
• 600,000 women and girls die worldwide every year from pregnancy and childbirth.
• 140,000 women bleed to death each year during childbirth.
•
75,000 women die each year trying to end their pregnancies. The
U.N. estimates that worldwide, 50,000 women and girls try to induce
abortions on themselves each day (18.3 million per year). Many of those
who survive face life-long, disabling pain.
•
Approximately 100,000 women die each year from infection, and
another 40,000 women die from the agony of prolonged labor. And those
are only the fatalities. UNICEF's statistics show that for every woman
who dies, 30 survive with gruesome injuries and disabilities. That's
more than 17 million women per year.
Add to
that the exhausting burden of repeated pregnancies and births, and you
have a global picture of suffering that demands global response.
(click here to read the entire story)
Monday, November 22
Democrats Smiling Quietly to Themselves
by
Trish Nelson
on Mon 22 Nov 2004 07:38 AM CST
 Democrats
Smiling Quietly to Themselves
MSNBC News - Countdown
By Keith Olbermann
NOV 21, 2004
Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell is the subject of three
actions regarding the Ohio vote that you haven’t seen on television
yet. Each (the Cobb/Badnarik Recount bid, the Alliance for Democracy
legal challenge, and the Ohio Democratic Party suit over provisional
ballots) has an undertone suggesting time is of the essence, and that
he is wasting it. The local Democrats haven’t been commenting on
their low-flying suit - more about that later. They’re just smiling
quietly to themselves.
It is
noteworthy that the announcement of a legal challenge made it into
weekend editions of The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Columbus Dispatch,
the Associated Press wires, and other publications. The Columbus paper
even mentioned something curious. “Earlier this week, the Ohio
Democratic party announced it would join a lawsuit arguing that the
state lacks clear rules for evaluating provisional ballots, a move the
party said will keep its options open if problems with the ballots
surface.”
This
makes a little more sense out of a confusing item that appeared in an
obscure weekly paper in Westchester County, New York, last Wednesday,
in which a reporter named Adam Stone wrote “A top-ranking official with
Democratic Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign told North County
News last week that although unlikely, there is a recount effort being
waged that could unseat Republican President George Bush.” Stone quotes
Kerry spokesman David Wade as saying: “We have 17,000 lawyers working
on this, and the grassroots accountability couldn’t be any higher - no
(irregularity) will go unchecked. Period.” Gives a little context to
Senator Kerry’s opaque mass e-mail and on-line video statement from
Friday afternoon.
The Ohio
newspaper coverage suggests that even the mainstream media is beginning
to sit up and take notice that, whatever its merits, the investigation
into the voting irregularities of November 2nd has moved from the
Reynolds Wrap Hat stage into legal and governmental action. I’ve
gotten 37,000 emails in the last two weeks (now running at better than
25:1 in favor), and the two most repeated comments by those critical of
the coverage have been references to the ratings of Fox News Channel,
and the phrase “the election is over, (expletive deleted), live with
it." I hesitate to generalize, but this does suggest a certain
unwillingness of critics to engage in political discourses that don’t
have no swear words in ‘em.
Meantime,
The Oakland Tribune not only devoted seventeen paragraphs Friday to the
UC Berkeley study on the voting curiosities in Florida, but actually
expended considerable energy towards what we used to call ‘advancing
the story’: “The UC Berkeley report has not been peer reviewed, but a
reputable MIT political scientist succeeded in replicating the analysis
Thursday at the request of the Oakland Tribune and The Associated
Press. He said an investigation is warranted.”
(click here to read the entire story)
Wednesday, November 17
Caught on Tape: Florida Election Officials Trash Vote Records
by
Linda Thieman
on Wed 17 Nov 2004 02:43 PM CST
Caught on Tape: Florida Election Officials Trash Vote Records
Blackboxvoting.org
NOV 16 2004: Volusia County on Lockdown
County election records put on lockdown
Dueling lawyers, election officials gnashing teeth, Votergate.tv film crew catching it all.
