Liberation News Service: December 2004 Archives

December 30, 2004

LNS Post Coup II Supplement (12/30/04)

Next week, it all comes down. John Conyers (D-MI) will be holding hearings, Jesse Jackson will be leading protests, and Maxine Waters (D-CA)will stand up and challenge the Ohio electors, IF the US Senate Democrats capitulate as they did in 2000, IF they refuse to sign on with the Congressional Black Caucus, they might as well embrace the "Pro-Life" movement, Creationism and Neo-Con National Insecurity, because their role as a progressive force in US politics will be utterly FORFEIT...

Here is another supplement, please review the news items and op-ed pieces, and share them with those who care...

Theft of the 2004 Election & Complicity of the Corporatist News Media

Bob Fertik, www.democrats.com: January 6 is fast approaching, and we need to convince one Senator to support Maxine Waters and other House Democrats in their challenge to Ohio's electors. Call your Democratic Senators today! Cite the Moss v. Bush lawsuit as the basis for the challenge.
Activists will be coming to DC from across the nation. ReDefeatBush.com is helping local activists arrange transportation. ReDefeatBush has also compiled a target list of 77 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives who should be core supporters.
To set the stage for the January 6 protest, Rev. Jesse Jackson will lead a "Pro Democracy Count Every Vote Rally" in Columbus Ohio on January 3, which is co-sponsored by Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, MoveOn.org, Progressive Democrats of America, the anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice, Ohio State Senator Joyce Beatty, CASE Ohio and others. According to Rev. Jackson, this rally will mark the beginning of a mass movement:
“The vote recount in Ohio is underway. The election challenge lawsuit has been filed. Subpoenas are being prepared. Depositions are being planned. Hearings spearheaded by Cong. John Conyers are bringing forth new evidence of voter machine manipulation. And now Sen. John Kerry has joined in the recount fight. We must have a thorough investigation of voter irregularities and the voter machines before Congress certifies the Electoral College vote on January 6,” Rev. Jackson said. “January 3rd will be the beginning of a new Pro-Democracy Movement in America. Forty years ago, the Voting Rights Act was passed as a result of an independent, mass civil rights movement. We will carry forward that tradition in 2005, and continue the fight to count every vote and make sure every vote counts.”

Gary Beckwith, http://election.solarbus.org: For those watching the growing body of evidence concerning election fraud in our past presidential election, one question has remained: Why don't we hear about this on the evening news?
As of yet it's been hard to explain why the controversies in Ukraine make the headlines, but when similar problems are discovered at home, you have to scour the Internet to find the information.
It certainly isn't for lack of events on which to report. Members of The House Judiciary Committee have been meeting regularly reviewing evidence of systematic voter suppression and voting machine tampering. A coalition of lawyers have filed a lawsuit against the Bush campaign citing deliberate manipulation of votes. Sworn testimony and signed affidavits have implicated companies, individuals, and a Florida congressman…
While it's frustrating that we still can't see the exit polls, let's thank the media for at least resolving one thing for us today. Now we know why we don't see stories about the election on the evening news. Their refusal to release the exit polls shows us categorically that there is a concerted effort on behalf of the major media outlets to consciously prevent the information from getting out. It's not simple oversight, and it's not because they don't think it's newsworthy. Now we know. They are withholding information from us.
Now that that's been resolved, we can move on to the next question: What are they hiding, and why?

www.bradblog.com: Congressman Tom Feeney's (R-FL) attorneys have sent a letter threatening the editors of Florida's Seminole Chronicle intimating possible legal action in light of the news report filed by Editor Alex Babcock last week concerning allegations made in a sworn affidavit [PDF] and in sworn public testimony before members of the U.S. House Judiciary committee by software programmer Clint Curtis.
The story of Curtis' allegations and affidavit was originally reported by The BRAD BLOG several weeks ago. Curtis has alleged, among other things, that Feeney conspired, in an October 2000 meeting, to have a "vote-rigging software prototype" built by Yang Enterprises, Inc. -- a company for which Feeney at the time served as corporate counsel and registered lobbyist even while he concurrently served as Legislator, and eventually Speaker of the Florida House. Feeney was the running mate to Jeb Bush during his first failed bid for Governor of Florida, and is now a U.S. Congressman from Florida's newly created 24th Congressional District. He also now sits on the U.S. House's Judiciary Committee.

Jesse Jackson, Chicago Tribune: Claiming Ohio’s 2004 election results were more troubling than Florida’s four years ago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson yesterday said Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry called it quits too soon.
"Kerry conceded much too quickly, before the facts were in," Jackson said in a conference call with reporters to discuss an ongoing challenge to Ohio’s election results.
"When he pulled the plug, the national media left as well," Jackson said of Kerry’s concession on Nov. 3, the day after the election.

Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure: National Security

Associated Press: One of the captors from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said Bush's re-election would boost their cause, Malbrunot wrote in Friday's edition of Le Figaro, the French daily he works for.
"We want Bush because with him the American troops will stay in Iraq and that way we will be able to develop," Malbrunot cited the captor as saying…
Another captor, who described himself as the group's head of internal intelligence, told the men that the Islamic Army has four enemies: American and coalition troops, "their collaborators, that is to say Italian businessmen, or even French," as well Iraqi police and spies.

Reuters: A French judge has widened a probe into the financial network surrounding the family of Osama bin Laden after questioning his half-brother and learning of a E241 million ($425.7million) transfer to Pakistan.
Investigating magistrate Renaud Van Ruymbeke received court authorisation to extend his investigation after Yeslam bin Laden was questioned over allegations of links with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US.
As a result, Mr Van Ruymbeke was adding "other instances of money laundering" to the probe already under way, Le Monde newspaper reported on the weekend.
On December 5, 2001, French authorities opened an investigation into financial transfers carried out through Paris between firms grouped within the Saudi Investment Company (SICO) run by Yeslam bin Laden…
Although he denied having had any contact with his half-brother for the past 20 years, the paper said, documents held by Swiss banking authorities suggest that Yeslam and Osama bin Laden held a joint account in Switzerland between 1990 and 1997, according to Jean-Charles Brisard – a private investigator hired by families of the victims of the September 11 attacks.

Bush Abomination’s #2 Failure: Economic Security

BOB GRAHAM, St Petersburg Times: During my lifetime, five events have most affected Florida and its prosperity: mosquito control; air conditioning; jet air travel; Fidel Castro; and the creation of Social Security and other retirement income programs.
The first three are deeply entrenched in our society, and I look forward to Castro passing from the scene. Social Security, however, is at a crossroads. President Bush and his Republican allies in Congress seem determined to unravel the most important social safety net in this nation's - and Florida's - history...
In his 1998 State of the Union address, President Clinton proposed saving Social Security first. There was wisdom in that statement. This led to budget surpluses, a booming economy and the opportunity to pay off America's public debt. President Bush rejected that opportunity - he opted for tax cuts for the rich first. We now need to defeat ideas that would kill Social Security as we have known it, especially when it is sold under the banner of salvation.

Rachel Katz, Bloomberg: Kmart Holding Corp. and Sears, Roebuck & Co. are among the U.S. retailers offering discounts of as much as 75 percent to lure last-minute shoppers and salvage what's been a sluggish holiday season.
Sales gains in the first three weeks of December averaged 3.1 percent, compared with 5.2 percent in the same period last year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers- UBS weekly index. The markdowns may not be enough to spur consumers to spend more on holiday gifts, said investors including David Keuler at Mason Street Advisors.

Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure: Environmental Security

Geoffrey Lean, Independent/UK: George Bush's two closest allies in his attempt to sabotage international action to combat global warning last week dramatically distanced themselves from him. Saudi Arabia announced that it had approved the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty on climate change which President Bush has been trying to kill. And Australia, while still rejecting it, parted company from the United States by saying that it was prepared to negotiate its successor.
The moves follow a tense international negotiating session in Buenos Aires where, as The Independent on Sunday reported last week, the US brought the talks to the brink of collapse by obstructing even anodyne proposals. This breached an assurance given by President Bush in 2001, when he pulled out of the protocol, that America would not try to stop other countries reaching agreement.
New negotiations are due to begin next year on a successor to Kyoto, which will come into force in February, following Russia's decision to ratify it last autumn. Tony Blair regards progress on climate change as one of the top priorities of Britain's presidency of the G8 group of the world's most powerful nations.

Gavin Schmidt, Earth Institute News: In a departure from normal practice on the RealClimate.org site, this post is a commentary on a piece of out-and-out fiction (unlike most of the other posts which deal with a more subtle kind). Michael Crichton’s new novel “State of Fear” is about a self-important NGO hyping the science of the global warming to further the ends of evil eco-terrorists. The inevitable conclusion of the book is that global warming is a non-problem. A lesson for our times maybe? Unfortunately, I think not…
At the end of the book, Crichton gives us an author’s message. In it, he re-iterates the main points of his thesis, that there are some who go too far to drum up support (and I have some sympathy with this), and that because we don’t know everything, we actually know nothing (here, I beg to differ). He also gives us his estimate, ~0.8 C for the global warming that will occur over the next century and claims that, since models differ by 400% in their estimates, his guess is as good as theirs. This is not true. The current batch of models have a mean climate sensitivity of about 3 C to doubled CO2 (and range between 2.5 and 4.0 degrees) (Paris meeting of IPCC, July 2004) , i.e an uncertainty of about 30%. As discussed above, the biggest uncertainties about the future are the economics, technology and rate of development going forward. The main cause of the spread in the widely quoted 1.5 to 5.8 C range of temperature projections for 2100 in IPCC is actually the different scenarios used. For lack of better information, if we (incorrectly) assume all the scenarios are equally probable, the error around the mean of 3.6 degrees is about 60%, not 400%. Crichton also suggests that most of his 0.8 C warming will be due to land use changes. That is actually extremely unlikely since land use change globally is a cooling effect (as discussed above). Physically-based simulations are actually better than just guessing.
Finally, in an appendix, Crichton uses a rather curious train of logic to compare global warming to the 19th Century eugenics movement. He argues, that since eugenics was studied in prestigious universities and supported by charitable foundations, and now, so is global warming, they must somehow be related. Presumably, the author doesn’t actually believe that foundation-supported academic research ipso facto is evil and mis-guided, but that is an impression that is left.
In summary, I am a little disappointed, not least because while researching this book, Crichton actually visited our lab and discussed some of these issues with me and a few of my colleagues…
More on the Complicity of the Corporatist Media

Danny Schecter, www.mediachannel.org: Since when did the American Civil Liberties Union become a media organization? Or put another way: why have so much of our press fallen down on the job of pushing the Bush Administration to disclose information about its war-related practices, ranging from how it provides for our troops to detailing military abuse of prisoners and detainees?
Documents pried from the government by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act , and disclosed this week, suggest that the abuse of detainees was more systematic than we knew and ordered from on high. One email even indicates that President Bush signed off on the policy. While the administration disputes the document, that famous question raised during the Watergate investigation comes around again in a different form: What did the President know and when did he forget he knew it?
The ACLU's success at breaking news also raises the question of how aggressive our press has been in challenging military rationales and White House message points.

Illegitimate, Incompetent & Corrupt

Washington Post Editorial: THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge…The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false…
The record of the past few months suggests that the administration will neither hold any senior official accountable nor change the policies that have produced this shameful record. Congress, too, has abdicated its responsibility under its Republican leadership: It has been nearly four months since the last hearing on prisoner abuse.

John P. O’Neill Wall of Heroes

Editors & Publishers: In a column noting the high number of U.S. military personnel in Iraq who will be far from home on Christmas, USA Today founder Al Neuharth declared today that if he were eligible to serve in Iraq, "I would do all I could to avoid it." He also wrote in his weekly column for the paper that America's New Year's resolution should be to bring the troops home "sooner rather than later."

Reuters: A portrait of President Bush using monkeys to form his image that was banished from a New York art show last week amid charges of censorship was projected on a giant billboard in Manhattan on Tuesday.
Animal Magazine, a quarterly arts publication that had organized the month-long show, said anonymous donors had paid for the picture to be posted on a giant digital billboard over the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, used by thousands of commuters traveling between Manhattan and New Jersey.
The original picture will be auctioned on eBay, with part of the proceeds donated to parents of U.S. soldiers wishing to supply their sons and daughters with body armor in Iraq.

Kulchur War

Michael Powell, Washington Post: Lark Myers, a blond, 45-year-old gift shop owner, frames the question and answers it. "I definitely would prefer to believe that God created me than that I'm 50th cousin to a silverback ape," she said. "What's wrong with wanting our children to hear about all the holes in the theory of evolution?"
Board members have been less guarded, and their comments go well beyond intelligent design theory. William Buckingham, the board's curriculum chairman, explained at a meeting last June that Jesus died on the cross and "someone has to take a stand" for him. Other board members say they believe that God created Earth and mankind sometime in the past ten thousand years or so.
"If the Bible is right, God created us," said John Rowand, an Assemblies of God pastor and a newly appointed school board member. "If God did it, it's history and it's also science."
This strikes some parents and teachers, not to mention most evolutionary biologists, as loopy science…
"It's not science; it's a theocratic idea," Bryan Rehm, a former science teacher in Dover and a father of four. "We don't have enough time for science in the classroom as it is - this is just inappropriate."

Gareth Cook, Boston Globe: Stem cells have become famous for their ability to heal, spurring hopes that they might one day cure Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, and a wide variety of ailments. But now a growing number of researchers are concluding that stem cells are also the hidden force behind one of nature's most feared killers: cancer.
Within each tumor, they believe, lurks a small population of elusive, highly potent cells that drive the tumor's growth. Under a microscope they appear identical to other cancer cells, but these cancer stem cells hold the power to produce cancerous tumors in much the same way that normal stem cells can regenerate the body's healthy tissues. They also seem to resist traditional cancer drugs, explaining why patients can be seemingly cured of some cancers only to see the disease return.
In the past two years, cancer stem cells have gone from a theory on the fringes of biology to an idea that is attracting money and talent in cancer research. Last year a scientist at the University of Michigan announced the discovery of stem cells in breast tumors. In the past few months, a form of leukemia and two types of brain cancer were both linked to cancer stem cells, and scientists familiar with unpublished studies said more cancers are likely to follow. The first test in patients of a therapy targeting these stem cells is now getting underway.

Restore the Republic in 2005!

Theft of the 2004 Election & Complicity of the
Corporatist News Media

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1046

Ohio GOP election officials ducking subpoenas as Kerry enters stolen vote fray
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
December 28, 2004

COLUMBUS -- Ohio Republican election officials thumbed their noses at a subpoena Monday, December 27, as Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell refused to appear at a deposition in an election challenge lawsuit filed at the Ohio Supreme Court. Meanwhile John Kerry is reported to have filed a federal legal action aimed at preserving crucial recount evidence, which has been under GOP assault throughout the state.

Richard Congianese, Ohio Assistant Attorney General, is seeking a court order to protect Blackwell from testifying under oath about how the election was run. Blackwell, who administered Ohio's November 2 balloting, served as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign.

James R. Dicks, Miami County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, also filed a motion to block subpoenas in ten key Ohio counties. Other local election officials slated to be deposed, such as in Claremont County, have also refused to answer attorney questions.

President George Bush, Vice-President Richard Cheney and White House Political Advisor Karl Rove received notice that they will be deposed Tuesday and Wednesday, December 28 and 29. The trio’s Ohio attorney, Kurt Tunnell, so far claims his clients have not been properly served. Under Ohio law, the Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court is responsible for serving the three with subpoenas.

Meanwhile, the Election Protection legal team has collected new statements under oath describing more voting and vote-counting problems on November 2.

Voters in Trumbull County have testified that on Election Day they received punch-card ballots where holes were already punched for Bush. Meanwhile, a notarized affidavit signed by Angela Greene, who voted at Whitehall Yearling High School in central Ohio's Franklin County, stated that one of the malfunctioning electronic voting machines at her polling place was delivered without a cartridge – meaning votes cast might have gone uncounted.

In Miami County, Blackwell certified a 98.5% turnout in the Concord Southwest precinct, comprised of 520 votes for Bush and 157 for Kerry. This statistically improbable turnout has all but 10 of the 689 registered voters casting their ballots on Election Day. A preliminary canvas by The Free Press of less than half the precinct found 25 registered voters admitting they had not voted, meaning the official tally was almost certainly fraudulent.

The nearby Concord South precinct certified a 94.27% voter turnout, with 468 alleged votes for Bush versus 182 for Kerry. Miami County is included in the election challenge since it somehow reported nearly 19,000 additional votes after 100% of the precincts had reported on Election Day.

In Madison County, where public records requests were filed to obtain voting records, the voting results provided by the Madison County Board of Elections came directly from a private company, Triad Governmental Systems, Inc. An email dated November 29, 2004 from Brandon Sandlin of Triad reads as follows: “Hello to all in Madison County! Attached you will find the cumulative report (oh49unov.pdf) with over and under votes reported as well as the official abstract (oh49abs.pdf). These reports may be printed for your records and then mailed to the state along with your other certification reports.” Coming from a private corporation, Triad's letter underscores the barriers to making a reliable independent public assessment and recount of Ohio's presidential tally.

In Mahoning County, the Washington Post reported new affidavits documenting electronic "vote hopping" from Kerry to Bush. This means voting machines highlighted the choice for Bush before the voter recorded a choice of his or her own. The legal team has been told by a computer expert that this may mean the machines were pre-set on a Bush vote as a default. The Free Press has obtained dozens such sworn statements of vote hopping.

The legal team is also exploring new evidence that in Coshocton, Ohio, write-in votes wrongly defaulted to Bush when run through the voting machine.

On December 23, U.S. Representative John Conyers, Jr. of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Triad President Brett A. Rapp inquiring whether or not Triad possessed remote access capabilities for any of the 41 counties where its election tabulation software or computers are in use.

Attorneys for the election challenge team are also exploring ties between Triad and the Tennessee-based company Datamaxx. Ohio public safety and police agencies use the Datamaxx DMPP2020 software for its LEADS computer systems. Datamaxx makes numerous remote access products that law enforcement can access with mobile and handheld computers.

The Free Press has also obtained a list of all voting machines assigned in Franklin County, including serial numbers. The list contains at least 42 machines originally assigned to predominantly African-American and inner city wards that voted 80% for Kerry, and where voters waited in line for three hours and more on Election Day. These 42 machines were blacked out on the list, raising the question of whether these were among the 68 machines the Franklin County Board of Elections has admitted holding back in the warehouse despite obvious shortages at certain polling places. Affidavits from poll workers confirm that numerous requests for more machines were made through election day, but that few if any were delivered.

Franklin County Board of Elections Chair Bill Anthony claims that low-level poll workers refused to accept the machines assigned by high-ranking election officials. But he has yet to provide specific details. Anthony has repeatedly claimed that he was a watchdog for Democratic interests in the election, but he was a political appointee of the Republican Secretary of State.

Under Ohio election law, the members, directors and deputy directors of all boards of elections are assigned by the Secretary of State. They hold these paying jobs at his discretion regardless of whether they are Democrat or Republican. A major argument of those who claim Ohio’s 2004 presidential election was fraud-free centers on the myth that local precincts are run as bipartisan operations, deflecting charges of partisan interference while failing to account for the fact that the principles all owe their jobs to the Secretary of State, who in this case served as co-chair of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign.

These problems add to the established pattern of problems that favored Bush at Kerry’s expense.

Despite the legal stonewalling, lawyers directing the election challenge case are still pursuing evidence-gathering efforts. Three expert witnesses are scheduled to be deposed on Thursday and Friday, including specialists in statistics and vote counting irregularities.

The challengers are seeking a January 4th hearing before the Ohio Supreme Court. Members of Congress meet in Washington on January 6 to evaluate the Electoral College vote. Led by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), it is virtually certain numerous members of the Congressional Black Caucus will challenge that vote. But the assent of a Senator is required for the challenge to go forward, and thus far none has definitively confirmed.

Despite ducking depositions, Blackwell is escalating his public appearances in hopes of becoming Ohio’s next governor. On January 12, 2005, Blackwell is scheduled to speak at the exclusive Scioto Country Club on the topic of “Ethics in Leadership.” Blackwell became nationally known after disenfranchising voters who had not registered on 80-pound bond paper stock under an archaic Ohio law. He reversed longstanding Ohio tradition that allowed voters to cast provisional votes by county by ruling that none of these votes would be counted unless the voter was in the right precinct. He also was recently censured for running a “get out the vote” campaign for Issue One, a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and spousal benefits.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) was reported to be filing a brief in federal court in relation to the activities of Triad and events in Hocking County, where serious questions have arisen as to the integrity of the recount. Kerry previously circulated a letter to all 88 counties requesting information on how the vote was conducted. The Kerry campaign raised millions of dollars from grassroots supporters with the promise that "all votes would be counted." But the Democrats are not known to have helped fund the legal work of the Green and Libertarian Parties and their grassroots Election Protection supporters, who have raised the money for the shoestring campaign that has kept the legal challenges alive thus far.

An Election Protection rally in downtown Columbus has been set by Rev. Jesse Jackson for 2pm Monday, January 3. It will be followed by a national gathering in Washington January 6, to take place as Congress evaluates the Electoral College and the Ohio votes, which have allegedly given George W. Bush another term in the White House.

--
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of the upcoming OHIO'S STOLEN ELECTION: VOICES OF THE DISENFRANCHISED, 2004, a book and film project from http://freepress.org. Support is welcome via http://freepress.org/store.php#don_pub or by sending a check to The “Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism”, 1240 Bryden Rd., Columbus, Ohio 43205.

http://blog.democrats.com/node/2172
Stolen Election 2004: Monday Update
by Bob Fertik on 12/26/2004 8:08pm. - revised 12/27/2004 10:33am
January 6 is fast approaching, and we need to convince one Senator to support Maxine Waters and other House Democrats in their challenge to Ohio's electors. Call your Democratic Senators today! Cite the Moss v. Bush lawsuit as the basis for the challenge.
Activists will be coming to DC from across the nation. ReDefeatBush.com is helping local activists arrange transportation. ReDefeatBush has also compiled a target list of 77 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives who should be core supporters.
To set the stage for the January 6 protest, Rev. Jesse Jackson will lead a "Pro Democracy Count Every Vote Rally" in Columbus Ohio on January 3, which is co-sponsored by Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, MoveOn.org, Progressive Democrats of America, the anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice, Ohio State Senator Joyce Beatty, CASE Ohio and others. According to Rev. Jackson, this rally will mark the beginning of a mass movement:
“The vote recount in Ohio is underway. The election challenge lawsuit has been filed. Subpoenas are being prepared. Depositions are being planned. Hearings spearheaded by Cong. John Conyers are bringing forth new evidence of voter machine manipulation. And now Sen. John Kerry has joined in the recount fight. We must have a thorough investigation of voter irregularities and the voter machines before Congress certifies the Electoral College vote on January 6,” Rev. Jackson said. “January 3rd will be the beginning of a new Pro-Democracy Movement in America. Forty years ago, the Voting Rights Act was passed as a result of an independent, mass civil rights movement. We will carry forward that tradition in 2005, and continue the fight to count every vote and make sure every vote counts.”
The power of a popular mass movement was proved in Ukarine, where street protests forced the corrupt government to conduct a nationwide re-vote that appears to have elected Yushchenko. Amazingly, Sunday's network headlines about Ukraine trumpeted the exit polls showing challenger Yushchenko beating Yanukovych. Yet those same networks refuse to release the raw exit poll data showing challenger Kerry beating Bush. If Bush really won, you can bet the exit poll data would have been released immediately.
Of course, Yuschenko led massive protests against the Stolen Election in Ukraine. Here in the U.S., John Kerry has been invisible since he conceded on November 3. But his lawyers have been increasingly active in challenging Ohio's election fraud. Fintan Dunne says Kerry will intervene in the Triad recount fraud case on Monday, and this case could have decisive consequences.
If the recount was fraudulent, does that have implications for the validity of the first count in Ohio? The Kerry campaign knows full well that it does. That's why their latest statement questions the "integrity" of the "entire" electoral process. And the election of Bush/Cheney.
For Kerry, a fraudulent recount in Ohio could be an open door into to the Oval Office.
To get from here to there, Democrats would have to challenge Ohio's fraudulent Electors - and that requires Just One Senator. To help convince your Senators, Ray Beckerman compiled an excellent set of Ohio links on (a) fraud, (b) disenfranchisment, (c) voter suppression, (d) recount obstruction, and (e) vote machine tampering.
Don't believe Beckerman, whose is meticulously documenting every credible news item? Then how about the non-partisan National Research Commission on Elections and Voting (courtesy of the Nashua Advocate), which issued an interim report on Dec 22 and declared itself unable to make a "conclusive statement regarding the accuracy or fairness of specific [2004 election] results at this time." Why not? They offer about 2 dozen important reasons.
Meanwhile, new evidence of fraud keeps accumulating. Last Thursday, David Cobb asked a Federal Court to preserve a wide range of evidence, including voting machines and election records, to ensure the integrity of the Ohio presidential recount.
"It is time for the federal judiciary to step in and ensure the integrity of the recount in Ohio, something which Ohio's blatantly partisan Secretary of State is either unwilling or thoroughly incapable of doing," said Cobb. Papers filed with the court state that "voting machines in multiple counties may have been tampered with during the recount by an employee of Triad Governmental Systems, Inc.-the company whose computer program tallied the punch-card votes cast in 41" of Ohio's 88 counties. The most widely reported of these instances took place on December 10, in Hocking County, Ohio, when a Triad representative reprogrammed a computer used for tabulating votes and instructed the county's Deputy Director of Elections to create a "cheat sheet" so "the count would come out perfect and we wouldn't have to do a full hand recount of the county."
Last Tuesday, voters in the Mahoning Valley (including Youngstown) testified for 3 hours at a hearing organized by Rev. Rick Judy of Mahoning County; Rev. Werner Lange of Trumbull County; Ray Nakley, an officer of the Arab-American Community Center in Youngstown; and Russ Buckbee, Green Party coordinator for NE Ohio. They testified about
Pre-punched ballots; touch-screen vote switching; more absentee votes than absentee voters; unfair provisional voter deletions; change of voting sites on Election Day. voter suppression; voter intimidation; double voting; malfunctioning machines; recalibrated machines; evidently rigged machines; and even 25 million negative votes registered in some races in Mahoning County!...
“One pattern that has been documented based on the experience of voters in Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, and elsewhere (especially in swing states) is the machines appear to have been set with a default to Bush. Then if the voter successfully punched the ballot for another candidate, Bush was replaced by that candidate.”
The exact number of votes officially given to Bush and stolen from Kerry by such means is unknown. No explanation has, to date, been given and no serious investigation into this outrage against democracy has been launched.
Nor has there been any defensible explanation provided for the documented absentee vote inflation in Trumbull County. A careful review by Werner Lange and Maggie Hagan of nearly 200 precincts in Trumbull County revealed a considerable discrepancy between the number of certified absentee votes and the number of registered absentee voters identified in the poll books. The poll books are to contain not only the name of every registered voter, but also clearly identify who voted (either by regular, absentee or provisional means) and who did not. The Trumbull County investigation showed some 650 more absentee votes than there were absentee voters identified in the poll books examined. If the absentee vote inflation rate there were consistent statewide, then over 63,000 votes were up for grabs in Ohio.
After 7 weeks of protests, hearings, investigations, recounts, and lawsuits, the NY Times finally sent 3 reporters (James Dao, Ford Fessenden and Tom Zeller Jr.) to Ohio to cover the second theft of the Presidency. Their first report is a completely superficial review of the most obvious problems - 155,000 provisional ballots, of which 23% were rejected; 93,000 overvotes and undervotes, all of which were rejected; and long lines. But the reporters didn't do any investigations - or even talk to any investigators! - they just accepted denials from Ken Blackwell. E-mail public@nytimes.com and demand a real investigation of Ohio election fraud!

http://www.solarbus.org/stealyourelection/articles/1222-media.html
TV Networks Officially Refuse to Release Exit Poll Raw Data
Mainstream media finally displays true colors

by Gary Beckwith
the Solar Bus http://election.solarbus.org
December 22, 2004
For those watching the growing body of evidence concerning election fraud in our past presidential election, one question has remained: Why don't we hear about this on the evening news?
As of yet it's been hard to explain why the controversies in Ukraine make the headlines, but when similar problems are discovered at home, you have to scour the Internet to find the information.
It certainly isn't for lack of events on which to report. Members of The House Judiciary Committee have been meeting regularly reviewing evidence of systematic voter suppression and voting machine tampering. A coalition of lawyers have filed a lawsuit against the Bush campaign citing deliberate manipulation of votes. Sworn testimony and signed affidavits have implicated companies, individuals, and a Florida congressman.
This developing story could eventually turn out to be more explosive than Watergate. But it's rarely mentioned on the major networks, and when it is, there's almost always a chiding remark about the "conspiracy nuts" and obscure "internet bloggers" who are behind it all.
The truth is, it's not just conspiracy nuts, or bloggers, or even just Democratic supporters of Kerry. It's a growing number of people who want to know what really happened on Novermber 2nd. It's teachers, doctors, lawyers, all kinds of people who care about their Democracy just as much as the people in Ukraine do. And a recent survey showed that even without the media coverage, 20% of Americans believe the election was stolen.
For these people it's been a difficult task to spread the word, and to tell the uninformed about the election problems. That's because for many, if it's not on the evening news, it isn't happening. And as soon as you start telling someone about it, their first question is always, "Why aren't I hearing about this on the news?".
That's a question we'd all like to see answered.
Until now, we've only been able to speculate. Perhaps the media is just tired of a long drawn out election season. Perhaps reporters don't want to "stick their neck out" until more evidence is uncovered. Perhaps the reporters just haven't seen the evidence that already exists. And one possibility of many is that the mainstream media has been purposely withholding this story from the American people. Emails have floated around, purportedly written by reporters, saying that they've been instructed not to write about the problems with the election or they'll lose their job.
It's hard to believe that the media would cover up something like this, considering that many reporters probably voted for Kerry and would want the people to know if the election was stolen. But there's already enough of a story that it should be getting attention - the Congressional hearings, lawsuits filed, and sworn testimony are newsworthy of themselves, regardless of their outcomes. The lack of coverage of already existing events forces us to wonder why.
Attempts to get an explanation from the media have been met with cold and evasive responses. Local media outlets say it's not their duty to report the national news. National media people say there's not enough evidence yet, and they're waiting to see how it pans out before they give it the spotlight. This begs the question: Do we wait until the Superbowl is over to report on it? Did they wait until the OJ trial was over to report on it?
But as the story develops, no one has been able to explain why the media is avoiding it like the plague.
Until today.
Yesterday Representative John Conyers called their bluff. He's the one leading the investigation in the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. After weeks of investigation he's become more and more interested in seeing the raw data of the exit polls. Exit polls were a red flag in Ukraine, and many statistical experts have used the exit polls from our election to demonstrate a high likelihood that there was some funny business on November 2nd.
Like most people trying to get to the bottom of the matter, Mr. Conyers first came to the realization that the exit poll data has mysteriously not been released yet. We only have the preliminary exit poll data, which showed Kerry winning Ohio by several points. But about half way through election day, the networks started "mixing in" the "real" numbers with the exit poll data, and from that point on, the raw exit poll data has been locked up.
So, Conyers wrote to Warren Mitofsky, who owns the exit poll data, asking for the complete raw data, without the "real" numbers mixed in. Mitofsky balked, saying that the TV Networks actually own it and he was not able to release it without their permission. Conyers then took his inquiry to the leaders of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox.
And they promptly laid an egg. Through a spokesperson who spoke on behalf of all the media companies together, they said they are still analyzing the data and don't want to release it until they're done.
The egg they laid is frustrating for those who want to know the truth and want to see the raw exit poll numbers. But it does answer one question for us once and for all. It finally shows us that the media is not avoiding the election controversy because they're tired of the election, or they want more evidence. They are purposefully preventing the information from getting out and they are hiding the information they have.
Any objective investigator, or any concerned citizen for that matter, simply cannot accept their answer to Conyers. The media has had over 6 weeks to "analyze" the exit polls and releasing the numbers would not prevent them from continuing their analysis in any way.
The data is just that - raw data. By itself it is not obscured by "analysis." The networks can evaluate and analyze it all they want, but they should also give others a chance to look at the same numbers and draw their own conclusions. There is absolutely no precedent or moral ground for withholding this information from the American public. The bottom line is that raw data does not need to be analyzed. Conyers and the American people are not asking for the analysis. We're asking for the data.
We're not talking about proprietary trade secrets, or a "secret source" that they're trying to protect. We're talking about information about us, the American people who voted on Election Day. It's like having your doctor refuse to let you see your own medical records.
The media is supposed to report the facts, whatever they are, not withhold them. When the media stops reporting and starts withholding, it ceases to be the media.
While it's frustrating that we still can't see the exit polls, let's thank the media for at least resolving one thing for us today. Now we know why we don't see stories about the election on the evening news. Their refusal to release the exit polls shows us categorically that there is a concerted effort on behalf of the major media outlets to consciously prevent the information from getting out. It's not simple oversight, and it's not because they don't think it's newsworthy. Now we know. They are withholding information from us.
Now that that's been resolved, we can move on to the next question: What are they hiding, and why?
For more information on election fraud, see election.solarbus.org

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001076.htm

Blogged by Brad on 12/24/2004 @ 6:24pm PT...

FEENEY ATTORNEY THREATENS HOMETOWN PAPER WITH LEGAL ACTION!
Intimidating Letter Faxed to Seminole Chronicle Charges Story on Feeney was 'False and Defamatory'
Feeney Attorney Uses Unrelated and Questionable 'Ethics Investigation' as Sole Basis for Claims

Congressman Tom Feeney's (R-FL) attorneys have sent a letter threatening the editors of Florida's Seminole Chronicle intimating possible legal action in light of the news report filed by Editor Alex Babcock last week concerning allegations made in a sworn affidavit [PDF] and in sworn public testimony before members of the U.S. House Judiciary committee by software programmer Clint Curtis.

The story of Curtis' allegations and affidavit was originally reported by The BRAD BLOG several weeks ago. Curtis has alleged, among other things, that Feeney conspired, in an October 2000 meeting, to have a "vote-rigging software prototype" built by Yang Enterprises, Inc. -- a company for which Feeney at the time served as corporate counsel and registered lobbyist even while he concurrently served as Legislator, and eventually Speaker of the Florida House. Feeney was the running mate to Jeb Bush during his first failed bid for Governor of Florida, and is now a U.S. Congressman from Florida's newly created 24th Congressional District. He also now sits on the U.S. House's Judiciary Committee.

The letter from John P. Horan of "Foley and Lardner, attorneys at law", was faxed to Babcock at the Seminole Chronicle office earlier this week. It alleges the newspaper's report "constitute[d] a serious departure from accepted journalism standards and a breach of the Chronicle’s fair reporting privilege."

Horan goes on to accuse Babcock of reporting "in a sensational, reckless and unfair manner," and claims that "This conduct exceeds all known bounds of bias and constitutes a reckless disregard for the truth."

According to the letter, Horan's charges on behalf of Feeney, stem from his claim that "These assertions were fully investigated by the State of Florida Commission on Ethics which found that 'there was no probable cause' to believe the assertions and dismissed each complaint."

However, BRAD BLOG research into those ethics charges filed against Feeney, and their supposed "investigation", has revealed that the commission referred to, and the investigation itself, appear to have had serious flaws and conflicts of interest involved. Many of which were reported at the time of the commission's findings by a number of Florida newspapers.

For a start, six of the eight members of the "Commission on Ethics" which Horan's letter refers to, were appointed to the commission by and/or have direct ties to either Tom Feeney or his old running-mate and then Governor, Jeb Bush!

On October 17, 2002, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported on the "Commission on Ethics" findings that Horan uses as the only basis for criticism of the Seminole Chronicle's article.

The News-Journal reported on those findings by revealing that neither the investigator looking into the ethics complaint nor the two key witnesses in the case were ever even interviewed by the commission! Despite a state law that requires them to do so!

As well, public documents in the case -- including Email which directly contradicted statements made by Feeney to the commission during the "investigation" -- were similarly never investigated, also in apparent violation of state law, according to the paper.

From just one of several articles on this from the Daytona Beach News-Journal...

Feeney ethics probe ignored key elements

An investigator looking into an ethics complaint against House Speaker Tom Feeney failed to examine public documents or interview key witnesses as required by state law.

Records show the investigation by the Florida Commission on Ethics into whether Feeney improperly used his position to benefit one of his legal clients consisted only of denials of wrongdoing by the Oviedo Republican and other state officials. State law requires the investigation to include all evidence, including documents and inter- views with people related to the complaint.

The public records the investigator failed to collect include e-mails that conflict with state- ments Feeney has made about the role he played in gaining special favors for his client, Yang Enterprises, an Oviedo computer firm, including arranging meetings with state officials who have the most say over state technology contracts.

Feeney told the ethics investigator he never spoke to anyone at the State Technology Office about Yang. Records show Feeney arranged a meeting in his legislative office in Oviedo for Yang with State Technology Of fice head Roy Cales in July 2000.

The commission investigator also did not interview two former state employees who claimed Yang submitted false invoices in its $8 million contract with the Florida Department of Transportation and that Feeney pressured DOT in the matter. The employees were subsequently fired by DOT.

(The full article is available for purchase only, via the News-Journal's Print Archives.)

Of the "two former state employees" referred to in the News-Journal's article, one was Clint Curtis who has confirmed with The BRAD BLOG that he was never interviewed by the commission during their "investigation", despite having been one of the two individuals who made the initial complaint!

The other state employee, who has requested that we do not publish their name at this time, has also confirmed in interviews with The BRAD BLOG that they were similarly never interviewed by the commission.

Furthermore, the allegations made by Curtis that Feeney conspired to commit vote-fraud, and which Babcock reported on in his article, were not even the charges that the "Commission on Ethics" was supposedly looking into via their questionable investigation!

In all of this, the power of Tom Feeney in Florida should not be overlooked or underestimated. Despite a comment to the contrary made by Feeney to MSNBC producer. As reported by Keith Olbermann earlier this week, Feeney said in regard to these charges “I’m very amused by it. I wish I had some of the power that he suggests.”

As it turns out, Feeney does have that power.

In a Time Magazine article from November 26, 2000, Feeney is described as perhaps being "the only man more influential in Florida than football king Bobby Bowden."

And on November 20, 2001, The Orlando Sentinel described Feeney, who had by then become Florida House Speaker for at least a full year, as "one of Florida's most powerful elected officials".

In regards to the letter from Feeney's attorney, The BRAD BLOG recognizes such an obvious, thuggish and ham-fisted attempt to intimidate a responsible member of the press at Feeney's small hometown paper for exactly what it is: An attempt to suppress the growing scandal that has emerged during our continuing investigation, and that of other reporters like Babcock, into these very troubling matters.

The intent of such a letter is little more than an effort to send a chilling message to all such reporters who would dare look into these charges.

We commend Babcock's courage in standing up to such a reprehensible tactic and for his apparent vows to continue his paper's investigation and reporting on a story of great national and local importance and newsworthiness.

In an unbylined opinion piece from yesterday's Chronicle (which Babcock confirms that he wrote for the paper after having received the letter from Feeney's attorney), Babcock remained both defiant and, fortunately, clear-headed about his journalistic responsibilities to the people: [emphasis added]

In reporting on the charges made by Clint Curtis against Feeney, our goal was to inform you, our readers, of serious charges made in a public forum before members of Congress investigating voting irregularities.

It is this role that all news organizations should play, to keep a watchful eye over the government that serves us. It's your business as voters to know what your elected representatives are doing, and what they have been accused of doing.
...
We attempted and failed to contact Feeney prior to publication, but went ahead with the article because the forum in which the claims were presented was so high-profile, and the charges so incendiary, that to ignore them would have been irresponsible. Continued attempts by the Chronicle to interview Feeney on the record have been denied by his office.

Michigan Congressman John Conyers, who presided over the forum that heard Curtis' allegations, found Curtis credible enough to allow him to address a group of Feeney's peers. Because Conyers felt the testimony was valid, we thought you should know about it, too.

In an interview today with The BRAD BLOG, Babcock confirmed that attempts to contact Feeney prior to publication were unsuccessful.

While all such attempts to contact Feeney prior to publication of the original article went unanswered, it seems that once the article was published things changed very quickly. Babcock received both phone calls and email from a representative of Feeney's office the very next day.

He told us that he spoke for a while with a member of Feeney's staff, and during that call it was "made clear that their policy is to stay off record."

Babcock added, "We would be happy to speak with Tom Feeney if he would like to tell his side of the story."

Babcock's statements are consistent with the even-handedness of his article, as well as previous discussions we've had with him over the past week concerning this matter.

While others in the media have shown some reluctance to report these troubling charges concerning our elected public officials, Babcock is to be congratulated for refusing to turn away from difficult issues merely on the grounds that they contain explosive allegations and several very powerful elected officials.

He is doing the job of journalist and, so far, he has been doing it with fairness, honesty and transparency.

The Clint Curtis allegations about Tom Feeney were indeed made in public, under penalty of perjury, and specified detailed charges of wrong-doing and potential felonies. These were not allegations made in the dark, by unnamed persons or shadowy figures, but rather out in the open, by a man who has invited scrutiny, skepticism and has been willing to answer the questions of just about anyone who would like to talk to him about these matters.