Here's what happened so far:
Friday, Black Box Voting investigators Andy Stephenson and Kathleen Wynne popped in to ask for some records. They were rebuffed by an elections official named Denise. Bev Harris called on the cell phone from investigations in downstate Florida, and told Volusia County Elections Supervisor Deanie Lowe that Black Box Voting would be in to pick up the Nov. 2 Freedom of Information request, or would file for a hand recount. "No, Bev, please don't do that!" Lowe exclaimed. But this is the way it has to be, folks. Black Box Voting didn't back down.
Monday Bev, Andy and Kathleen came in with a film crew and asked for the FOIA request. Deanie Lowe gave it over with a smile, but Harris noticed that one item, the polling place tapes, were not copies of the real ones, but instead were new printouts, done on Nov. 15, and not signed by anyone.
Harris asked to see the real ones, and they said for "privacy" reasons they can't make copies of the signed ones. She insisted on at least viewing them (although refusing to give copies of the signatures is not legally defensible, according to Berkeley elections attorney, Lowell Finley). They said the real ones were in the County Elections warehouse. It was quittin' time and an arrangment was made to come back this morning to review them.
Lana Hires, a Volusia County employee who gained some notoriety in an election 2000 Diebold memo, where she asked for an explanation of minus 16,022 votes for Gore, so she wouldn't have to stand there "looking dumb" when the auditor came in, was particularly unhappy about seeing the Black Box Voting investigators in the office. She vigorously shook her head when Deanie Lowe suggested going to the warehouse.
more »
Sunday, November 14
Blue America Winning Culture War by a Landslide
by
Trish Nelson
on Sun 14 Nov 2004 11:17 AM CST
 Blue America Winning Culture War by a Landslide
The New York Times
There's only one problem with the storyline proclaiming that
the country swung to the right on cultural issues in 2004. Like so many other
narratives that immediately calcify into our 24/7 media's conventional wisdom,
it is fiction. Everything about the election results - and about American
culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat
notwithstanding, it's blue America,
not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry
voters who have been flagellating themselves since Election Day with a
vengeance worthy of "The Passion of the Christ" should wake up and
smell the Chardonnay.
The blue ascendancy is nearly as strong among Republicans as
it is among Democrats. Those whose "moral values" are invested in cultural
heroes like the accused loofah fetishist Bill O'Reilly and the self-gratifying
drug consumer Rush Limbaugh are surely joking when they turn apoplectic over
MTV….
When Robert Novak writes after the election that "the anti-abortion,
anti-gay marriage, socially conservative agenda is ascendant, and the G.O.P.
will not abandon it anytime soon," you have to wonder what drug he is on.
The abandonment began at the convention…. Prime time was bestowed upon the three
biggest stars in post-Bush Republican politics: Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and
Arnold Schwarzenegger. All are supporters of gay rights and opponents of the
same-sex marriage constitutional amendment. Only Mr. McCain calls himself
pro-life, and he's never made abortion a cause. None of the three support the
Bush administration position on stem-cell research. When the No. 1 "moral
values" movie star, Mel Gibson, condemned the Schwarzenegger-endorsed California
ballot initiative expanding and financing stem-cell research, the governor and
voters crushed him like a girlie-man. The measure carried by 59 percent, which
is consistent with national polling on the issue.
Their mandate is clear: The same poll that clocked
"moral values" partisans at 22 percent of the electorate found that
nearly three times as many Americans approve of some form of legal status for
gay couples, whether civil unions (35 percent) or marriage (27 percent).
(click here to read entire story)
Saturday, November 6
Greg Palast: An Election Spoiled Rotten
by
Linda Thieman
on Sat 06 Nov 2004 04:29 AM CST
An Election Spoiled Rotten
by Greg Palast
45% of Americans
believe the presidential election of 2000 was stolen. According to CNN Headline News, a
smaller number, 13%, believe the junta was successful in stealing
another presidential election this week. You weigh the facts.
Monday, November 1, 2004
- It's not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is
already down by almost a million votes. That's because, in important
states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been
systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been
overlooked — overwhelmingly in minority areas, like Rio Arriba County,
New Mexico, where Hispanic voters have a 500 percent greater chance of
their vote being "spoiled." Investigative journalist Greg Palast
reports on the trashing of the election.
Greg
Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the
manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The
documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times
bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this
month on DVD.
John
Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one
ballot has yet been counted. He's also losing big time in Colorado and
Ohio; and he's way down in Florida, though the votes won't be totaled
until Tuesday night.
Through
a combination of sophisticated vote rustling—ethnic cleansing of voter
rolls, absentee ballots gone AWOL, machines that "spoil" votes—John
Kerry begins with a nationwide deficit that could easily exceed one
million votes.
(Click here to read the complete article.)
Also see:
Sour Grapes, or Electoral Fraud?
None of
the facts related to the presidential election add up. Voter
registration went up from 105 million to 120 million. In Ohio alone it
went up a whopping 17%. Whenever registration has surged like this in
the past, it has always favored the challenger and precipitated a
change in government.
Not so,
this time, and Republican pollsters are eager to convince us that the
reason for this is a renewed interest among the American public for
"moral values". Is that it or are the results simply an indication of
massive (but well calculated) voter fraud?
The exit
polling was equally skewed, showing a clear victory for Kerry. Exit
polling has traditionally been a reliable way of determining the
outcome of elections. Not so in Bush-world, where vote totals are
invariably higher for Bush in the contentious areas that ultimately
decide the election.
Give
strategist Karl Rove his due; he knew what had to be done and did it.
The rest, of course, has been papered over by the pollsters, pimps and
pundits in American press corps.
CITIZENS FOR LEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT Launches Investigation Into Discrepancies of 2004 'Election'
Pittsburgh, PA: November 4, 2004
CLG
Founder and Chair, Michael D. Rectenwald, Ph.D., calls for a thorough
investigation into the discrepancies of the 2004 election. At the
conclusion of its investigation, CLG may call for specified action(s)
against the system that has provided for the theft of the 2000 and 2004
elections. CLG may demand prosecution of those that have laid the
groundwork for the 2004 election, if such an investigation points to
the conclusion that a second coup d'etat took place on November 2,
2004.
Click the above link for a long list of detailed discrepencies.
Exit Polls Right, Tallies Wrong?
Alternet
The hot story in the blogosphere is that the "erroneous" exit polls
that showed Kerry carrying Florida and Ohio (among other states)
weren't erroneous at all – it was the numbers produced by paperless
voting machines that were wrong, and Kerry actually won. As more and
more analysis is done of what may (or may not) be the most massive
election fraud in the history of the world, however, it's critical that
we keep the largest issue at the forefront at all time: Why are We The
People allowing private, for-profit corporations, answerable only to
their officers and boards of directors, and loyal only to agendas and
politicians that will enhance their profitability, to handle our votes?
Kerry Won. . .
Greg Palast
November 04, 2004
Bush won
Ohio by 136,483 votes. In the United States, about 3 percent of votes
cast are voided — known as “spoilage” in election jargon — because the
ballots cast are inconclusive. Drawing on what happened in Florida and
studies of elections past, Palast argues that if Ohio’s discarded
ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports
there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the
92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots. So far
there's no indication that Palast's hypothesis will be tested because
only the provisional ballots are being counted.
Kerry won. Here are the facts.
I know
you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But
I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage
called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most
votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was
John Kerry.
Most
voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m.
Wednesday morning, CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio
women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later
combined with—and therefore contaminated by—the tabulated results,
ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. [To read
about the skewing of exit polls to conform to official results, click here.]
Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49
percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
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