The public has the right to know about such issues and the press has the responsibility to inform the public. Both sides deserved to be aired and investigated, and Babcock seems to have made every attempt to do precisely that in a responsible fashion.

The BRAD BLOG has reviewed the entire faxed letter from Horan, and we will be happy to publish it in it's entirety if permission is granted by Babcock or the Seminole Chronicle publishers (Knight Newspapers) to do so. Babcock has said his publishers are currently reviewing the letter from Feeney's attorney and are considering their reply.

...CONTACTS...

Tom Feeney
Website: Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL)
Email: unknown
DC Phone: 202-225-2706
DC Fax: 202-226-6299

Tom Feeney, Campaign Headquarters, FL
1420 Alafaya Trail, Suite 103
Oviedo, Florida 32765
(407) 366-2212
Email: Todd Sykes, Campaign Coordinator
NOTE: The above address is in the Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) building.
Feeney ran unopposed in 2004.

Seminole Chronicle
Email: Alex Babcock, Editor (Include Name, Address and Phone if you wish letter to be considered for publication.)
Website: www.SeminoleChronicle.com

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2004/Dec/20041224News016.asp

Kerry bowed out too soon, Jackson says

Chicago Tribune
Published Friday, December 24, 2004
Claiming Ohio’s 2004 election results were more troubling than Florida’s four years ago, the Rev. Jesse Jackson yesterday said Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry called it quits too soon.

"Kerry conceded much too quickly, before the facts were in," Jackson said in a conference call with reporters to discuss an ongoing challenge to Ohio’s election results.

"When he pulled the plug, the national media left as well," Jackson said of Kerry’s concession on Nov. 3, the day after the election.

Since then, a Jackson-led group claims to have uncovered a wide range of voting irregularities in the Buckeye State, including tabulations that contradicted early exit polls pointing to a Kerry victory, voting machine errors, absentee ballot counting errors and inaccurate directions given to voters trying to get to polling places.

The concerns are detailed in a 41-page petition contesting the election before the Ohio Supreme Court.

Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition plans a "Pro Democracy - Count Every Vote Rally" on Jan. 3 in Columbus, Ohio.

Presidential candidates of the Green and Libertarian parties funded a statewide recount of the Ohio vote. The recount gave an additional 346 votes to Bush and 494 more votes to Kerry. Earlier this month, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell certified Bush as the winner of the state, with 2.86 million votes, compared with Kerry’s 2.74 million votes.

Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure: National Security

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1224-01.htm

Published on Friday, December 24, 2004 by the Associated Press
Ex-Hostage: Rebels Wanted Bush Re-Elected

PARIS - French journalists held hostage for four months in Iraq said their militant captors told them they wanted President Bush to win re-election.

REBELS WANTED BUSH RE-ELECTED
French journalists and former hostages in Iraq Georges Malbrunot (R) and Christian Chesnot talk to newsmen moments after landing at Villacoublay military airbase, near Paris, December 22, 2004. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

In a four-page account of their ordeal, one of the reporters, Georges Malbrunot, also wrote that they saw several other hostages who were later decapitated. The journalists said their captors viewed foreign businessmen working in Iraq as their enemies.

One of the captors from the group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq said Bush's re-election would boost their cause, Malbrunot wrote in Friday's edition of Le Figaro, the French daily he works for.

"We want Bush because with him the American troops will stay in Iraq and that way we will be able to develop," Malbrunot cited the captor as saying.

Bush beat Democrat John Kerry to win the presidency last month.

Another captor, who described himself as the group's head of internal intelligence, told the men that the Islamic Army has four enemies: American and coalition troops, "their collaborators, that is to say Italian businessmen, or even French," as well Iraqi police and spies.

Malbrunot wrote that the Islamic Army has 15,000 to 17,000 members and that its hostage-takings are carefully organized.

"There are those who stop people on the roads, those that carry out interrogations, those that keep guard and those that judge," he wrote.

He and fellow French reporter Christian Chesnot feared at times that they would be killed, he said.

Others hostages they saw who were later decapitated included two Macedonians, an Iraqi power station executive and a bodyguard for Ahmad Chalabi, a candidate in next month's Iraqi elections and a one-time Pentagon favorite, he recounted.

Malbrunot, 41, and Chesnot, 38, were released Tuesday.

In a separate interview on RTL radio, Malbrunot said it would take time to recover from their ordeal. "Sleeping, for example, is hard," he said.

"But the life of a free man is far easier than that of a hostage," he added.

###
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=cdaf1f0fdb423957

Bin Laden inquiry to widen
Reuters
December 27, 2004
PARIS: A French judge has widened a probe into the financial network surrounding the family of Osama bin Laden after questioning his half-brother and learning of a E241 million ($425.7million) transfer to Pakistan.

Investigating magistrate Renaud Van Ruymbeke received court authorisation to extend his investigation after Yeslam bin Laden was questioned over allegations of links with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US.
As a result, Mr Van Ruymbeke was adding "other instances of money laundering" to the probe already under way, Le Monde newspaper reported on the weekend.
On December 5, 2001, French authorities opened an investigation into financial transfers carried out through Paris between firms grouped within the Saudi Investment Company (SICO) run by Yeslam bin Laden.
Yeslam was questioned by the French judge in 2002, and has handed over a copy of documents detailing the distribution of the bin Laden family wealth to 54 brothers and sisters after the death of their father in 1967, the paper said.

Although he denied having had any contact with his half-brother for the past 20 years, the paper said, documents held by Swiss banking authorities suggest that Yeslam and Osama bin Laden held a joint account in Switzerland between 1990 and 1997, according to Jean-Charles Brisard – a private investigator hired by families of the victims of the September 11 attacks.
Yeslam told French investigators on September 27 this year that he had omitted to mention the existence of that account, while still insisting he had not mixed with his half-brother, Le Monde said.
Contacted by Le Monde, Yeslam's Swiss-based lawyer, Pierre de Preux, said his client simply acted as a relay for the rest of the family wishing to deposit their inheritance in Switzerland, since Yeslam was resident in Geneva.
Reuters

Bush Abomination’s #2 Failure: Economic Security

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/12/26/Perspective/Save_Social_Security_.shtml

Save Social Security from White House
By BOB GRAHAM
Published December 26, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

During my lifetime, five events have most affected Florida and its prosperity: mosquito control; air conditioning; jet air travel; Fidel Castro; and the creation of Social Security and other retirement income programs.

The first three are deeply entrenched in our society, and I look forward to Castro passing from the scene. Social Security, however, is at a crossroads. President Bush and his Republican allies in Congress seem determined to unravel the most important social safety net in this nation's - and Florida's - history.

The strength of the current Social Security program is that it gives workers a guaranteed, inflation-protected retirement income for as long as they live. No one gets rich from Social Security - the average monthly benefit per Floridian is $900. But for many Americans, it serves as their principal protection from poverty. This is particularly true for the nearly 7-million Americans who receive benefits much earlier than retirement as a result of becoming disabled.

The president wants to change the current program by allowing some workers to direct a portion of their payroll taxes into an individual account. The president has not presented the details of his proposal. Based on the work of the president's Social Security commission and comments from the White House, it appears that the president is likely to propose no change in the benefits for current retirees or workers who are 55 or older. For the under-55 worker, there will be gradual changes in the benefit structure until the benefits are actuarially supportable by the current Social Security tax. Using 2004 policies and value of the dollar, when fully implemented this benefit change is estimated to reduce the current average of $900 a month to about $700 in guaranteed benefits. The under-55-year-old worker would also be able to further reduce the guarantee to about $525 in exchange for the establishment of an individual retirement account. The hope would be that the earnings on the individual account return the total monthly Social Security benefit to at least $900.

Floridians should pay close attention to this effort. Florida has a higher proportion of seniors than any other state, with nearly one in five residents age 65 or older. One dollar out of every $14 in benefits paid by the Social Security Administration goes to a resident of Florida. Perhaps more than any other state, Florida's economy has benefited from seniors having a stable and adequate income in retirement. The nearly $3-billion in monthly Social Security benefits paid to Floridians in 2002 represented 6.5 percent of total personal income received in Florida in that year and contributed more to Florida's economy than did all of the state's manufacturing activity.

The president's proposal raises three concerns. First, it increases the uncertainty that workers face as they plan for their retirement. Most Americans now retire to a chair that has three legs: an employer-provided pension, personal savings and Social Security. The potential for higher retirement income that proponents of privatization herald comes with significantly greater risk. This is in addition to the increased risk that workers bear when employers shift from traditional pension plans to defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s. Under defined contribution plans, employers commit only to contribute a set amount into a worker's retirement account. Typically, a substantial amount of the worker's personal savings are committed to matching or supplementing the employer's contribution. Whether these funds accumulate to an amount that will provide an adequate income in retirement is up to the worker's investment acumen. Now the president believes that workers should shoulder this risk as part of Social Security as well.

Those who elect for individual accounts will have all three of the legs dependent on their skill and luck and the market's swings. This violates a fundamental rule of investment: diversify, diversify, diversify.

The second concern is that the president is using "fuzzy math" to sell his plan. He is exaggerating the problems facing the current program by suggesting that it is underfunded by $10-trillion. To be sure, Social Security faces a funding challenge, and each year of delay makes fixing the program more difficult. But according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security Trust Fund will remain solvent through 2052, with the ability to pay 80 percent of benefits after that. But exaggerating the challenges facing the program is not necessary.

From its beginning in the 1930s, Social Security has been funded by current workers paying the cost of current retirees. The estimated cost of breaking this intergenerational social contract is $1-trillion over 10 years. There is no hard or fuzzy math as to how to pay for this transitional cost. There is one preposterous idea not to pay for it at all, just add it to the already burgeoning national debt. Let our grandchildren pay. This is immoral.

The final concern with the president's plan is that he refuses to consider other viable options for shoring up the program. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security's revenue shortfall is less than one-half of 1 percent of the nation's economy. The entire Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years is about one-fourth the cost of the Bush tax cuts if made permanent. The revenue loss from the president's proposal to repeal the estate tax would cover nearly two-thirds of the shortfall.

In his 1998 State of the Union address, President Clinton proposed saving Social Security first. There was wisdom in that statement. This led to budget surpluses, a booming economy and the opportunity to pay off America's public debt. President Bush rejected that opportunity - he opted for tax cuts for the rich first. We now need to defeat ideas that would kill Social Security as we have known it, especially when it is sold under the banner of salvation.

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., is retiring after 18 years in the Senate.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a__JizFrCnn0&refer=news_index

Kmart, Sears Slash Prices to Salvage Sluggish Sales (Correct)
Kmart, Sears Slash Prices to Salvage Sluggish Sales (Correct)

(Adds dropped letter in 13th paragraph.)

By Rachel Katz

Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Kmart Holding Corp. and Sears, Roebuck & Co. are among the U.S. retailers offering discounts of as much as 75 percent to lure last-minute shoppers and salvage what's been a sluggish holiday season.

Sales gains in the first three weeks of December averaged 3.1 percent, compared with 5.2 percent in the same period last year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers- UBS weekly index. The markdowns may not be enough to spur consumers to spend more on holiday gifts, said investors including David Keuler at Mason Street Advisors.

``I don't know if it's going to be enough for what appears to have been a very slow 2 1/2 weeks,'' said Keuler, who helps manage about $60 billion at the Milwaukee-based firm, including shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ``We needed less weakness during the middle of the month.''

The November-December period can account for almost 25 percent of retailers' annual sales. A slowdown in consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, may signal a decline in economic growth.

The last time Christmas Eve fell on a Friday was in 1999, when Dec. 24 was the sixth biggest day of the season in terms of sales, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, a New York-based trade association.

Kmart, which is open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., cut prices on fragrance gift sets by 25 percent and is selling 1/3-carat diamond earrings for $59.99, down from $263. Sears is offering discounts of as much as 50 percent on some sweaters and coats and 60 percent on jewelry. A J.C. Penney Co. coupon gives customers $10 off any purchase of $50 or more.

The discounts are similar to offers last week, when sales rose 3.5 percent, the largest gain in a month, according to ICSC. Retailers who slashed prices last week may not have been willing to further drop prices to draw shoppers, said ICSC economist Michael Niemira.

`Mostly Men'

Traffic at the Mall of America is ``very hectic,'' said Maureen Bausch, vice president of business development for the Bloomington, Minnesota, shopping center, the largest in the U.S with more than 520 stores, including Nordstrom Inc. and Williams- Sonoma Inc.

``It's mostly men, which is very typical this time of year,'' Bausch said in an interview. ``It's not a time to browse. It's a time to buy.''

The day before Christmas may be more important this year than usual because many employers are giving workers the day off. That helps shoppers who have procrastinated, said Todd Jones, an analyst at PNC Advisors in Philadelphia, whose $48 billion in assets include Federated Department Stores Inc., owner of Macy's and Bloomingdale's.

Yet To Shop

``Most people have a full day to shop in the stores,'' said Jones, who is based in Philadelphia. ``I'm not saying it's going to be a panacea. Maybe that can help us get to a more respectable increase of 3 percent to 4 percent.''

Shares of Wal-Mart fell 42 cents to $52.55 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Dallas-based Neiman Marcus declined 27 cents to $72.55, while Plano, Texas-based J.C. Penney fell 90 cents to $40.

About 70 percent of shoppers hadn't completed their holiday shopping as of Dec. 19, according to ICSC. Sales in the November- December holiday period are expected to increase 2.5 percent to 3 percent this year after November sales rose a less-than-expected 1.8 percent.

``It's good, but nothing you're going to celebrate over,'' said David Abella, an analyst at New York-based Rochdale Investment Management, whose $1.2 billion in assets include Wal- Mart shares.

Luxury Chains

Sales gains at luxury retailers such as Neiman Marcus Group Inc. have outpaced those at department stores such as Federated, Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Dreher wrote in a report. Poor results at Federated and May Department Stores Co. may hurt fourth- quarter profit as the chains boost discounts, he wrote.

Wal-Mart's December sales are rising within its forecast for a gain of 1 percent to 3 percent, less than the 4.3 percent increase a year ago, as low-income shoppers pare budgets amid higher food and energy prices.

The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $1.82 in the week ended Dec. 20, about 22 percent higher than a year earlier, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Natural gas for January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange is 8.5 percent higher.

Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, said Dec. 18 that sales of winter merchandise such as coats, sweaters and shovels last week picked up after sluggish results earlier in the month.

Department stores are discounting coats as much as 50 percent as racks remained ``heavily stocked,'' UBS analyst Linda Kristiansen wrote in a report. Better inventory control has helped the chains limit the need for discounts on other merchandise, she wrote.

Clothing Glut

Some clothing sales may have been damped by increasing demand for electronics such as digital cameras and music players including Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod, PNC's Jones said.

``There's only so many places you can spend it,'' Jones said in an interview.

Unsold goods will probably be discounted heavily next week, hurting margins, said Jennifer Hanson, an analyst at Cortina Asset Management.

``They will want to be clean so they can start bringing in the new merchandise,'' Hanson said. The Milwaukee-based firm's more than $200 million in assets include Men's Wearhouse Inc. and AnnTaylor Stores Corp. shares. ``The longer they wait to sell inventory, the deeper the discount they have to put out.''

Stores may see a boost starting Sunday when customers seek out post-holiday discounts and redeem gift cards. Purchases of gift cards, which aren't counted by retailers until recipients redeem them, may increase by $100 million to $17.3 billion this year, according to the National Retail Federation.

Shoppers also are buying more over the Internet. Sales at U.S. Internet retailers surged 57 percent to $2.45 billion in the week ended Dec. 19 from a year earlier, according to Reston, Virginia-based Web-research company ComScore Networks Inc.

Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure: Environmental Security

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1226-01.htm

Published on Sunday, December 26, 2004 by the lndependent/UK

Bush Left in the Cold by Climate Allies
by Geoffrey Lean

George Bush's two closest allies in his attempt to sabotage international action to combat global warning last week dramatically distanced themselves from him.
Saudi Arabia announced that it had approved the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty on climate change which President Bush has been trying to kill. And Australia, while still rejecting it, parted company from the United States by saying that it was prepared to negotiate its successor.
The moves follow a tense international negotiating session in Buenos Aires where, as The Independent on Sunday reported last week, the US brought the talks to the brink of collapse by obstructing even anodyne proposals. This breached an assurance given by President Bush in 2001, when he pulled out of the protocol, that America would not try to stop other countries reaching agreement.
New negotiations are due to begin next year on a successor to Kyoto, which will come into force in February, following Russia's decision to ratify it last autumn. Tony Blair regards progress on climate change as one of the top priorities of Britain's presidency of the G8 group of the world's most powerful nations.
US opposition endangers both initiatives, but Mr Bush suffered a blow on Tuesday when the Saudi cabinet approved the treaty. A royal decree is being prepared to endorse it officially. The decision is significant, since the Saudis worked closely with the US in Buenos Aires, but the Australian initiative is more important, as it has so far marched in step with the US to try to kill negotiations.
Ian Campbell, Australia's environment minister, said it would be prepared to enter an agreement to combat global warming. He warned that unless it was reached, the world would be "in jeopardy", adding: "The difference between the US and Australia is that we are prepared to engage in a new agreement, so long as it is comprehensive."
Meanwhile, the official European Environment Agency has announced that the EU nations were on track to exceed the pollution cuts they have promised under Kyoto, so long as they implement all their policies and measures.
© Copyright 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
###

http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/2004/story12-13-04b.html

Earth Institute News

posted 12/17/04

Contact: Mary Tobin
845-365-8607 or mtobin@ldeo.columbia.edu

Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion
by Gavin Schmidt, Earth Institute climate scientist and RealClimate.org contributor

In a departure from normal practice on the RealClimate.org site, this post is a commentary on a piece of out-and-out fiction (unlike most of the other posts which deal with a more subtle kind). Michael Crichton’s new novel “State of Fear” is about a self-important NGO hyping the science of the global warming to further the ends of evil eco-terrorists. The inevitable conclusion of the book is that global warming is a non-problem. A lesson for our times maybe? Unfortunately, I think not.

Like the recent movie “The Day After Tomorrow", the novel addresses real scientific issues and controversies, but is similarly selective (and occasionally mistaken) about the basic science. I will discuss a selection of the global warming-related issues that are raised in between the car chases, shoot-outs, cannibalistic rites and assorted derring-do. The champion of Crichton’s scientific view is a MIT academic-turned-undercover operative who clearly runs intellectual rings around other characters. The issues are raised as conversations and Q and A sessions between him (and other ‘good guys’) and two characters; an actor (not a very clever chap) and a lawyer (a previously duped innocent), neither of whom know much about the science.

So for actors and lawyers everywhere, I will try and help out.

The issues Crichton raises are familiar to those of us in the field, and come up often in discussions. Some are real and well appreciated while some are red herrings and are used to confuse rather than enlighten.

The first set of comments relate to the attribution of the recent warming trend to increasing CO2. One character suggests that “if CO2 didn’t cause the global cooling between 1940 and 1970, how can you be sure it is responsible for the recent warming?” (paraphrased from p86) . Northern Hemisphere mean temperatures do appear to have cooled over that period, and that contrasts with a continuing increase in CO2, which if all else had been equal, should have led to warming. But were all things equal? Actually no. In the real world, there is both internal variability and other factors that affect climate (i.e. other than CO2). Some of those other forcings (sulphate and nitrate aerosols, land use changes, solar irradiance, volcanic aerosols, for instance) can cause cooling. Matching up the real world with what we might expect to have happened depends on including ALL of the forcings (as best as we can). Even then any discrepancy might be due to internal variability (related principally to the ocean on multi-decadal time scales). Our current ‘best guess’ is that the global mean changes in temperature (including the 1940-1970 cooling) are actually quite closely related to the forcings. Regional patterns of change appear to be linked more closely to internal variability (particularly the 1930’s warming in the North Atlantic). However, in no case has anyone managed to show that the recent warming can be matched without the increases in CO2 (and other GHGs like CH4).

Secondly, through the copious use of station weather data, a number of single station records with long term cooling trends are shown. In particular, the characters visit Punta Arenas (at the tip of South America), where (very pleasingly to my host institution) they have the GISTEMP station record posted on the wall which shows a long-term cooling trend (although slight warming since the 1970’s). “There’s your global warming” one of the good guys declares. I have to disagree. Global warming is defined by the global mean surface temperature. It does not imply that the whole globe is warming uniformly (which of course it isn’t). (But that doesn’t stop one character later on (p381) declaring that “..it’s effect is presumably the same everywhere in the world. That’s why it’s called global warming"). Had the characters visited the nearby station of Santa Barbara Aeropuerto, the poster on the wall would have shown a positive trend. Would that have been proof of global warming? No. Only by amalgamating all of the records we have (after correcting for known problems, such as discussed below) can we have an idea what the regional, hemispheric or global means are doing. That is what is meant by global warming.

Crichton next raises the apparently unrecognised (by the lawyer character at least) fact that the interior of Antarctica is cooling (p196), an issue discussed in another post (Antarctica cooling, global warming?). This is more or less correct (given the obvious uncertainties in long term data from the continental interior), but analogously to the example above, local cooling does not contradict global warming.

Next, and slightly more troubling, we have some rather misleading and selective recollection regarding Jim Hansen’s testimony to congress in 1988. “Dr. Hansen overestimated [global warming] by 300 percent” (p247). Hansen’s testimony did indeed lead to a big increase in awareness of global warming as a issue, but not because he exaggerated the problem by 300%. In a paper published soon after that testimony, Hansen et al, 1988 presented three model simulations for different scenarios for the growth in trace gases and other forcings (see figure). Scenario A had exponentially increasing CO2, Scenario B had a more modest Business-as-usual assumption, and Scenario C had no further increases in CO2 after the year 2000. Both scenarios B and C assumed a large volcanic eruptio

Posted by richard at 12:13 PM

December 24, 2004

LNS Post Coup II Supplement (12/23/04)

At least twenty-three more US soldiers have died in Iraq since the last LNS supplement was posted. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich. This war is worse than immoral, worse than illegal under international law, this war is insanely stupid...Read the following tales of heroism and patriotism...share them with others...keep the resistance alive...there is a purpose to this struggle...there is a truth being revealed...painfully...it is up to you to birth it, because the US mainstream news media is wholly complicit, the Democratic Party leadership is hamstrung by political cowardice and the "Left" is hamstrung by a lack of political realism...free press and democracy are being dismantled in America...

Theft of 2004 Election

William Rivers Pitt, www.truthout.org: 2004 Democratic
Presidential candidate John Kerry will file today, in
the United States District Court for the Southern
District of Ohio, papers in support of the Green
Party/Libertarian Party recount effort. Specifically,
Kerry will be filing a request for expedited discovery
regarding Triad Systems voting machines, as well as a
motion for a preservation order to protect any and all
discovery and preserve any evidence on this matter.
Triad Systems has come under scrutiny recently after
Sherole Eaton, deputy director of elections for
Hocking County, swore out an affidavit in which she
described her witnessing the tampering of electronic
voting equipment by a Triad representative. Rep. John
Conyers, the ranking minority member of the House
Judiciary Committee, has requested an investigation
into this matter by the FBI and the Hocking County
prosecutor…
Kerry's entry into this recount effort changes the
math on this matter dramatically. He can likewise show
irreparable harm, and unlike the Green and Libertarian
candidates, he can also prove a substantial chance for
success on the merits because he lost the Ohio vote by
a statistical whisker..
Perhaps the most significant aspect of all this, from
the activist point of view, has been the effectiveness
of the telephone calls and letters to Kerry. The
activist push to get him involved had a very
significant effect on his decision to enter this
effort. Likewise, calls to other Senators in order to
convince them to join House members in challenging the
election have likewise had significant effect. If such
an effort continues, the activists involved will very
likely see the desired

SETH SUTEL, Associated Press: The top Democrat on the
House Judiciary Committee has asked The Associated
Press and five broadcast networks to turn over raw
exit poll data collected on Election Day so that any
discrepancies between the data and the certified
election results can be investigated.
Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan said in a letter
released Tuesday in Washington that the polling firms
that conducted the polls on behalf of the news
organizations, Mitofsky International and Edison Media
Research, had declined to share the information with
the committee.
"Without the raw data, the committee will be severely
handicapped in its efforts to show the need for
serious election reform in the United States," Conyers
said in the letter.
The AP and the five television outlets — ABC, CBS,
NBC, CNN, and Fox — formed a consortium called the
National Election Pool to conduct exit polls for this
year's election after disbanding a previous exit poll
group called the Voter News Service, which had
problems in both the 2000 and 2002 elections.
Edie Emery, a spokeswoman for the National Election
Pool and a CNN employee, said the poll data were still
being analyzed and that the group's board would decide
how to release a full report on the data early next
year. "To release any information now would be
incomplete," she said.

Tim Grieve interviews Rep. John Conyers, Salon.com:
"You know, orchestrated attempts don't always require
a conspiracy," Conyers told Salon on Monday. Conyers
said that Bush's supporters in Ohio may have worked to
suppress the vote based on cues rather than orders
from party officials. "People get the drift from other
elections and the way [campaign leaders] talk about
how they're going to win the election."
Conyers isn't looking to overturn the election, and
he won't say that the Republicans stole it; coming
from a member of Congress, such an allegation would be
"reckless," he said. But neither is he willing to put
the election of 2004 behind him yet. This is the
second presidential election in a row in which
Republicans have succeeded in suppressing the vote,
Conyers said, and he wants to ensure that the system
is changed so that it won't happen again. He'll
continue his investigation, he'll join the Rev. Jesse
Jackson in a protest rally in Ohio on Jan. 3, and when
the new Congress meets in January he'll push for
further investigation and reform…
Your first public forum on the 2004 election was
called "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in
Ohio?" Do you know the answer to that question yet?
Well, dozens and dozens of things went wrong. It
depends on what part of the state we're going to
examine. In Hocking County, a private company accessed
an election machine and altered and tampered with it
in the absence of election observers. It disturbed a
deputy chair of the election in the county so much
that she has given a sworn affidavit that has been
turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
and we're in the process of running that down. But
what about in Cleveland, Ohio? There, thousands of
people claimed that their vote for Kerry was turned
into a vote for Bush. Poll workers made mistakes that
might have cost thousands of votes in Cleveland. And
in Youngstown, machines turned an undetermined number
of Kerry votes into Bush votes as well. Provisional
ballots were thrown out. There were several
conflicting rules. There was mass confusion. In Warren
County, they talked about [the possibility that]
terrorism might close down the election. I mean,
please…
Do you believe that there was an orchestrated
attempt to steal the election?
Well, you know, orchestrated attempts don't always
require a conspiracy. People get the drift from other
elections and the way [campaign leaders] talk about
how they're going to win the election. When you have
the exit-polling information discrepancies that
occurred in 2004, where the odds of all the swing
states coming in so much stronger for Bush than the
exit polls indicated - they say that that is,
statistically, almost an improbability.
[People] are saying, "No, no, no, that doesn't mean
much." But it means a lot. It feeds this growing,
[but] not provable feeling among millions of Americans
that this was another unfair election.
Do you have that feeling?
Sure, I have a feeling that whenever we can come
across ways to make elections fairer or work better or
improve the process or simplify the regulations or
make voting more available to people who have language
problems or disabilities, we have a responsibility to
do it. We're trying to improve the system. I'm not
trying to attack the outcome. What we need is a system
where there are only a few of the kinds of the tens of
thousands of complaints that we already have…
Four years ago, when it came time for Congress to
certify the election results, a number of House
members rose to protest the certification of the Bush
electors from Florida. Not a single member of the
Senate joined them. Do you expect the same thing to
happen this time around?
No, I think the Senate is going to go along with an
inquiry this time. I don't think they would embarrass
themselves to let this happen two times in a row…
Have any Republicans actually told you that they
support your efforts?
I'd rather not comment on that.
Are you surprised that none of them have said so
publicly?
No, not really. If you had a majority leader like
theirs, you'd probably think twice about it yourself.

Michael Collins, Scripps Howard News Service: Here's
something that has been largely overlooked amid all of
the complaints about voting irregularities in Ohio
during the Nov. 2 election:
Nearly 97,000 ballots, or 1.7 percent of those cast
across the state, either did not record a preference
for president or could not be counted because the
voter selected more than one presidential candidate.
An analysis by Scripps Howard News Service found
that Ohio recorded the second-highest number of
missing votes in the country, behind California.
Elections experts say a large number of missing votes
in a high-profile race like president should raise a
red flag that something may be amiss.

Bob Fertik. www.democrats.com: Economist/Statistician
Ron Baiman Ph.D., a senior research specialist at the
Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the
University of Illinois at Chicago, updated Steve
Freeman's analysis of the exit polls that said Kerry
won. Baiman used the official state-certified results
as of December 7, rather than the immediate
post-election results used by Freeman. But Baiman came
to the same conclusion as Freeman: that the
discrepancies between the exit polls and the actual
results, both in the critical states (OH, PA, and FL)
and nation-wide, are "impossible."
The United States of Ukraine?: Exit Polls Leave Little
Doubt that in a Free and Fair Election John Kerry
Would Have Won both the Electoral College and the
Popular Vote
by Ron Baiman
December 19, 2004
These unexplained statistical anomalies in the vote
count in critical states, such as Ohio, Florida, and
Pennsylvania, and in the national popular vote for the
2004 Presidential elections, indicate:
a) Implausibly erroneous exit sampling especially for
the national sample and for the most critical states
where one would have expected pollsters to be most
careful, and/or
b) Election fraud and/or discriminatory voter
suppression that resulted in a in an election result
in Ohio, Florida, and other states, and in the
national popular vote outcome, that is contrary to
what would have occurred in a free and fair election.
I conclude that, based on the best exit sample data
currently available, neither the national popular
vote, or many of the certified state election results,
are credible and should not be regarded as a true
reflection of the intent of national electorate, or of
many state voters, until a complete and thorough
investigation of the possibilities a) and b) above is
completed.
These are remarkable words for a scholar - Baiman is
strongly suggesting the Presidency was stolen. The
fact that two experts have come to the same conclusion
is doubly (or is it squared?) significant.
How many experts will have to reach the same
conclusion before the mainstream media touches this
story?

Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D., Columbus Free Press:
Three contiguous counties in southwestern Ohio, all
traditionally Republican counties, gave unexpectedly
large margins to George W. Bush over John F. Kerry on
election night. All three counties experienced a huge
increase in voter turnout. In all three counties,
Bush received a higher percentage of the vote than he
did in the 2000 election, and Kerry received a lower
percentage of the vote than Al Gore did in 2000. This
study analyzes how it happened.
In Warren County, the administrative building was
locked down on election night, all in the name of
"homeland security." No independent persons were
allowed to observe the vote count. Compared to 2000,
the population increased by 14.75%, the number of
registered voters increased by 29.66%, voter turnout
increased by 33.55%, Bush’s point spread increased
from 42.24% to 44.58%, and Bush’s victory margin
increased from 29,176 votes to 41,124 votes.
In Clermont County, compared to 2000, the population
increased by 4.39%, the number of registered voters
increased by 10.20%, voter turnout increased by
24.86%, Bush's point spread increased from 37.50% to
41.69%, and Bush's victory margin increased from
26,202 votes to 36,376 votes.
In Butler County, compared to 2000, the population
increased by 3.12%, the number of registered voters
increased by 10.06%, voter turnout increased by
18.18%, Bush's point spread increased from 29.40% to
32.52%, and Bush's victory margin increased from
40,197 votes to 52,550 votes.
These three counties provided to George W. Bush a
victory margin of 130,050 votes, nearly equal to his
statewide margin of 136,483 votes…
I do not believe these numbers. They call into
question both the voter registration data and the
turnout data for all of Clermont County, and the
validity of the vote count itself.
These three counties between them, Butler, Warren, and
Clermont, provided nearly all of George W. Bush’s lead
on election night. They also provided, by far, his
three largest majorities, and the three largest
increases in Bush’s margin of victory among any of the
72 counties that he won. The election results in
Butler, Warren, and Clermont counties should be
challenged, for they call into question the results
for the entire State of Ohio.

Stuart Comstock-Gay, www.tompaine.com: The number of
complaints in Ohio numbers thousands upon
thousands—lines into the hours at polling places;
shortages of poll workers and machines; electronic
voting machines that malfunctioned; voters being
required to show identification even though they were
not first-time mail-in registrants; erroneous purges
of voters from the voter rolls; and voters who
requested absentee ballots but never received them and
were nevertheless barred from voting in person. In
one precinct in Franklin County, Ohio, an electronic
voting system gave George W. Bush 3,893 extra votes
out of a total of 638 votes cast. In addition,
approximately 93,000 ballots were not counted and Ohio
election officials may have improperly disqualified
thousands of 155,000 provisional ballots cast.
Now the problems are escalating. In Hocking County,
Ohio, Deputy Elections Director Sherole Eaton
describes a troubling incident on December 10, three
days before the recount was to begin. An employee of
the Tri Ad company came into the office to check out
the tabulator and computer and prepare voting
officials for the recount, so that “the count would
come out perfect and we wouldn’t have to do a full
hand recount of the county.” He asked which
precincts would be recounted, and made sure to focus
on them. Voting machine expert Doug Jones from the
University of Iowa believes this threatens the
integrity of the entire recount. Now Congressman John
Conyers has asked the FBI to investigate this
incident.
But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. With the
recount underway, we learn that counties are handling
the process in different ways, depending on the whims
of county officials. Every county was instructed by
the Secretary of State to do a recount of 3 percent of
the votes, followed by a hand recount of every vote if
there any discrepancy appears. Some counties,
however, have said they would do their recounts by
machine only, and not by hand. Some have made space
for observers, and allowed them to review voting polls
and other materials. Some counties have kept
observers—whether from the Green Party, Libertarian
Party, DNC or Republican Party—out of the counting
rooms entirely.
And this only after some elections officials tried to
stop the recount in its tracks. Delaware County sued
NVRI, Cobb and Badnarik, seeking to stop the recount,
even though the law was followed. He said the recount
was too expensive and frivolous. Delaware County has
finally decided to conduct a recount, but only after a
series of hearings.
On January 5, Congress will receive the votes of the
electoral college votes and the election—for all
intents and purposes—will be considered concluded.
Meanwhile the Ohio recount will continue well into
January. As of this writing, results are not in, but
we expect full recounts in many counties…

Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure: National Security

Cindy Sheehan’s Open Letter to Time Magazine,
www.tompaine.com: Well let's see. Oh yes. George W.
Bush awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to three
more architects of the quagmire that is Iraq.
Thousands of people are dead and Bremer, Tenet and
Franks are given our country's highest civilian award.
What's next?
To top everything off—after it has been proven that
Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, there were no
ties between Saddam and 9/11 and over 1,300 brave
young people in this country are dead and Iraq lies in
ruins— what does Time Magazine do? Names George W.
Bush as its "Man of the Year." The person who betrayed
this country into a needless war and whom I hold
ultimately responsible for my son's death and who was
questionably elected, again, to a second term, is
honored this way by your magazine.
I hope we finally find peace in our world and that our
troops who remain in Iraq are brought home
speedily—after all, there was no reason for our troops
to be there in the first place. No reason for my son
and over 1,300 others to have been taken from their
families. No reason for the infrastructure of Iraq to
be demolished and thousands of Iraqis being killed. No
reason for the notion of a "happy" holiday to be
robbed from my family forever. I hope that our
"leaders" don't invade any other countries which pose
no serious threat to the United States. I hope there
is no draft. I hope that the five people mentioned
here (and many others) will finally be held
responsible for the horrible mistake they got our
country into. I hope that competence is finally
rewarded and incompetence is appropriately punished.
These are my wishes for 2005.
This isn't the first time your magazine has selected a
questionable man for this honor—but it's the first
time it affected my family so personally and so
sorrowfully.

Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure: Environmental Security

Sierra Club: "Today, the Geneva-based World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that 2004
is on track to be the fourth-hottest year since
record-keeping began in 1861. The WMO added that
global warming trends will lead to increased extreme
weather events.
"While the Bush administration continues to deny the
seriousness of global warming, temperatures continue
to rise and 2004 joins the 10 warmest years on record
- all occuring since 1990. Today's WMO announcement is
further evidence reinforcing the scientific conclusion
that global warming will lead to increased habitat
loss, sea level rise, and shifting weather patterns.
Sir David King, the British government's top
scientist, called global warming 'more serious even
than the threat of terrorism.' In contrast to the
actions of our leading trading partners and the
warnings of the world's leading scientists, the Bush
administration's approach to global warming ranges
from ostrich-like to flat earth.
"Meanwhile, states are taking the initiative in
attacking global warming. California's recently passed
Pavley Law will require automobile makers to reduce
global warming emissions from new cars and light
trucks beginning in 2009. The Pavley Law is a big step
in the right direction because it delivers clean car
choices for consumers, and encourages cost-effective,
currently available technology to reduce global
warming emissions. Seven Northeastern states plan to
implement California law when it is finalized, and
Canada is considering adopting the measures.

Illegitimate, Incompetent & Corrupt: A document
released for the first time today by the American
Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush
issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of
inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in
Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of
other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail
that characterizes methods used by the Defense
Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent
Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises
concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.
"These documents raise grave questions about where
the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately
rests," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D.
Romero. "Top government officials can no longer hide
from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few
low-ranking soldiers."

Complicity of the Corporatist News Media

CNN: An unauthorized radio station in the nation's
capital called for "massive protests" in the week
leading up to the January 20 presidential
inauguration. The station broadcast Wednesday at 1680
AM and identified itself as "Guerrilla Radio, WSQT."
During the identification message, an announcer said,
"WSQT is a project of urban activists in the D.C. area
working on housing issues, homeless issues, issues of
war, issues of occupation both at home and abroad, and
issues of the environment that we all have to live
in." After being tipped by a reporter, an official
with the Federal Communications Commission said
enforcement investigators will try to pinpoint the
transmitter using direction-finding equipment. A man
responding to a request for an interview sent to an
e-mail address that had been mentioned on the radio
told CNN the station uses a homemade transmitter and a
concealed antenna."It's about $40 in parts from Radio
Shack and the Dumpster," he said in a telephone
interview Wednesday afternoon. The caller's voice
sounded similar to the voice heard on the broadcasts
throughout the day. Other programming featured rap
music with urgent, unsettled lyrics that were
generally shouted instead of sung. The station's poor
audio quality made the vocalizations nearly
unintelligible. An unidentified announcer said, "It's
time to say no to Bush and no to a ban on abortions."
The announcer also called on the Supreme Court
justices to "get off your butts" and free people
unfairly imprisoned on drug convictions, and further
stated that "we know you can hear our signal up there,
and all you people in Congress."

John O’Neill Wall of Heroes

Elaine Lafferty, Jessica Segal, MS Magazine: Welcome
to our annual celebration of extraordinary women. As
we recognize these heroes, we find ourselves marveling
at their courage and their commitment to excellence,
to do and be the best for themselves and their
communities and families.
This year, another common thread revealed itself:
These women displayed uncommon determination to
accomplish specific goals that had global
consequences.
So what is heroism anyway? In his 1991 book Rescues:
The Lives of Heroes, the superb writer Michael Lesy
noted that many people committed courageous acts when
their own lives were at a low point or even nearly
lost altogether. But nearly all of Lesy’s profiled
heroes were men. Women’s bravery is different. The
late psychotherapist Dr. Miriam Polster, in her book
Eve’s Daughters: The Forbidden Heroism of Women,
showed how cultural perspectives exclude unique kinds
of heroism that women have commonly exercised.
So we turn first to our Jersey Girls, the four widows
whose determination to seek the truth led to the
creation of the 9/11 Commission.
“Who can so properly be the inquisitors for the nation
as the representatives of the nation themselves?”
asked Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Papers in
1788. What a different world we occupy today; yet it
was these four modern day women, acting as both
inquisitors and representatives of the nation, who
worked and lobbied and organized to hold our
government accountable. We salute them…
Now called the “Jersey Girls” (thanks to a Bruce
Springsteen cover song), they helped force a reckoning
of what really happened that clear September day when
their husbands went to work in the Twin Towers and
never came home.
Nearly 3,000 people died that day, but government
officials insisted that nothing could have prevented
terrorists who just “got lucky” hijacking airplanes.
Left with seven children among them, the four moms
from the Garden State weren’t convinced, and vowed to
find out the truth…
History will remember that the bestselling 9/11
Commission Report, published this summer, found no
link between al-Qaeda terrorists and Iraq. Yet the
Republican presidential campaign still beat the drums
for the American war in Iraq.
Outraged, the Jersey Girls abandoned their nonpartisan
stance and endorsed Democratic challenger John Kerry,
although two of them had voted for Bush in 2000.
Greeted as heroines on the Democratic campaign trail,
they have been asked to autograph copies of the 9/11
Report.
What’s the lesson in it all? Democracy, the Jersey
Girls say, is hard work.

Restore the Sanctity of the Vote! Restore an
Independent, Aggressive Free Press that Serves the
Public Good, Restore the Republic!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041222/ap_on_re_us/election_poll_data

Michigan Congressman Seeks Exit Poll Data

Wed Dec 22, 7:26 AM ET U.S. National - AP

By SETH SUTEL, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK - The top Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee (news - web sites) has asked The Associated
Press and five broadcast networks to turn over raw
exit poll data collected on Election Day so that any
discrepancies between the data and the certified
election results can be investigated.

Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) Jr. of
Michigan said in a letter released Tuesday in
Washington that the polling firms that conducted the
polls on behalf of the news organizations, Mitofsky
International and Edison Media Research, had declined
to share the information with the committee.

"Without the raw data, the committee will be severely
handicapped in its efforts to show the need for
serious election reform in the United States," Conyers
said in the letter.

The AP and the five television outlets — ABC, CBS,
NBC, CNN, and Fox — formed a consortium called the
National Election Pool to conduct exit polls for this
year's election after disbanding a previous exit poll
group called the Voter News Service, which had
problems in both the 2000 and 2002 elections.

Edie Emery, a spokeswoman for the National Election
Pool and a CNN employee, said the poll data were still
being analyzed and that the group's board would decide
how to release a full report on the data early next
year. "To release any information now would be
incomplete," she said.

Several Web logs carried accounts on the afternoon of
Nov. 2 of what they said were leaked information from
the exit polls showing that Kerry, a Massachusetts
senator, was leading Bush in several battleground
states, including Ohio, and poised for victory.

But Bush, a Republican, beat Kerry by about 119,000
votes in Ohio, winning that state's 20 electoral votes
and putting him over the top in the race. Bush won
re-election with 286 electoral votes to Kerry's 252.

Conyers' letter said the exit poll information could
help determine whether there is evidence "of voting
irregularities that occurred as a result of poor
election practices and intentional voter
disenfranchisement."

The exit polling was conducted for the AP and for ABC,
a unit of The Walt Disney Co.; CBS, a unit of Viacom
Inc.; NBC, a unit of General Electric Co.; CNN, a unit
of Time Warner Inc.; and Fox News, owned by News Corp.

"Like Congressman Conyers, we believe the American
people deserve answers," said Jack Stokes, a spokesman
for the AP. "We want exit polling information to be
made public as soon as it is available, as we
intended. At this time, the data is still being
evaluated for a final report to the National Election
Pool."

Officials from ABC and NBC referred calls for comment
to the National Election Pool, where CNN's Emery
responded for the group. A CBS spokeswoman declined to
comment, and officials at Fox could not be reached.

Earlier this month Kerry asked county election
officials in Ohio to allow his witnesses to inspect
the 92,000 ballots cast in the state in which no vote
for president was recorded.

Despite improvements since 2000, when the presidential
outcome was delayed for weeks by problems counting
ballots in Florida, the nation's voting system remains
a locally administered patchwork whose lack of
national uniformity distinguishes the United States
from many other democracies.

Most complaints have come from Democrats and
third-party candidates, but Republicans and bipartisan
groups have acknowledged problems. The Government
Accountability Office is investigating election
problems. Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record),
R-Ohio and chairman of the House Administration
Committee, will oversee an inquiry next year.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, created in
2002, is also scrutinizing the outcome. It plans to
publish in January the government's first report on
the voting, which will serve as the basis for
congressional recommendations and reforms.

Wednesday, December 22, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following letter, issued by Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
(D-Mich), calls on the five major television networks
and the Associated Press to release the raw exit poll
data from the 2004 presidential election. The letter
below, acquired by RAW STORY late this afternoon, is a
facsimile; the congressman's office said an actual
image of the letter will not be released until
Wednesday.

The letter was sent to: Anne Sweeney, Co-Chairman,
Media Networks, The Walt Disney Company and President,
Disney-ABC Television Group; Bob Wright, President,
NBC; Gail Berman, President, FOX; Jim Walton
President, CNN; Thomas Curley, President, Associated
Press; and Andrew Heyward, President, CBS.

"As you are aware, the American citizenry has voiced a
collective lack of faith in government to carry out
fair election procedures," Conyers writes. "It is
important that the Judiciary Committee access raw
voter poll data so that discrepancies between those
numbers and certified election results can be
investigated...Without the raw data, the Committee
will be severely handicapped in its efforts to show
the need for serious election reform in the United
States."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122204W.shtml

Investigating Ohio
By Tim Grieve
Salon.com

Tuesday 21 December 2004

Rep. John Conyers isn't ready to declare the election
stolen, but he'll continue to dig into the droves of
complaints - and fight to fix the broken U.S. election
system.

For those who believe that the 2004 election was
stolen by George W. Bush, Karl Rove and an unholy
alliance of party operatives and voting-machine
impresarios, a 75-year-old Democratic congressman from
Detroit has emerged as the last best hope for American
democracy. Almost alone in official Washington, Rep.
John Conyers has insisted that the nation understand -
and then correct - the problems that plagued the 2004
vote.

With little attention from the media and little
support even from members of his own party, Conyers
has launched his own probe of the 2004 election. His
early conclusion: There may not have been an active
conspiracy to suppress the vote and steal the
election, but all those problems in Ohio - the long
lines in Democratic precincts, the voting machines
that may have switched votes, the suspicious actions
of a voting-machine company representative, the
trumped-up concerns about terrorism in Warren County,
the Republican-friendly rulings by the state election
official who also happened to chair the Bush-Cheney
campaign - well, those things didn't all happen by
accident, either.

"You know, orchestrated attempts don't always
require a conspiracy," Conyers told Salon on Monday.
Conyers said that Bush's supporters in Ohio may have
worked to suppress the vote based on cues rather than
orders from party officials. "People get the drift
from other elections and the way [campaign leaders]
talk about how they're going to win the election."

Conyers isn't looking to overturn the election, and
he won't say that the Republicans stole it; coming
from a member of Congress, such an allegation would be
"reckless," he said. But neither is he willing to put
the election of 2004 behind him yet. This is the
second presidential election in a row in which
Republicans have succeeded in suppressing the vote,
Conyers said, and he wants to ensure that the system
is changed so that it won't happen again. He'll
continue his investigation, he'll join the Rev. Jesse
Jackson in a protest rally in Ohio on Jan. 3, and when
the new Congress meets in January he'll push for
further investigation and reform.

Conyers spoke with Salon by phone from Detroit.

Your first public forum on the 2004 election was
called "Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in
Ohio?" Do you know the answer to that question yet?

Well, dozens and dozens of things went wrong. It
depends on what part of the state we're going to
examine. In Hocking County, a private company accessed
an election machine and altered and tampered with it
in the absence of election observers. It disturbed a
deputy chair of the election in the county so much
that she has given a sworn affidavit that has been
turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
and we're in the process of running that down. But
what about in Cleveland, Ohio? There, thousands of
people claimed that their vote for Kerry was turned
into a vote for Bush. Poll workers made mistakes that
might have cost thousands of votes in Cleveland. And
in Youngstown, machines turned an undetermined number
of Kerry votes into Bush votes as well. Provisional
ballots were thrown out. There were several
conflicting rules. There was mass confusion. In Warren
County, they talked about [the possibility that]
terrorism might close down the election. I mean,
please.

What we're doing, understand, is we're collecting
the complaints, the grievances, the outrages, the
indignities that people suffered, and then we've got
to process them to find out what is valid and what
needs to be further examined and what needs to be
tossed out. It's not like every complaint is one that
has to be counted. What we're trying to do is make the
system better.

Do you believe that there was an orchestrated
attempt to steal the election?

Well, you know, orchestrated attempts don't always
require a conspiracy. People get the drift from other
elections and the way [campaign leaders] talk about
how they're going to win the election. When you have
the exit-polling information discrepancies that
occurred in 2004, where the odds of all the swing
states coming in so much stronger for Bush than the
exit polls indicated - they say that that is,
statistically, almost an improbability.

[People] are saying, "No, no, no, that doesn't mean
much." But it means a lot. It feeds this growing,
[but] not provable feeling among millions of Americans
that this was another unfair election.

Do you have that feeling?

Sure, I have a feeling that whenever we can come
across ways to make elections fairer or work better or
improve the process or simplify the regulations or
make voting more available to people who have language
problems or disabilities, we have a responsibility to
do it. We're trying to improve the system. I'm not
trying to attack the outcome. What we need is a system
where there are only a few of the kinds of the tens of
thousands of complaints that we already have.

Do you believe the outcome of the election would
have been different if it had been conducted more
fairly?

I have no way of saying that because this gets into
conjecture. I make one conjecture and somebody else
makes a counter conjecture, and where are we? We're
all, "This is what I think." I'm not as concerned
about what I think as I am about what people told me
went wrong on Election Day that we in Congress,
especially the Judiciary Committee, have the
responsibility to correct.

But is there any real chance that anything will be
corrected? The entire nation was focused on the
problems with the electoral system in 2000, yet very
little seems to have changed. If meaningful reform
didn't come then, how can anyone expect it to come
now?

I thought that the Help America Vote Act would
improve things dramatically. And although it helped in
places, the provisional ballot [process] was
misinterpreted. We couldn't get all these private
companies to come up with a paper trail on their
machines. And with the precinct machines, there was
quite a disparity in the conservative counties in Ohio
as opposed to the Democratic areas where there were
only a few machines.

Republican precincts had plenty of machines, and
people could vote quickly.

Instantly, yeah. And we had people waiting for hours
only miles away.

So what comes of all of this?

First, we've got to collect the complaints. Second,
we've got to investigate them and bring forward the
ones we're willing to stand by. And then we have to
examine how we correct them. There needs to be,
generally stated, more federal regulation over
presidential elections. There are just way too many
differences, from not only state to state but also
county to county.

So far, which complaints are you willing to "stand
by"?

It's not a matter of my claiming ownership over the
complaints. I'm just doing my job. If all of them are
valid, that's what I'm going to present. If half of
them are valid, that's what I'm going to present. I'm
not going forward with complaints that don't reach the
level of believability or credibility.

The complaints you've described in this interview -
do they meet that level of believability and
credibility?

Oh yes, and plenty more reach that level. So we've
got a problem. Many people in the media are saying,
"Look, the election's over, and yes, we had problems."
It's like many people are just taking this. Then we
have the hundreds of thousands of people who are
outraged and supportive of me for carrying on and
trying to make sure we get to the bottom of all these
grievances that have been brought forward.

We've received e-mails from hundreds of those
people, and many of them seem certain that the
election was stolen, or at least that the outcome
would have been different if the election had been
more fair.

Sure.

But you're not there yet.

Well, no, that's not why I'm doing this. I'm not
trying to get there. I'm trying to do the kind of job
that people will say, "I think the congressman and
those working with him are going about this in a
fairly impartial, effective manner" - and not that
they're coming in as thieves trying to upset the
election result. To me, that would not be what I'm in
Congress to do. I mean, I would be doing this if it
were just the reverse. A fair election process applies
to everybody - Democrats and Republicans,
conservatives and liberals alike.

Four years ago, when it came time for Congress to
certify the election results, a number of House
members rose to protest the certification of the Bush
electors from Florida. Not a single member of the
Senate joined them. Do you expect the same thing to
happen this time around?

No, I think the Senate is going to go along with an
inquiry this time. I don't think they would embarrass
themselves to let this happen two times in a row.

Has any senator said to you that he or she will call
for an inquiry?

No, I haven't talked with a single one. I'm not
citing somebody who I know is going to do it. I'm not
aware of anyone. I just don't think the Senate would
get caught in that position.

You haven't exactly enjoyed a groundswell of support
from other members of Congress. Are there Democrats in
Congress who support what you're doing but won't come
forward and say so publicly?

Well, there are Republicans who support what I'm
doing who haven't been willing to come forward. Look,
calling for fair elections is not the most radical
thing in the world. We're not positing some
revolutionary theory here. We're asking that the
people who complained be given a fair hearing.

Have any Republicans actually told you that they
support your efforts?

I'd rather not comment on that.

Are you surprised that none of them have said so
publicly?

No, not really. If you had a majority leader like
theirs, you'd probably think twice about it yourself.

What about the Democratic leadership? Harry Reid,
the new Senate minority leader, says he'd rather dance
with Bush than fight him. Should the problems in Ohio
change the way Democrats in Congress think about
accommodating Bush in his second term?

Well, I'm not sure how much accommodation is going
to happen. I listen to Bush talking about "reaching
out," which he talked about the first time, and we had
the most divided federal system in memory. And now
those kinds of phrases are being tossed about during
the Christmas holiday again. Please. I don't put much
stock in it.

Bush billed himself as a "uniter, not a divider."

I keep reminding myself of what he said. He sure
didn't unite anybody I knew of.

And what about John Kerry? Have you spoken with him
about your investigation?

His lawyer was in Columbus for our hearing there
last week. And he has also, at the same time, asked
for a full recount in Delaware County [Ohio].

Has the Kerry campaign done enough? A lot of
Democrats think Kerry conceded too soon.

It's easy to be in an armchair somewhere saying,
"You've got to do this; you've got to do that." He had
more in his control. And besides, he's the candidate.
I wish he'd listened to me more, and everybody wishes
that the guy they voted for would listen to them more.
But he's the master of his ship.

When you say that you wish Kerry had listened to you
more, do you mean during the campaign or in the days
after the election?

During the campaign and after.

What do you wish he were doing now?

I don't want to go into all of this "shoulda,
coulda, woulda." I think it takes our focus off the
fact that we had far too many grievances and misfires
in this election that have to be corrected.

But you don't believe that those problems were the
result of a concerted effort by the Republican Party
or the Bush-Cheney campaign? You think people who
wanted to see the president reelected just got the
message somehow that they were supposed to do the
things they did?

People didn't have to get a message. If you use
questionable tactics and generally attempt to suppress
the vote - that's what the Republicans' strategies
were all about: "How do we limit the vote?" Because
the more people who voted, the more imperiled they
felt they would be. And from that kind of an
assumption, you can get a whole lot of activities that
might not meet the smell test.

Because people on the ground understand the overall
strategy and then take it upon themselves to engage in
whatever conduct they think will help?

That's what frequently happens, and usually does.

Do you believe that Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth
Blackwell did that? Do you think he acted with the
intent to suppress the vote?

I know that Kenneth Blackwell made some decisions
that were blatant and outrageous for a secretary of
state. How he felt that his head was big enough to be
chairman of the "Re-elect Bush" committee and also
head of the administration of the electoral vote for
the president in that same state was beyond me.

Is that the sort of issue that you hope to address
through legislative reform?

Oh, good night, yeah. There are very few people who
did what he did.

Do you think you'll ever be able to prove that there
was a coordinated effort to steal the election?

We're not trying to prove that. This is what we're
discussing: We're trying to improve the situation
wherever we can to make a better voting system in the
states.

But a lot of the people who support your efforts
desperately want you to prove that there was a
conspiracy. If the e-mails we get are any indication,
a lot of them believe that the existence of a
conspiracy has already been proven.

Well, you know, a citizen's point of view may be
different from a federal lawmaker's point of view. The
citizens are entitled to form their own opinions. They
can assert that easily. A member of Congress, the
ranking member of Judiciary ... I can't make those
assertions without proof. That would be reckless.

So you don't make them.

No, I don't.

What do you do?

We pass laws. We make laws and we try to correct the
system through the legislative process.

And what conclusions have you reached about how the
system can be fixed?

Everyone is beginning to reexamine the
appropriateness of the Electoral College. We realize
that provisional balloting needs to be streamlined and
simplified. We know that there should be paper trails
in computers. We're beginning to wonder if we haven't
privatized the electoral system so that the computer
tabulators can do more and know more than the
electoral commissions of the counties themselves.

In the meantime, what do you say to all of the
people who believe in their hearts that our democracy
is broken and that the election was stolen?

I ask and invite everybody to turn in any evidence
that they want that helps proves whatever position
they believe, or even a position they don't believe.
But this isn't a hunch and suspicion game. This is
very serious business. Either there were defects so
numerous and so plentiful that we had a faulty
election, or we had an election that had these defects
[but they didn't alter the outcome of the election].
And as we go forward with trying to improve the
process, my whole objective is not to change the
election result but to try to improve the process
itself.

-------

Tim Grieve is a senior writer for Salon based in San
Francisco.

-------

Jump to TO Features for Wednesday December 22, 2004

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122404Z.shtml
In Ohio, Almost 1 in 50 Votes for President Don't
Count
By Michael Collins
Scripps Howard News Service
Wednesday 22 December 2004
Here's something that has been largely overlooked
amid all of the complaints about voting irregularities
in Ohio during the Nov. 2 election:
Nearly 97,000 ballots, or 1.7 percent of those cast
across the state, either did not record a preference
for president or could not be counted because the
voter selected more than one presidential candidate.
An analysis by Scripps Howard News Service found
that Ohio recorded the second-highest number of
missing votes in the country, behind California.
Elections experts say a large number of missing votes
in a high-profile race like president should raise a
red flag that something may be amiss.
Secretary of State Ken Blackwell said it's difficult
to know what happened because the numbers don't
include a breakdown of how many voters simply chose
not to vote for president or how many picked more than
one presidential candidate.
But he said the data reinforces his belief that the
state must move away from punch-card ballots and
toward electronic machines that prevent voters from
picking more than one candidate in the same race.
Voters in 68 of Ohio's 88 counties used punch-card
ballots in November. Electronic voting machinery must
be in place in every county in Ohio by May 2006.
On the other hand, Blackwell said, some voters
probably chose not to vote for president because they
didn't like either of the major candidates on the
ballot.
"Given human nature, when you're talking about 5.8
million people casting a vote, it wouldn't be too
far-fetched to think that you have a small percentage
of people who would say, 'A pox on both of your
houses,' " Blackwell said.
"I just hear, as I crisscross the state talking with
voters, some people don't think they have a clear
choice and they think it's (between) tweedledee and
tweedledum. Sometimes they just take a pass and focus
on those issues and candidates that they know and that
they see have a clear difference."
The number of missing votes in Ohio increased over
the last presidential election. This year, there were
96,580 missing votes, compared to 93,991 four years
ago. Blackwell attributed the increase to the fact
that nearly 1 million more voters cast ballots in this
year's contest than four years ago.
As for percentages, the number of missing votes in
Ohio actually declined. Four years ago, 2 percent of
all ballots cast in Ohio did not register a vote for
president or could not be counted because of
double-voting. This year, that number dropped to 1.7
percent.
The three Ohio counties with the highest percentage
of missing votes were Coshocton County, where 1,365
ballots, or nearly 8 percent of all ballots cast, did
not register a vote for president; Van Wert County,
which reported 698 missing votes, or 4.5 percent; and
Holmes County, which had 570 missing votes, or 4.48
percent.
Mary A. Fry, director of the Coshocton County Board
of Elections, attributed the number of missing votes
in her county to a mental health issue that was on the
ballot. Voters were asked to approve a property tax
levy on which the proceeds would go to mental health
programs in the county.
"A lot of people voted on a mental health issue and
nothing else," she said.
In Van Wert County, elections officials said the
problem could be traced largely to a voting machine in
one precinct. Some 400 votes had to be thrown out
after elections workers in one precinct borrowed a
punch-card reader from another precinct.
The order in which candidate names appear on the
ballot in Ohio is rotated from one political
jurisdiction to another. But elections workers forgot
to rotate the ballot when they borrowed the punch-card
reader in Van Wert County, making it impossible to
determine which presidential candidate the voter was
trying to vote for, said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for
the Secretary of State's office.
Holmes County traditionally has a high number of
missing votes because the county has a large Amish
population, said Lisa Welch, director of the Holmes
County Board of Elections.
"Traditionally, our Amish do not vote on candidates,
they only vote on issues," Welch said. "They do not
feel it's their right to judge men."
-------

http://blog.democrats.com/exitpoll

Stolen Election 2004: Were the Exit Polls Wrong or
Right? Let's Poll the Pollsters!
by Bob Fertik on 12/20/2004 10:47pm. - revised
12/21/2004 10:59pm
Economist/Statistician Ron Baiman Ph.D., a senior
research specialist at the Institute of Government and
Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at
Chicago, updated Steve Freeman's analysis of the exit
polls that said Kerry won. Baiman used the official
state-certified results as of December 7, rather than
the immediate post-election results used by Freeman.
But Baiman came to the same conclusion as Freeman:
that the discrepancies between the exit polls and the
actual results, both in the critical states (OH, PA,
and FL) and nation-wide, are "impossible."

The United States of Ukraine?: Exit Polls Leave Little
Doubt that in a Free and Fair Election John Kerry
Would Have Won both the Electoral College and the
Popular Vote
by Ron Baiman
December 19, 2004

These unexplained statistical anomalies in the vote
count in critical states, such as Ohio, Florida, and
Pennsylvania, and in the national popular vote for the
2004 Presidential elections, indicate:

a) Implausibly erroneous exit sampling especially for
the national sample and for the most critical states
where one would have expected pollsters to be most
careful, and/or

b) Election fraud and/or discriminatory voter
suppression that resulted in a in an election result
in Ohio, Florida, and other states, and in the
national popular vote outcome, that is contrary to
what would have occurred in a free and fair election.

I conclude that, based on the best exit sample data
currently available, neither the national popular
vote, or many of the certified state election results,
are credible and should not be regarded as a true
reflection of the intent of national electorate, or of
many state voters, until a complete and thorough
investigation of the possibilities a) and b) above is
completed.

These are remarkable words for a scholar - Baiman is
strongly suggesting the Presidency was stolen. The
fact that two experts have come to the same conclusion
is doubly (or is it squared?) significant.

How many experts will have to reach the same
conclusion before the mainstream media touches this
story?

This is not a rhetorical question. I'm mad as hell and
I'm not gonna take it any more. I want serious answers
- and I need your help to get them.

I want direct answers to this question, and I will
post them all here at http://democrats.com/exitpoll

Two scholars - Profs. Steve Freeman and Ron Baiman -
analyzed the differences between the unadjusted exit
poll results and the election results reported by
election officials. Both scholars concluded the
results in the 3 key states - Ohio, Florida, and
Pennsylvania - were so far outside the margin of error
as to be impossible. The same is true for the
nationwide results. They conclude that either a) the
exit poll techniques were seriously wrong - which they
consider highly unlikely - or b) the reported election
results were seriously wrong and John Kerry actually
won. Do you agree with their analysis, and do you
think the problem was a) or b) ?

Help me find the direct web link to each organization
(preferably the page devoted to election polls) and
the top person, including the name, phone, and e-mail
(or webform). Send me the info via our webform
(http://democrats.com/contact) and I will post it as
quickly as I can. While you're collecting the info,
submit the question above and if you make contact
before I do you can handle the follow up
correspondence.

Let's make some news - and maybe make some history
too!

A. 2004 Exit pollsters

Edison Media Research - Larry Rosin, President -
908.707.4707 - info@edisonresearch.com
Mitofsky International - Warren Mitofsky - 212
980-3031 mitofsky@mindspring.com
Roper Center - Harry O'Neill -
rcweb@ropercenter.uconn.edu
B. 2004 Exit Poll sponsors (request for raw data from
Rep. John Conyers)

ABC/Disney - Anne Sweeney, President
AP - Thomas Curley, President
CBS - Andrew Heyward, President
CNN - Jim Walton, President
FOX - Gail Berman, President
NBC - Bob Wright, President
C. Poll bloggers

DonkeyRising - Ruy Teixeira
MyDD - Jerome Armstrong/Chris Bowers
Mysterypollster - Mark Blumenthal
12/14/04 Exits: Were They Really "Wrong?"
Blames polling error, citing an internal NEP review of
1,400 sample precincts showed Kerry's share of the
vote overstated by an average of 1.9 percentage points

PollingReport - editor@pollingreport.com
PollKatz - Stuart Eugene Thiel -
self@stuarteugenethiel.com
William Kaminsky
12/11/04 Systematic Voting Fraud or Systematic Exit
Polling Bias?
Blames poll bias of 3.7%-3.9%, most likely due to
Republican hatred of the media (and their exit
pollsters).

"I'd still be very curious to hear pollsters
explicitly account for why the bias was so large,
because nearly 4% bias is pretty darn big for a
professional polling organization. If I were a paying
customer of Edison Media Services and Mitofsky
International like ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, et cetera, I'd
be plenty PO'ed."

D. Media pollsters

Field - E. Deborah Jay, CEO - 415-392-5763
info@field.com
Gallup
Harris Interactive
Ipsos/Cook
Marist - Lee Miringoff, Director - 845-575-5050

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1012

Election 2004

Election results in Southwestern Ohio
by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
December 21, 2004

Three contiguous counties in southwestern Ohio, all
traditionally Republican counties, gave unexpectedly
large margins to George W. Bush over John F. Kerry on
election night. All three counties experienced a huge
increase in voter turnout. In all three counties,
Bush received a higher percentage of the vote than he
did in the 2000 election, and Kerry received a lower
percentage of the vote than Al Gore did in 2000. This
study analyzes how it happened.

In Warren County, the administrative building was
locked down on election night, all in the name of
"homeland security." No independent persons were
allowed to observe the vote count. Compared to 2000,
the population increased by 14.75%, the number of
registered voters increased by 29.66%, voter turnout
increased by 33.55%, Bush’s point spread increased
from 42.24% to 44.58%, and Bush’s victory margin
increased from 29,176 votes to 41,124 votes.

In Clermont County, compared to 2000, the population
increased by 4.39%, the number of registered voters
increased by 10.20%, voter turnout increased by
24.86%, Bush's point spread increased from 37.50% to
41.69%, and Bush's victory margin increased from
26,202 votes to 36,376 votes.

In Butler County, compared to 2000, the population
increased by 3.12%, the number of registered voters
increased by 10.06%, voter turnout increased by
18.18%, Bush's point spread increased from 29.40% to
32.52%, and Bush's victory margin increased from
40,197 votes to 52,550 votes.

These three counties provided to George W. Bush a
victory margin of 130,050 votes, nearly equal to his
statewide margin of 136,483 votes.

All the above data are figures provided on election
night. It is preferable, when making comparisons, to
use synoptic data, and as of this writing, not all
counties have finalized their vote count.

To analyze how the Republicans achieved their
impressive victory margins, I have compared the
results of the 2004 and 2000 presidential elections.
Tables of data are arranged by city or township,
showing vote totals for the candidates, pluralities,
gains or losses, and the difference between the
margins of 2004 and 2000. In this way it can be
readily seen where the victory margins came from.

BUTLER COUNTY

St. Clair Township + 523

Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 1,877 1,008 869
2000 1,466 1,120 346
Change 411 - 112 523

These election results are not credible. Voter
turnout was up substantially (8.27%), yet Kerry got
10% fewer votes than Gore. Exactly.

Precinct Bush Kerry Bush Gore
4KA 217 173 152 213
4KB 224 125 186 104
4KC 210 104 148 126
4KD 235 119 181 129
4KE 224 128 191 146
4KF 294 171 231 188
4KG 94 36 92 50
4KH 379 152 285 164

In fact, Kerry is reported to have received fewer
votes than Gore in 7 of 8 precincts in St. Clair
Township. Only Precinct 4KB appears realistic when
compared with the 2000 results.

Liberty Township + 3,078

Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 11,629 3,404 8,225
2000 7,619 2,472 5,147
Change 4,010 932 3,078

Liberty Township accounted for 24.9% of the reported
increase in Bush’s margin of victory in Butler County.
Compared to 2000 there was reportedly a 41.02%
increase in voter registration and a 46.43% increase
in voter turnout. Upon closer examination these
numbers are not credible.

The increase in voter registration, as a percentage,
is wildly distributed throughout the township. There
are 20 precincts in Liberty Township, including one,
Precinct 4DT, that did not exist in 2000. There were
11 precincts with less than a 30% increase in voter
registration, 9 with less than 20%, 5 with less than
10%, and two that actually suffered a loss. Bush’s
net gain in these 11 precincts was 571 votes. His big
gains came in the 9 precincts with more than a 30%
increase in voter registration:

Prec. Regis. Bush Kerry Bush Gore Net Gain
4DA + 52.1% 632 161 423 89 + 137
4DB + 33.8% 727 229 547 186 + 137
4DC + 64.5% 635 201 360 117 + 191
4DF + 34.0% 723 158 511 131 + 185
4DG + 43.3% 704 185 505 129 + 143
4DI +177.9% 1,220 288 413 118 + 637
4DO +143.5% 979 270 358 96 + 447
4DP + 34.3% 600 181 431 143 + 131
4DT N.A. 676 177 N.A. N.A. + 499

Look at these numbers. In Precinct 4DI, the number of
registered voters rose from 660 to 1,834. Bush’s
share of the increased vote was 807 to 170, a net gain
of 637 votes. In Precinct 4DO, the number of
registered voters rose from 596 to 1,451. Bush’s
share of the increase was 621 votes to 174 for Kerry,
a net gain of 447 votes. In Precinct 4DT, the brand
new one, Bush’s net gain was 499 votes. In these
three precincts alone, Bush enjoyed a net gain of
1,583 votes, 51.43% of his net increase for the entire
township, and 12.81% of his net increase for the
entire county. Altogether these 9 precincts gave Bush
a net gain of 2,507 votes. Or so they say.

Monroe City + 782

Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 3,399 1,401 1,998
2000 2,303 1,087 1,216
Change 1,096 314 782

In Monroe City the increase in voter registration, as
a percentage, is also unevenly distributed.

Prec. Regis. Bush Kerry Bush Gore Net Gain
4CA + 65.5% 496 219 272 138 + 143
4CB + 0.7% 461 188 395 198 + 76
4CC + 9.9% 604 216 511 209 + 86
5CA + 38.8% 560 227 336 164 + 161
5CB + 48.2% 279 129 176 80 + 54
5CC - 2.4% 272 102 229 109 + 50
5CD + 69.3% 727 320 384 189 + 212

Massive increases in the voter rolls in 4 of 7
precincts accounted for 72.3% of Bush’s net gain in
Monroe City. The records will show whether or not
these huge increases are real. In 2 of the other 3
precincts, Kerry got fewer votes than Gore even though
voter turnout was up sharply.

Trenton City + 785

Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 3,153 1,510 1,643
2000 2,088 1,230 858
Change 1,065 280 785

In Trenton City the increase in voter registration is
more evenly distributed, ranging from 7.08% to 36.94%
among 7 precincts; and the net gains for George W.
Bush are more evenly distributed, ranging from 81
votes to 170 votes among 7 precincts. The proof that
the numbers are untrue is the distribution of votes
among the candidates:

Prec. Badnarik Bush Kerry Petrouka
4EA 2 464 249 0
4EB 2 661 272 0
4EC 2 373 191 0
4ED 3 395 248 1
5EA 30 284 115 0
5EB 0 468 243 0
5EC 2 508 192 2
Total 41 3,153 1,510 3

In Precinct 5EA, the only one of 7 precincts in which
John Kerry was awarded fewer votes than Al Gore (22
fewer, to be exact), 30 votes have been shifted to the
column of Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate.
There are 289 precincts in Butler County. Badnarik
received 396 votes county wide, no more than 6 in any
other precinct, yet 30 votes appear in his column in
this one precinct in Trenton City. This is the very
same pattern of election fraud that appears 11 times,
on a larger scale, in the canvass reports for
Cleveland. See “Stealing Votes in Cleveland,” at

freepress.org/images/columns/steal_cleveland.pdf

Ross Township + 512

Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 2,830 927 1,903
2000 2,206 815 1,391
Change 624 112 512

In Ross Township, George W. Bush received 64.1% of his
net gain in 3 precincts (4JA, 4JB, 4JE) where,
altogether, Kerry received fewer votes than Gore:

Prec. Turnout Bush Kerry Bush Gore Net Gain
4JA + 24.3% 447 120 330 116 + 113
4JB + 28.3% 537 138 389 128 + 138
4JC + 50.2% 549 197 373 118 + 97
4JD + 18.1% 464 125 403 98 + 34
4JE + 4.4% 183 67 135 96 + 77
4JF + 11.9% 400 190 352 162 + 20
4JG + 3.0% 250 90 224 97 + 33

Look at these numbers. In these 3 precincts, voter
turnout was up by 22.1%. Bush’s share of the increase
was 313 votes to a loss of 15 votes for Kerry. In the
rest of Ross Township, where voter turnout was up by
22.3%, Bush’s share of the increase was 311 votes to
127 for Kerry. These vote totals, all within the same
township, are inconsistent.

Hanover Township + 555

Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 3,262 1,197 2,065
2000 2,752 1,242 1,510
Change 510 -45 555

In Hanover Township the precinct lines have been
redrawn during the last four years, making a precinct
by precinct comparison impossible. But look at these
numbers. Voter turnout was up 8.8%, from 4,170 to
4,537. Bush gained 510 votes, and Kerry received 45
fewer votes than Gore. These numbers are suspect.

St. Clair Township, Liberty Township, Monroe City,
Trenton City, Ross Township, and Hanover Township
account for 50.47% of the increase in Bush’s margin of
victory in Butler County. There are enough
statistical irregularities in the canvass sheets to
warrant examination of the voting records and close
scrutiny during the recount.

WARREN COUNTY

There would be no easier county in Ohio in which to
hack election results than Warren County. Unlike all
other counties in the state, the canvass records of
Warren County are not organized geographically. Not
even the sum totals for cities and townships can be
compared because the place names in the 2004 canvass
records are not the same as they were in 2000. The
names of the precincts are in code, and they appear on
the canvass sheets in a fixed but random order. Only
a sleuth would rearrange them into cities and
townships, which, of course, is what I have done.

Once the data are presented in a sensible format, the
voter registration data is not as irregular as it
appears when presented by the Board of Elections. The
constantly changing precinct boundaries make data
presented in that manner almost indecipherable.
Still, when the data are combined according to cities,
villages and townships, it can be seen that the
increase in voter registration since 2000 ranged from
7.7% in Morrow Village to 79.0% in Hamilton Township,
and was 29.66% county wide, which is more than double
the population increase of 14.75%.

George W. Bush carried Warren County by 41,992 votes,
an increase of 12,816 over his plurality in 2000.
Most of his plurality (28,869 votes, or 68.75%) and
most of the increase in his margin of victory (9,047
votes, or 70.59%) came in six cities and townships:

Lebanon City + 1,324
Reg. Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 11,641 5,956 2,278 3,678
2000 8,795 4,011 1,657 2,354
Change +32.4% 1,945 621 1,324

Mason City + 2,009
Reg. Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 19,221 10,858 3,805 7,053
2000 13,899 7,653 2,609 5,044
Change +38.3% 3,205 1,196 2,009

Springboro City + 1,321
Reg. Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 10,447 5,985 2,189 3,796
2000 8,139 4,230 1,755 2,475
Change +28.4% 1,755 434 1,321

Clear Creek Township + 1,104
Reg. Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 8,145 4,997 1,574 3,423
2000 6,177 3,503 1,184 2,319
Change +31.9% 1,494 390 1,104

Deerfield Township + 1,365
Reg. Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 21,220 11,319 4,529 6,790
2000 16,359 8,527 3,102 5,425
Change +29.7% 2,792 1,427 1,365

Hamilton Township + 1,924
Reg. Rep. Dem. Plur.
2004 10,681 6,226 2,097 4,129
2000 5,967 3,399 1,194 2,205
Change +79.0% 2,827 903 1,924

In Lebanon City, Springboro City, Clear Creek
Township, and Hamilton Township, Bush’s point spread
over his opponent actually increased. If the Warren
County results were hacked, as many people suspect,
then these would be the places to look:

Bush Kerry Bush Gore
Lebanon City 72.04 27.55 68.83 28.44
Mason City 73.86 25.88 72.99 24.88
Springboro City 73.04 26.71 69.39 28.79
Clear Creek Township 75.77 23.87 72.62 24.54
Deerfield Township 71.19 28.49 71.77 26.11
Hamilton Township 74.55 25.11 72.17 25.35

There was a dramatic increase in voter registration
since the primary election of March 2, 2004, as
described in my previous paper, “Voter Turnout in
Warren County.” These cities and townships were no
exceptions:

VOTER REGISTRATION: 11/07/00 03/02/04 11/02/04

Lebanon City 8,795 10,026 11,641
Mason City 13,899 16,728 19,221
Springboro City 8,139 9,220 10,447
Clear Creek Township 6,177 7,121 8,145
Deerfield Township 16,359 18,144 21,220
Hamilton Township 5,967 8,426 10,681

Thus, in the four years since the 2000 presidential
election, these six cities and townships added 22,019
new voters to the rolls: 10,329 in the first 40
months, and 11,690 in the last 8 months. This is
entirely possible in a fast-growing county. Only a
careful examination and comparison of the voter rolls
and registration forms can determine its legitimacy.

CLERMONT COUNTY

The best way to illustrate what happened in Clermont
County is to begin by presenting two tables, showing
very different voting patterns in two townships.

Tate Township

Registered Voters Turnout
2000 2004 Change 2000 2004 Bush Kerry Bush Gore

A 502 517 + 2.9% 68.7 72.9 270 105 226 109
B 401 411 + 2.5% 51.1 58.9 167 71 131 69
C 451 480 + 6.4% 69.4 76.3 263 93 226 76
D 458 512 +11.8% 68.3 74.2 272 102 217 87
E 309 313 + 1.3% 70.2 77.3 169 68 131 82
F 353 370 + 4.8% 61.8 72.7 211 56 146 68
G 394 459 +16.5% 73.4 78.9 271 88 221 61
H 707 772 + 9.2% 65.6 76.0 415 167 320 129
I 403 423 + 5.0% 62.3 72.1 201 99 172 71
3978 4257 + 7.0% 65.7 73.5 2239 849 1790 752

Every precinct in Tate Township reported a modest
increase in voter registration, quite in line with the
10.2% increase county wide. It was the voter turnout,
up by 7.8%, which translated into a big win for Bush.
Excluding third-party candidates, there were 546 more
votes cast for president in 2004 than in 2000. Bush
got 449 of them, and Kerry got 97.

Batavia Township
Registered Voters Turnout
2000 2004 Change 2000 2004 Bush Kerry Bush Gore

A 987 1263 +28.0% 59.3 66.3 594 232 412 161
B 560 1038 +85.4% 61.3 63.7 422 233 217 122
C 901 993 +10.2% 54.3 66.9 466 190 321 157
D 828 1061 +28.1% 66.2 70.8 557 189 385 157
E 559 937 +67.6% 53.1 70.4 452 202 170 112
F 444 503 +13.3% 56.8 72.6 247 115 141 103
G 702 930 +32.5% 64.0 72.3 451 214 298 136
H 468 583 +24.6% 71.6 79.6 337 121 233 92
I 567 287 -49.4% 44.6 81.2 180 52 167 79
J 679 938 +38.1% 69.5 76.9 516 195 325 134
K 1006 1269 +26.1% 60.7 68.4 645 215 431 166
L 675 592 -12.3% 59.1 63.0 222 149 232 164
8376 10394 +24.1% 59.9 69.9 5089 2107 3332 1583

In Batavia Township the voter registration rates are
unbelievable. The increase is said to be 24.1% for
the entire township, compared to 9.1% elsewhere in the
county. The increases range as high as 67.6% in
Precinct E, where 378 new voters were registered. It
appears that nearly all of them voted. Turnout is
said to have increased by 17.3%. Excluding
third-party candidates, there were 372 more votes cast
for president in 2004 than in 2000 in Precinct E
alone. Bush got 282 of them, and Kerry got 90. On
the other hand, decreases in voter registration rates
range as high as 49.4% in Precinct I, where 280 voters
were lost from the rolls. Nearly all the 313 people
who failed to vote in 2000 either died or moved away.
And yet, miraculously, excluding third-party
candidates, only 14 fewer votes were cast for
president in 2004 than in 2000. Bush managed to gain
13 votes in Precinct I, while the Democrats lost 27,
ostensibly because voter turnout increased by 36.6%.
There are 23 such precincts in Clermont County, where
turnout was up, but Kerry got fewer votes than Gore.

I do not believe these numbers. They call into
question both the voter registration data and the
turnout data for all of Clermont County, and the
validity of the vote count itself.

These three counties between them, Butler, Warren, and
Clermont, provided nearly all of George W. Bush’s lead
on election night. They also provided, by far, his
three largest majorities, and the three largest
increases in Bush’s margin of victory among any of the
72 counties that he won. The election results in
Butler, Warren, and Clermont counties should be
challenged, for they call into question the results
for the entire State of Ohio.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122204X.shtml

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/ohio_a_crime_against_democracy.php

Ohio: A Crime Against Democracy
Stuart Comstock-Gay
December 21, 2004
The Bush electors in Ohio have cast their votes, even
though the bitterly contested ballots that allegedly
gave them standing as electors have not been
recounted. When asked, the mainstream media will admit
that there were rampant problems with this election.
But there's no juicy story for them to cover because
they don't believe a recount would change the outcome
of the election. Thus, they neglect what's happening
in Ohio. Here Comstock-Gay explains why it matters.
For the best of TomPaine.com's coverage of the
problems with election 2004, click here.

Stuart Comstock-Gay is executive director of the
National Voting Rights Institute.

Electoral votes have been submitted by all states and
the national news media has moved on, but a test of
U.S. voting rights continues in Ohio. After the Ohio
delegation to the Electoral College cast its votes for
President Bush last week, election officials in Ohio
counties began the recount of votes cast in the
election. Concerns about the integrity of the 2004
election continue to surface. Something's wrong with
this picture.

We at the National Voting Rights Institute—on behalf
of Green Party Candidate David Cobb and Libertarian
Party candidate Michael Badnarik—are providing legal
representation in the recount effort. We also want to
find out what went wrong. Because clearly things went
wrong. And whether in the end they are serious enough
to change the outcome of the election, they create a
cloud over the elections of 2004.

Too many commentators continue to claim the recount
effort is the result of bad losers. Some have even
gone so far as to say that if the Republicans lost,
there would be no recount—that Republicans “play
fair.” In fact, concern about "fairness" is in part
what is driving the recount. These commentators
overlook the fact that this effort is not only about
verifying the outcome of the vote. More importantly,
it’s about ensuring accountability of a highly
fallible elections process.

As long as any votes are miscounted, misplaced or
misdirected, our elections cannot be said to be
properly working. And with an electoral system that
provides no consistency in how votes are counted—and
some election officials hostile to a full accounting—
there remains work to be done to restore voters' faith
in the system.

What Went Wrong On Nov. 2

The number of complaints in Ohio numbers thousands
upon thousands—lines into the hours at polling places;
shortages of poll workers and machines; electronic
voting machines that malfunctioned; voters being
required to show identification even though they were
not first-time mail-in registrants; erroneous purges
of voters from the voter rolls; and voters who
requested absentee ballots but never received them and
were nevertheless barred from voting in person. In
one precinct in Franklin County, Ohio, an electronic
voting system gave George W. Bush 3,893 extra votes
out of a total of 638 votes cast. In addition,
approximately 93,000 ballots were not counted and Ohio
election officials may have improperly disqualified
thousands of 155,000 provisional ballots cast.

Now the problems are escalating. In Hocking County,
Ohio, Deputy Elections Director Sherole Eaton
describes a troubling incident on December 10, three
days before the recount was to begin. An employee of
the Tri Ad company came into the office to check out
the tabulator and computer and prepare voting
officials for the recount, so that “the count would
come out perfect and we wouldn’t have to do a full
hand recount of the county.” He asked which
precincts would be recounted, and made sure to focus
on them. Voting machine expert Doug Jones from the
University of Iowa believes this threatens the
integrity of the entire recount. Now Congressman John
Conyers has asked the FBI to investigate this
incident.

What’s Going Wrong With The Recount

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. With the
recount underway, we learn that counties are handling
the process in different ways, depending on the whims
of county officials. Every county was instructed by
the Secretary of State to do a recount of 3 percent of
the votes, followed by a hand recount of every vote if
there any discrepancy appears. Some counties,
however, have said they would do their recounts by
machine only, and not by hand. Some have made space
for observers, and allowed them to review voting polls
and other materials. Some counties have kept
observers—whether from the Green Party, Libertarian
Party, DNC or Republican Party—out of the counting
rooms entirely.

And this only after some elections officials tried to
stop the recount in its tracks. Delaware County sued
NVRI, Cobb and Badnarik, seeking to stop the recount,
even though the law was followed. He said the recount
was too expensive and frivolous. Delaware County has
finally decided to conduct a recount, but only after a
series of hearings.

On January 5, Congress will receive the votes of the
electoral college votes and the election—for all
intents and purposes—will be considered concluded.

Meanwhile the Ohio recount will continue well into
January. As of this writing, results are not in, but
we expect full recounts in many counties.

It is shocking that the cherished right to vote, which
should be a major issue in this country, has become an
invisible one. Even in the Ukraine, there will be a
new election because of widespread irregularities in
the presidential election. As the Supreme Court stated
over a century ago, the right to vote is "a
fundamental political right, because preservative of
all rights." Now, more than ever, we must fight for
this right.

http://blog.democrats.com/node/2086

Stolen Election 2004: Wednesday Update
by Bob Fertik on 12/22/2004 12:03am. - revised
12/22/2004 12:56am
The Ohio recount is coming to an end, and the Green
Party has documented numerous significant problems,
especially the refusal to choose random precincts for
the 3% handcount.

Other problems with the recount include:

No review of the approximate 93,000 "spoiled" or
"discarded" ballots;
Official recount observers being prevented from
getting close enough to see the ballots or observe log
books or portions of the process in Lucas and Cuyahoga
counties;
Lack of adequate security for ballots or voting
machines in Hocking, Coshocton, Medina and Greene
Counties;
Counties, including Monroe and Fairfield, which
refused to do a full hand recount, as required by law,
when the 3% sampling did not match the machine count;
Mistreatment of official observers, including
disparaging comments made in a number of counties by
election officials and employees; observers being told
they couldn't ask questions and, in Summit County,
observers being forced to stand against a wall for the
duration of the recount.
"Mountains of evidence have documented the voter
suppression, intimidation and disenfranchisement which
took place in Ohio on Election Day. Secretary of State
Blackwell labeled these deeply troubling problems as
'glitches.' He appears to be similarly unconcerned
that the Ohio recount is being conducted without
uniform standards and in apparent violation of Ohio
law," said Cobb-LaMarche Media Director Blair Bobier.

While Blackwell is eager to cover up Stolen Election
2004, Rep. John Conyers is determined to get to the
bottom of it.

Conyers is very interested in the exit poll
discrepancy that Democrats.com is investigating. On
Tuesday, he sent a letter to the Presidents of the TV
networks and the AP requesting the raw data from the
November 2 exit poll.

You GO, Conyers!

Conyers also gave a long interview to Salon's Tim
Grieve (copied here), in which he refused to draw any
conclusions on whether the election was stolen, or
whether there was an explicit conspiracy to steal it.
But if he doesn't see the "fire" yet, he certainly
sees lots of "smoke."

Conyers believes Democrats in the House and Senate
will challenge Ohio's electors on January 6.

I think the Senate is going to go along with an
inquiry this time. I don't think they would embarrass
themselves to let this happen two times in a row.

In the next Congress, Conyers also plans to work for
far-reaching changes in the electoral system.

Everyone is beginning to reexamine the appropriateness
of the Electoral College. We realize that provisional
balloting needs to be streamlined and simplified. We
know that there should be paper trails in computers.
We're beginning to wonder if we haven't privatized the
electoral system so that the computer tabulators can
do more and know more than the electoral commissions
of the counties themselves.

While Conyers is committed to fixing America's broken
electoral system, the man who is getting paid to fix
the system - DeForest Soaries, chairman of the U.S.
Election Assistance Commission - couldn't care less.
When Scripps-Howard News Service searched the country
for the 10 worst election problems, Soaries refused to
criticize the responsible county officials, and
instead made excuses for them!

Soaries said it's important for election reform
advocates to understand the severe limitations many
local governments face.

"They have limited resources, varying standards. So
why do people get surprised when we get results like
these?" Soaries said while holding pages of data from
the Scripps Howard study.

"We don't want to attack people who don't have the
resources or who've not had the training necessary. We
have to tell the truth, but we don't want to beat up
on these people."

Why the heck not? "These people" are paid by the
taxpayers to conduct honest and accurate elections. If
they screw up, they should get "beat up on" - or
fired!

But more importantly, Soaries needs to identify the
structural problems that lead to major errors - or
expose the whole system to fraud. That's exactly what
Conyers is doing - and Soaries should be at Conyers'
hearings promising to fix all the problems Conyers
finds. If Soaries prefers a coverup to an
investigation, then Congress should tell him to resign
(with Rumsfeld, of course).

http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/1215-16.htm

Printer Friendly Version E-Mail This Article
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 15, 2004
4:44 PM
CONTACT: Sierra Club
Brian O'Malley 202-675-6279

Scientists: 2004 The Fourth Hottest Year On Record
Sierra Club: Bush Fiddles
Statement by Dan Becker, Director, Global Warming,
Sierra Club

WASHINGTON -- December 15 -- "Today, the Geneva-based
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that
2004 is on track to be the fourth-hottest year since
record-keeping began in 1861. The WMO added that
global warming trends will lead to increased extreme
weather events.

"While the Bush administration continues to deny the
seriousness of global warming, temperatures continue
to rise and 2004 joins the 10 warmest years on record
- all occuring since 1990. Today's WMO announcement is
further evidence reinforcing the scientific conclusion
that global warming will lead to increased habitat
loss, sea level rise, and shifting weather patterns.
Sir David King, the British government's top
scientist, called global warming 'more serious even
than the threat of terrorism.' In contrast to the
actions of our leading trading partners and the
warnings of the world's leading scientists, the Bush
administration's approach to global warming ranges
from ostrich-like to flat earth.

"Meanwhile, states are taking the initiative in
attacking global warming. California's recently passed
Pavley Law will require automobile makers to reduce
global warming emissions from new cars and light
trucks beginning in 2009. The Pavley Law is a big step
in the right direction because it delivers clean car
choices for consumers, and encourages cost-effective,
currently available technology to reduce global
warming emissions. Seven Northeastern states plan to
implement California law when it is finalized, and
Canada is considering adopting the measures.

"There is more good news. We have the solutions today
to curb global warming emissions. By using
cost-effective technology, we can slash greenhouse gas
emissions from cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs. Using
this technology can also wean ourselves from our
dangerous oil dependence. We can use energy efficient
technology to cut the energy use of lighting, heating,
cooling and industrial processes. Finally, we can
replace dirty, coal fired power plants with clean,
renewable energy sources like wind, solar power and
cleaner burning natural gas.

"Its time for the Bush administration to take its head
out of the sand and put currently available,
cost-effective solutions to work against the problem
of global warming."

###

F.B.I. E-Mail Refers to Presidential Order
Authorizing Inhumane Interrogation Techniques
American Civil Liberties Union

Monday 20 December 2004

Newly obtained F.B.I. records call Defense
Department's methods "torture," express concerns over
"cover-up" that may leave F.B.I. "holding the bag" for
abuses.

NEW YORK - A document released for the first time
today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests
that President Bush issued an Executive Order
authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods
against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU
today are a slew of other records including a December
2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the
Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004
"Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises
concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.

"These documents raise grave questions about where
the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately
rests," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D.
Romero. "Top government officials can no longer hide
from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few
low-ranking soldiers."

The documents were obtained after the ACLU and other
public interest organizations filed a lawsuit against
the government for failing to respond to a Freedom of
Information Act request.

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive
Order states that the President directly authorized
interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation,
stress positions, the use of military dogs, and
"sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc."
The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny
the existence of such an order and immediately to
release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which
was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene
Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI
officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its
agents from employing the techniques that the
President is said to have authorized.

Another e-mail, dated December 2003, describes an
incident in which Defense Department interrogators at
Guantanamo Bay impersonated FBI agents while using
"torture techniques" against a detainee. The e-mail
concludes "If this detainee is ever released or his
story made public in any way, DOD interrogators will
not be held accountable because these torture
techniques were done [sic] the 'FBI' interrogators.
The FBI will [sic] left holding the bag before the
public."

The document also says that no "intelligence of a
threat neutralization nature" was garnered by the
"FBI" interrogation, and that the FBI's Criminal
Investigation Task Force (CITF) believes that the
Defense Department's actions have destroyed any chance
of prosecuting the detainee. The e-mail's author
writes that he or she is documenting the incident "in
order to protect the FBI."

"The methods that the Defense Department has adopted
are illegal, immoral, and counterproductive," said
ACLU staff attorney Jameel Jaffer. "It is astounding
that these methods appear to have been adopted as a
matter of policy by the highest levels of government."

The June 2004 "Urgent Report" addressed to the FBI
Director is heavily redacted. The legible portions of
the document appear to describe an account given to
the FBI's Sacramento Field Office by an FBI agent who
had "observed numerous physical abuse incidents of
Iraqi civilian detainees," including "strangulation,
beatings, [and] placement of lit cigarettes into the
detainees ear openings.

Posted by richard at 09:41 AM

December 21, 2004

LNS Post Coup II Supplement (12/20/04)

Democracy and free press are being devoured by what Cornell West calls "free market fundamentalism," "aggressive militarism" and "escalating authoritarianism." Who cares? Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) cares. George Soros cares. Michael Moore cares. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership is pushing for a DNC chairman who will make "pro-life" voters feel more comfortable...Please wake up, the Constitution is on fire...These debates about whether the Democratic Party should move to the right or the left are RIDICULOUS. The electoral system has been co-opted and the mainstream news media is wholly complicit...The Democratic Party will never take the
White House, the Senate or the House again unless we fight and win on election reform and media reform. Win these battles and everything else will fix itself...The only other issues that matter now are
global warming (i.e., renewable energy resources), terrorism (read Scheuer's Imperial Hubris and Clarke's Against All Enemies to understand), and fiscal responsibility (i.e. debt reduction, strengthening the dollar and refusing to break what is not broken about social security)...
Remember, 2+2=4.
Here are updates on The Theft of the 2004 Election and
several other ways in which the Bush abomination is
trashing the national security, economic security and
environmental security of the U.S. and by extension
global security...Of course, these issues are being
wholly ignored or worse yet distorted by the US
regimestream news media, full partners in a triad of
special interest (i.e., energy, weapons, media,
pharmaceuticals, tobacco, etc.) with the Bush Cabal
and its wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party...

Theft of 2004 Election

Bob Fertik, www.democrats.com: Widespread voter outrage over stolen elections is spreading. Even the NY Times - which co-conspired with the Bush campaign in Stolen Election 2000 and has largely ignored Stolen Election 2004 - says we must Count Every Vote.
Incredibly, there is also a protest movement among Presidential Electors. Normally Electors are like cicadas: they come out of the ground every 4 years, perform a single act, and go back into the ground. But not this time!
Electors across US break traditional pro forma ritual to use electoral college to protest election...
The movement includes Electors from Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, and California.
The Electors from Massachusetts - led by Tom Barbera - unanimously adopted a resolution condemning election fraud...We call on the Congress of the United States and most especially our own honorable representatives, the members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation to
Act to commit Congress to investigate all voting complaints that might have any validity that they receive.
Act to commit Congress to remedy any voting rights violations or electoral fraud verified by its own agents or through the courts.
File in Congress and commit their resources to passage of systematic remedies.
In Ohio, recount problems continue. In Lima, Green Party witnesses say a recount of presidential votes should not be allowed to continue today because an initial recount on Thursday did not follow Ohio law - especially in the non-random selection of test precincts to meet the 3% manual count requirement..
Who actually won Oklahoma? Mark Faulk would really like to know.
Tulsa World on Oklahoma Vote Totals: We Have No Idea
by Mark Faulk
Nov 30, 2004
Why then did the Tulsa World report that Kerry was leading in 57 counties with 70% of the vote counted, and why then did Kerry actually lose in every one of those counties when the final vote was tallied? Because when the final votes were tallied, Kerry actually LOST votes in all 57 counties, 37,9982 to be exact, while Bush GAINED an incredible 393,825 votes in the same counties. That's right, as the Oklahoma Independent Media Center put it, "Voting Machines Count Backwards in Okla". http://okimc.org/newswire.php?story_id=344
Faulk did what journalists should do - he investigated by calling the people responsible for reporting election results, including Tulsa World Executive Editor Joe Worley, who eventually returned Faulk's call.
"Actually, we've spent a good part of our day looking into that very issue. We subscribe to the AP wire service, and that's where those numbers usually come from, where they're supposed to come from. However, as of right now, we have no idea where we got our numbers from. When we do find out, we'll make a statement in the Tulsa World newspaper, and I'll answer any other questions at that time."
Wait a second here.....let me get this straight. The Tulsa World printed the election totals from what many considered the most important Presidential election of the last forty years, and they don't know where those numbers come from? They had Kerry leading in 57 counties with numbers that actually went in reverse from their published figures, and after two days of looking, they still can't figure out who gave them those numbers?
In the end, the "voting scandal" in Oklahoma might turn out to be nothing, but that's not the real issue here. The real issue is the pattern of deceit, confusion, and misinformation that this election has spawned, not just in Oklahoma, but nationwide. Unless we demand a full and thorough accounting of all the votes that have been miscounted, lost, stolen, or simply misplaced, we can never be certain whether our most important right as an American, our right to vote, is still intact. In Oklahoma, we still have our paper ballots, and they don't have "hanging chads". We can, and should, demand a full recount. Unfortunately, many states don't have that luxury, if we allow our entire voting system to be taken over by an electronic voting system controlled by a few questionable companies, our vote won't matter, and our elections will become nothing more than another commodity to be bought and sold by those in power.
James Heddle agrees, in an essay called "Against the House" published by Ray Beckerman.
A political system more crooked than a Las Vegas casino cannot qualify as a "democracy," much less as the "leader of the free world." And those who continue to play in it look to me like conscious or unconscious colluders, or just plain chumps. Until you accurately diagnose and acknowledge the disease, you cannot even begin to cure it...
My simple point is this - until a majority of progressive activists and intellectual opinion-makers drop the delusions and cop to the fact that we are playing in a game intentionally and adroitly rigged against us, we will not win, we will not govern, we will not be prepared to govern, because we will not deserve to govern. Good losers -- like John "Quick Concession" Kerry and the "professional losers" of the DNC -- will predictably go on losing. Just like the chain-smoking, gin-sipping, polyester-clad grandma pumping endless quarters into the slot machine.

Greg Palast, www.gregpalast.com: I'd just stepped out of my black helicopter to read that one of my favorite journalists, David Corn, had attacked my analysis of the vote in Ohio as the stuff of "grassy knoll conspiracy theorists." ("A Stolen Election," The Nation, November 29 issue.)
Oh, my! And all because I wrote that the uncounted ballots in Ohio -- more than a quarter million designated "spoiled" or "provisional" -- undoubtedly contain enough votes to overturn George Bush's "victory" margin of 136,000.
Corn says, "Palast wrongly assumes that an overwhelming majority of these ballots contain votes for Kerry." Now why would I think such a thing? Maybe because the precinct-by-precinct analysis of "spoiled" votes (those which machines can't count) by Professor Mark Salling of Cleveland State University, the unchallengeable expert on Ohio voting demographics, concludes that "spoiled" punch cards in Ohio cities come "overwhelmingly" from African-American neighborhoods.

Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman,
Columbus Free Press: The epic legal battle over Ohio's
presidential vote count is back in the state Supreme
Court, with an election challenge claiming George W.
Bush was wrongly declared the winner on Nov. 2 and
seeking a court-ordered reversal of that victory.
Meanwhile, efforts to recount Ohio's vote may have
been fatally tainted by the Republican Party, raising
questions of what the GOP has to hide, and prompting
demands for criminal prosecution.
New affidavits point to possible criminal activity by
top Ohio election officials, raising yet more
questions about the 2004 vote. Rhonda J. Frazier, a
former employee of the Ohio Secretary of State's
office, has confirmed in an affidavit taken by Cynthia
Butler, working with freepress.org, that the Office
had secret slush funds…
Shelby County Board of Elections, obtained through the
Freedom of Information Act, admitted that data
critical to a meaningful recount had been discarded,
possibly illegally. Sworn testimony from election
observers in Greene County indicated that ballots had
been left loose on tables in an unlocked, unguarded
building, open to manipulation and theft, prior to a
recount. And in Lucas County and Hocking County, it
was revealed that technicians from the Diebold and
Triad companies had inexplicably taken control of
voting machines and dismantled them, rendering
verifiable recounts impossible.
On Wednesday, December 15, U.S. Representative John
Conyers posted an affidavit from Douglas W. Jones, a
professor of computer science and a voting technology
consultant. In Professor Jones' opinion, the bizarre
behavior by the Triad Company, which provides computer
software and voting machines in 41 of Ohio's 88
counties, may have tainted the entire recount effort.

Rebecca Cook, Associated Press: A judge Friday
granted a state Republican Party request to block the
counting of hundreds of recently discovered King
County ballots in the governor's race, which the GOP's
candidate is winning by just a few dozen votes.
Even if the election workers wrongly rejected the
ballots - 150 of which were discovered Friday - it is
too late for King County to reconsider them now,
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Arend
said.
The issue of the ballots could prove pivotal: With
all but King County finished with a hand recount,
Republican Dino Rossi was leading Democrat Christine
Gregoire by 50 votes.
From reading state law and state Supreme Court
decisions, "it is clear to me that it is not
appropriate to go back and revisit decisions on
whether ballots should or should not be counted,"
Arend said.
Democrats appealed to the state Supreme Court, and
King County Elections Director Dean Logan said the
county also planned to appeal.
"These are legitimate voters who cast legitimate
ballots," he said. "It's just a travesty if we do not
include these ballots."

Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure: National Security

Ray McGovern, www.truthout.org: Hu Jintao, China's
powerful president, is first-page
material-particularly when he takes an unprecedented
step in putting flesh on China's effort to develop
what Hu calls a "strategic collaborative relationship"
with Russia. And what could be more eye-catching than
agreeing to stage the first-ever joint military
exercise next year, a commitment announced on Monday
during Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's visit
to Beijing.
Although the Associated Press and Reuters promptly
disseminated this major story, the Washington Post
ignored it, and the New York Times sandwiched it into
page A-6 on Tuesday, where it was boiled down to a
two-sentence gist at the end of a survey article,
"World Briefing."
According to AP, quoting the official China News
Service, the joint military exercises will be held in
China. Russian forces in China for an exercise! Not
too many years ago, one would have been laughed to
scorn at the very suggestion, given the historical
enmity between the two countries.
>From my perspective as an intelligence analyst
responsible for reporting on Sino-Soviet relations
during the sixties and early seventies, I believe the
rapprochement between Russia and China-now extending
to military cooperation-is among the most important
sea changes on the geopolitical scene in the past
half-century. The fact that it has happened
incrementally, I suppose, tends to obscure its
strategic significance. And with Condoleezza Rice now
in the role that Henry Kissinger once played so
deftly, it seems altogether likely that the dangers
inherent in the new equation will escape notice and
the opportunities will be squandered.

Gérard Davet, Le Monde: Iraq is not yet a jihad
country, but the networks for channeling "foreign
volunteers" are already in place. According to the
first figures communicated by the CIA to western
intelligence agencies, only 40 foreign individuals
were counted among the 2,000 prisoners arrested in
Falluja during the November fighting, which killed
2,200 on the Iraqi side…
More and more, candidates for martyrdom who come
from radical internationalist cells, then integrate
networks which become operational. These networks
mount suicide attacks, like those against the UN in
Baghdad in August 2003, or against Italian forces in
Nassyria, in November 2003. "Their operation rests on
the principle of 'cascading networks,'" summarizes a
specialist in the area. "It is based above all on
personal relationships between the people who drive
these networks. Their overarching objective is to
obtain great flexibility." Police operations do
nothing about them; these networks remain active, all
the more so as they are put in place by real logistics
professionals, educated by their experiences in
Chechen or Afghan networks. Consequently, intelligence
services target the names, Abderrazak Madjoub, an
Algerian implicated in European networks, questioned
in Germany in November 2003, and Abu Hammam, alias
"Mohammed Ali", arrested by British Special Forces
October 10, 2004, thanks partly to information
communicated by the DGSE.
The number of these volunteers remains difficult to
evaluate. According to the secret services, they would
be between 1,000 and 2,000, mostly from Jordan, Syria,
Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, but also from Kuwait. Several
places appear to be strategic in the eyes of terrorism
specialists. First of all, Lebanon, where the
Palestinian refugee camp Ain El-Helouai would serve as
a rear base for certain networks channeling volunteers
towards Iraq under the aegis of two officials: the
Yemeni Ibn Al-Shahid Al-Yemeni, arrested October 16,
2003 by the Lebanese, and the Syrian Fahd Ajami
Akkach. In north Lebanon, the Salafist leader Dai
Al-Islam Chabal would play the role of recruiter.

Bush Abomination #2 Failure: Economic Security

PAUL KRUGMAN, NY Times: Privatizers who laud the
Chilean system never mention that it has yet to
deliver on its promise to reduce government spending.
More than 20 years after the system was created, the
government is still pouring in money. Why? Because, as
a Federal Reserve study puts it, the Chilean
government must "provide subsidies for workers failing
to accumulate enough capital to provide a minimum
pension." In other words, privatization would have
condemned many retirees to dire poverty, and the
government stepped back in to save them.
The same thing is happening in Britain. Its Pensions
Commission warns that those who think Mrs. Thatcher's
privatization solved the pension problem are living in
a "fool's paradise." A lot of additional government
spending will be required to avoid the return of
widespread poverty among the elderly - a problem that
Britain, like the U.S., thought it had solved.
Britain's experience is directly relevant to the Bush
administration's plans. If current hints are an
indication, the final plan will probably claim to save
money in the future by reducing guaranteed Social
Security benefits. These savings will be an illusion:
20 years from now, an American version of Britain's
commission will warn that big additional government
spending is needed to avert a looming surge in poverty
among retirees.
So the Bush administration wants to scrap a retirement
system that works, and can be made financially sound
for generations to come with modest reforms. Instead,
it wants to buy into failure, emulating systems that,
when tried elsewhere, have neither saved money nor
protected the elderly from poverty.

Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure: Environmental Security

Nigel Purvis, International Herald Tribune: After
seven years in critical condition, the Kyoto global
warming treaty has a new lease on life, thanks to its
recent ratification by Russia. Supporters and skeptics
alike agree that the treaty will not solve the climate
problem. Its environmental limits are meager, expire
in 2012 and do not apply to developing nations, where
global warming emissions are growing most rapidly.
Kyoto's true importance rests in what it tells us
about America's changing relationship with the world
and the future of climate change diplomacy.
Kyoto demonstrates that America's allies are
increasingly shaping the international agenda without
it. When the Bush administration rejected Kyoto in
2001, it assumed that other nations would follow suit,
but more than 120 nations have ratified it….
Kyoto also illustrates the fact that the international
community questions more than ever America's moral
authority and its commitment to universal values,
including environmental stewardship. Anti-Americanism
is already on the rise in "old Europe" because of
Bush's policies on Iraq. U.S. resistance to action on
global warming only solidifies America's image abroad
as a nation of parochial, selfish and wasteful SUV
drivers. Although America remains the brightest beacon
of freedom, it must treat seriously the perception
abroad that its light has dimmed…
Given Bush's unalterable opposition to the treaty,
the United States is unlikely to rejoin international
talks anytime soon. That matters less, however, than
whether the United States begins to take seriously its
responsibility to lead the world through strong new
domestic climate policies. Leaving aside the
environmental rationale for Kyoto, the treaty's entry
into force is a warning of the political and economic
risks to the United States of continued inaction.

Complicity of the Corporatist News Media

Danny Schechter, Mediachannel.org: The central
question is: how did an institution with a brave
history of safeguarding democracy become a threat to
its survival?
It has not been a good year for journalists and
journalism. 54 reporters died answering the call of
duty, the highest death toll in a decade according to
the Committee to Protect Journalists…
The big fear, as journalists die, is that journalism
itself may soon follow. Some years back, I read a book
about the emergence of the "post journalism era"
cataloging the abandonment of a commitment to real
news in the news business. It spoke of how packaging
and "mechanics" and compression and infotainment
defines the new uber-merged corporate media order.
At the time, that indictment seemed alarmist, and
premature.
Not any more.
The Committee for Excellence in Journalism's State of
the Media Report itemizes the institutional shifts
that dwarf all the flash media scandals that ripple
through the news -- from Dan Rather's apparent demise
to the mea culpas of mainstream media regarding their
jingoistic war coverage, from the Sinclair
Broadcasting fiasco to the continued affront to
journalism represented by the Fox News Channel.
The Committee's State of the Media report showed a
system that is devolving and losing credibility. Here
were a few of the main findings:
1. A growing number of news outlets are chasing
relatively static or even shrinking audiences for
news. That audience decline, in turn, is putting
pressures on revenues and profits, which leads to a
cascade of other implications. The only sectors seeing
general audience growth today are online, ethnic and
alternative media.
2. Much of the new investment in journalism today is
in disseminating the news, not in collecting it. Most
sectors of the media are cutting back in the newsroom.
While there are exceptions, in general journalists
face real pressures trying to maintain quality.
3. In the 24-hour cable and online news format, there
is a tendency toward a jumbled, chaotic, repetitive
and partial quality in some reports, without much
synthesis or even the ordering of the information.
4. Journalistic standards now vary even inside a
single news organization. Companies are trying to
reassemble and deliver to advertisers a mass audience
for news not in one place, but across different
programs, products and platforms. To do so, some are
varying their news agenda, their rules on separating
advertising from news and even their ethical
standards.

www.mediamatters.org: CNN co-host Tucker Carlson and
The Washington Post bolstered the Bush
administration's crisis rhetoric on Social Security by
providing misleading accounts of the federal program's
"solvency."
On the December 16 edition of CNN's Crossfire, Carlson
purported to "correct" former Clinton national
economic adviser Gene Sperling's statement that
"Social Security does not become insolvent until
2042." Carlson responded: "In 2018, just to correct
you ... that's, again, only 14 years. Benefits will
overtake revenues."
In a December 17 article in The Washington Post, after
noting that President Bush "said Social Security will
be paying out more than it collects" by 2018, staff
writer Peter Baker reported that congressional
Democrats are "[c]iting different accounting than the
president's" to "argue" that under the current system
Social Security will "still be solvent for nearly 50
years."
In fact, Sperling is correct in noting that Social
Security is projected to remain solvent until 2042,
according to the same authoritative U.S. government
report upon which Carlson relied: the 2004 annual
report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age
and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust
Funds (OASDI). 2042 is the year that the Social
Security trust fund is projected to run out; the year
Carlson cited, 2018, represents the time when the
program's payouts to retirees are projected to exceed
tax revenue…
The Post's Baker, on the other hand, misleadingly
suggested that one's view of when Social Security
becomes insolvent is a matter of partisan opinion. It
is not…

John P. O’Neill Wall of Heroes

Amy Goodman interviews Roy Krieger, DemocracyNow!: AMY
GOODMAN: Roy Krieger is with us. He’s a D.C.-based
lawyer representing the undercover CIA operative who’s
filing the lawsuit…Well, can you explain exactly what
happened?
ROY KRIEGER: Well, actually, I'm very limited in what
I can say because, as you can see, and as you said
from the -- rather on the complaint, it is heavily
redacted. I can only comment on the unclassified or
un-redacted portions of the complaint. The CIA has
pulled down the veil of secrecy on this case and
classified the enormous amount of information that in
my experience in the past seven years of dealing with
the CIA, I have never filed a lawsuit in which they
have redacted this much of the material out of it.
They took out over 400 words from a 2,400-word
document. I'm quite limited in what I can say. I
cannot even confirm or deny that we're talking about
Iraq or any other country other than to say that it
involves weapons of mass destruction in the Near East
during the pre-war period. And our client, as you
commented was retaliated against after he refused a
request from his supervisors in the
counter-proliferation division on several different
occasions to falsify or misstate intelligence that had
been collected by him.

Randy Kraft, Morning Call, www.mcall.com: ''Being
against the war is the only way to be for the
troops,'' said Hoffman. ''We're doing them no good by
sending them over there.''
The 25-year-old Marine veteran is a co-founder of Iraq
Veterans Against the War, a 5-month-old organization
that claims 150 members, including some on active duty
in Iraq. It wants the immediate withdrawal of all
occupation forces from Iraq, ''real'' reconstruction
aid for that country and properly funded and
administered veterans' benefits.
''I need to make sure this stops,'' he said. ''The
honest truth needs to be told in order for this war to
end. We've got to get these guys home now before
another guy is killed on either side.
''This war would be over right now if people really
understood the horror of it.''
Like Vietnam, said Hoffman, the only way to end the
war will be for millions of Americans to get out on
the streets every week and demand that it end…

Jim Hogue, Baltimore Chronicle: The connections of
the Bush administration to the cover-up of the 9/11
attacks provide the material for the most important
topic that our media could address. But it doesn't.
Why?
It is fair to say that the Bush administration,
through the efforts of Attorney General John Ashcroft,
has confirmed its complicity in the 9/11/01 attacks.
In his legal appeal to Judge Reggie Walton to silence
FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, Ashcroft has
inadvertently, through the very language of the
appeal, provided eloquent proof of treason and
misprision of treason within the highest levels of
government.
Their refusal to release the report of the Inspector
General, and their original gag order to “block
discovery in a lawsuit of any information that, if
disclosed, would adversely affect national security”
raises obvious questions (still unasked by the
mainstream and progressive media) as to WHO is being
protected. The gag order itself provides the answer to
another obvious question (still unasked by the
mainstream and progressive media) as to WHY the gag
order was sought.
In Ms. Edmonds' unimpeachable testimony to the Senate
Judiciary Committee almost three years ago, she named
countries and people who had contributed to the
attacks of 9/11. At the time, the FBI had evidence
from Colleen Rowley, The Phoenix memo, and other FBI
translators. Twenty-five more whistleblowers have
joined them. Who would be damaged by the release of
the reports? Who is being protected?
Nearly three years ago, Sibel Edmonds provided
unimpeachable testimony to the Senate Judiciary
Committee. Why is she still under a gag order? Who's
being protected?

Illegitimate, Incompetent, Corrupt

Sidney Blumenthal, Guardian: Though it is early days
since Bush's re-election, the way in which he will
handle the difficulties of imperial management which
so vex him is already apparent.
No sooner was the election over than the
administration began the finger-pointing at the UN
secretary general, Kofi Annan, who had called the
invasion of Iraq "illegal". News was leaked that his
son had been a consultant to a company involved with
the UN oil-for-food programme, though Annan said he
knew nothing about it. The outgoing US ambassador to
the UN, John Danforth, was sent out to declare that
Annan's resignation was a live issue.
The relevant facts about the oil for food programme
were pushed to one side. James Dobbins, the former US
ambassador to Afghanistan, wrote in the Washington
Post: "First, no American funds were stolen. Second,
no UN funds were stolen. Third, the oil-for-food
programme achieved its two objectives: providing food
to the Iraqi people and preventing Saddam Hussein from
rebuilding his military threat to the region."
Then the Post published a story that the US was
wire-tapping Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of
the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, in an
operation to discover that he was secretly aiding Iran
in hiding its nuclear weapons programme. In fact,
ElBaradei was working with the Europeans in
negotiating a resolution with the Iranians. It was
this diplomacy that neoconservatives were seeking to
discredit. Compliance with internationally monitored
nuclear development of Iran isn't the objective of the
neocons; they want regime change, Iraqredux.
The techniques of the permanent campaign, especially
negative attacks, recently applied in the re-election
contest, are being transferred seamlessly and
shamelessly to international relations…
On Wednesday Bush gave honours for failure, with his
bestowal of the presidential medal of freedom on Tommy
Franks, the former CentCom commander, who allowed
Osama bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora; on George
Tenet, former CIA director, who jumped on the
bandwagon for the Iraq war, informing Bush that the
WMD claims were "a slam dunk"; and on L Paul Bremer,
former chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority,
who disbanded the Iraqi army, among other blunders.
Failure will be celebrated as success in the second
term.
The farcical unravelling of the nomination of former
New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik as
secretary of homeland security further illuminated the
administration's methods. The fact that Kerik
neglected to pay taxes on a nanny who was an illegal
immigrant was a convenient alibi. Beyond his
extramarital affairs, secret marriage and love nests,
he appears also to be married to the mob - on the take
from the Gambino crime family. Yet Bush had been
attracted to Kerik's Rambo-like aggression; the White
House vetting process seems to be as credulous as the
Mickey Mouse Club; and the impulse to cover up
instant.

BBC: Cuba has put up photos of abused Iraqi prisoners
in front of the US interests section in Havana after
the US displayed Christmas decorations there. The
Cuban display includes images of Iraqis at the Abu
Ghraib prison in Baghdad, and the word "fascists".

Restore the Vote in America! Restore a Free
Independent News Media in America! Restore the
Republic!

Theft of 2004 Election

http://blog.democrats.com/node/2046

Stolen Election 2004: Monday Update

by Bob Fertik on 12/20/2004 11:29am. - revised 12/20/2004 2:16pm
Widespread voter outrage over stolen elections is spreading. Even the NY Times - which co-conspired with the Bush campaign in Stolen Election 2000 and has largely ignored Stolen Election 2004 - says we must Count Every Vote.

Incredibly, there is also a protest movement among Presidential Electors. Normally Electors are like cicadas: they come out of the ground every 4 years, perform a single act, and go back into the ground. But not this time!

Electors across US break traditional pro forma ritual to use electoral college to protest election

Across the US electors in at least five states, for the first time in history, turned the heavily scripted and ritualized electoral college proceedings into a forum for political action. Frustrated by the relative inattention to wide spread real voting violations now numbering in the tens of thousands, Electors called for congressional investigation and legislative action.

The movement includes Electors from Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, and California.

The Electors from Massachusetts - led by Tom Barbera - unanimously adopted a resolution condemning election fraud.

We believe that as electors we have a unique opportunity and obligation to insure that justice does not again become so delayed as to be denied. We call on the Congress of the United States and most especially our own honorable representatives, the members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation to

Act to commit Congress to investigate all voting complaints that might have any validity that they receive.
Act to commit Congress to remedy any voting rights violations or electoral fraud verified by its own agents or through the courts.
File in Congress and commit their resources to passage of systematic remedies.
In Ohio, recount problems continue. In Lima, Green Party witnesses say a recount of presidential votes should not be allowed to continue today because an initial recount on Thursday did not follow Ohio law - especially in the non-random selection of test precincts to meet the 3% manual count requirement.

[Allen County elections director Keith] Cunningham, like most other elections directors in the state, selected which precincts to count for the initial 3 percent. Ohio law says the precincts should be picked randomly but doesn't further define the process.

What part of "random" does Cunningham not understand? Cunningham also denied access to poll books - the sign-in sheets that prove who actually voted - claiming insufficient staff. But other counties had no problems complying with the law.

Some counties, such as Athens County, drew precincts from a jar and made poll books available the day of the recount of 3 percent, Daley said.

Triad's machine tampering in Hocking County continues to make waves, including a mention in today's NY Times editorial. According to Wired's Kim Zetter in Ohio Recount Stirs Trouble, Triad president Brett Rapp says Triad technician Michael Barbian did not put a "patch" on the computer, but deputy director of elections Sherole Eaton insists that's exactly the word he used.

"I wouldn't just come up with that. I don't use that term or know what it means," she said. She added that Barbian used the same word with the 70-year-old chair of Hocking County's elections board, who she said also wouldn't have come up with the term on his own.

Unfortunately Zetter completely ignores the non-computer element of Barbian's fraud - his conspiracy to conduct a fraudulent recount by advising Eaton and the other election officials to post a "cheat sheet" with the original tallies and ignore a different recount result. Urge Kim Zetter to investigate the full story.

Who actually won Oklahoma? Mark Faulk would really like to know.

Tulsa World on Oklahoma Vote Totals: We Have No Idea
by Mark Faulk
Nov 30, 2004

Why then did the Tulsa World report that Kerry was leading in 57 counties with 70% of the vote counted, and why then did Kerry actually lose in every one of those counties when the final vote was tallied? Because when the final votes were tallied, Kerry actually LOST votes in all 57 counties, 37,9982 to be exact, while Bush GAINED an incredible 393,825 votes in the same counties. That's right, as the Oklahoma Independent Media Center put it, "Voting Machines Count Backwards in Okla". http://okimc.org/newswire.php?story_id=344

Faulk did what journalists should do - he investigated by calling the people responsible for reporting election results, including Tulsa World Executive Editor Joe Worley, who eventually returned Faulk's call.

"Actually, we've spent a good part of our day looking into that very issue. We subscribe to the AP wire service, and that's where those numbers usually come from, where they're supposed to come from. However, as of right now, we have no idea where we got our numbers from. When we do find out, we'll make a statement in the Tulsa World newspaper, and I'll answer any other questions at that time."

Wait a second here.....let me get this straight. The Tulsa World printed the election totals from what many considered the most important Presidential election of the last forty years, and they don't know where those numbers come from? They had Kerry leading in 57 counties with numbers that actually went in reverse from their published figures, and after two days of looking, they still can't figure out who gave them those numbers?

In the end, the "voting scandal" in Oklahoma might turn out to be nothing, but that's not the real issue here. The real issue is the pattern of deceit, confusion, and misinformation that this election has spawned, not just in Oklahoma, but nationwide. Unless we demand a full and thorough accounting of all the votes that have been miscounted, lost, stolen, or simply misplaced, we can never be certain whether our most important right as an American, our right to vote, is still intact. In Oklahoma, we still have our paper ballots, and they don't have "hanging chads". We can, and should, demand a full recount. Unfortunately, many states don't have that luxury, if we allow our entire voting system to be taken over by an electronic voting system controlled by a few questionable companies, our vote won't matter, and our elections will become nothing more than another commodity to be bought and sold by those in power.

James Heddle agrees, in an essay called "Against the House" published by Ray Beckerman.

A political system more crooked than a Las Vegas casino cannot qualify as a "democracy," much less as the "leader of the free world." And those who continue to play in it look to me like conscious or unconscious colluders, or just plain chumps. Until you accurately diagnose and acknowledge the disease, you cannot even begin to cure it...

My simple point is this - until a majority of progressive activists and intellectual opinion-makers drop the delusions and cop to the fact that we are playing in a game intentionally and adroitly rigged against us, we will not win, we will not govern, we will not be prepared to govern, because we will not deserve to govern. Good losers -- like John "Quick Concession" Kerry and the "professional losers" of the DNC -- will predictably go on losing. Just like the chain-smoking, gin-sipping, polyester-clad grandma pumping endless quarters into the slot machine.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=402&row=0

A STOLEN ELECTION
THE VIEW FROM MY BLACK HELICOPTER
The Nation
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
E-Mail Article
Printer Friendly Version

by Greg Palast

I'd just stepped out of my black helicopter to read that one of my favorite journalists, David Corn, had attacked my analysis of the vote in Ohio as the stuff of "grassy knoll conspiracy theorists." ("A Stolen Election," The Nation, November 29 issue.)

Oh, my! And all because I wrote that the uncounted ballots in Ohio -- more than a quarter million designated "spoiled" or "provisional" -- undoubtedly contain enough votes to overturn George Bush's "victory" margin of 136,000.

Corn says, "Palast wrongly assumes that an overwhelming majority of these ballots contain votes for Kerry." Now why would I think such a thing? Maybe because the precinct-by-precinct analysis of "spoiled" votes (those which machines can't count) by Professor Mark Salling of Cleveland State University, the unchallengeable expert on Ohio voting demographics, concludes that "spoiled" punch cards in Ohio cities come "overwhelmingly" from African-American neighborhoods.

The Republican Secretary of State of Ohio does not disagree, by the way; he intends to fix the Jim Crow vote-counting problem in Ohio Š sometime after the next inaugural ball.

The second group of uncounted ballots, "provisionals," were also generated substantially in African-American areas, the direct result of a Republican program to hunt down, challenge and suppress the votes cast in black-majority precincts.

What happened in Ohio is one-fiftieth of a nationwide phenomenon: the non-count of African-American votes, about a million of them marked as unreadable in a typical presidential race. (See, Palast, "Vanishing Votes," The Nation, March 17, 2004.)

I will admit, David, I can't tell you exactly how each of those disenfranchised voters would have cast their ballots. Indeed, one Republican statistician claims these uncounted ballots are cast mostly by African-American supporters of George Bush.

Nevertheless, most of us conspiracy nuts on the Grassy Knoll hold to our wild belief that most black citizens whose ballots were spoiled or rejected tried to vote for the tall guy from Massachusetts.

Greg Palast is the author of, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." His investigation of race and voting in America was partly funded by The Nation Institute.

http://blog.democrats.com/node/2020
Stolen Election 2004: Saturday Update
by Bob Fertik on 12/18/2004 1:16pm. - revised
12/18/2004 4:09pm
After working through the night, Cliff Arnebeck's
lawsuit - Moss v. Bush - was re-filed on Friday,
keeping Ohio election fraud on the front-burner in the
weeks leading to Congress's January 6 action to accept
- or reject - Ohio's electors.
Ohio vote count battles escalate amidst new evidence
of potential criminal activity
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
December 18, 2004
The epic legal battle over Ohio's presidential vote
count is back in the state Supreme Court, with an
election challenge claiming George W. Bush was wrongly
declared the winner on Nov. 2 and seeking a
court-ordered reversal of that victory.
Meanwhile, efforts to recount Ohio's vote may have
been fatally tainted by the Republican Party, raising
questions of what the GOP has to hide, and prompting
demands for criminal prosecution.
New affidavits point to possible criminal activity by
top Ohio election officials, raising yet more
questions about the 2004 vote. Rhonda J. Frazier, a
former employee of the Ohio Secretary of State's
office, has confirmed in an affidavit taken by Cynthia
Butler, working with freepress.org, that the Office
had secret slush funds. Frazier says it also failed to
comply with the requirements of "The Voting Reform
Grant" that required all the voting machines in Ohio
to be inventoried and tagged for security reasons.
"I was routinely told to violate the bidded contracts
to order supplies from other companies for all 17
Secretary of State offices throughout the State which
were cheaper vendors, leaving a cash surplus
differential in the budget," Frazier states, "After
complaining about the office's repeated practices of
violating grants and contracts I was fired."
Numerous instances of misconduct by the Secretary of
State and county election supervisors have been
uncovered during the Cobb/Badnarik investigation.
A letter from the Shelby County Board of Elections,
obtained through the Freedom of Information Act,
admitted that data critical to a meaningful recount
had been discarded, possibly illegally. Sworn
testimony from election observers in Greene County
indicated that ballots had been left loose on tables
in an unlocked, unguarded building, open to
manipulation and theft, prior to a recount. And in
Lucas County and Hocking County, it was revealed that
technicians from the Diebold and Triad companies had
inexplicably taken control of voting machines and
dismantled them, rendering verifiable recounts
impossible.
On Wednesday, December 15, U.S. Representative John
Conyers posted an affidavit from Douglas W. Jones, a
professor of computer science and a voting technology
consultant. In Professor Jones' opinion, the bizarre
behavior by the Triad Company, which provides computer
software and voting machines in 41 of Ohio's 88
counties, may have tainted the entire recount effort.
A Triad employee took apart a computer used in the
recounting process and inserted new parts as well as
alleged modifications of the software. "As a result,
the incident in Hocking County could compromise the
statewide recount and undermine the public's trust in
the credibility and accuracy of the recount," Jones
stated in an affidavit.
Numerically, the recount so far has shown little
difference from the original count. According to AP,
With 65 of Ohio's 88 counties reporting final recounts
to The Associated Press on Friday, Bush had gained 395
votes and Kerry has gained 554 votes. The running
tally accounts for 4.4 million votes cast, or about 74
percent of the total certified vote from the Nov. 2
election.
Officials said hanging chads that came loose when
punch-card ballots were handled again or rerun through
tallying machines account for most of the additional
votes.
But as Greg Palast likes to say, it ain't the
"re-count" but the "no-count" that often matters most.
Mathematician Tim Lohrentz carefully calculated the
number of disenfranchised voters in Frankling County
(Columbus) due to the shortage of voting machines:
The level of crowdedness did make a difference.
Overall, voter turnout (percent voting of active
voters) was 12.5 percentiles higher in precincts that
were not crowded compared to precincts that were
extremely crowded. Using these differences, the
analysis calculated an estimate of the number of
disenfranchised voters, assuming that each precinct
had sufficient voting machines, i.e. was not crowded.
All told, over 22,000 voters were likely kept from
voting due to long lines at the polling stations. Of
these, about 70 percent or over 15,000 were in heavily
Democratic precincts. Because Democratic voters are
more vulnerable to long lines than Republican voters,
an even higher percentage of these 22,000 votes would
likely have been cast for the Democratic candidate.
Disenfranchising voters is a crime. When will Franklin
County Board of Elections director Matt Damschroder be
prosecuted?
Speaking of Republican criminals, Rep. Tom Feeney (FL)
could find himself behind bars sometime soon for
asking programmer Clint Curtis to write a program to
"flip" votes in touchscreen machines. Curtis' story
has moved from the blogosphere to Feeney's hometown
paper, the Seminole Chronicle.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121904Y.shtml

Ohio Voters Refile Election Challenge
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
The Associated Press
Friday 17 December 2004
Columbus, Ohio - Voters who claim problems with
Ohio voting machines Nov. 2 indicated fraud refiled a
request with the Ohio Supreme Court on Friday to
overturn the presidential results.
The 37 voters cite reports of machine errors,
double-counting of some ballots and a shortage of
voting machines in predominantly minority precincts as
reasons to throw out the election results.
The challenge is backed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson
and Cliff Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney for the
Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy, who
accused the campaign of President Bush of "high-tech
vote stealing."
The group filed the request Monday, the day the
Electoral College cast votes for Bush. Chief Justice
Thomas Moyer of the state Supreme Court threw out the
complaint Thursday, saying the voters improperly
included a second election challenge in the complaint.

Ohio and its 20 electoral votes were the
difference in the presidential race. On Dec. 6, Ohio
Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell declared
President Bush the official winner in the state by
119,000 votes over Democrat John Kerry.
Elections officials are conducting a recount at
the request of third-party presidential candidates,
but neither the Bush nor Kerry campaigns expect it to
change the outcome.
With 65 of Ohio's 88 counties reporting final
recounts to The Associated Press on Friday, Bush had
gained 395 votes and Kerry has gained 554 votes. The
running tally accounts for 4.4 million votes cast, or
about 74 percent of the total certified vote from the
Nov. 2 election.
Officials said hanging chads that came loose when
punch-card ballots were handled again or rerun through
tallying machines account for most of the additional
votes.

________________________________________
Go to Original
Judge Blocks Washington State Ballot Count
By Rebecca Cook
The Associated Press
Saturday 18 December 2004
Tacoma, Wash. - A judge Friday granted a state
Republican Party request to block the counting of
hundreds of recently discovered King County ballots in
the governor's race, which the GOP's candidate is
winning by just a few dozen votes.
Even if the election workers wrongly rejected the
ballots - 150 of which were discovered Friday - it is
too late for King County to reconsider them now,
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Arend
said.
The issue of the ballots could prove pivotal: With
all but King County finished with a hand recount,
Republican Dino Rossi was leading Democrat Christine
Gregoire by 50 votes.
From reading state law and state Supreme Court
decisions, "it is clear to me that it is not
appropriate to go back and revisit decisions on
whether ballots should or should not be counted,"
Arend said.
Democrats appealed to the state Supreme Court, and
King County Elections Director Dean Logan said the
county also planned to appeal.
"These are legitimate voters who cast legitimate
ballots," he said. "It's just a travesty if we do not
include these ballots."
Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane said the judge made
the right decision.
"If King County were allowed to keep adding more
ballots, elections would never end," Lane said.
As for those whose ballots aren't counted, she
said: "That is King County's fault. We cannot be held
responsible for the fact that King County made a
mistake."
State Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry Alexander
said the high court is prepared to take up the case
next week.
Rossi won the Nov. 2 election over Gregoire by 261
votes in the first count and by 42 after a machine
recount of the 2.9 million votes cast.
Additional votes have been tallied in a hand
recount sought by Democrats. By Friday night, Rossi
had gained eight votes in the hand recount for an
overall lead of 50, with every county reporting except
King, a Democratic stronghold.
King County officials and Democrats want to
include 723 newfound ballots in the hand recount,
saying they are valid ballots that were mistakenly
rejected because of county workers' errors.
"From the beginning, this has been about fixing
mistakes and counting every legitimate ballot,"
Gregoire said in a statement Friday. "The people of
Washington deserve an accurate count."
Republicans sued, saying it was too late to add
ballots to the recount now.
Arend granted the GOP a temporary restraining
order to stop elections workers from taking the newly
discovered ballots out of their outer envelopes, which
bear the voter's signature. County elections officials
had said ballots would not be separated from their
security envelopes until the lawsuit was decided.
Jack Oxford is one of the voters whose ballots
Arend said should not be counted.
"She said, 'Jack, your vote doesn't count,'" said
Oxford, 50, an electrical field supervisor from
Enumclaw. "I'm very upset, very distressed."
Early this week, county workers found 573 ballots
that elections officials say were mistakenly rejected
because there was a problem with how the voters'
signatures had been scanned into the county's computer
system. County workers should have checked for a paper
signature to verify the ballot during the original
count, but instead they were put in the reject pile.
Workers found another 150 ballots Friday after
officials noticed that none of the 573 ballot
envelopes contained names beginning with the letters A
or B, and only two started with C.
The plastic trays containing ballots from voters
with last names beginning with A, B and C were
apparently overlooked because they were under other
trays, said Bill Huennekens, King County elections
superintendent.
"It is a serious mistake we made, but we are going
to do the right thing for the citizens of King
County," Huennekens said. "We've conducted this
election in an open and transparent manner. We're not
trying to hide anything."
State GOP spokesman Chris Vance called those
ballots "very suspicious."
The King County Canvassing Board has yet to decide
the fate of 22 other uncounted ballots, found this
week in the side bins of plastic base units in which
polling machines sit.
-------

Bush Abomination’s #1: National Security
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/politics/2953885
Dec. 18, 2004, 11:16AM
Text of Democratic response by Sen. Durbin
>From Chronicle wire reports
Hello. This is Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.
If this holiday season finds you at a post office,
take a look at the people in line with you. Most of
them are mailing packages across the state and across
the country, but many are sending packages to their
soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Inside many of those boxes headed for the war zones
you'll find gifts like homemade cookies and family
photos, but you'll also find expensive items no
military family should ever have to buy like body
armor and Kevlar vests.
It turns out the most valuable gift America's service
members and their families receive this holiday season
may just be the question put to Secretary Rumsfeld by
that stand-up soldier from the Tennessee National
Guard. You remember what he asked the secretary: Mr.
Secretary, why are American soldiers in Kuwait and
Iraq forced to scavenge in junk piles for steel plates
to protect their Humvees and trucks?
It's a question a lot of us have been asking for some
time now.
Just over a year ago, I made my first visit to Walter
Reed Army Medical Center to meet with wounded soldiers
from Iraq.
The first soldier I met with was 28 years old, out of
the Army National Guard in Ohio. He lost a leg in
Iraq. I asked him, Is there anything I can do for you?
And he said, Senator, make those Humvees safer so
other soldiers won't have to go through what I did.
That was over a year ago.
Now, Congress has given this administration every
penny that it's requested for Iraq and Afghanistan,
yet today, 21 months after the invasion of Iraq we
still have 3,500 Humvees without protective armor,
making these vehicles and our soldiers in them prime
targets for road- side bombs and rocket-propelled
grenades.
The Department of Defense estimates almost 1 in 5 of
the lives lost in Iraq were in Humvees.
And the Humvees aren't the only problem. About 80
percent of the other vehicles our troops are using in
Iraq are also unarmored.
As of late October, an estimated 44,000 soldiers in
Iraq and Afghanistan still did not have adequate body
armor, and last year, Chinook helicopters were
activated from Guard units in Illinois, Iowa, and
Ohio, without the proper anti-missile defense
equipment.
The Pentagon says the lack of protective equipment is
a matter of logistics.
No, it's not. It's a matter of leadership. We've seen
a litany of serious miscalculations from Pentagon
leaders, stretching back to the earliest stages of
this war when Secretary Rumsfeld ignored warnings from
top military experts that success in Iraq would
require far more troops and that our troops were
likely to be met with strong resistance, not parades
and flowers.
Those responsible for planning this war weren't
prepared for the reality on the ground, and many of
our soldiers have paid the price.
Nearly 1,300 U.S. service members have died in Iraq,
and more than 10,000 have been injured, many of them
severely. Last month was the deadliest month yet for
U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
When Secretary Rumsfeld met with those soldiers in
Kuwait, he invited them to ask tough questions. Well,
they sure did. Now he owes them, and all Americans,
some straight answers.
How in the world can the Pentagon have billions of
dollars for no-bid contracts for companies like
Halliburton, but not enough money to provide basic
protective equipment for our troops?
Why did we discontinue the production of armor plating
before all of our Humvees in Iraq were protected?
We can, and we should, armor every Humvee and every
truck our troops use in Iraq and Afghanistan. No more
excuses, no more delays. We can save hundreds of lives
and prevent thousands of serious injuries.
Our fighting men and women have accepted the
responsibility to risk their lives for America.
Shouldn't their government accept the responsibility
to protect them?
The Tennessee soldier who confronted Secretary
Rumsfeld about the shortage of armored Humvees told
the New York Times the other day, and I quote, I'm a
soldier. I'll do this thing on a bicycle if I have to,
but we need help. He's right.
Secretary Rumsfeld, we have the Army we want; now
let's give them the equipment they need.
In this holiday season, as we pray for peace on Earth,
let's do everything in our power to bring peace of
mind to our service men and women and bring them home
safely.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121704D.shtml
Hu's Not on First
By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 17 December 2004
Hu Jintao, China's powerful president, is
first-page material-particularly when he takes an
unprecedented step in putting flesh on China's effort
to develop what Hu calls a "strategic collaborative
relationship" with Russia. And what could be more
eye-catching than agreeing to stage the first-ever
joint military exercise next year, a commitment
announced on Monday during Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov's visit to Beijing.
Although the Associated Press and Reuters promptly
disseminated this major story, the Washington Post
ignored it, and the New York Times sandwiched it into
page A-6 on Tuesday, where it was boiled down to a
two-sentence gist at the end of a survey article,
"World Briefing."
Russian Forces in China?
According to AP, quoting the official China News
Service, the joint military exercises will be held in
China. Russian forces in China for an exercise! Not
too many years ago, one would have been laughed to
scorn at the very suggestion, given the historical
enmity between the two countries.
From my perspective as an intelligence analyst
responsible for reporting on Sino-Soviet relations
during the sixties and early seventies, I believe the
rapprochement between Russia and China-now extending
to military cooperation-is among the most important
sea changes on the geopolitical scene in the past
half-century. The fact that it has happened
incrementally, I suppose, tends to obscure its
strategic significance. And with Condoleezza Rice now
in the role that Henry Kissinger once played so
deftly, it seems altogether likely that the dangers
inherent in the new equation will escape notice and
the opportunities will be squandered.
Gradual Rapprochement between Beijing and Moscow
The process of substituting conciliation and
cooperation for unmitigated hostility started in
earnest under Gorbachev, although his predecessors did
take some halting steps in that direction. It takes
two to tango, and we analysts were surprised when
Gorbachev's Chinese counterparts proved receptive to
his overtures and welcomed a mutual agreement to thin
out troops along the 7,500-kilometer border. In more
recent years, however, the impetus toward
rapprochement has been the mutual need to
counterbalance the "one remaining superpower in the
world."
The more President George W. Bush and his
"neo-conservative" helpers throw their weight around
in the Middle East and elsewhere, the more incentive
China and Russia see in moving closer together. Gone
is the "great-power chauvinist" epithet they used to
hurl at each other, although it would seem a safe bet
that the epithet is resurrected from time to time in
private conversations between Chinese and Russian
officials regarding current U.S. policy.
Border Hostilities and Irredenta
The announcement of military exercises came just
two months after Moscow and Beijing settled the last
of the border disputes. Those had led to armed clashes
in the sixties and seventies especially along the
extensive riverine border where islands were claimed
by both sides. The backdrop, though, was China's claim
to 1.5 million square kilometers taken from China
under what it called "unequal treaties" dating back to
the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689. This irredentism, a
staple of Chinese anti-Soviet rhetoric in those days,
has been muted.
In the late sixties the USSR reinforced its ground
forces near China from 13 to 21 divisions. By 1971 the
number had grown to 44 divisions, and Chinese leaders
began to see a more immediate threat from the USSR
than from the U.S.. Enter Henry Kissinger, who visited
Beijing in 1971 to arrange the precedent-breaking
visit by President Richard Nixon the following year.
What followed was some highly imaginative diplomacy
orchestrated by Kissinger and Nixon to exploit the
mutual fear China and the USSR held for each other and
the imperative each saw to compete for improved ties
with Washington.
Triangular Diplomacy
The Soviet leaders seemed to sweat it the most.
Washington's clever exploitation of the triangular
relationship helped facilitate major, verifiable arms
control agreements between the U.S. and USSR and the
Four Power Agreement on Berlin. The USSR even went so
far as to blame China for impeding a peaceful solution
in Vietnam.
It was one of those felicitous junctures at which
CIA analysts could in good conscience chronicle the
effects of the Nixon-Kissinger approach and conclude
that it seemed to be having the desired effect.
Because it clearly was.
In early 1972, between President Nixon's first
summits in Beijing and Moscow, our analytic reports
underscored the reality that Sino-Soviet rivalry was,
to both sides, a highly debilitating phenomenon. Not
only had the two countries forfeited the benefits of
cooperation, but each felt compelled to devote huge
effort to negate the policies of the other. A
significant dimension had been added to this rivalry
as the U.S. moved to cultivate simultaneously better
relations with both. The two saw themselves in a
crucial race to cultivate good relations with the
U.S..
The Soviet and Chinese leaders could not fail to
notice how all this had increased the U.S. bargaining
position. But we analysts saw them cemented into an
intractable adversarial relationship by a deeply felt
set of emotional beliefs, in which national,
ideological, and racial factors reinforced one
another. Although the two countries recognized the
price they were paying, neither could see a way out.
The only prospect for improvement, we said, was the
hope that more sensible leaders would emerge in each
country. At the time, we branded that a vain hope and
predicted only the most superficial improvements in
relations between Moscow and Beijing.
We Were Wrong
Nothing is totally impervious to change. Mao
Zedong's and Nikita Khrushchev's successors proved to
have cooler heads, and in 1969 border talks resumed.
It took years to chip away at the heavily encrusted
mutual mistrust, but by the mid-eighties we were
warning policymakers that "normalization" of relations
between Moscow and Beijing had already occurred-slowly
but surely, despite continued Chinese protestations
that such would be impossible unless the Russians
capitulated to all China's conditions. For their part,
the Soviet leaders had become more comfortable
operating in the triangular environment and were no
longer suffering the debilitating effects of a
headlong race with China to develop better relations
with Washington.
Little did we dream, though, that as soon as
October 2004 Russian President Vladimir Putin would
visit Beijing to finalize the agreement on border
issues and announce that relations had reached
"unparalleled heights." Putin also signed an agreement
to jointly develop Russian energy reserves, which
China welcomes as a way to help provide fuel for its
burgeoning economy.
Military Cooperation
It is the military cooperation that is the most
worrisome. China has become Russia's arms industry's
premier customer, with the Chinese buying this year
about $2 billion in weapons, many of them top of the
line. For Russia these sales are an important source
of export earnings and keep key segments of its
defense industry afloat. Beijing, cut off from arms
sales from the West, has come to rely on Russia more
and more for sophisticated arms and technology.
Those of us analysts immersed in Sino-Soviet
relations used to poke fun at the Sino-Soviet treaty
of February 14, 1950, which was defunct well before
its 30-year term. Given the acrimony in the
relationship and the fact that the anniversary fell on
Valentine's Day the de rigueur exchange of official
congratulatory messages seemed amusingly ironic.
Nevetheless, we dutifully perused the messages for any
hint of warmth; year after year we found none.
There is a new treaty now, and the relationship it
codifies is no joke-the more so since so few are aware
of the significant improvement it symbolizes. True,
the treaty of friendship and cooperation, signed in
Moscow by Presidents Putin and Jiang Zemin on July 16,
2001 lacks teeth. There is no provision, for example,
as in the 1950 treaty, for "military and other
assistance" in the event one is attacked. But the new
treaty does reflect agreement between China and Russia
to collaborate in diluting what each sees as U.S.
domination of the post-Cold War international order.
(And that was before the U.S. attack on and occupation
of Iraq.)
Earthquakes Begin Slowly
Like subterranean geological plates shifting
slowly below the surface, changes with immense
political repercussions can occur so gradually as to
be imperceptible-until the earthquake. The consensus
in academe has been that, despite the rapprochement
between China and Russia over the past several years,
both still have greater interest in developing good
relations with the U.S. than with each other.
That was certainly the case decades ago. I'm not
so sure it is now. Either way, the implications for
U.S. foreign policy are immense. Let us hope that
there are still some experienced intelligence analysts
around to look closely at this issue and lay out their
unvarnished conclusions for U.S. policymakers.
________________________________________
Ray McGovern began his 27-year career with the CIA
as the analyst for Soviet relations with China and
Southeast Asia. He is on the Steering Group of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604H.shtml

"Holy War" Recruitment Networks Are in Place
By Gérard Davet
Le Monde

Wednesday 15 December 2004

Iraq is not yet a jihad country, but the networks
for channeling "foreign volunteers" are already in
place. According to the first figures communicated by
the CIA to western intelligence agencies, only 40
foreign individuals were counted among the 2,000
prisoners arrested in Falluja during the November
fighting, which killed 2,200 on the Iraqi side.

The American secret services even advance the
figure of 2% jihadists, a datum susceptible to upward
review based on interrogations now in progress. In
fact, American officers estimate that fighters could
have dissimulated their true origins.

French hostages Christian Chesnot and Georges
Malbrunot's detention in Iraq for 118 days will have
at least produced this advantage: it has led the
French intelligence services to increase their
operational capacities in the region. This increase in
power, in workforce as well as technical capacities,
has since allowed the Direction générale de la
sécurité extérieure (DGSE) [General Directorate of
External Security, the French CIA] to identify five
French citizens present in Iraq: Boubakeur El-Hakim,
imprisoned in Damascus since August, Redouane
El-Hakim, deceased July 17, Tarek Ouinis, deceased
September 17, Abdel Halim Badjoudj, who died in a
suicide attack October 20, and finally, Fawzi D.,
designated as the emir of a group of about 20 Falluja
fighters. "You must look at this phenomenon in
perspective," is the assurance from intelligence
milieus, "the French network remains marginal."

The networks, however, are expanding little by
little. The presence of Arab volunteers goes back to
the end of 2002, at the Iraqi regime's initiative.
Since summer 2003, "Holy War" has become a real
motivating force. Hassan Ghul's arrest January 22 in
Iraq brought the first concrete proof of an Al-Qaeda
presence in the country. He is none other than one of
those close to the leadership committee of the
structure created by Osama bin Laden, and was able to
enter in contact with Saif Al-Adel, the organization's
number 3. His specialty would have been funneling
volunteers into jihad countries.

"Cascading Networks"

More and more, candidates for martyrdom who come
from radical internationalist cells, then integrate
networks which become operational. These networks
mount suicide attacks, like those against the UN in
Baghdad in August 2003, or against Italian forces in
Nassyria, in November 2003. "Their operation rests on
the principle of 'cascading networks,'" summarizes a
specialist in the area. "It is based above all on
personal relationships between the people who drive
these networks. Their overarching objective is to
obtain great flexibility." Police operations do
nothing about them; these networks remain active, all
the more so as they are put in place by real logistics
professionals, educated by their experiences in
Chechen or Afghan networks. Consequently, intelligence
services target the names, Abderrazak Madjoub, an
Algerian implicated in European networks, questioned
in Germany in November 2003, and Abu Hammam, alias
"Mohammed Ali", arrested by British Special Forces
October 10, 2004, thanks partly to information
communicated by the DGSE.

The number of these volunteers remains difficult
to evaluate. According to the secret services, they
would be between 1,000 and 2,000, mostly from Jordan,
Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, but also from Kuwait.
Several places appear to be strategic in the eyes of
terrorism specialists. First of all, Lebanon, where
the Palestinian refugee camp Ain El-Helouai would
serve as a rear base for certain networks channeling
volunteers towards Iraq under the aegis of two
officials: the Yemeni Ibn Al-Shahid Al-Yemeni,
arrested October 16, 2003 by the Lebanese, and the
Syrian Fahd Ajami Akkach. In north Lebanon, the
Salafist leader Dai Al-Islam Chabal would play the
role of recruiter.

Syria, given its immediate proximity to Iraq, is
also fingered. Islamist groups there are charged with
contacting youths of European or Maghrebi origin who
have come to follow Koranic studies in religious
institutes of radical Salafist persuasion: the
Al-Fatah Al-Islami School, or the Zohra Institute in
Damascus. They incite the students to go to Iraq. That
was notably the case with Boubakeur El-Hakim, a French
citizen today in Syrian custody.

Two preachers are the subjects of very strict
surveillance: Imam Abdelaziz Al-Khatib, of the
Al-Darwishiya Mosque and the Al-Kabbahdjia Institute
in Damascus, and Imam Abu Al-Daaqaa, of the Aleppo
Mosque, both of whom step up their virulent
anti-Western speeches.

Syria remains the main transit country for jihad,
from along the frontier region of Husaybah. Several
reasons combine to create this phenomenon. It is very
easy to obtain a temporary stay visa in Syria as long
as you come from one of the Arab League member states.
Moreover, it is quasi-impossible for the Syrian
authorities to keep the entire border with Iraq under
adequate surveillance, given the degree to which local
security services rot with corruption. Finally, the
presence in the region of networks for clandestine
emigration and narcotics trafficking allows trails to
be obscured. Europe also shelters these networks.
Intelligence agencies have detected them in Germany,
Italy, Belgium, and Spain. They are in permanent
contact among themselves, moving around, and melting
into the landscape.

In Iraq, a whole infrastructure has also been
developed. The country now possesses, like Pakistan,
"guest houses", located notably in Baghdad and
Falluja. They are specialized, like certain mosques,
in welcoming foreign nationals, particularly Yemenites
and Lebanese, who have come to fight "the American
enemy." The Ibn Taymiyya Mosque in Baghdad would be
part of that network.

The Al-Zarkawi group would thus have several
"guest houses' in Baghdad, Falluja, and Mosul. In a
September sermon broadcast on Al-Jazira, the war chief
Abu Mussab Al-Zarkawi did not forgo the opportunity to
boast about the merits of his "foreign volunteers."

Bush Abomination #2 Failure: Economic Security
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/opinion/17krugman.html?oref=login&oref=login
Buying Into Failure
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: December 17, 2004

As the Bush administration tries to persuade America
to convert Social Security into a giant 401(k), we can
learn a lot from other countries that have already
gone down that road.
Information about other countries' experience with
privatization isn't hard to find. For example, the
Century Foundation, at www.tcf.org, provides a wide
range of links.
Yet, aside from giving the Cato Institute and other
organizations promoting Social Security privatization
the space to present upbeat tales from Chile, the U.S.
news media have provided their readers and viewers
with little information about international
experience. In particular, the public hasn't been let
in on two open secrets:

Privatization dissipates a large fraction of workers'
contributions on fees to investment companies.
It leaves many retirees in poverty.
Decades of conservative marketing have convinced
Americans that government programs always create
bloated bureaucracies, while the private sector is
always lean and efficient. But when it comes to
retirement security, the opposite is true. More than
99 percent of Social Security's revenues go toward
benefits, and less than 1 percent for overhead. In
Chile's system, management fees are around 20 times as
high. And that's a typical number for privatized
systems.
These fees cut sharply into the returns individuals
can expect on their accounts. In Britain, which has
had a privatized system since the days of Margaret
Thatcher, alarm over the large fees charged by some
investment companies eventually led government
regulators to impose a "charge cap." Even so, fees
continue to take a large bite out of British
retirement savings.
A reasonable prediction for the real rate of return on
personal accounts in the U.S. is 4 percent or less. If
we introduce a system with British-level management
fees, net returns to workers will be reduced by more
than a quarter. Add in deep cuts in guaranteed
benefits and a big increase in risk, and we're looking
at a "reform" that hurts everyone except the
investment industry.
Advocates insist that a privatized U.S. system can
keep expenses much lower. It's true that costs will be
low if investments are restricted to low-overhead
index funds - that is, if government officials, not
individuals, make the investment decisions. But if
that's how the system works, the suggestions that
workers will have control over their own money - two
years ago, Cato renamed its Project on Social Security
Privatization by replacing "privatization" with
"choice" - are false advertising.
And if there are rules restricting workers to
low-expense investments, investment industry lobbyists
will try to get those rules overturned.
For the record, I don't think giving financial
corporations a huge windfall is the main motive for
privatization; it's mostly an ideological thing. But
that windfall is a major reason Wall Street wants
privatization, and everyone else should be very
suspicious.
Then there's the issue of poverty among the elderly.
Privatizers who laud the Chilean system never mention
that it has yet to deliver on its promise to reduce
government spending. More than 20 years after the
system was created, the government is still pouring in
money. Why? Because, as a Federal Reserve study puts
it, the Chilean government must "provide subsidies for
workers failing to accumulate enough capital to
provide a minimum pension." In other words,
privatization would have condemned many retirees to
dire poverty, and the government stepped back in to
save them.
The same thing is happening in Britain. Its Pensions
Commission warns that those who think Mrs. Thatcher's
privatization solved the pension problem are living in
a "fool's paradise." A lot of additional government
spending will be required to avoid the return of
widespread poverty among the elderly - a problem that
Britain, like the U.S., thought it had solved.
Britain's experience is directly relevant to the Bush
administration's plans. If current hints are an
indication, the final plan will probably claim to save
money in the future by reducing guaranteed Social
Security benefits. These savings will be an illusion:
20 years from now, an American version of Britain's
commission will warn that big additional government
spending is needed to avert a looming surge in poverty
among retirees.
So the Bush administration wants to scrap a retirement
system that works, and can be made financially sound
for generations to come with modest reforms. Instead,
it wants to buy into failure, emulating systems that,
when tried elsewhere, have neither saved money nor
protected the elderly from poverty.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604G.shtml

Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure: Environmental Security

The Real Importance of the Kyoto Treaty
By Nigel Purvis
The International Herald Tribune

Wednesday 15 December 2004

Leaving America behind.
Washington - After seven years in critical
condition, the Kyoto global warming treaty has a new
lease on life, thanks to its recent ratification by
Russia. Supporters and skeptics alike agree that the
treaty will not solve the climate problem. Its
environmental limits are meager, expire in 2012 and do
not apply to developing nations, where global warming
emissions are growing most rapidly. Kyoto's true
importance rests in what it tells us about America's
changing relationship with the world and the future of
climate change diplomacy.

Kyoto demonstrates that America's allies are
increasingly shaping the international agenda without
it. When the Bush administration rejected Kyoto in
2001, it assumed that other nations would follow suit,
but more than 120 nations have ratified it.

While Europe's inability in the 1990s to stop
ethnic cleansing in the Balkans reinforced its junior
partner status on security matters, Kyoto shows that
Europe can lead in other areas. The European Union,
fresh from its successful eastward enlargement, feels
increasingly confident as an international peer of the
United States on nonmilitary matters. Complying with
Kyoto may prove more difficult than Europe envisions,
but Europe has achieved what it regards as a major
foreign policy victory and this signals the growing
risk of an even sharper-edged trans-Atlantic rivalry.

Kyoto also illustrates the fact that the
international community questions more than ever
America's moral authority and its commitment to
universal values, including environmental stewardship.
Anti-Americanism is already on the rise in "old
Europe" because of Bush's policies on Iraq. U.S.
resistance to action on global warming only solidifies
America's image abroad as a nation of parochial,
selfish and wasteful SUV drivers. Although America
remains the brightest beacon of freedom, it must treat
seriously the perception abroad that its light has
dimmed.

Kyoto's rebirth reaffirms, in addition, that
climate change will remain a permanent fixture of
international diplomacy, thus signaling to U.S.
industry that strong federal action is inevitable even
as Bush's re-election lengthens its current reprieve.
The coming into force of the treaty increases pressure
on the United States to lead even as it remains
outside the treaty's ambit. The United States, after
all, is responsible for just under a quarter of global
climate emissions. Opposition from industry to
mandatory domestic climate action will not dissipate
overnight, but Kyoto's implementation abroad will
demonstrate the true cost of climate policies and help
U.S. policymakers determine what action is
economically feasible.

Finally, Kyoto makes it more likely that over the
next decade Europe will use trade policy to push the
United States toward stronger climate action. The
European Parliament has debated taxing U.S. imports to
protect domestic manufactures from foreign competitors
who are not subject to climate change costs. The World
Trade Organization has made clear that when an
environmental trade restraint is enacted to implement
a multilateral environmental agreement such as Kyoto,
the restraint is more likely to withstand scrutiny.

Given Bush's unalterable opposition to the treaty,
the United States is unlikely to rejoin international
talks anytime soon. That matters less, however, than
whether the United States begins to take seriously its
responsibility to lead the world through strong new
domestic climate policies. Leaving aside the
environmental rationale for Kyoto, the treaty's entry
into force is a warning of the political and economic
risks to the United States of continued inaction.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nigel Purvis, an environment scholar at the
Brookings Institution in Washington, served as a
senior climate change negotiator in the Clinton and
George W. Bush administrations.

Complicity of the Corporatist News Media

http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert301.shtml

Media Crisis 2004: Summing Up and Moving Forward

By Danny Schechter
Mediachannel.org

NEW YORK, December 17, 2004 -- It is that time of the
year again, the time for closing out the news year, a
time of summing up, and looking ahead. A year ago, at
this time, I wrote:

"You know the drill. Every network assigns someone to
create a master reel with their hottest video and most
poignant moments, usually brought to a close with a
collage of well-known personalities and politicians
who bit the big one and are no more set to teary
music. In that moment, news becomes nostalgia and the
present belongs to history."
As regular readers know, the MediaChannel has been
here every day with a collage of our own, usually
drawn from the news-not-in-the-news, or
not-in-the-news-yet or news of news half told. Our
focus is on the messenger and the media in an ongoing
effort to understand how it is we have so much
information available and yet the public knows so
little about what is really going on.

Its safe to say that for many 2004 will be heralded as
the year of the blogger, and of more media scandals
than you can shake an I-Pod at.

Missing in the media march down memory lane is likely
to be the trends that are reshaping the media itself.

The central question is: how did an institution with a
brave history of safeguarding democracy become a
threat to its survival?

It has not been a good year for journalists and
journalism. 54 reporters died answering the call of
duty, the highest death toll in a decade according to
the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Many were killed in Iraq, Others died at home, like
investigative journalist Gary Webb by his own hand.
What type of despair drives a talented and committed
reporter like him to kill himself? We will, I suspect,
soon find out. I suspect it is more than just personal
despair in light of how his exposes of CIA backed drug
pushers were targeted by a mainstream media gang bang.
(A CIA internal probe later validated one of his key
findings.)

The big fear, as journalists die, is that journalism
itself may soon follow.

Some years back, I read a book about the emergence of
the "post journalism era" cataloging the abandonment
of a commitment to real news in the news business. It
spoke of how packaging and "mechanics" and compression
and infotainment defines the new uber-merged corporate
media order.

At the time, that indictment seemed alarmist, and
premature.

Not any more.

The Committee for Excellence in Journalism's State of
the Media Report itemizes the institutional shifts
that dwarf all the flash media scandals that ripple
through the news -- from Dan Rather's apparent demise
to the mea culpas of mainstream media regarding their
jingoistic war coverage, from the Sinclair
Broadcasting fiasco to the continued affront to
journalism represented by the Fox News Channel.

The Committee's State of the Media report showed a
system that is devolving and losing credibility. Here
were a few of the main findings:

1. A growing number of news outlets are chasing
relatively static or even shrinking audiences for
news. That audience decline, in turn, is putting
pressures on revenues and profits, which leads to a
cascade of other implications. The only sectors seeing
general audience growth today are online, ethnic and
alternative media.

2. Much of the new investment in journalism today is
in disseminating the news, not in collecting it. Most
sectors of the media are cutting back in the newsroom.
While there are exceptions, in general journalists
face real pressures trying to maintain quality.

3. In the 24-hour cable and online news format, there
is a tendency toward a jumbled, chaotic, repetitive
and partial quality in some reports, without much
synthesis or even the ordering of the information.

4. Journalistic standards now vary even inside a
single news organization. Companies are trying to
reassemble and deliver to advertisers a mass audience
for news not in one place, but across different
programs, products and platforms. To do so, some are
varying their news agenda, their rules on separating
advertising from news and even their ethical
standards.

The last item makes projecting a consistent sense of
identity and brand more difficult for news
organizations, reinforcing a public perception that
the news media lack professionalism and a sense of any
duty to the public interest.

No one is happy with our fragmented and polarized
media system. The surveys show it. The right bashes
the so-called "liberal media" while the left goes
after their right-wing media counterparts. Is there
really a distinction any more? Junk News seems to
drive out quality news. Young people defect from all
news to the Comedy Channel. Shouldn't both sides
bridge the political divide to help overhaul a media
system that now threatens us all?

Ted Turner says his Cartoon network has three times as
many viewers as the Cable News Network he is more
famous for birthing. The satirical Onion gets to the
heart of the news better than most real outlets. This
week they joke that convicted murderer Scott Peterson
will be sentenced to ten years of endless exposure on
LIFETIME channel programs and recreations of the
killing of his wife.

While some trivialize media as a problem, others are
trying to do something about it. That is one of the
big stories about the media not yet in the media: the
emergence of a media and democracy movement. Watch for
a year of media activism and advocacy from such groups
as Media For Democracy, MediaChannel, Free Press,
Common Cause, Media Matters for America, the Center
for Digital Democracy, the Consumers Union, FAIR and,
possibly, MoveOn.org.

These groups are here to stay - often struggling to
sustain their good work in a media environment hostile
to their vision.

If the media won't fight for its own soul and
survival, others -- like us and our many readers,
affiliates and members worldwide -- are committed to
do it for them.

-- News Dissector Danny Schechter is the
"blogger-in-chief" of Mediachannel.org. His new film
WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception)exposes media
complicity in the War in The War in Iraq. See
www.wmdthefilm.com.

http://mediamatters.org/items/20041217001

Carlson, Wash. Post misinformation on Social
Security's "solvency" furthered Bush administration's
crisis rhetoric
CNN co-host Tucker Carlson and The Washington Post
bolstered the Bush administration's crisis rhetoric on
Social Security by providing misleading accounts of
the federal program's "solvency."
On the December 16 edition of CNN's Crossfire, Carlson
purported to "correct" former Clinton national
economic adviser Gene Sperling's statement that
"Social Security does not become insolvent until
2042." Carlson responded: "In 2018, just to correct
you ... that's, again, only 14 years. Benefits will
overtake revenues."
In a December 17 article in The Washington Post, after
noting that President Bush "said Social Security will
be paying out more than it collects" by 2018, staff
writer Peter Baker reported that congressional
Democrats are "[c]iting different accounting than the
president's" to "argue" that under the current system
Social Security will "still be solvent for nearly 50
years."
In fact, Sperling is correct in noting that Social
Security is projected to remain solvent until 2042,
according to the same authoritative U.S. government
report upon which Carlson relied: the 2004 annual
report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age
and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust
Funds (OASDI). 2042 is the year that the Social
Security trust fund is projected to run out; the year
Carlson cited, 2018, represents the time when the
program's payouts to retirees are projected to exceed
tax revenue. At that time, the government will have to
supplement revenues with the Social Security trust
fund to meet payment obligations to retirees, but the
system will not be insolvent.
The Post's Baker, on the other hand, misleadingly
suggested that one's view of when Social Security
becomes insolvent is a matter of partisan opinion. It
is not. Bush is talking about one thing -- what is
projected to happen in 2018 -- and the Democrats are
talking about another -- when the system is projected
to become insolvent. By conflating the two issues,
Baker suggested that the Democrats are being partisan
in their assertions about projected insolvency. In
fact, Sperling's and the Congressional Democrats'
assertions reflect, respectively, the presumably
nonpartisan (though the Bush administration is
well-represented) Social Security Board of Trustees
and the at-least-equally nonpartisan Congressional
Budget Office, which projects insolvency by 2052,
rather than 2042.
>From the December 16 edition of CNN's Crossfire:
SPERLING: I do believe that, even though Social
Security does not become insolvent until 2042, we as a
country would be better to take on the problem now.
[...]
CARLSON: In 2018, just to correct you, in 2018, which
is only 14 years from now, according to the board of
trustees of overseers of Social Security, that's,
again, only 14 years. Benefits will overtake revenues.
So that's actually pretty soon.
>From Baker's December 17 Washington Post article,
"Bush Lays Out a Plan to Revise the Social Security
System":
Bush made clear [in the White House economic
conference] that he intends to expend considerable
political energy in pushing for a partial
privatization of Social Security to help secure the
program, which faces sizable shortfalls over the next
few decades. By 2018, he said, Social Security will be
paying out more than it collects, and over the long
term the system faces a $10.4 trillion unfunded
liability. ... Congressional Democrats dismissed the
conference as a public relations exercise distorting
fiscal reality. Citing different accounting than the
president's, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid
(Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.)
argued that Social Security would still be solvent for
nearly 50 years.
— A.S.
Posted to the web on Friday December 17, 2004 at 6:12
PM EST
Copyright © 2004 Media Matters for America. All rights
reserved.
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John P. O’Neill Wall of Heroes

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b4-5hoffmandec17,0,5893661.story?coll=all-newslocal-hed
>From The Morning Call -- December 17, 2004

Emmaus grad speaks against war in Iraq
Michael Hoffman spent two months there with Marines.

By Randy Kraft
Of The Morning Call

If you have one of those magnetic ''support our
troops'' ribbons on your car, Michael Hoffman suggests
you grab a marker and add a few words: ''Bring them
home now.''

Hoffman, who graduated from Emmaus High School in
1997, returned to the school Thursday night to speak
out against the war in Iraq.

''Being against the war is the only way to be for the
troops,'' said Hoffman. ''We're doing them no good by
sending them over there.''

The 25-year-old Marine veteran is a co-founder of Iraq
Veterans Against the War, a 5-month-old organization
that claims 150 members, including some on active duty
in Iraq. It wants the immediate withdrawal of all
occupation forces from Iraq, ''real'' reconstruction
aid for that country and properly funded and
administered veterans' benefits.

''I need to make sure this stops,'' he said. ''The
honest truth needs to be told in order for this war to
end. We've got to get these guys home now before
another guy is killed on either side.

''This war would be over right now if people really
understood the horror of it.''

Like Vietnam, said Hoffman, the only way to end the
war will be for millions of Americans to get out on
the streets every week and demand that it end.

More than 80 people attended the program, sponsored by
the school's chapter of Amnesty International. Hoffman
spoke for nearly 90 minutes, taking questions from the
mostly supportive audience for most of that time.

He said the primary reason we're fighting in Iraq is
to get its oil. He maintained the war was never really
about finding weapons of mass destruction, capturing
Saddam Hussein or establishing democracy.

Hoffman served in Iraq for nearly two months during
the invasion last year. He helped aim a battery of
155mm howitzers at targets 10 to15 miles away. He
never was told what they were shooting at, only given
coordinates. His battery fired about 700 rounds a day,
pounding its way across the country.

''Artillery is nameless and faceless,'' said Hoffman,
adding he's haunted every day, wondering: ''Who did I
kill?'' He knows he helped to kill innocent Iraqis.

''We haven't learned the lessons from Vietnam,'' said
Hoffman. ''Most of our enemies are average Iraqis
fighting back against this occupation. We have
violated their sovereignty.''

If another country invaded the United States, bombing
and killing innocent women and children who had
nothing to do with the war until their lives were
taken, ''wouldn't we all be up in arms defending our
country?''

He claimed the majority of troops on the ground in
Iraq feel ''we shouldn't be there. They don't see the
point. We're not doing any good.'' A member of the
audience disagreed, saying the military overwhelmingly
supported Bush in the last election.

Hoffman said Bush went to war before the military was
properly equipped. He said the administration has
disregard for people who are willing to serve.

He said American soldiers are fighting only to protect
their lives and the lives of their friends because
someone is shooting at them.

Hoffman is the son of Rick and Susan Hoffman of
Macungie. His father, who videotaped his appearance,
said he is proud of his son both because of what he is
doing now and because he served in a war he did not
believe in.

Michael Hoffman said the United States should not
abandon Iraq, but should end the military occupation.
He said Iraqis can establish democracy, if they want
it and if we ''stop occupying them and trying to do
the job for them.''

randy.kraft@mcall.com

610-820-6557

-------
CIA Agent Says Bosses Ordered Him To Falsify WMD
Reports
Thursday, December 16th, 2004
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/16/1445203

An undercover intelligence officer, who is suing the
CIA, says his managers

Posted by richard at 09:02 AM

December 20, 2004

LNS Post Coup II Supplement Addendum

David Margolick, Evangelina Peretz and Michael
Shnayerson, Vanity Fair: As the Florida recount ate
away at George W. Bush's margin of victory (1,784
votes . . . 327 . . . 154 . . . ), the machinery of
political power sprang to life. In Washington, stunned
U.S. Supreme Court clerks watched justice become
partisan, while in Florida, tens of thousands of
citizens - thousands of them African-American - found
themselves disenfranchised by misleading, faulty, and
uncounted ballots, or inexplicably purged from the
rolls.
David Margolick, Evangelina Peretz, and Michael
Shnayerson, zeroing in on the frenzied 36 days that
followed the 2000 election, investigate the "Brooks
Brothers riot," Jeb Bush's high-tech felon hunt, and
the new voting machines that leave no paper trail, and
ask, Could it happen again?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121804I.shtml

The Path to Florida
By David Margolick, Evangelina Peretz and Michael
Shnayerson
Vanity Fair
October 2004 Edition
As the Florida recount ate away at George W. Bush's
margin of victory (1,784 votes . . . 327 . . . 154 . .
. ), the machinery of political power sprang to life.
In Washington, stunned U.S. Supreme Court clerks
watched justice become partisan, while in Florida,
tens of thousands of citizens - thousands of them
African-American - found themselves disenfranchised by
misleading, faulty, and uncounted ballots, or
inexplicably purged from the rolls.
David Margolick, Evangelina Peretz, and Michael
Shnayerson, zeroing in on the frenzied 36 days that
followed the 2000 election, investigate the "Brooks
Brothers riot," Jeb Bush's high-tech felon hunt, and
the new voting machines that leave no paper trail, and
ask, Could it happen again?

U.S. President George W. Bush
(Photo: Vanity Fair)

Shortly after the presidential vote in November
2000, two law clerks at the United States Supreme
Court were joking about the photo finish in Florida.
Wouldn't it be funny, one mused, if the matter landed
before them? And how, if it did, the Court would split
five to four, as it so often did in big cases, with
the conservative majority installing George W. Bush in
the White House? The two just laughed. It all seemed
too preposterous.
Sure, friends and relatives predicted that the
case would eventually land in their laps, but that was
ignorant, naïve talk - typical of people without
sophisticated legal backgrounds. A majority of the
justices were conservatives, but they weren't
partisan; mindful of the Court's fragile authority,
the justices had always steered clear of messy
political spats. Moreover, the very jurists who'd
normally side with Bush were the ones most solicitous
of states' rights, most deferential to state courts,
most devoted to the Constitution's "original intent" -
and the Founding Fathers had specifically provided
that the Congress, not the judiciary, would resolve
close elections. To top it off, the Court rarely took
cases before they were ripe, and the political process
in Florida was still unfolding. "It was just
inconceivable to us that the Court would want to lose
its credibility in such a patently political way," one
of the clerks recalls. "That would be the end of the
Court."
The commentators agreed. The New York Times
predicted that the Court would never enter the Florida
thicket. A law professor at the University of Miami
pegged Bush's chances before the tribunal at "between
slim and none, and a lot closer to none." As
Thanksgiving 2000 approached, the justices and their
clerks planned their vacations and scattered, leaving
a skeletal staff - generally only one of the three or
four clerks assigned to each chamber - behind in case
the impossible happened. There was just no way,
Justice Stephen Breyer remarked over the holiday, that
the Court would ever get involved.
It all turned out very differently, of course, and
the Court, by the very margin that the incredulous
clerk envisaged, put George W. Bush in the White
House. Now out in the working world, the two clerks,
along with most of their colleagues who worked for the
four liberal justices and the occasional conservative
justice, remain angered, haunted, shaken, and
disillusioned by what they saw. After all, they were
idealists. They'd learned in their elite law schools
that the law was just and that judges resolved legal
disputes by nonpartisan analysis of neutral
principles. But Bush v. Gore, as seen from the inside,
convinced them they'd been sold a bill of goods.
They'd left their clerkships disheartened and
disgusted.
The 2000 election in Florida shook Americans from
all walks of life and of all political persuasions.
Many were left wondering about the viability of
America's democratic system. Much has changed since
the election's frenzied aftermath, in which hordes of
reporters jammed the streets of Tallahassee, Palm
Beach, and Miami, chasing ballots and lawyers for 36
days before the presidency was called by a margin of
537 votes out of the six million cast in Florida. But
Florida is a state with a history of disenfranchising
blacks - a legacy that seemed all too current in 2000.
And the president's brother is still governor.
Could it happen again? "Butterfly ballots" are
gone, so there will be no more accidental votes for
fringe candidates such as Pat Buchanan. Chads -
dimpled, hanging, pregnant - are history, for the
punch-card machines that used them have been
decertified. In their place are sleek, new electronic
voting machines, known as D.R.E.'s (direct-recording
electronic voting machines). An estimated half of the
state's voters will be using them this November -
including those in the three largest Democratic
counties.
The D.R.E.'s look and work reassuringly like
A.T.M.'s. Yet unlike A.T.M.'s, touch-screens provide
no paper receipt - no proof at all that a vote has
been cast as the voter intended. Touch-screens have
been plagued around the country by serious questions
about their security and their accuracy in registering
votes. In Florida, however, the story is more
disturbing than in most states. The company that sewed
up most of the key counties with raw political clout
has installed machines that have confounded poll
workers and voters alike and led to problems that the
state, in its embarrassment, has tried to minimize
again and again.
The state has been equally disingenuous in its
attempt to bar ex-felons from voting. For the 2000
election, a notorious ex-felon list, composed of more
than 50,000 names, was compiled and the appropriate
sections were sent by the state to the elections
supervisors of Florida's 67 counties, along with a
directive to purge those confirmed as felons from the
rolls. It turned out, though, that the list had been
swollen with an estimated 20,000 names of possible
innocents, wrongly included. Roughly 54 percent of
those on the list were black, while blacks make up
just under 15 percent of the statewide population. In
Florida, some 90 percent of blacks vote Democratic.
Surely, the embarrassment would prevent the state from
attempting another high-tech felon hunt in 2004. But
no. In May, the local elections supervisors learned
that there was a new list. Only in July, when flaws
were again revealed by journalists - flaws that would
once more favor Republicans - did the state throw out
the list. While there will no longer be an electronic
list used to keep former felons from voting, the
recent events have led to disturbing new questions.
What did the state know about the flaws? How was mass
disenfranchisement almost caused again?
Florida 2000 was so bizarre, so surreal, and, for
a large number of Americans, so patently illegitimate
that they can't imagine the likes of it ever happening
again. They may be wrong. Should the election come
down to another statistical tie - and to date the
polls suggest the state is still a tossup - an all too
similar kind of chaos seems likely to shroud Florida,
with its 27 electoral votes, this November.
I.
At 2:16 A.M., November 8, 2000, six hours after
the networks projected that Florida would go to Gore,
based on shoddy reporting done by the Voter News
Service (V.N.S.), a young hotshot at Fox News named
John Ellis, who happened to be George W. Bush's
cousin, called the state - and the election - for
Bush. Within four minutes, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN
followed suit. "It was just the three of us guys
handing the phone back and forth," Ellis would later
say to The New Yorker. "Me with the numbers, one of
them a governor, the other the president-elect. Now,
that was cool."
Gore phoned Bush to offer his congratulations, but
as he made his way from campaign headquarters at his
Nashville hotel to the War Memorial to give his
concession speech, Nick Baldick, his chief operative
in Florida, saw that something was seriously amiss.
V.N.S. had guessed that 180,000 votes were still
outstanding. In fact, there were 360,000 votes that
hadn't been counted - from precincts in Palm Beach,
Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties, which were largely
Gore country. And what was this? Negative 16,000 votes
for Gore in Volusia County? A computer glitch, it
turned out. Baldick watched the Bush lead wither with
each new report.
As the rain poured down on Gore's motorcade,
Baldick made a frantic call to Michael Whouley, Gore's
field strategist. Whouley passed the word on to Mike
Feldman, Gore's chief of staff. Feldman called
campaign chairman Bill Daley. This thing was not over
yet.
By the time Gore pulled up to the memorial, he was
trailing statewide by fewer than 2,000 votes. But he
didn't know that. Speechwriter Eli Attie, who had been
with Daley, fought his way through the crowd to get to
him. "I stopped him from going out onstage," recalls
Attie, "and said, ‘With 99 percent of the vote
counted, you're only 600 votes behind.'"
Gore called Bush again, and the conversation went
something like this:
"Circumstances have changed dramatically since I
first called you," Gore told him. "The state of
Florida is too close to call."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Bush
asked. "Let me make sure I understand. You're calling
back to retract your concession?"
"You don't have to be snippy about it," said Gore.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush in November 2000.
(Photo: Vanity Fair)

Bush responded that the networks had already
called the result and that the numbers were correct -
his brother Jeb had told him. "Your little brother,"
Gore replied, "is not the ultimate authority on this."

Americans, some of whom went to bed thinking Gore
had won, others that Bush had won, all woke up to find
out that no one had won, in spite of Gore's
half-million vote edge in the U.S. popular vote. Since
the margin of error in Florida was within 0.5 percent
of the votes cast, a machine recount there would be
conducted. While Gore retreated home to Washington,
where he would try to remain above the fray, Ron
Klain, a Democratic lawyer who had once been his chief
of staff, descended with a planeload of volunteers on
Florida by six the next morning.
Information came pouring in faster than anyone
could digest it - about polling places that had been
understaffed, about voters who had been sent on
wild-goose chases to find their polling places, about
blacks barred from voting, and about police roadblocks
to keep people from the polls. So far, these were
rumors. The one obvious, indisputable problem was Palm
Beach County's butterfly ballot (designed by a
Democratic supervisor of elections) [who changed her
registration to Republican after the 2000 election,
and was defeated in her last re-election bid] in which
the names of candidates appeared on facing pages with
a set of holes down the center for voters to punch.
Bush's name appeared first, on the left-hand page,
with Gore's name directly below. The second hole,
however, was for Pat Buchanan, whose name was first on
the right-hand page. Buchanan won 3,407 votes in Palm
Beach - around 2,600 more than he received in any
other county in Florida. The irony was rich. Many of
those voters were elderly Jews, thrilled to be voting
for Joe Lieberman, the first Jew ever on a
presidential ticket; instead, the confusing design had
led them to cast their vote for a Holocaust
trivializer. While Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer
maintained, with trademark certitude in the face of
all reason, that Palm Beach was a "Buchanan
stronghold," Buchanan himself admitted that many of
the votes cast for him had been cast in error.
Klain and Baldick soon learned of other
irregularities. In Palm Beach, 10,000 ballots had been
set aside because the voting machines had recorded
"undervotes" - that is, no vote for president.
According to former Gore lawyer Mitchell Berger, 4
percent of voters in Palm Beach voted for senator, but
not president - an odd twist, to say the least. A
similar situation occurred in Miami-Dade. As for
Broward, third of the big three southern counties, in
which Fort Lauderdale is located, it was beset by
rumors of missing ballot boxes and unexpected totals
from certain precincts. And what about that "computer
error" in Volusia that initially cost Gore 16,000
votes? Was there more to this story?
None of these irregularities would be addressed by
the automatic recount, which at best would merely
check the totals of successfully cast votes. Manual
recounts would be needed to judge the more
questionable votes. Desperate for legal advice, Klain
reached out to prominent firms in the capital of
Tallahassee. He found little help. "All the
establishment firms knew they couldn't cross Governor
Bush and do business in Florida," recalls Klain. And
so he improvised, pulling together a team headed by
former secretary of state Warren Christopher, now a
Los Angeles - based lawyer in private practice.
Christopher, Gore felt, would imbue the team with an
image of decorous, law-abiding, above-the-fray
respectability. Instead, Christopher set a different
tone, one that would characterize the Democrats'
efforts over the next 35 days: hesitancy and
trepidation.
By contrast, Christopher's Republican counterpart,
James Baker, another ex - secretary of state, dug in
like a pit bull. Unlike Christopher and company, Baker
spoke to the press loudly and often, and his message
was Bush had won on November 7. Any further inspection
would result only in "mischief." Privately, however,
he knew that at the start he was on shaky political
ground. "We're getting killed on ‘count all the
votes,'" he told his team. "Who the hell could be
against that?"
Baker saw his chance that Thursday, November 9,
when the Gore team made a formal request for a manual
recount in four counties: Volusia, Palm Beach,
Broward, and Miami-Dade. Asking for a recount in these
large, Democrat-dominated counties left the Gore team
fatally vulnerable to the charge that they wanted not
all votes counted, as Gore kept claiming in his
stentorian tones, but only all Gore votes. Yet the
Bush team knew full well that Gore could not have
asked for a statewide recount, because there was no
provision for it in Florida law. A losing candidate
had 72 hours to request a manual recount on a
county-by-county basis or wait until the election was
certified to pursue a statewide recount. The requests
had to be based on perceived errors, not just the
candidate's wish to see recounts done. Certainly, Gore
chose counties that seemed likely to yield Gore votes.
But he chose them because that's where the problems
were. Proper as this was by Florida election law, the
Democrats' strategy gave Baker the sound bite he'd
been seeking: Gore was just cherry-picking Democratic
strongholds. It was a charge the Bush team wielded to
devastating effect in the media, stunning the Gore
team, which thought its strategy would be viewed as
modest and fair.
The automatic recount was finished on November 9,
and for the Bush team the news was sobering. Though
many of Florida's 67 counties "recounted" merely by
looking at their previous tallies, Bush's lead had
shrunk from 1,784 votes to 327. Gore votes, it seemed,
were everywhere. Who knew how many more a manual
recount would uncover? From then on, the Republican
strategy was simple: stop the counting. That Saturday,
Baker filed suit in federal court to stop all manual
recounts - the first legal shot across the bow, though
Republicans would later accuse Gore of taking the
election to court.
While all this was going on, Katherine Harris,
Florida's elected secretary of state, managed to make
herself into a lightning rod for both sides' feelings
about the election. She had worked in her spare time
as an ardent partisan for the Bush campaign and had
served as a delegate to the Republican convention that
summer. She remained one of George W.'s eight campaign
co-chairs for Florida right up until Election Day.
According to Jeffrey Toobin in his 2001 book, Too
Close to Call, Harris, having gone to sleep thinking
her candidate had won, was awakened at 3:30 A.M. the
morning after Election Day by a phone call from George
W.'s campaign chairman, Don Evans, who put Jeb on the
line. "Who is Ed Kast," the governor asked icily, "and
why is he giving an interview on national television?"

In her sleep-befuddled state, Harris had to ponder
that a moment. Who was Ed Kast? Chances were she'd
barely met the assistant director of elections, whose
division reported to her. Kast at that moment was
nattering on about the fine points of Florida election
law. Under that law, manual recounts were called for
in very close races, and voter intent was the litmus
test for whether disputed votes counted or not.
Recounts and voter intent were almost certainly not
subjects the governor wanted aired - already, his
general counsel had made a call to get Kast yanked off
the air, as brusquely as if with a cane.

"My sister and I prayed for full armour," Katherine
Haris wrote. "Queen Esther has been a wonderful role
model."
(Photo: Vanity Fair)

In the white-hot media glare that first
post-election day, Harris appeared overwhelmed and
under-informed. She seemed to have no idea what the
county supervisors had been doing, much less that one
had drawn up a butterfly ballot, another a
"caterpillar," both sure to cause chaos at the polls.
Sensing trouble, the Bush camp gave her a "minder":
Mac Stipanovich, a coolly efficient Republican
lobbyist who worked in Tallahassee. Stipanovich had
served as a campaign adviser for Jeb in his first,
unsuccessful run for governor, in 1994, and he had
remained closely aligned with him ever since.
Stipanovich appealed to Harris's grandiosity. (Her
e-mails replying to Bush supporters later revealed
that she had begun identifying with Queen Esther, who,
in the Old Testament, saved the Jews from genocide.
"My sister and I prayed for full armour this morning,"
she wrote. "Queen Esther has been a wonderful role
model.") He told her that nothing less than the course
of history rested on her shoulders. "You have to bring
this election in for a landing," he repeated again and
again.
Later, Stipanovich, in an interview with
documentary-film maker Fred Silverman, would proudly
describe his routine, which began two days after the
election and continued throughout the aftermath. "I
would arrive in the morning through the garage and
come up on the elevators," he said, "and come in
through the cabinet-office door, which is downstairs,
and then in the evening when I left, you know,
sometimes it'd be late, depending on what was going
on, I would go the same way. I would go down the
elevators and out through the garage and be driven -
driven to my car from the garage, just because there
were a lot of people out front on the main floor, and,
at least in this small pond, knowledge of my presence
would have been provocative, because I have a
political background."
On Friday, November 10, three of Gore's four
target counties - Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach
- which all used punch-card voting machines, started
to weigh whether to conduct manual recounts of, at
first, 1 percent of their ballots, and then, if the
results were dramatic, the other 99 percent.
At issue were "undervotes," meaning blank or
incompletely filled-out ballots. While totally blank
ballots could hardly be counted, what about, in the
case of the punch-card machines, ballots where the
puncher, or stylus, hadn't quite gone through?
In those counties using optiscan machines, manual
recounts also had to consider "overvotes," where
voters appeared to have cast more than one vote in a
contest. (In 2000, a majority of Florida's counties -
41 of 67 - had optiscans. A voter filled in ovals next
to his candidates of choice on a paper ballot and then
fed it into the optiscan, which looked rather like a
street-corner mailbox. The ballot was then recorded
electronically.) No one would dispute that some
overvotes had to be put aside - when, for example, a
voter had filled in the ovals next to Bush's name as
well as Gore's. But some voters had filled in the Gore
oval and then written "Al Gore" next to it. Should
those ballots be nixed? For that matter, a stray
pencil mark on an otherwise properly filled-in ballot
would cause the ballot to be rejected as an overvote
by an optiscan voting machine. Shouldn't these all be
examined, since the gold standard of Florida election
law was voter intent? There were, in all, 175,000
overvotes and undervotes.
Harris and Stipanovich couldn't tell the four
target counties how to do their l percent recounts -
at least, not directly. But they could, and did, send
a young, strawberry-blonde lawyer named Kerey
Carpenter to offer help to Palm Beach County's
three-person canvassing board. According to the
board's chairman, Judge Charles Burton, Carpenter
mentioned she was a lawyer, but not that she was
working for Katherine Harris.
At one point, when the recount had produced 50 new
Gore votes, Burton, after talking to Carpenter,
declared the counting would have to start again with a
more stringent standard - the punched-out paper chad
had to be hanging by one or two of its four corners.
By this stricter standard, Gore's vote gain dropped to
half a dozen. Carpenter also encouraged Burton to seek
a formal opinion from Harris as to what grounds would
justify going to a full manual recount. Burton happily
complied.
That Monday, November 13, Harris supplied the
opinion. No manual recount should take place unless
the voting machines in question were broken. Within
hours, a judge overruled her, declaring the recounts
could proceed as planned. Harris countered by saying
she would stop the clock on recounts the next day,
November 14, at 5 P.M. - before Palm Beach and
Miami-Dade had even decided whether to recount, and
before Broward had finished the recount it had
embarked upon. (Only Volusia, far smaller than the
other three counties, was due to finish its recount by
November 14, in time to be counted on Harris's
schedule.)
Circuit-court judge Terry Lewis, then 48, a widely
respected jurist who in his leisure time played pickup
basketball and wrote legal thrillers, rendered a
fairly gentle ruling on Harris's decision to certify
those results. She could do this, he suggested, but
only if she came up with a sensible reason. So Harris
asked the remaining three Gore-targeted counties to
explain why they wished to continue their recounts.
Palm Beach cited the discrepancies between the results
of its limited manual recount and its machine recount.
Broward told of its large voter turnout and
accompanying logistical problems. Miami-Dade argued
that the votes it had recounted so far would provide a
different total result. As soon as she received the
responses, Harris rejected them all. On Friday,
November 17, with the last of the absentee ballots
ostensibly in, Harris announced that she would certify
the election by the next morning. The Florida Supreme
Court intervened this time, declaring she could not do
that, and deciding, with a weekend to think about it,
that the three target counties could take until
Sunday, November 26, to finish counting - or, if
Harris so deigned, until Monday, November 27.
James Baker, the Bush team's consigliere, issued a
public threat after the Florida Supreme Court's
maddening decision. If necessary, he implied,
Florida's leading Republican legislator, incoming
House Speaker Tom Feeney, would take matters into his
own hands. What Feeney proposed, on Tuesday, November
21, was to vote in a slate of electors pledged to
George W. Bush - no matter what. Since both the state
House and Senate were Republican-dominated, he could
pass a bill to do that.
In Miami-Dade that week, a manual recount of
undervotes began to produce a striking number of new
votes for Gore. There, as in Palm Beach and Broward,
fractious Democratic and Republican lawyers were
challenging every vote the canvassing board decided.
In Miami-Dade, Kendall Coffey, tall and gaunt, was the
Democrats' eyes and ears. As the Gore votes
accumulated, he recalls, "panic buttons were being
pushed."
On Wednesday, November 22, the canvassing board
made an ill-fated decision to move the counting up
from the 18th floor of the Clark Center, where a large
number of partisan observers had been able to view it,
to the more cloistered 19th floor. Angry shouts rang
out, and so began the "Brooks Brothers riot."
Several dozen people, ostensibly local citizens,
began banging on the doors and windows of the room
where the tallying was taking place, shouting, "Stop
the count! Stop the fraud!" They tried to force
themselves into the room and accosted the county
Democratic Party chairman, accusing him of stealing a
ballot. A subsequent report by The Washington Post
would note that most of the rioters were Republican
operatives, many of them congressional staffers.
Elections supervisor David Leahy would say that
the decision to stop counting undervotes had nothing
to do with the protest, only with the realization that
the job could not be completed by the Florida Supreme
Court's deadline of November 26. Yet the board had
seemed confident, earlier, that it could meet the
deadline, and the decision to stop counting occurred
within hours of the protest.
For all the tumult in Miami-Dade, both sides had
realized that the presidency might well be determined
not by hanging chads or overvotes but by absentee
ballots. Republicans seethed with rumors of ballots by
the bagful coming in from Israel - all, presumably,
from Jewish Democrats. Democrats envisioned thousands
of ballots coming in from military bases abroad - all,
presumably, from Bush fans in uniform.
Katherine Harris sowed confusion by issuing her
own modification of the Florida law that specified
absentee ballots could be accepted up to10 days after
a general election - in this case November 17 - as
long as they were sent from abroad and postmarked by
Election Day. "They are not required," Harris
declared, "to be postmarked on or prior" to Election
Day. Apparently, Stipanovich had decided there were
more Bush votes than Gore votes to be harvested among
the absentees, especially in the military.
Mark Herron, a Gore-team lawyer in Tallahassee,
inadvertently made matters worse for his own side. On
November 15, he sent out a long memo on rules
governing absentee ballots to the Democratic lawyers
positioned at each of the 67 county canvassing boards.
A copy of the memo somehow found its way to a
Republican law firm across the street from Herron's
office. Next thing he knew, the Republicans were
quoting his careful recitation of Florida election law
to support their claim that Democrats wanted to
disenfranchise brave Americans in uniform.
Panicked, the Gore team put Joe Lieberman on the
Sunday television talk shows to declare that the
Democrats would never do that, and that he, for one,
thought the most liberal standard should be applied to
all incoming absentee ballots. Herron was appalled
when he heard that: he knew that the western Panhandle
counties were thick with U.S. military bases. By
letting any post-election absentee votes count,
including those with late - or no - postmarks, the
presidency might well be lost.
For Pat Hollarn, the elections supervisor of
Okaloosa County, the next days brought a kind of
bedlam she couldn't believe. A deep-green Panhandle
county, Okaloosa has no fewer than six military bases,
including Eglin and Hurlburt Air Force bases and an
Army Ranger camp. And so the county's four-story
government building, nestled within a highway strip of
stores such as Mr. Cheap Butts, became ground zero for
the lawyers on both sides assigned to the fight over
absentee ballots.
Both parties were pushy, obnoxious, and sometimes
almost hysterical. The Bush lawyers argued
passionately that the rules should be eased and all
absentee ballots included. "I told them not only no
but hell no," says Hollarn, a centrist Republican, who
prides herself on being a nonpartisan supervisor. (At
the same time, in the more Democratic counties, Bush
lawyers were arguing just as passionately that rules
should be strictly adhered to and any questionable
ballots put aside.)
In Santa Rosa County, next to Okaloosa, elections
supervisor Doug Wilkes did his best to restrain the
vying partisans as they fought over some 20 late
absentee ballots. He held the line on postmarks until
a Florida Supreme Court ruling said absentee ballots
should not be rejected for minor "hypertechnical"
reasons. Then he gave up. "I said, Hey! If the Supreme
Court tells me I'm supposed to take this if it has a
minor technical problem, and I can't read this smudge
[of a postmark], and it may have been dated [before
the election], then O.K., I feel now that I can say
we're going to count Seaman Jones's ballot."
In all, the Republicans gained a net increase of
123 votes from this last-minute push.
II.
The day before Thanksgiving, the Bush campaign
turned to the United States Supreme Court. Claiming
that the situation in Florida had degenerated into a
"circus," it asked the high court to stop everything,
and cited two highly technical federal issues for it
to consider. The first, based on an obscure law from
1887, prohibited states from changing the rules after
the date of that election. The second, a
jurisdictional issue, was that by stepping into the
case the Florida Supreme Court had usurped the Florida
legislature's exclusive powers to set the procedures
for selecting electors, as provided for by Article II
of the United States Constitution. The Bush lawyers
claimed, too, that the selective recounts violated
constitutional guarantees of due process and equal
protection - meaning the different criteria for
recounting the ballots did not give equal rights to
all voters.

Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy in 2003;
rejected ballots from Miami-Dade County.
(Photo: Vanity Fair)

Bush's petition for certiorari - that is, for the
Court to take the case - went initially to Justice
Anthony Kennedy, whose task it was to consider all
emergency motions from Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.
For Kennedy, then 64, a man known to relish the pomp
and circumstance of the Supreme Court and his own,
often crucial role in close cases, weighing such a
momentous matter must have been glorious indeed.
Batting aside a Thanksgiving Day plea from the Gore
campaign to pass on the case, Kennedy urged his
colleagues to take it on, suggesting that the Court
was absolutely the essential arbiter of such weighty
matters. He conceded, though, that Bush faced an
uphill struggle on the law.
When Kennedy's memo circulated, one flabbergasted
clerk had to track down Justice John Paul Stevens on
the golf course in Florida and read it to him over the
phone. Under the Court's rules, Kennedy needed only
three votes beside his own for the Court to hear the
matter. Quickly, the four others who make up the
Court's conservative block signed on: Chief Justice
William Rehnquist, along with Justices Antonin Scalia,
Clarence Thomas, and Sandra Day O'Connor. In an
unsigned order the day after Thanksgiving, the Court
agreed to consider the two more technical arguments,
spurning the equal-protection claim, and set down an
extraordinarily expedited calendar. Normally,
arguments are scheduled many months in advance. Now
briefs were due the following Tuesday, with oral
arguments set for December 1 - only a week away.
Clerks and justices scotched their vacations and stuck
close to the Court; Scalia's clerks ended up having
Thanksgiving dinner together. The clerks for the
liberal justices watched the events unfold with
dismay. To them, the only hopeful sign was Kennedy's
skepticism about Bush's chances. "We changed our minds
every five minutes about whether the fix was in," one
clerk remembers.
As was customary, the Court did not detail how
many justices had voted to hear the case, or who they
were, and Gore's lawyers didn't really want to know.
At that point, they felt a certain faith in the
institution and in the law: it was inconceivable to
them that the Court would intercede, much less decide
the presidency by a vote of five to four. But the
liberal clerks were more pessimistic. Why, they asked,
would a majority of the Court agree to consider the
Florida ruling unless they wanted it overturned and
the recount shut down?
Certainly, that was what the justices who'd
opposed taking the case believed. Convinced the
majority would reverse the Florida court, they began
drafting a dissent even before the case was argued in
court. It was long - about 30 pages - and elaborate,
written principally by Justice Stevens, then 80, the
most senior of the would-be dissenters and, largely by
default, the Court's most liberal member, even though
a Republican, President Gerald R. Ford, had appointed
him. With the assistance of Justices Stephen Breyer,
David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stevens laid
out why the Court should never have accepted the case.

Meanwhile, events in Florida took their own
course. On Sunday, November 26, the Palm Beach
canvassing board sent an urgent request to Katherine
Harris, saying that in order to complete its manual
recount it needed two additional hours beyond the five
P.M. deadline she had chosen to enforce, rather than
the Monday deadline the Florida Supreme Court had
offered her as an option. Harris conferred with
Stipanovich and answered no. As a result the county's
entire recount effort was deemed null and void. That
afternoon Harris certified the election, claiming that
Bush had won by 537 votes, a total that appeared to
include Bush's net gain in absentee ballots, but none
of the recounted votes from Palm Beach or Miami-Dade.
Gore's lawyers promptly contested the certification.
At the Supreme Court, the liberal clerks
handicapped the case pretty much as the Gore camp did.
At issue, as they often were in crucial cases, were
Justices Kennedy and O'Connor. But were both really in
play? At a dinner on November 29, attended by clerks
from several chambers, an O'Connor clerk said that
O'Connor was determined to overturn the Florida
decision and was merely looking for the grounds.
O'Connor was known to decide cases on gut feelings and
facts rather than grand theories, then stick doggedly
with whatever she decided. In this instance, one clerk
recalls, "she thought the Florida court was trying to
steal the election and that they had to stop it."
Blithely ignorant of what view she actually held, the
Gore campaign acted as if she were up for grabs. In
fact, the case would come down to Kennedy.
At this point, the clerks had been at the Court
only two months, but, for many of them, Justice
Kennedy, appointed by President Reagan after the
Senate had spurned the arch-conservative Robert Bork,
was already a figure of ridicule and scorn. It was not
a matter of his generally conservative politics -
despite Clarence Thomas's public image of smoldering
rage, most of the liberal clerks had found him quite
personable. But Kennedy, they felt, was pompous and
grandiloquent. His inner office was filled with the
trappings of power - an elaborate chandelier and a
carpet with a giant red star - and his writing, too,
was loaded with grandstanding flourishes. The clerks
saw his public persona - the very public way in which
he boasted of often agonizing over decisions - as a
kind of shtick, a very conspicuous attempt to exude
fairness and appear moderate, even when he'd already
made up his mind.
Conservatives, however, were not always happy with
Kennedy, either. They had never forgiven him for his
votes to uphold abortion and gay rights, and doubted
both his intelligence and his commitment to the cause.
Convinced he'd strayed on abortion under the
pernicious influence of a liberal law clerk - a former
student of the notoriously liberal Laurence Tribe of
Harvard Law School, who was representing Gore in this
case - they took steps to prevent any reoccurrences.
Applicants for Kennedy clerkships were now screened by
a panel of right-wing stalwarts. "The premise is that
he can't think by himself, and that he can be
manipulated by someone in his second year of law
school," one liberal clerk explains. In 2000, as in
most years, that system surrounded Kennedy with true
believers, all belonging to the Federalist Society,
the farm team of the legal right. "He had four very
conservative, Federalist Society white guys, and if
you look at the portraits of law clerks on his wall,
that's true 9 times out of 10," another liberal law
clerk recalls. "They were by far the least diverse
group of clerks."
For all their philosophical differences, the nine
justices had learned to live together; they have,
after all, served together since 1994. For their
clerks, though, a chasm ran through the Court even
before Bush v. Gore. The conservative clerks read
different newspapers, went to different movies, ate
different kinds of food. Their hair was shorter, their
suits more solemn and sincere. Far more of them were
white men, screened rigorously for political
reliability. Apart from a few group activities - the
basketball games in the Court's top-floor gymnasium,
the aerobics and yoga classes Justice O'Connor had
arranged - the two groups rarely interacted. Rather
than sit with the conservatives in the same lunchroom,
the liberals dined outside, in the area reserved for
staff.
It was unusual, then, for a conservative clerk to
visit the chambers of a justice on the other side. But
that is what Kevin Martin, a clerk for Scalia, did on
November 30 when he stopped by Stevens's chambers.
Martin had gone to Columbia Law School with a Stevens
clerk named Anne Voigts; he thought that connection
could help him to bridge the political divide and to
explain that the conservative justices had legitimate
constitutional concerns about the recount. But to two
of Voigts's co-clerks, Eduardo Penalver and Andrew
Siegel, Martin was on a reconnaissance mission, trying
to learn which grounds for reversing the Florida court
Stevens would consider the most palatable. They felt
they were being manipulated, and things quickly turned
nasty. "Fuck off!" Martin finally told them before
storming out of the room. (O'Connor clerks paid
similar exploratory visits to various chambers, but
those ended more amicably.)
On December 1, lawyers for the two sides argued
their cases before the Court. Laurence Tribe, an
experienced and highly respected Supreme Court
advocate, seemed flat that day and off his game; the
justices appeared to chafe under what they considered
his condescending professorial style. Bush's lawyer,
Theodore Olson, who later became solicitor general in
John Ashcroft's Justice Department, was more
impressive, but then again, he was playing to a
friendlier audience. Rehnquist and Scalia hinted that
they favored the claim that the Florida Supreme Court
had encroached upon the Florida legislature's
exclusive turf. Both O'Connor and Kennedy also voiced
irritation with the Florida court. It did not augur
well for Gore.
Once the arguments were over, the justices met for
their usual conference. At the poles were Stevens and
Scalia - the one wanting to butt out of the case
altogether and let the political process unfold, the
other wanting to overturn the Florida Supreme Court
and, effectively, to call the election for Bush. But
neither had the votes. Eager to step back from a
constitutional abyss, convinced the matter could be
resolved in Florida, the Court punted. Rehnquist began
drafting a ruling simply asking the Florida Supreme
Court to clarify its decision: whether it had based
its ruling on the state constitution, which the Bush
team had said was improper, or had acted under state
statute, which was arguably permissible.
By December 4, all nine justices had signed on to
the chief justice's opinion. The unanimity was, in
fact, a charade; four of the justices had no beef at
all with the Florida Supreme Court, while at least
four others were determined to overturn it. But this
way each side could claim victory: the
liberal-to-moderate justices had spared the Court a
divisive and embarrassing vote on the merits, one
they'd probably have lost anyway. As for the
conservatives, by eating up Gore's clock - Gore's
lawyers had conceded that everything had to be
resolved by December 12 - they had all but killed his
chances to prevail, and without looking needlessly
partisan in the process. With the chastened Florida
court unlikely to intervene again, the election could
now stagger to a close, with the Court's reputation
intact, and with Bush all but certain to win.
On Friday, December 8, however, the Florida
Supreme Court confounded everyone by jumping back into
the fray. By a vote of four to three, it ordered a
statewide recount of all undervotes: the more than
61,000 ballots that the voting machines, for one
reason or another, had missed. The court was silent on
what standard would be used - hanging vs. pregnant
chads - and so each county, by inference, would set
its own. As they watched televised images of bug-eyed
Florida officials inspecting punch-card ballots for
hanging, dimpled, or pregnant chads, the Supreme Court
clerks knew the case was certain to head back their
way.
Sure enough, the Bush campaign asked the Court to
stay the decision and halt the recount. In a highly
unusual move, Scalia urged his colleagues to grant the
stay immediately, even before receiving Gore's
response. Gore had been narrowing Bush's lead, and his
campaign expected that by Monday he would pull ahead.
But Scalia was convinced that all the manual recounts
were illegitimate. He told his colleagues such
recounts would cast "a needless and unjustified cloud"
over Bush's legitimacy. It was essential, he said, to
shut down the process immediately. The clerks were
amazed at how baldly Scalia was pushing what they
considered his own partisan agenda.
Scalia's wish was not granted. But at his urging,
Rehnquist moved up the conference he'd scheduled for
the next day from 1 in the afternoon to 10 that
morning. In the meantime, the conservative justices
began sending around memos to their colleagues, each
of them offering a different rationale for ruling in
Bush's favor; to the liberal clerks, it was apparent
that the conservatives had already decided the case
and were merely auditioning arguments.
This time, there would be no papering over the
divisions. Arrayed against the five conservative
justices wishing to stop the recount were their four
colleagues, who'd voted initially not to hear the
case. Justice Stevens would write for them; so eager
was the majority to stop the recount, one clerk
recalls, that Stevens had to plead for more time to
complete his dissent. What he wrote - that "counting
every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable
harm" - so provoked Scalia that, as eager as he was to
halt the recount, he delayed things by dashing off an
angry rejoinder, largely reiterating what he'd told
the justices the previous night. "Count first, and
rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for
producing election results that have the public
acceptance democratic stability requires," he argued,
forecasting that a majority of the Court would
ultimately rule in Bush's favor on the merits.
Even some of the justices voting with Scalia
squirmed at how publicly he'd acknowledged the
divisions within the Court. To the liberal clerks,
what he had written was at least refreshing in its
candor. "The Court had worked hard to claim a moral
high ground, but at that moment he pissed it away,"
one recalls. "And there was a certain amount of glee.
He'd made our case for us to the public about how
crassly partisan the whole thing was." Scalia's
opinion held up release of the order for an hour.
Finally, shortly before three o'clock, the Court
granted the stay. No more votes would be counted. Oral
arguments were set for the following Monday, December
11.
Gore and his team were crushed, but neither he nor
his lawyers had given up. Even at this late date, Gore
naïvely defended the good faith of the justices.
"Please be sure that no one trashes the Court," he
instructed his minions. His lawyers still hoped that
Kennedy or O'Connor or both could be won over; perhaps
they could be peeled away from the conservative bloc
as they had been several years earlier to preserve Roe
v. Wade. At a meeting that Saturday, Gore decreed that
David Boies, and not Tribe, would argue the case on
Monday, partly for fear that the more publicly liberal
Tribe might antagonize those two swing justices,
partly because Boies, the famed New York litigator who
was the government's chief lawyer during the Microsoft
anti-trust case, had been representing Gore in Florida
and was, therefore, better able to assure O'Connor of
the fundamental fairness of what was happening there.
But to the liberal clerks it was all over. They
placed their dwindling hopes not on anything that
would happen in the Court on Monday, but on the press.
The brother of a Ginsburg clerk, who covered legal
affairs for The Wall Street Journal, had learned that
the paper would soon report how, at a party on
Election Night, O'Connor was overheard expressing her
dismay over Gore's apparent victory. Once that
information became public, the liberal clerks felt,
O'Connor would have to step aside. When, on the night
before the Court convened, she sent out a sealed memo
to each of her colleagues, those clerks hoped this had
actually come to pass. In fact, she was merely stating
that she, too, felt the Florida Supreme Court had
improperly usurped the state legislature's power.
Gore's lawyers, who also knew about O'Connor's
election-night outburst, toyed briefly with asking her
to step aside. But they demurred, hoping instead that
she would now lean toward them to prove her fairness.
Things were that bleak.
When Gore's lawyers came to the Supreme Court for
oral arguments on the morning of December 11, they
felt that the Bush team's jurisdictional argument,
that the Florida Supreme Court had overstepped its
bounds, was a loser because it emasculated one
appellate court more than any other appellate court
would ever want to condone. And, though they didn't
know it, Justice Kennedy agreed with them. In a memo
circulated shortly before he took the bench, he
endorsed what O'Connor had written the night before,
but declared that it would not be enough: to carry the
day, he argued, the conservative justices needed to
assert that evaluating ballots under different
standards in the various counties violated the
equal-protection clause.
Up to now, this argument had received scant
attention from the clerks, the litigants, or even the
justices - and understandably so. Even in the best of
circumstances, voting procedures were riddled with
inconsistencies, beginning with the use of systems of
wildly varying reliability, such as punch cards and
optiscan machines, in different jurisdictions. Voters,
often poor or black, in counties with older machines
were far less likely to have their votes counted than
those in wealthier jurisdictions, and nobody ever
heard a peep from the Supreme Court about
unconstitutionality. Moreover, the Rehnquist Court had
always stingily construed the equal-protection clause
of the 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War to
protect freed slaves, applying it only when
discrimination was systematic, blatant, intentional,
incontrovertible. It was not surprising, then, that
the Court had originally declined to hear arguments on
the point, or that, when they returned to the Court,
Bush's lawyers had given those arguments only 5 pages
in a 50-page brief.
But here was Kennedy dusting it off. And not as
some academic exercise, but as the very basis of the
Court's decision. "We read the memo and thought, Oh,
we've lost Kennedy," one liberal clerk recalls. In the
star-studded audience awaiting the arguments that
morning, someone spotted Al Gore's daughter Karenna -
praying, he thought. It wouldn't help. The Court
already had its majority. Now it had its rationale.
As the lawyers prepared to argue, the clerks
pondered Kennedy's motives. Perhaps, they speculated,
he found an appeal to fairness, even when it was inapt
or unpersuasive, more winning than a hypertechnical
argument about jurisdiction; perhaps it offered him a
chance to sound moderate and wax eloquent. The oral
arguments began, with a question to Theodore Olson
from . . . Justice Kennedy. "Where is the federal
question here?" he asked, sounding almost baffled, as
if still genuinely wondering why the Court was hearing
the case at all. In the corner of the courtroom where
the liberal clerks sat, there were snickers, rolled
eyeballs, nudges in the ribs. "What a joke," one said
to another. Kennedy went on to denigrate the argument
about the Florida court's jurisdiction, then cued
Olson to what really mattered. "I thought your point
was that the process is being conducted in violation
of the equal-protection clause, and it is
standardless," he told Olson. Olson, a keen student of
the Court and canny reader of its moods, naturally
agreed.
O'Connor railed against what she suggested was the
stupidity of Florida's voters, who were too dumb or
too clumsy to puncture their ballots properly. "Well,
why isn't the standard the one that voters are
instructed to follow, for goodness' sake?" she asked.
"I mean, it couldn't be clearer." Boies tried to
explain that for more than 80 years Florida's courts
had in fact focused on the intent of the voter rather
than the condition of his ballot, but this was one
instance for the Rehnquist Court in which deference to
the states, and precedent, didn't matter.
Breyer and Souter saw Kennedy's new focus on equal
protection as an opportunity, suggesting during oral
argument that if there were problems with the fairness
of the recount the solution was simple: send the case
back once more to the Florida Supreme Court and ask it
to set a uniform standard. Breyer, whose chambers were
next door to Kennedy's, went to work on him
personally. An affable and engaging man, Breyer has
long been the moderates' most effective emissary to
the Court's right wing. But the politicking went both
ways; at one point, Kennedy stopped by Breyer's
chambers and said he hoped Breyer would join his
opinion. "We just kind of looked at him like he was
crazy - ‘We don't know what you're smoking, but leave
us alone' - and he went away," a clerk recalls.
The encounters between the two men must have been
extraordinary: with the presidency of the United
States hanging in the balance, two ambitious jurists -
each surely fancying himself a future chief justice -
working on each other. And for a brief moment Breyer
appeared to have succeeded. At the conference
following the oral argument, Kennedy joined the
dissenters and, at least temporarily, turned them into
the majority. The case would be sent back to the
Florida court for fixing; the recount would continue.
But the liberal clerks never believed that Kennedy had
really switched, and predicted that, having created
the desired image of agonizing, he would quickly
switch back. "He probably wanted to think of himself
as having wavered," one clerk speculates. And, sure
enough, within a half-hour or so, he did switch back.
Who or what sent him back isn't clear, but during
that time, Kennedy conferred both with Scalia and with
his own clerks. "We assumed that his clerks were
coordinating with Scalia's clerks and trying to push
him to stay with the majority," one liberal clerk
says. "I think his clerks were horrified, and the idea
that he would even blink for a moment here scared
them," says another. "They knew the presidency would
be decided in their chambers," a third clerk - working
for one of the majority justices - recalls. "They
would have fought tooth and nail - they would have put
chains across the door - to keep him from changing his
vote." Another clerk for another conservative justice
puts it a bit differently. "Kennedy would not have
voted the other way," this clerk says, "but had he
been tempted, the clerks could have dissuaded him."
Breyer lamented that he had Kennedy convinced, only to
have his clerks work him over and pull him back in the
other direction.
Given the approaching deadline, Rehnquist decreed
after oral arguments that any decision to send the
case back to Florida had to be handed down
immediately; were the Court to reverse, time would
cease to matter, and the decision could wait a day.
Stevens banged out a one-paragraph opinion, remanding
the case to Florida, and sent it around. "It seemed
like a Hail Mary to me," recalls a clerk in one of the
conservative chambers. There were no takers. The Court
was going to reverse, and throughout Monday evening
and into Tuesday morning the two sides drafted and
circulated their proposed opinions. Rehnquist was
writing what he thought would be the majority opinion,
reversing the Florida court on both the jurisdictional
and equal-protection grounds. Stevens was drafting the
principal dissent; it would reiterate what he'd
written in the unused dissent from the first round,
but shorn of all legalese, in order to be easily
understood by ordinary people. It chastised the Court
for holding the justices of the Florida Supreme Court
up to ridicule. "Although we may never know with
complete certainty the identity of the winner of this
year's Presidential election, the identity of the
loser is perfectly clear," it stated. "It is the
Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial
guardian of the rule of law."
The other dissenters would join Stevens, but had
their own points to make. Because they, too, believed
the case would hinge primarily on the autonomy of the
Florida legislature, they dealt only secondarily, and
peripherally, with the equal-protection argument.
Stevens and Ginsburg denied that it applied at all.
For better or worse, Ginsburg wrote, disparities were
a part of all elections; if there were any
equal-protection concerns at all, she wrote, they
surely applied more to black voters, noting a New York
Times report that a disproportionate number of blacks
had encountered problems voting. Though racial
questions already hung over the Florida vote, hers was
to be the only reference to race in any of the
opinions, and it was relegated to a footnote. But to
the liberal clerks, these issues needed to be
acknowledged, and a footnote was better than nothing
at all.
Neither Breyer nor Souter had suggested initially
that the recount had triggered any equal-protection
questions. But each of their draft opinions voiced
such concerns; whether they'd come to believe that
judging ballots under different criteria was really
unconstitutional, or were still chasing after Kennedy,
was never clear. Ultimately, Breyer conceded that the
lack of a uniform standard "implicate[d] principles of
fundamental fairness," while Souter wrote something a
bit stronger - that they raised "a meritorious
argument for relief." But for both the remedy was
clear: send the case back to Florida. It was not to
stop the recount altogether.
Late Tuesday morning, it became apparent that
Kennedy and O'Connor would not join Rehnquist's
opinion on jurisdiction, and would decide the case
strictly on equal-protection grounds. Nowhere did
O'Connor explain why she had abandoned what she had
written on the jurisdictional matter in her memo the
night before. To clerks on both sides of the case,
what appealed both to her and to Kennedy about
invoking equal protection was that it looked fair. "It
was kind of a ‘Keep it simple, stupid' kind of thing,"
one liberal clerk theorizes. Or, as a conservative
clerk puts it, "they thought it looked better to
invoke these grand principles rather than Article II,
perhaps because it makes them look better in the press
and makes them look like heroes." Their opinion,
written by Kennedy, was joined by the other three
conservative justices. And it would go largely
uncontradicted: with time running out and the dissents
nearly complete, the losers had no chance to explain,
in any coherent way, why equal-protection concerns
should not be allowed to stop the recount.
As the drafts began circulating, tempers began to
fray. In an unusual sealed memo - an unsuccessful
attempt to avoid the clerks' prying eyes - Scalia
complained about the tone of some of the dissents. He
was, he confessed, the last person to criticize
hard-hitting language, but never had he, as the
dissenters were now doing, urged the majority to
change its decision based on its impact on the Supreme
Court's credibility. He charged that his opponents in
the case were inflicting the very wounds to the Court
that they had supposedly decried. As Jeffrey Toobin
first reported, he objected in particular to what he
called the "Al Sharpton footnote" in Ginsburg's
dissent: her comment on Florida's disenfranchised
black voters. Whether out of timidity, collegiality,
or affection - Scalia was her closest friend on the
Court - Ginsburg promptly took it out. "It was the
most classic example of what kind of bully Scalia is,"
says one clerk, who called Scalia's complaint "an
attempt to stifle legitimate discourse worthy of Joe
McCarthy." As for Ginsburg, this clerk says her
response "showed a lack of courage."
Kennedy, too, sent around a memo, accusing the
dissenters of "trashing the Court." Eager to suggest
to the outside world that the Court was less divided
than it appeared, he charged that the dissenters
agreed with the equal-protection argument more than
they were willing to admit. Shortly before his opinion
went to the printers, he inserted a new line making
substantially the same point. "Eight Justices of the
Court agree that there are constitutional problems
with the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court
that demand a remedy," he wrote. Souter and Breyer had
said so explicitly, he reasoned, while Stevens had
done so implicitly by signing on to Breyer's opinion.
Stevens's clerks, who stumbled over the new
phrase, reacted apoplectically. Shouting over the
telephone, they told Kennedy's clerks that they had
deliberately misrepresented Stevens's position and
demanded that they change the language. When the
Kennedy clerks refused, Stevens promptly uncoupled
himself from that portion of Breyer's opinion, and
Kennedy no longer had a choice: "eight Justices"
became "seven." Later, as they handed in their
respective decisions, Eduardo Penalver, the Stevens
clerk, ran into a Kennedy clerk named Grant Dixton and
told him that what the Kennedy chambers had done was
disgusting and unprofessional.
In the Breyer chambers, too, there was unhappiness
over Kennedy's addendum. But it was too late to take
issue with it. Thus, Kennedy's point stood
uncontradicted and would be picked up in the next
day's press, including The New York Times, which
printed a graphic illustrating how the justices had
voted. On the equal-protection claim, it had seven
voting for, and only two against. Breyer, a member of
the Gore team later lamented, had been "naïve"; in his
efforts to win over Kennedy, he'd "been taken to the
cleaners."
Despite their loyalty to their justices - a
striking, filial-like phenomenon among most clerks -
several concede that the dissenters in Bush v. Gore
were simply outmaneuvered. Never did the four of them
have the votes to prevail. But first by endorsing a
decision suggesting that the Florida Supreme Court had
overstepped its bounds, then by appearing to buttress
the majority's equal-protection claims, the dissenters
had aided and abetted the enemy. "They gave just
enough cover to the five justices and their defenders
in the press and academia so that it was impossible to
rile up the American people about these five
conservative ideologues stealing the election," one
clerk complains. The tone and multiplicity of the
dissents didn't help. While Stevens's rhetoric was
impassioned, even enraged, the other dissents were
pallid.
The Court's opinions were issued at roughly 10
o'clock that night. The only one that mattered, the
short majority opinion, was unsigned, but it bore
Kennedy's distinctive stamp. There was the usual
ringing rhetoric, like the "equal dignity owed to each
voter," even though, as a practical matter, the ruling
meant that the ballots of 60,000 of them would not
even be examined. The varying standards of the
recount, Kennedy wrote, did not satisfy even the
rudimentary requirements of equal protection. Although
six more days would pass before the electors met in
their states, he insisted there was too little time
for the Florida courts to fix things.
There were two more extraordinary passages: first,
that the ruling applied to Bush and Bush alone, lest
anyone think the Court was expanding the reach of the
equal-protection clause; and, second, that the Court
had taken the case only very reluctantly and out of
necessity. "That infuriated us," one liberal clerk
recalls. "It was typical Kennedy bullshit,
aggrandizing the power of the Court while ostensibly
wringing his hands about it."
Rehnquist, along with Scalia and Thomas, joined in
the decision, but Scalia, for one, was unimpressed.
Whether or not one agrees with him, Scalia is a
rigorous thinker; while the claim that the Florida
Supreme Court overstepped its bounds had some
superficial heft to it, the opinion on
equal-protection was mediocre and flaccid. "Like we
used to say in Brooklyn," he is said to have told a
colleague, "it's a piece of shit." (Scalia denies
disparaging the majority opinion; the other justices
would not comment for this article.)
Sharing little but a common sense of exhaustion
and Thai takeout, the clerks came together briefly to
watch the news. As reporters fumbled with the opinions
- the final line of Kennedy's opinion, sending the
case back to Florida even though there was really
nothing more the Florida court could do, confused many
of them - the clerks shouted imprecations at the
screen. The liberal ones slumped in their chairs; some
left the room, overcome by their own irrelevance. "We
had a desire to get out already and see if journalists
and politicians could stop what we couldn't stop,"
says one. They contemplated a variety of options -
holding a press conference, perhaps, or leaking
incriminating documents. There was just one problem:
there were none. "If there'd been a memo saying, ‘I
know this is total garbage but I want Bush to be
president,' I think it would have found its way into
the public domain," one clerk recalls.
Gore's lawyers read him the ruling. At last he
concluded that the Court had never really given him a
shot, and he congratulated his legal team for making
it so hard for the Court to justify its decision.
Kevin Martin, the Scalia clerk who'd tangled earlier
with Stevens's clerks, informed his colleagues by
e-mail that Gore was about to concede. To some, it
seemed like gloating; Eduardo Penalver asked him to
stop. "Life sucks," Martin replied. "Life may suck
now," Penalver responded, "but life is long."
There were reports that for some time afterward
Souter was depressed over the decision. According to
David Kaplan of Newsweek, Breyer told a group of
Russian judges that the decision was "the most
outrageous, indefensible thing" the Court had ever
done, while Souter complained to some prep-school
students that had he had "one more day - one more
day," he could have won over Kennedy. But such
comments were quickly disavowed, were out of character
for each man, and appeared inconsistent with the
facts. The clerks, for instance, believed Souter had
spent most of the last few crucial days in his
chambers brooding over the case rather than working
any back channels.
Fearful, perhaps, of the appearance of a quid pro
quo, neither of the two justices most frequently
rumored to be leaving, Rehnquist and O'Connor, has in
fact left during Bush's presidency - perhaps, some
theorize, because of how it would look to let the man
they anointed select their replacements. "The justices
who ruled for President Bush gave themselves, in
effect, a four-year sentence," said Ron Klain.
O'Connor confessed surprise at the anger that
greeted the decision, but that seemed to reflect
naïveté more than any sober second thoughts. On her
71st birthday, in March 2001, she was sitting in the
Kennedy Center when Arthur Miller, the playwright,
denounced what the Court had done. Around Washington,
a few people stopped shaking her hand, and Justice
Scalia's too; the consensus has since grown that
because of Bush v. Gore, he can never be named chief
justice.
The experience left scars on those who lived
through it. "I went through a lawyer's existential
crisis," one of the clerks recalls. "People afterwards
said, ‘It must have been very exciting,'" says
another. "It was not that exciting. What I felt was
beyond anger. It was really a profound sense of loss."
But a conservative clerk insists that when the records
are opened and the histories written, the architects
of Bush v. Gore will be vindicated. "When everybody's
dead and they read it all, it won't be embarrassing,"
he pre

Posted by richard at 09:05 AM

December 16, 2004

LNS Post Coup II Supplement (12/16/04)

Here is the truth of the struggle for the life of America…You won’t hear it from Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings or Chris Matthews or Tim Russert or George Stop&Laugh@Us or Andrea Mitchell...Do you remember Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young? “Four dead in Ohio. Four dead in Ohio. How many more? How many more?” That song, honoring the four Kent State college students shot dead by the Ohio National Guard during a protest against the war on Vietnam, was an anthem for a generation. What is happening in Ohio now is no less tragic and of no less importance. Indeed, what is happening in Ohio now is more tragic and of greater importance. But where is the “US mainstream news media”? They have deep-sixed the story of what is happening in Ohio and in the Conyers hearings and instead they carry the filthy water of their triad partners, the Bush Cabal and its wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party…The ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, and one of the most senior members of the Congress, has called for an FBI investigation. Two eye-witnesses have come forward – one to testify to possible illegality in Fraudida, one to testify to possible illegality in Ohio…A Republican Congressman from Fraudida has been accused -- in front of fellow members of the House Judiciary and in sworn testimony in a public hearing -- of requesting the development of software to rig election results…And yet somehow Bernard Kerik scandal (Rove's ploy of using bad news to bury worse news) and the Scott Peterson trial are deemed bigger stories…Where is John Kerry? Where is the Democratic Party leadership? We are relieved that Kerry’s lawyers have finally weighed in – and in a serious way – to the lawsuits to safeguard the Ohio re-count, but Kerry, or one of his surrogates, should be handing out coffee to the brave citizens who are battling this criminal conspiracy to steal a second consecutive illegitimate term in office for the _resident and the VICE _resident…Are we alone? It appears so…America is dying of vote fraud and vote suppression in Ohio, America has been torn to pieces in the chill precincts of Ohio. Meanwhile, most Americans are living in denial. And why not? They would have to jump-start their own conscience in a vacuum. The “US mainstream news media” is wholly complicit. The Democratic Party has seemingly capitulated…“Four dead in Ohio. Four dead in Ohio. How many more? How many more?”

The Theft of the 2004 Election

Bob Fertik, www.democrats.com: Keith Olbermann has the scoop of the day, thanks to an excellent interview with Rep. John Conyers. Conyers "prepared" to contest Ohio Electoral Vote. The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee told us tonight on Countdown that he and others in Congress are considering formally challenging the slate of electors who cast Ohio’s votes, when those votes are opened and counted before a joint session of Congress on January 6th.
“We’re prepared to do that,” Conyers said. “And we understand the law as well as you.”

Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman, Columbus Free Press: Monday, December 13, saw a triple play that will live in electoral infamy. But every new day brings still more stunning revelations -- this time from Toledo -- of vote theft and fraud and a towering wall of resistance and sabotage against a fair recount of the votes that allegedly gave George W. Bush four more years in the White House.
Three major events made December 13 a monument to electoral theft: a lawsuit filed in the morning at the Ohio State Supreme Court demanding a recount of all Ohio ballots; a Congressional hearing held in Columbus City Council chambers filled with angry, high-profile testimony of vote fraud and disenfranchisement and the illegal sabotaging of a recount; and then, at noon, a block away at the statehouse, the vote of Ohio's twenty illegitimate electors designating their choice of George W. Bush to be president.

www.democraticunderground.com: At 4 pm today, after failing to get a match of hand counted ballots with punch card tabulator (ESS), two hand counts and two times through machine, after stating they were awaiting a call back from that company to have a new machine delivered, less than 30 seconds later convened a board meeting, voted to suspend recount, to await a new machine from ESS, and recount will be re-done Saturday, same exact precincts, the building is now closed, you are to exit the facility. BOE blaming issues on "machine failure" in order to avoid the now required entire county hand count. Precints were not random, they were selected by BOE, one from the Dem and one from the Repup.

William Rivers Pitt, www.truthout.org: Among activists and investigators looking into allegations of vote fraud in the 2004 Presidential election, the company always mentioned was Diebold and its suspicious electronic touch-screen voting machines. It is Diebold that has multiple avowed Republicans on its Board of Directors. It was Diebold that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bush’s election campaign. It was Diebold CEO Walden O’Dell who vowed to deliver Ohio’s electoral votes to Bush.
As it turns out, everyone was looking the wrong way. The company that requires immediate and penetrating scrutiny is Triad Systems.
Triad is owned by a man named Tod Rapp, who has also donated money to both the Republican Party and the election campaign of George W. Bush. Triad manufactures punch-card voting systems, and also wrote the computer program that tallied the punch-card votes cast in 41 Ohio counties last November…
AFFIDAVIT
December 13, 2004
Sherole Eaton
Re: General Election 2004 - Hocking County, TriAd
Dell Computer about 14 years old - No tower
On Friday, December 10 2004, Michael from TriAd called in the AM to inform us that he would be in our office in the PM on the same day. I asked him why he was visiting us. He said, "to check out your tabulator, computer, and that the attorneys will be asking some tricky questions and he wanted to go over some of the questions they maybe ask." He also added that there would be no charge for this service…
Conyers, upon hearing these allegations, sent a letter to both the FBI Special Agent in Charge in Ohio and the Hocking County Prosecutor. The text of that letter is as follows:
December 15, 2004
As part of the Democratic staff's investigation into irregularities in the 2004 election and following up on a lead provided to me by Green Party Presidential Candidate, David Cobb, I have learned that Sherole Eaton, a Deputy Director of Board of Elections in Hocking County, Ohio, has first hand knowledge of inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering in the Ohio presidential election in violation of federal and state law.

Bob Fertik, www.democrats.com: BUSTED! Conyers calls the FBI to investigate Triad - which finally gets the attention of the NY Times, although they only manage to get about one-third of the story…
The ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, plans to ask the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a county prosecutor in Ohio today to explore "inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering" in at least one and perhaps several Ohio counties.
The request for an investigation, made in a letter that was also provided to The New York Times, includes accounts from at least two county employees, but is based largely on a sworn affidavit provided by the Hocking County deputy director of elections, Sherole Eaton….

Gary Polvinale, www.dailykos.com: Yesterday in 30 degree temperature with winds that knocked me over while I was filming the Ohio Statehouse Rally, Ohioans and people from all over America who came to Ohio to help us, listened to Joan and Eve tell how they were denied access to those public records in Greene County Ohio.
Yes, those of us in Ohio ARE on the front lines - and it feels like we are defending the Alamo. We are doing our part. A handful of determined people are working themselves to exhaustion. Yes, we ARE out there in the streets. And we ARE at the statehouse. And we ARE at the hearings. And we ARE filing the lawsuits. And we ARE out there doing the recount. And we ARE out there knocking on doors to investigate, verify and gather the facts.People all over the country who are web-tracking what's happening want to help, who feel helpless, frustrated, and sorry for us in Ohio, are offering good wishes and words of encouragement...
And believe me, we appreciate the encouragement. We do, and thank you for that. But we here in Ohio need more than a "You can do it" pat on the back. We ARE doing it. But nobody knows. Ohio is screaming the truth at the top of its lungs, literally, and no one hears us because of all the noise of the media silence.If you want to do something, here's what you can do to help.I am asking the rest of the country to please get out there and find well-known people who's voices are loud enought to be heard by the press who will stand up for us. Get a Senator or a media personality or anyone of very high profile to come out about this. The media blackout is killing us. Very few members of Congress, and no one in the Democratic Party has even seriously acknowledged the recount…
This is still looked at as the "sour grapes" effort of a couple of disgruntled 3rd party candidates who can't win anyway. It couldn't be further from that. The civil rights of every man, woman and child in America are at stake here.I don't care what it takes, convince somebody to break our story, to back us and give us the credibility we need and to let the world know we're here doing this. Redford, Sting, Kennedy, Fonda, Kerry... I don't care who, somebody, anybody who can attract the attention of the media (evidently John Conyers' and Jesse Jackson's brave voices are not loud enough.)
We've kinda got our hands full here, or we'd be doing that ourselves too. Give us a voice and we will deliver Ohio. Otherwise SOS Blackwell and the BOE will continue to slap us around like we don't matter a lick, at every turn. We are being squelched by a state government that is willing to violate our rights and even break the law as often as necessary to stand in our way and prevent us from exposing what they've done.I watched 100 of the greatest people I've ever met freeze their butts off for three hours Sunday, and 1500 the week before. And today people are out there at the Conyers hearing at the Columbus Statehouse again freezing, supporting the hearing, the investigation and the recount. And the Ohio recount has begun this morning.

Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman, Columbus Free Press: Startling new revelations about Ohio's presidential vote have been uncovered as Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee join Rev. Jesse Jackson in Columbus, the state capital, on Monday, Dec. 13, to hold a rare field hearing into election malfeasance and manipulation in the 2004 vote. The Congressional delegation will include Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, and others.
Taken together, the revelations show Republicans – in state and county government, and in the Ohio Republican Party – were determined to undermine and suppress Democratic turnout by a wide variety of methods.
The revelations were included in affidavits gathered for an election challenge lawsuit filed Monday at the Ohio Supreme Court. Ohio's Republican Electoral College representatives are also to meet at noon, Monday, at the State House, even though the presidential recount, requested by the Green and Libertarian Parties, is only beginning the same day.
On Sunday, John Kerry spoke with Rev. Jesse Jackson and urged him to take an more active role in investigating the irregularities and ensuring a fair and impartial recount. Kerry said there were three areas of inquiry that should be addressed: 92,000 ballots that recorded no vote for president; qualifying and counting provisional ballots; and supported an independent analysis of the software and set-up of the optical scan voting machines.

Buzzflash News Analysis, www.buzzflash.com: In case you missed it, an exhaustive 23,422-word Vanity Fair article, published just prior to the election (October), spilled the beans that at least four of the five Supreme Court justices who stole the election from Al Gore did it with willing forethought. And the fifth, Justice Kennedy, who came up with the hypocritical, convoluted reason for awarding the election to Bush, was probably just pretending to be "open-minded."
In short, the story, the first one to reveal the inside machinations of the infamous decision of 2000, confirmed that this wasn't a judicial decision that decided the election 4 years ago; it was a premeditated theft of democracy from the American voters.
The partisan choice of five justices -- led by the judicial right-wing molotov-cocktail throwing Nino Scalia -- outweighed the selection of the American people.
Why is this important now? Because it confirms that the Bush Cartel will do and did everything to win -- and it doesn't take a leap of imagination or common sense to speculate that with four years in office, they were able to heist the election this time without a nod and a wink to Nino and his right wing ship of judicially radical pirates.
What we forget in our focus on Ohio is that the Republicans, through dirty tricks, voter suppression and intimidation, faulty felons' lists, and the deep-sixing of tens of thousands of Kerry votes -- among other anti-democracy tactics -- probably had the election heisted before the polls even opened. They privatized the counting of votes of Americans and turned it over to companies deeply ensconced in the Republican camp and Republican politics, with checkered histories and Republican ownership. They intentionally mis-registered college students, threw away the registration forms of perhaps tens of thousands of Democrats, and lost more than 55,000 absentee ballots in Jewish/Democratic leaning Broward County, FL, alone. And this list is just for starters.
The Bush rogue regime was born a bastard child by a fixed Supreme Court vote and now controls the process by which any investigation of voting irregularities would be pursued. Indeed, Ken Blackwell, one of the two key Rove 2004 Katherine Harrises (along with Florida Secretary of State Hood), wrote Congressman John Conyers just this week that only the Department of Justice or the GAO had the authority to investigate voting in Ohio. So, two agencies under the Republicans, who Blackwell has just declared the winner of the Presidency, are the only ones Blackwell would allow to investigate their victory. It's a tactic worthy of Stalin -- and the Bush Cartel is one terrorist attack short of achieving full dictatorship powers, while the nation sleeps.

The Bush Abominations #1 Failure: National Security

Deutsche Welle: The Pentagon expressed concern Monday over a criminal complaint filed in Germany against US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, warning that "frivolous lawsuits" could affect the broader US-German relationship.
The complaint was filed in Berlin on Nov. 30 by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Berlin's Republican Lawyers' Association on behalf of four Iraqis who were alleged to have been mistreated by US soldiers.
Besides Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steven Cambone, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, Brigadier General Janis
Karpinski and five other military officers who served in Iraq were named in the complaint, which seeks an investigation into their role in the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib…
The groups that filed the complaint said they had chosen Germany because of its Code of Crimes Against International Law, introduced in 2002, which grants German courts universal jurisdiction in cases involving war crimes or crimes against humanity…

John P. O’Neill Wall of Heroes

Larry Fine, Reuters: A portrait of President George W. Bush using monkeys to form his image has led to the closure of a New York art exhibition over the weekend and anguished protests over freedom of expression.
"Bush Monkeys," a small acrylic on canvas by Chris Savido, created the stir at the Chelsea Market public space, leading the market's managers to close down the 60-piece show that was scheduled to stay up for the next month.
The show featured art from the upcoming issue of Animal Magazine, a quarterly publication featuring emerging artists.
"We had tons of people, like more than 2,000 people show up for the opening on Thursday night," said show organizer Bucky Turco. "Then this manager saw the piece and the guy just kind of flipped out. 'The show is over. Get this work down or I'm gonna arrest you,' he said. It's been kind of wild."

Restore the Sanctity of the Vote! Restore the Vital Role of the Free Press! Restore Democracy in America! Restore the Republic!

Stolen Election 2004: Thursday Update
by Bob Fertik on 12/15/2004 10:07pm. - revised 12/16/2004 10:40am
Keith Olbermann has the scoop of the day, thanks to an excellent interview with Rep. John Conyers.
Conyers "prepared" to contest Ohio Electoral Vote
The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee told us tonight on Countdown that he and others in Congress are considering formally challenging the slate of electors who cast Ohio’s votes, when those votes are opened and counted before a joint session of Congress on January 6th.
“We’re prepared to do that,” Conyers said. “And we understand the law as well as you.”
However, Olbermann's scoop was not rock-solid:
After the on-air interview ended, the Michigan representative added that he and his colleagues had not yet decided whether or not to take the extraordinary constitutional step, and he had not sought the support of a Senator who would have to co-sign the challenge.
Hey Keith, there are lots of Democratic activists who are seeking the support of a Senator. For example, here's an excellent report from the Vermont Guardian describing how members of Vermonters for Voting Integrity are lobbying Senators Jim Jeffords (I) and Pat Leahy (D). And there's a well-organized California-wide effort by Contest the Vote to persuade Barbara Boxer (D).
Conyers also rebuffed criticism that his “voting forums” in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio, had included formal participation only by Democratic congressmen and politicians. “The fact that Republicans didn’t join us isn’t our problem, it’s their fault.” Republican Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio last week announced plans to conduct an investigation into the 2004 vote under his auspices as Chairman of the House Administration Committee.
Notice the absence of any date associated with Ney's investigation. There is nothing on Ney's web site, but the AP says the investigation will begin "next year" - long after Bush takes the oath for a second stolen term. (Many of us remember similar promises from Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2001 about investigating the hundreds of serious complaints about Florida, which led to one insignificant reprimand about the lack of translators in immigrant-heavy precincts, but no prosecution of Katherine Harris or Jeb Bush or anyone else for systematically and criminally disenfranchising tens of thousands of non-felons, a majority of whom were black and likely to vote Democratic, thus stealing the White House for W.)
Speaking of blacks, it dawned on me that the reason the Ohio recount story is being covered almost exclusively by a former sports reporter - Olbermann - is because professional sports coverage on cable TV is the only place in journalism where blacks are treated equally with whites. The Ohio recount story largely features black leaders - namely Ken Blackwell, John Conyers, and Jesse Jackson. (It also features black voters who were once again disenfranchised through extraordinarily long lines and provisional ballot rejections, but we haven't heard much from them. Memo to Olbermann: the lead plaintiffs in Moss v. Bush (petition and injunction) are Rev. Bill Moss and Ruth Carol Moss, distinguished community leaders who told their Election Day story at the Conyers forum in Washington on Dec. 8.) Kudos for Olbermann for being the only political journalist who treats blacks like full American citizens.
Speaking of crimes, Fairfield County (an exurb of Columbus) broke the law when it suspended its recount after the manual count in the sample precincts did not match the original count. As mtnester of DemocraticUnderground reports,
At 4 pm today, after failing to get a match of hand counted ballots with punch card tabulator (ESS), two hand counts and two times through machine, after stating they were awaiting a call back from that company to have a new machine delivered, less than 30 seconds later convened a board meeting, voted to suspend recount, to await a new machine from ESS, and recount will be re-done Saturday, same exact precincts, the building is now closed, you are to exit the facility. BOE blaming issues on "machine failure" in order to avoid the now required entire county hand count. Precints were not random, they were selected by BOE, one from the Dem and one from the Repup.
This after their call to SOS Kathy Blackwell.
Greens will be going for a TRO. They are fully aware of entire circumstances of this report.
BOE's trying to get around mandatory handcounts of entire counties by calling it machine failure rather than follow clear statute. This will be breaking I am sure before long.
First hand witness to events above....myself
We must be getting warm, because the rightwing media has launched a fierce counterattack. On Tuesday, Cliff Arnebeck was attacked by Sean Hannity. On Wednesday, Joe Scarborough attacked the recount. The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote a long editorial attacking conspiracy theorists.
MoveOn.Now
The zealots who refuse to accept Ohio's vote count risk undermining confidence in the system itself
Unfortunately, there is a small, but very vocal, group of Americans who refuse to accept this reality [that Bush won]. They argue that what appear to be routine technical glitches and human errors were in fact an elaborate conspiracy to skew the election results. They claim that long lines at a few polling places, the rather unsurprising result of high voter interest, were evidence of a systematic campaign to discourage participation. In short, having failed to get the outcome they wanted at the polls, they have decided to mount an irresponsible campaign aimed at undermining public confidence in the electoral system itself.
That's just libel. Our whole goal is to restore public confidence in an electoral system that cannot be trusted because the people who are in charge of it, like Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell - and the companies that sell and maintain the voting machines, like Diebold and Triad - are partisan Republicans whose only interest is electing Republicans, not running honest elections.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121704Z.shtml
Democracy Hangs by a Thread in Ohio
By Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman
The Columbus Free Press
December 15, 2004
As the whole world watches, American democracy may be hanging by a thread in Ohio.
Monday, December 13, saw a triple play that will live in electoral infamy. But every new day brings still more stunning revelations -- this time from Toledo -- of vote theft and fraud and a towering wall of resistance and sabotage against a fair recount of the votes that allegedly gave George W. Bush four more years in the White House.
Three major events made December 13 a monument to electoral theft: a lawsuit filed in the morning at the Ohio State Supreme Court demanding a recount of all Ohio ballots; a Congressional hearing held in Columbus City Council chambers filled with angry, high-profile testimony of vote fraud and disenfranchisement and the illegal sabotaging of a recount; and then, at noon, a block away at the statehouse, the vote of Ohio's twenty illegitimate electors designating their choice of George W. Bush to be president.
On Tuesday, demonstrators staged the latest in a long string of protests at the statehouse. And at an evening hearing in Toledo, stunning new sworn testimony revealed that Diebold technicians have tainted official voting machines before a recount could be done, irrevocably compromising the process.
The December 13 lawsuit was filed in the presence of Rev. Jesse Jackson, who compared it to the attempts to win voting rights for African-American citizens in the era of Dr. Martin Luther King.
The suit seeks to overturn Ohio's presidential vote. It asked an immediate court order to stop Republican presidential electors from meeting and voting for George W. Bush.
Republican election officials prevented a vote count from starting until that very morning. Supervised by Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, co-chair of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, Ohio simply ignored all challenges to the vote count and all requests for a recount. Within hours the Bush electors cast their votes, even though the bitterly contested ballots that allegedly gave them standing as electors had not been recounted.
In other words, while every legal remedy to determine who won Ohio's presidential election was being pursued, the state's Republican political machine blocked the rights of those seeking to verify the vote.
"Today, in the state capital of Ohio, we are witnessing a crime against democracy, a crime against the right to vote and a crime against the Constitution," said John Bonifaz, founder of the National Voting Rights Institute and attorney for the Green and Libertarian Parties in the recount. Ohio Republicans have " no right to convene a meeting of the presidential electors prior to the completion of the recount," he said.
Bonifaz's remarks came amidst testimony at the second field hearing on the 2004 election held by Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee. Last week in Washington, the committee opened what it said would be the first in an ongoing series of investigations into what happened on Election Day, when exit polls showed John Kerry heading toward victory but after midnight the returns shifted and network television declared Bush the victor.
"At the outset of this hearing, I would like to announce that 10 members of Congress, including myself, have written to (Ohio) Gov. Taft asking him to either delay or treat as provisional the vote of Ohio's presidential electors," Rep. John Conyers, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee said at the outset. "The closer we get to Columbus and the Ohio presidential election, the worse it looks. Each and every day it becomes increasingly clear that the Republican power structure in this state is acting as if it has something to hide."
Ironically, Democratic State Senator Ray Miller of Columbus had secured the North Hearing Room in the statehouse. But Republicans cancelled that, and forced the gathering to convene at city hall, a block away.
Thus Ohio Republicans snubbed Conyers and Reps. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH), Ted Strickland (D-OH), Jerold Nadler (D-NY), Maxine Waters (D-CA) as well as Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr (D-IL).
Packed to overflowing, the nearly four hour hearing hosted new disclosures about election irregularities and fraud on Nov. 2, while also pursuing remedies to account for the vote and delay the Electoral College certification of the president.
Prime target in the hearings was GOP Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who supervised the state's elections while also serving as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Calls for Blackwell's removal were constantly repeated.
Conyers noted that Blackwell has ordered local election boards to not allow citizens to review poll registers of voters, a lockdown that is an apparent violation of Ohio state law.
David Cobb, the Green Party presidential candidate, told the panel that he had confirmed reports that an employee of one electronic voting machine manufacturer had come to one county election office and had taken apart the county tabulator of voting machine results, apparently replacing parts, before that county had conducted its recount. Such an action would taint any recount. "This could be a serious matter," Conyers replied, asking Cobb to meet privately with committee staff to further investigate the matter.
Rev. Jesse Jackson told the congressmen that over the weekend he had spoken to John Kerry, who has since sent a letter to each of the state's 88 county election boards, saying he supported three areas of inquiry in the recount. Jackson said Kerry wanted "forensic computer experts" to examine voting machines, especially those using optical scan technology, because in other states, notably New Mexico, Bush had won all the precincts with that voting system in place. Kerry also wanted to examine 92,000 ballots that recorded no vote for president, and 155,000 provisional ballots that were rejected.
But early responses from the counties to Freedom of Information Act requests for their voting records indicate such an effort may already have been sabotaged. Shelby County officials have admitted to discarding key election data. One county referred requesters to the software company that programmed the county's voting machines, saying the company's permission would be required for access to a recount, as the code is proprietary.
New reports of voter suppression and fraud corroborated the Supreme Court filing, which presented a detailed analysis of where votes were incorrectly counted for Bush instead of Kerry. An election challenge must prove the wrong presidential candidate was declared the winner. The challenge lawsuit asks the Ohio Supreme Court to declare Kerry the victor. Numerous witnesses offered testimony to support that conclusion.
A second brief was also filed Monday, seeking a temporary restraining order to block Republican presidential electors from meeting until the recount was done and the challenge was litigated. It focused on "overwhelming statistical evidence" that pointed to "statewide fraud allegedly conducted at the direction of Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell."
The TRO filing was primarily based on national and statewide exit poll data, which was the extensive, non-partisan polling done by a consortium of the nation's major news organizations. Expert affidavits accompanying the brief said an analysis of exit poll data found that the final vote tallies in all but the most contested battleground states mirrored the exit poll's predictions. The experts said it was unlikely the exit polls could be so accurate in some states while significantly wrong in others. They said election fraud was the only plausible explanation for the discrepancy.
The TRO filing identified exactly when they believe the fraud occurred - at about 12.30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 3. At that time of night, Ohio's final voting returns were being tabulated at regional and county offices. It was about this time that the Ohio exit poll data - posted on websites such as CNN - put Bush ahead of Kerry, even though the exit polls expected Kerry to win with 52.1 percent of the vote.
What experts like Steven Freeman, Ph.D. of the University of Pennsylvania say happened was at this time the raw poll data, showing Kerry ahead, was replaced online and on television by "calibrated" data. This adjusted data was intended to reflect the total vote counts, once the results came in from late-reporting precincts - if it didn't match the raw exit poll results. Ohio's results didn't match, and the likely reason is because across the state, in a variety of ways, the reported vote totals were being manipulated. If Bush votes were added to the total, or votes were taken away from Kerry, this shift was first noticed at about 12:30 a.m., when the networks started to report 'calibrated' figures, not the raw data.
"The media has largely ignored this discrepancy (although the Blogosphere has been abuzz), suggesting the polls were either flawed, within normal sampling error, or could otherwise be easily explained away," Freeman wrote in an article, cited in the TRO filing. Instead, it simply reported Bush's final tally as 51 percent to Kerry's final tally of 48.5 percent.
As Rev. Jackson and election attorneys explained to the packed hearing, the election challenge suit describes how votes were added to Bush's total, or in many cases, taken away from Kerry - because they were added to the totals of other Democratic candidates further down the ballot.
The Democrat whose totals were most likely to have been boosted by this kind of 'vote-shifting' was C. Ellen Connally, an African-American candidate for Ohio Chief Justice, who was little-known and outspent in the southern part of the state, the challenge complaint says. Because Secretary Blackwell has obstructed most efforts to examine ballots and poll records, it has been almost impossible to investigate and explain anomalies like Connally's strong showing in the southern part of the state.
"What are they hiding?" asked Rev. Jackson. One after the other, witnesses argued that by making a recount virtually impossible, Blackwell has offered firm indication that the Republicans have something to hide.
"The secrecy of the ballot has been converted to the secrecy of the vote count," added Ronnie Dugger, founder of the Alliance for Democracy. Now based in Massachusetts, the legendary Dugger is founder of the Texas Observer. He said when Texas Republicans heard complaints that voting machines could be corrupted, "they knew that had found what they were looking for." Voting machines, he said, are the "most anti-democratic technology ever employed."
Dr. Ron Baiman, a statistician from the University of Illinois, Chicago, confirmed that the odds on vote counts diverting from exit polls as they did the night of November 2 were on the order of magnitude of millions to one. Baiman told freepress.org that the odds of the exit polls being wrong in the key battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio alone were "155,000,000 to one."
Dr. Norman Robbins of Cleveland testified that over 10,000 voters in Cuyahoga County alone were disenfranchised by various means, and that nearly all were "youth, poor and minorities."
In one Cleveland ward, he said, 51% of the provisional votes cast were thrown in the trash, virtually all of them from African-Americans.
Eve Roberson, a former election official from Santa Rosa, California, testified that while working as observer at precinct 354 in Wilberforce, home of Central State University, she witnessed conscious fraud aimed at a student body that went 95% for Kerry. Election officials used an inconsistent, discriminatory set of demands for Wilberforce students to register as opposed to those used in white precincts in Greene County.
Roberson and others also testified that after the election they discovered ballots sitting open, on unguarded tables where manipulation and random disposal could easily have occurred. It was, she said "a serious breech" of election security.
Riveting testimony followed from Clinton Curtis, a Tallahassee-based computer programmer who told the hearing he had been hired by US Rep Tom Feeney, then Speaker of the Florida House, to write a program that would conceal the theft of an election. Curtis said Feeney was then a lobbyist for a major computer company as well as Speaker. Curtis said Feeney wanted a program that could use voting machines to "flip an election" without being detected. Curtis said he wrote a prototype program, then quit.
Under questioning Curtis said a program could be written that would protect the security of voting machines, but that it had not been deployed in Ohio. He said it would be a simple matter, involving perhaps 100 lines of code and some simple switches, to turn an entire election.
"One person in a simple tab machine can affect thousands of votes," Curtis testified. "There is absolutely no assurance of anything on those machines."
Given what he had seen, he said, the Ohio election was "probably hacked."
The last hour of the Columbus hearing was filled with testimony from local voters who were harassed, intimidated and made to stand in long lines to cast votes that may well have been pitched in the trash.
Similar sworn testimony surfaced Tuesday at a citizens' hearing in Toledo. Among other things eye witnesses confirmed that a Diebold programming team entered the Lucas County (Toledo) Board of Elections to "reprogram" the opti-scan voting machines on the day the recount began.
Catherine Buchanan, a Democratic Party observer, testified that one of the sample precincts chosen as a control for the recount---Sylvania Precinct 3---had the programming card reprogrammed prior to the ballot testing. While the observers watched, nearly seven out of fifteen test ballots were rejected at least three times before the machine would read them.
Janet Albright told hearing officers she had been voting at the same Lucas County polling place for fourteen years but that the polling place was changed this year without notification to a station farther away. Machines throughout Lucas County malfunctioned in tests through the week prior to the election, and on election day. Thousands of Ohioans---primarily in Democratic precincts--thus lost their right to vote.
During the Lucas County reprogramming, election observers were shocked when they were denied the right to look at sheets that had target test results on them, or the reprogramming of the opti-scan machines used in the recount. Diebold-leased machines and software malfunctioned in the weeks prior to the election.
That echoed similar testimony from Green Party candidate David Cobb in the Columbus hearing. Witnesses said an unauthorized programmer from the Triad Corporation dismantled at least one voting machine in rural Hocking County. Conyers referred to the incident as "pretty outrageous" and asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a county prosecutor, to investigate "inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering" in Hocking and perhaps several other Ohio counties.
Brett Rapp, president of Triad, told the New York Times it might be unusual to do what was done in Hocking County, but that Triad was involved in voting machines in 41 of Ohio's 88 counties.

Posted by richard at 09:04 PM

December 14, 2004

LNS Post Coup II Supplement (12/14/04)

At least seven more US Marines have died in Iraq. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich. Nothing More. Certainly not for "democracy." There has never been a more compelling example of the US regimesteam news media’s full partnership in a triad of shared special interests (e.g., weapons, oil, media, pharmaceuticals, tobacco, etc.) with the Bush Cabal and its wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party than its utter contemptuous blindness to what was revealed in Rep. John Conyers’ hearing in Columbus yesterday…Here is perhaps the second to the last LNS supplement. It is divided into seven sections: Theft of the Election 2004, Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure (National Security), Bush Abomination’s #2 Failure (Economic Security), Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure (Environmental Security), Complicity of the Corporatist News Media, John P. O’Neill Wall of Heroes and Resistance Not Collaboration…Please review the news items and op-ed pieces included, please share them with others…Remember, 2+2 still equal 4…

www.bradblog.com: Then, he asked curtis something like whether voting machines could be hacked. He said yes. Arnebeck asked him on what he based that opinion. He said because I wrote a program that could do it. Arnebeck asked when that happened. Curtis said feeney had asked him to design such a program at yang enterprises.
Jaws dropped. Tubbs jones and waters looked shocked.
Tubbs jones, waters and nadler asked questions. Waters asked him to repeat who asked him to do it. Congressman feeney, he said. Nadler asked him some questions, as did tubbs jones and a state senator.
Curtis was asked what he would conclude if there was such a substantial deviation btwn exit polls and actual results. He said he would conclude the election had been hacked. Gasps. Could have heard a pin drop.
In the end, curtis was very very convincing to everyone in attendance. He was a show stopper, a stunner. It was a really amazing moment.

John Byrne, www.bluelemur.com: “A representative from Triad Systems came into this county’s Board of Election’s office unannounced, that is on this Friday. He said he was just stopping by to see if they had any questions about the upcoming recount.
“He then headed into the back room where Triad supplies tabulators, that is the machine that counts the ballots, is kept. This Triad representative told them that there was problem with the system, that the system had a bad battery and it had ‘lost all its data.’
“He then took the computer apart and started swapping parts in and out of it. And in another [incomprehensible] in the room. And he had spare parts in his coat, as one of the people moved in [sic] remarked how very heavy it was.
“He finally reassembled everything and said it was working but not to turn it off. He then asked which precinct would be counted in the 3 percent recount test and that one which had been selected as if it had the right number of votes was relayed to him he then went back and did something else to the tabulator.
“The Triad Systems representative suggested that since the hand recount had to match the machine count exactly and since it would hard to memorize the several numbers which would be needed to get the count exactly right, that they should post this series of numbers on the wall where they would not be noticed by observers such as to make them look like employee information or something similar.
“The people doing the hand count could then he said just report those numbers no matter what the actually counted in the ballot. This would then ‘match’ the tabulator report for this precinct exactly.

Letter from Rep. John Conyers, et al to Gov. Bob Taft: As you know, at least two presidential candidates in your State have applied for statewide recounts.6 Seeing the conflicting deadlines contained within federal and state law, these candidates sought to have the recounts begin even before the votes were declared so the deadlines could be reconciled.7 The federal court hearing the case denied the request for an early recount and also rebuffed a motion by the Delaware County Board of Elections to block a recount entirely.8 Also, we understand that challenges will be filed today on behalf of Ohio voters to set aside the results of the election in Ohio based on, among other things, massive voter irregularities.
It is important to note that Article II of the Constitution of the United States provides that "each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors," clearly giving the power to the Ohio legislature to finalize Ohio's election results. It appears, unfortunately, that Secretary Blackwell may unlawfully be attempting to have his own results certified. This is because Ohio law does not authorize the Secretary of State to determine the electors for the State of Ohio.

Bob Fertik, www.democrats.com: As the recount gets underway, John Kerry demanded manual counting of the 92,000 undervotes and overvotes rejected by voting machines...
The request is one of 11 items that Kerry is asking for as part of the recount that Ohio's 88 county boards of election will begin this week, according to a letter sent to the boards over the weekend.
One reason the media is ignoring the recount is the perception that a recount will not change enough votes to change the outcome. Which is why this affidavit from Richard Hayes Phillips is so important: 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.
Add these up and they exceed Bush's "official" margin of 118,506.

Kerry-Edwards Letter to All 88 Ohio County Board of Elections: 3. For those counties that use touch screen voting systems, we request that the three percent hand count include a hand count of three percent of the ballot images stored in the each of the redundant memories of the machines selected for the recount and on any paper trail for the machines.
4. We request that the Board provide the opportunity for candidates participating in the recount to have the programming and calibration of the tabulating system, scanners, and electronic voting machines verified by independent experts.
5. We request that the test used by the Board to verify the logic and accuracy of the computer tabulating program be performed for each precinct, including any separate absentee precinct. Further, the test should include testing for under and over voted ballots.
6. We request that computer printouts of the recount results include the under and over votes recorded in each precinct.
7. John Kerry and John Edwards hereby request to have their witnesses visually inspect all ballots for which your voting system has not recorded a vote for President and Vice President, i.e. the undervote and overvote ballots. If the Board does not agree to a visual inspection of these ballots, then we hereby request to visually inspect all ballots pursuant to R.C. § 3515.04 and OAG 74-103.
8. We request to inspect envelopes and related paperwork for all uncounted provisional and absentee ballots. This includes documents stating the reason or reasons that a ballot was not counted and the documentation to support the same.

William Rivers Pitt, www.truthout.org: There are people out there who think we are crazy, who think we are bitter-enders, sore losermen, conspiracy theorists and tinfoil hatters. We just cannot accept the outcome of a truly legitimate American election, and we are flailing about like pathetic boated fish trying to change what cannot be changed. But the Ohio Secretary of State is brazenly breaking the law by denying public access to public records. The terrorism bugaboo was thrown in the way of those who wished to observe the counting process in Warren County, though nobody seems to know who tossed out the warning nor why terrorists would want to blow something up in southwestern Ohio. And now, legitimate hearings on these issues are being thwarted.
If demanding answers to these questions, along with all the other questions that have arisen - more than 30,000 reports of voting irregularities and fraud all across the country, including thousands of reports of malfunctioning electronic touch-screen voting machines, plus the disenfranchisement of as many as a million minority voters, and the startling reality that virtually every single 'malfunction' or error favored George W. Bush - if demanding answers to these questions makes me crazy, then damn it, bring on the boys with the butterfly nets, because I am completely out of my mind.
Hell, even the centrist shrinking violets at the DNC are apparently joining the crazy wacko club. The Democrats used their weekly radio address just yesterday to focus on ensuring accurate ballot counts and elections free of voter intimidation. Donna Brazile said on the radio, "America's story is one of expanding opportunity and suffrage, and one of our fundamental principles is that every eligible citizen is entitled to cast his or her vote and have that vote counted. We owe it to the students of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, who waited up to 10 hours to vote. We owe it to thousands of Ohio voters who wonder whether their votes were counted with the use of new electronic voting machines, and we owe it to countless other Americans. There is no place in our democracy for faulty voting equipment, long lines at the polls, untrained poll workers and any forms of chads. As a nation, we should not rest until our elections are free from the problems of elections past and until all Americans can cast their ballots on Election Day fully confident that their votes have been counted."

Dr. Werner Lange, www.democrats.com: A careful review of the absentee vote in one Ohio county revealed that many more absentee votes were cast than there were absentee voters identified.
All absentee voters must be identified as such by name and residence in the precinct poll books of the precinct in which they are registered. Over 100 precinct poll books in Trumbull County were checked for absentee voters and that number of actual absentee voters was compared to the certified number of absentee votes. There was an inflated difference in nearly every precinct of the five communities examined. The five communities whose poll books were carefully inspected for an absentee vote overcount are: Warren City (311), Howland Township (138), Newton Falls City (34), Girard City (57), and Cortland Township (40). The 106 precincts of these five Ohio communities, about 39% of all precincts in Trumbull County, netted a total of 580 absentee votes for which there were no absentee voters identified in the poll books.
The 106 precincts of these five Ohio communities, about 39% of all precincts in Trumbull County, netted a total of 580 absentee votes for which there were no absentee voters identified in the poll books.
“When there are more votes than voters, there is a big problem” stated Dr. Werner Lange, author of this study which would have been completed weeks earlier if Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, co-chair of the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign, had not unlawfully ordered all 88 boards of elections to prevent public inspection of poll books until after certification of the vote.
The absentee vote inflation rate for these five communities averages 5.5 fradulent voters per precinct. If this pattern of inflated absentee votes holds for all of Ohio’s 11,366 precincts, then there were some 62,513 absentee votes in Ohio up for grabs in the last election. Who grabbed them and how they did so should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation.

2. Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure: National Security

Carl Luna, San Diego Union-Tribune: Back in 1993, following the infamous "Blackhawk Down " disaster in Somalia, Clinton's Secretary of Defense Les Aspin resigned amidst allegations that he had failed to provide the troops in Somalia with the armored support they needed to do their mission. House and Senate Republicans, including several who hold majority leadership positions today, were in the forefront calling for Aspin's ouster.
Why then aren't these same voices calling for the resignation of Donald "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." Rumsfeld? Aspin's Somalian botch resulted in the deaths of 18 US servicemen and the wounding of 75… Rumsfeld's job is to make sure the troops go into combat with everything they need to minimize loses. That he should have done so and hasn't is indicative of incompetence, if not outright criminal negligence. That he makes light of it by essentially telling the troops "Life's not fair - tough cookies - borders on reckless endangerment. For Republican members of Congress not to call for his head, they way they did with Democrat Les Aspin a decade ago, is partisan hypocrisy of the most brazen and dangerous kind. Support the Troops - Dump Rumsfeld!

3. Bush Abomination’s #2 Failure: Economic Security

Paul Krugman, NY Times: For it is now apparent that the Bush administration's privatization proposal will amount to the same thing: borrow trillions, put the money in the stock market and hope.
Privatization would begin by diverting payroll taxes, which pay for current Social Security benefits, into personal investment accounts. The government, already deep in deficit, would have to borrow to make up the shortfall…
There is, by the way, a precedent for Bush-style privatization. One major reason for Argentina's rapid debt buildup in the 1990's was a pension reform involving a switch to individual accounts - a switch that President Carlos Menem, like President Bush, decided to finance with borrowing rather than taxes. So Mr. Bush intends to emulate a plan that helped set the stage for Argentina's economic crisis.
If Mr. Bush were to say in plain English that his plan to solve our fiscal problems is to borrow trillions, put the money into stocks and hope for the best, everyone would denounce that plan as the height of irresponsibility. The fact that this plan has an elaborate disguise, one that would add considerably to its costs, makes it worse.

4. Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure: Environmental Security

Héctor Tobar, Los Angeles Times: The United States is the big odd man out as diplomats, scientists and environmentalists from more than 190 countries gather here at the 10th meeting of the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The focus of the convention is the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which mandates reduction of greenhouse gases that cause global warming and will take effect next year.
Discussions of new limits are expected to begin here when official delegations arrive Wednesday, near the end of the 12-day conference.
Among major industrial countries, only the U.S. and Australia have failed to ratify the accord, which commits signatory nations to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases to 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012.
Observers here say the U.S. is increasingly being shut out as the rest of the world adopts global mechanisms by which each country will meet its targeted reductions, including one that allows companies to trade reductions in carbon emissions in a kind of global pollution market.
The U.S., which accounts for about a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, pulled out of the agreement in 2001.

Kevin Gray, Associated Press: A Nepalese Sherpa fears his mountain valley will be flooded by melting glacier runoff high in the Himalayas. A Fiji islander frets about rising sea levels, while villagers cope with the destruction of mangrove swamps in India.
Anil Krishna Mistry, 37, of India, right, Penina Moce, of Fiji , center, and Osvaldo Enrique Bonino of Argentina, pose for photographers during the 10th International Convention on Climate Change in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday , Dec.10, 2004. As scientists debate whether global warming is effecting Earth, 'climate witnesses' told a U.N. environmental conference Friday they are already feeling the heat, worried about changing weather patterns they say are drastically effecting the way of life from the Himalayas to the South Pacific. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
As scientists debate whether global warming is affecting Earth, "climate witnesses" told a U.N. environmental conference Friday they are already feeling the heat of the changing weather patterns they say are drastically affecting the way of life from the Himalayas to the South Pacific.

Bill Moyers, www.tompaine.com: Remember James Watt, President Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist , reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."
Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true—one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election, several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right—the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious right warrior, Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.
Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its 'biblical lands,' legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow….
So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer. Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed—even hastened—as a sign of the coming apocalypse. As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election—231 legislators in total, more since the election—are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "the days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.
And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 TIME/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations or in the motel turn some of the 250 Christian TV stations and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"
Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, America's providential history. You'll find there these words: "the secular or socialist has a limited resource mentality and views the world as a pie...that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece.' however, "[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in god's earth......while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that god has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people." No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on November 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.

5. Complicity of the Corporatist News Media

http://mediamatters.org: Several cable and network news reports on President Bush's December 9 Oval Office meeting with Social Security trustees gave implicit support to the administration's plans to overhaul Social Security (which entails partial privatization) by repeating the crisis rhetoric of privatization proponents, suggesting that the Bush administration's plan offers a solution to the purported crisis, and bolstering the administration's plan through one-sided interviews with conservative guests. Some in the media have also mischaracterized the Democratic response to the administration's push for reform.
In a December 9 segment on CNN's Inside Politics, national correspondent Bruce Morton asserted, "Social Security is in trouble," and played a video clip of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaking in support of the Bush administration's proposal to overhaul the program. And on CNN's December 9 edition of Live From..., anchor Kyra Phillips teased a segment on Social Security by stating falsely that "[i]t's trillions of dollars in the red," asking: "What else can be done to save Social Security? President Bush talks about it."
But Social Security is not currently "in the red," and the view that the program needs an immediate, drastic fix is not universally held. The 2004 Report of the Board of Trustees of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds (OASDI), which was prepared by several Bush appointees (including three cabinet secretaries), noted that while "the financial difficulties facing Social Security" should be addressed "in a timely manner," the program is "considered financially adequate throughout the short range ... through the year 2013." The report estimated that Social Security "assets are projected to be exhausted in 2042," at which point, if left unchanged, "tax income would cover 73 percent of costs," and that the system could still pay out 68 percent by 2078.

www.dailyhowler.com: Why do American citizens think there’s a “looming crisis” in Social Security? One answer is fairly obvious—big press honchos constantly say so. Consider Sunday’s Meet the Press, for example. Senator Harry Reid dared to say that he opposed Soc Sec private accounts. In reply, Tim Russert put it on cruise control, serving up the scary speech he has delivered ten thousand times in the past:
RUSSERT (12/5/04): But, Senator, there are now forty million people on Social Security. In the next twenty years, there's going to be eighty million. Life expectancy used to be 65 years old. It's approaching 80. If you have twice as many people on these programs for fifteen years, you've got to restructure them in some way, shape, or form. What is your solution?
REID: Tim—
RUSSERT: What is your alternative?
Poor Harry! The solon got to say one word—“Tim”—before the humble son of Buffalo challenged him boldly again.

Jon Henley, Guardian: France is to launch a French-language news channel next year in a long-awaited attempt to challenge the dominance of the American view of world current affairs, the prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, said yesterday.
The government will provide €30m (£21m) in start-up funding for the channel, which will "allow international broadcasting that will express the diversity to which our nation is attached," Mr Raffarin said.
The CII (International Information Channel) project, better known in France as "CNN à la Francaise", is a pet project of Jacques Chirac's and was first announced shortly after his 2002 re-election.
It was initially greeted with widespread scepticism, seen as yet another Canute-like attempt to preserve French language and culture in the face of the inexorable onward march of English…
But after France's outspoken opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq last year the channel is seen as a valuable tool in promoting France's language and its view of global affairs.
President Chirac, in a vision shared by China and Russia, favours a "multipolar" view of world affairs and is concerned about the "unilateralist" domination of the US.

6. John P. O’Neil Wall of Heroes

SUSANNA LOOF, Chicago Sun-Times: Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin, doctors said Saturday, adding that the highly toxic chemical could have been put in the opposition leader's soup, producing the severe disfigurement and partial paralysis of his face.
Yushchenko was expected to be released from Vienna's private Rudolfinerhaus clinic today or Monday to return to the campaign trail in Ukraine, said hospital director Dr. Michael Zimpfer.
The massive quantities of dioxin in Yushchenko's system caused chloracne, a type of adult acne produced by exposure to toxic chemicals, said hospital dermatologist Hubert Pehmberger.

Editorial, The Nation: A few days after the commercial television networks' laudatory "news" reports on George W. Bush's nomination of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to serve as Secretary of State, PBS's Bill Moyers countered with something rarely seen on broadcast television these days: serious journalism. Moyers devoted a substantial portion of NOW, the public broadcasting program he has hosted for the past three years, to an analysis of Rice's failure to take seriously warnings about terrorist threats before the September 11 attacks as well as her misguided response to those attacks, her role in the campaign for war on Iraq and her scheming to avoid cooperating with the 9/11 Commission. The devastating report brought to mind Edward R. Murrow's See It Now dissection of Senator Joseph McCarthy…In a time of farce and tragedy, Bill Moyers did his best to arm the people with the power knowledge gives and to affirm that there's still a place for TV journalism that nurtures citizenship and democracy.

Robert Parry, www.consortiumnews.com: In 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles that forced a long-overdue investigation of a very dark chapter of recent U.S. foreign policy – the Reagan-Bush administration’s protection of cocaine traffickers who operated under the cover of the Nicaraguan contra war in the 1980s.
For his brave reporting at the San Jose Mercury News, Webb paid a high price. He was attacked by journalistic colleagues at the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the American Journalism Review and even the Nation magazine. Under this media pressure, his editor Jerry Ceppos sold out the story and demoted Webb, causing him to quit the Mercury News. Even Webb’s marriage broke up.
On Friday, Dec. 10, Gary Webb, 49, died of an apparent suicide, a gunshot wound to the head.
Whatever the details of Webb’s death, American history owes him a huge debt. Though denigrated by much of the national news media, Webb’s contra-cocaine series prompted internal investigations by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department, probes that confirmed that scores of contra units and contra-connected individuals were implicated in the drug trade. The probes also showed that the Reagan-Bush administration frustrated investigations into those crimes for geopolitical reasons.
Unintentionally, Webb also exposed the cowardice and unprofessional behavior that had become the new trademarks of the major U.S. news media by the mid-1990s. The big news outlets were always hot on the trail of some titillating scandal – the O.J. Simpson case or the Monica Lewinsky scandal – but the major media could no longer grapple with serious crimes of state...
Even after the CIA’s inspector general issued his findings in 1998, the major newspapers could not muster the talent or the courage to explain those extraordinary government admissions to the American people. Nor did the big newspapers apologize for their unfair treatment of Gary Webb. Foreshadowing the media incompetence that would fail to challenge George W. Bush’s case for war with Iraq five years later, the major news organizations effectively hid the CIA’s confession from the American people…
Hitz also recounted complaints from CIA analysts that CIA operations officers handling the contra war hid evidence of contra-drug trafficking even from the CIA’s analytical division. Because of the withheld evidence, the CIA analysts incorrectly concluded in the mid-1980s that “only a handful of contras might have been involved in drug trafficking.” That false assessment was passed on to Congress and the major news organizations – serving as an important basis for denouncing Gary Webb and his series in 1996.
Though Hitz’s report was an extraordinary admission of institutional guilt by the CIA, it passed almost unnoticed by the big newspapers.
Two days after Hitz’s report was posted at the CIA’s Internet site, the New York Times did a brief article that continued to deride Webb’s work, while acknowledging that the contra-drug problem may indeed have been worse than earlier understood. Several weeks later, the Washington Post weighed in with a similarly superficial article. The Los Angeles Times never published a story on the release of the CIA’s Volume Two.
To this day, no editor or reporter who missed the contra-drug story has been punished for his or her negligence. Indeed, many of them are now top executives at their news organizations. On the other hand, Gary Webb’s career never recovered.
At Webb’s death, however, it should be noted that his great gift to American history was that he – along with angry African-American citizens – forced the government to admit some of the worst crimes ever condoned by any American administration: the protection of drug smuggling into the United States as part of a covert war against a country, Nicaragua, that represented no real threat to Americans.
The truth was ugly. Certainly the major news organizations would have come under criticism themselves if they had done their job and laid out this troubling story to the American people. Conservative defenders of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush would have been sure to howl in protest.
But the real tragedy of Webb’s historic gift – and of his life cut short – is that because of the major news media’s callowness and cowardice, this dark chapter of the Reagan-Bush era remains largely unknown to the American people.

7. Resistance not Collaboration
Michael Moore, www.michaelmoore.com: It is no surprise that the Republicans are sore winners. They have spent the better part of the past month beating their chests, threatening to send to Siberia any Republican who doesn’t toe the line (poor Arlen Specter), and promising everything short of martial law if the Democrats don’t do what they are told.
What’s worse is to watch the pathetic sight of the DLC (the conservative, pro-corporate group of Democrats) apologizing for being Democrats and promising to “purge” the party of the likes of, well, all of US! Their comments are so hilarious and really not even worth recognizing but the media is paying so much attention to them, I thought it might be worth doing a little reality check.
The most people the DLC is able to get out to an event of theirs is about 200 at their annual dinner (where you have to pay thousands of dollars to get in).
Contrast this with the following:
* Total Members of Move On: More than 2,000,000
* Total Attendance at Vote for Change Concerts: An estimated 280,000
* Total Union Members in U.S.: Around 16,000,000
* Total Number of People Who Have Seen “Fahrenheit 9/11”: Over 50 million
* Total Number of You Reading This: Perhaps 10 million or more

1. Theft of the 2004 Election

http://bradblogtoo.blogspot.com/2004/12/breaking-update-clint-curtis-stuns.html

Brad Blog has just received an exclusive first-hand account of Clint Curtis' sworn testimony (as reported earlier) to the Judiciary Committee Democrats holding hearings this morning in Columbus, Ohio on Election 2004 Voting Irregularities.
The software programmer, whose sworn affidavit was first reported by The BRAD BLOG, named Republican U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney (a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee!) as having asked him to create "vote-rigging" software when he was a Florida Congressman prior to 2000 elections!
Curtis was the only witness to be sworn in at today's hearings.

Here is the exclusive account as we've just received it by a very reliable BRAD BLOG source inside the committee hearings!

The following account may sound melodramatic but it is highly accurate.

None of these are quotes and represent my best recollection.

At apprx 1p, after a witness had finished, cliff arnebeck -- who had given a presentation some time before -- interjected and asked to call one more witness. He was given permission to do so. He said he was calling clint curtis.

Some of the audience literally gasped while others applauded. They clearly knew who he was.

Curtis stood at the front of room with arnebeck seated behind him. Curtis was about five to ten feet from the members of congress. At the front of the room, he placed his hand on a bible and was sworn. To my knowledge, he was the only witness sworn.

Arnebeck began a direct examination of curtis with basic questions, name, residence....

Then got to his qualifications

Then, he asked curtis something like whether voting machines could be hacked. He said yes. Arnebeck asked him on what he based that opinion. He said because I wrote a program that could do it. Arnebeck asked when that happened. Curtis said feeney had asked him to design such a program at yang enterprises.

Jaws dropped. Tubbs jones and waters looked shocked.

Tubbs jones, waters and nadler asked questions. Waters asked him to repeat who asked him to do it. Congressman feeney, he said. Nadler asked him some questions, as did tubbs jones and a state senator.

Curtis was asked what he would conclude if there was such a substantial deviation btwn exit polls and actual results. He said he would conclude the election had been hacked. Gasps. Could have heard a pin drop.

In the end, curtis was very very convincing to everyone in attendance. He was a show stopper, a stunner. It was a really amazing moment.

we've previously reported since breaking our original exclusive story on the Curtis affidavit [PDF] last week (Key articles are linked in a box in our right sidebar) Curtis last week met privately with staffers on the Judiciary Committee as well as Senate staffers.

Wired Magazine revealed today in their article on Curtis that it was staffers in Sen. Bill Nelson's office with whom Curtis met last week in D.C.

Nelson oversees NASA in the Senate. Curtis had charged in his affidavit that an employee, Hai Lin Nee (a/k/a Henry Nee) with whom Curtis worked at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) had inserted "wiretapping routines" into programs that YEI had been contracted to create for NASA, among other companies (including the Florida Dept. of Transportation).

Nee was charged with shipping chips used in Hellfire anti-tank missiles to the Peoples Republic of China in March of this year, and has since plead guilty to one of those counts (more on Nee soon!)

At the time of the alleged October 2000 meeting at YEI when Curtis claims that Feeney asked him to create a "vote-rigging software prototype", Feeney was a member of the Florida Legislature, a corporate attorney for YEI, as well as being a registered lobbyist for the company.

Feeney was said to have been, at the time, the only registered lobbyist known to have been serving concurrently as a legislator in the 160 member Florida statehouse.

Shortly thereafter, Feeney became Speaker of the Florida Legislature.

In 2002 Feeney won a U.S. Congress seat in the newly created 24th Florida congressional district.

Feeney was the running mate to Jeb Bush during his first failed bid for Governor in 1994.

As we noted earlier, Wired Magazine article quotes YEI Attorneys as saying that Curtis was a "disgruntled employee", but does not note that the Attorney who made the statement is both a campaign contributor to Feeney, and, as well, is Feeney's former law partner in Florida.

As well, there seems to be little to indicate that Curtis was "disgruntled" with YEI or vice versa. He submitted his resignation in December of 2000 and stayed on, at YEI's request for an additional six weeks afterwards until a replacment could be found.

It has been reported YEI threw a "farewell party" for Curtis, and email correspondce that The BRAD BLOG has seen would indicate that employees -- including Nee -- missed Curtis a great deal in the months after he finally left the company.

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=490
12/13/2004
Witness says voting company tampered with machines after vote and tried to plant false information into Ohio recount
Green says voting company tampered with recount effort
By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor
David Cobb, the unsuccessful Green Party presidential candidate, aired startling allegations at the Democratic House Judiciary Committee’s Columbus hearings Monday, alleging that a voting company representative tampered with voting equipment in Columbus last Friday and attempted to plant false information into the Ohio recount.
Cobb says that a witness who had requested anonymity watched a representative of Triad Systems enter the Columbus Board of Elections unannounced and tamper with a vote tabulator which then lost all data.
The representative then, Cobb said, tried to convince employees to post false information so that it would appear as if the data was valid and had never been lost.
This following is RAW STORY ’s transcript Cobb’s speech as recorded by Inside Track News’ broadcast (mp3 file), an independent media outlet that covered the event. The story has been followed in detail at The Brad Blog.
“A representative from Triad Systems came into this county’s Board of Election’s office unannounced, that is on this Friday. He said he was just stopping by to see if they had any questions about the upcoming recount.
“He then headed into the back room where Triad supplies tabulators, that is the machine that counts the ballots, is kept. This Triad representative told them that there was problem with the system, that the system had a bad battery and it had ‘lost all its data.’
“He then took the computer apart and started swapping parts in and out of it. And in another [incomprehensible] in the room. And he had spare parts in his coat, as one of the people moved in [sic] remarked how very heavy it was.
“He finally reassembled everything and said it was working but not to turn it off. He then asked which precinct would be counted in the 3 percent recount test and that one which had been selected as if it had the right number of votes was relayed to him he then went back and did something else to the tabulator.
“The Triad Systems representative suggested that since the hand recount had to match the machine count exactly and since it would hard to memorize the several numbers which would be needed to get the count exactly right, that they should post this series of numbers on the wall where they would not be noticed by observers such as to make them look like employee information or something similar.
“The people doing the hand count could then he said just report those numbers no matter what the actually counted in the ballot. This would then ‘match’ the tabulator report for this precinct exactly.
Minority leader of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) replied, “David Cobb, I need to you to arrange a meeting with our staff immediately.”
Cobb asserted that such practices were “going on across the state.”
The Cleveland Free Press’ Editor David Fitrakis also submitted a list of documented Ohio voting irregularities Dec. 8, which Conyers’ office has posted online in pdf format.

http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/12/ale04100.html

Don't Let Secretary of State Blackwell's Actions Penalize Ohio Voters
A Letter from Rep. Conyers (and others) to Ohio Governor Taft, Speaker Householder and President White to Delay or Treat as Provisional the Ohio Board of Electors 2004 Presidential Vote Until There is Resolution of the Vote Recounts and Challenges
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
December 13, 2004
The Honorable Bob Taft
Governor
State of Ohio
77 South High Street
Columbus, OH 43215
The Honorable Larry Householder
Speaker of the House
Ohio House of Representatives
77 S. High St
14th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
The Honorable Doug White
President
Ohio Senate
Statehouse
Room #201 Second Floor
Columbus, OH 43215
Dear Governor Taft, Speaker Householder & President White:
We write with an urgent request that you either delay or treat as provisional the scheduled December 13 meeting of the State of Ohio's 2004 Presidential electors and the submission of the certificates of ascertainment until resolution of pending recounts and challenges regarding the Ohio presidential vote. We are sure you would agree that no election is final, or should be deemed final, until all votes are counted and disputes are settled.
Notwithstanding federal statutory requirements that electors meet in their respective states on December 13, 2004,1 it is imperative and necessary under the Constitution of the United States that the State of Ohio delay or treat as provisional its meeting. First, federal law also provides that state legislatures may settle election controversies and contests six days prior to the meeting of electors, such that all disputes would be resolved by December 7, 2004.2 In this situation, it does not appear that the Ohio state legislature has made a decision to avail itself of this provision.
Secretary Blackwell declared his results on December 6, so late a date that he engineered a conflict with state recount laws. Ohio law sets two deadlines pertaining to recounts. First, it provides that applications for statewide recounts must be submitted within five days of the secretary of state's declaration of results.3 Second, such recounts must begin within ten days of the recount request.4 Moreover, it is worth noting that your state law automatically allows candidates who were not declared winners to seek recounts.5
Secretary Blackwell gave county boards of election until December 1 to certify their returns, and then waited to declare his own results on December 6. As a consequence, recounts may be sought at least until December 11 and must begin by December 16. It is impossible, therefore, for the December 6 results to be the official certification of the State of Ohio. The law providing a right to a recount would be an empty right in this scenario.
As you know, at least two presidential candidates in your State have applied for statewide recounts.6 Seeing the conflicting deadlines contained within federal and state law, these candidates sought to have the recounts begin even before the votes were declared so the deadlines could be reconciled.7 The federal court hearing the case denied the request for an early recount and also rebuffed a motion by the Delaware County Board of Elections to block a recount entirely.8 Also, we understand that challenges will be filed today on behalf of Ohio voters to set aside the results of the election in Ohio based on, among other things, massive voter irregularities.
It is important to note that Article II of the Constitution of the United States provides that "each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors," clearly giving the power to the Ohio legislature to finalize Ohio's election results. It appears, unfortunately, that Secretary Blackwell may unlawfully be attempting to have his own results certified. This is because Ohio law does not authorize the Secretary of State to determine the electors for the State of Ohio.
Had Secretary Blackwell not postponed his results so long, it is likely that any recounts would have been completed earlier and we would not be writing to you today. Unfortunately, the Secretary set in motion a series of events that should not penalize the voters of Ohio. It is for these reasons we ask that the State of Ohio hold only a provisional meeting of electors on December 13 and delay submission of the ascertainment of electors. A conclusive meeting of electors and ascertainment could occur after the recounts are completed. Such a scenario still would permit the U.S. Congress to meet in joint session and count the electoral votes on January 6, 2005, as provided by law.
Should you have any questions or concerns regarding this request, please feel free to contact Perry Apelbaum or Ted Kalo of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee staff at 2142 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 (tel: 202-225-6504; fax: 202-225-4423).
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr.
Jerrold Nadler
Barbara Lee
Melvin L. Watt
Barney Frank
Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Gregory Meeks
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Sheila Jackson Lee
Carolyn C. Kilpatrick
Maxine Waters
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

http://blog.democrats.com/node/1912
Stolen Election 2004: Monday Update
by Bob Fertik on December 13, 2004 - 12:06am.
As the recount gets underway, John Kerry demanded manual counting of the 92,000 undervotes and overvotes rejected by voting machines.
The request is one of 11 items that Kerry is asking for as part of the recount that Ohio's 88 county boards of election will begin this week, according to a letter sent to the boards over the weekend.
"We're trying to increase the transparency of the election process," said Donald McTigue, the lawyer handling the recount for the Kerry campaign...
McTigue said the visual inspection is allowed under state law. The goal is to look for potential votes that were not registered by the tabulating equipment.
Other requests include the use of independent experts to check the programming and calibration of the election equipment, something McTigue said has never been allowed.
McTigue also asked that counties accept the help of a group called Votewatch to determine which precincts will be chosen for that part of the vote that will be counted by hand. McTigue said using the group will ensure that the ballots are selected using a valid random sampling method.
Way to go, John Kerry! (Memo to media: your readers would dearly like to know what the other 8 requests are!)
One reason the media is ignoring the recount is the perception that a recount will not change enough votes to change the outcome. Which is why this affidavit from Richard Hayes Phillips is so important:
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.
Add these up and they exceed Bush's "official" margin of 118,506.
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/04/12/ale04101.html
December 13, 2004 SEND THIS PAGE TO A FRIEND
ALERT ARCHIVES

The Official Kerry-Edwards Position on How to Handle the Ohio Recount, Sent to the Individual Boards of Election in the State
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
Confirmed by the Offices of Donald J. McTigue, Kerry-Edwards State Counsel in Ohio, below is the letter sent by McTigue to the individual board of elections in each of the counties in Ohio.
* * *
December 10, 2004
Re: Presidential Recount
Dear Director and Deputy Director:
Enclosed please find a copy of a letter personally signed by John Kerry appointing me as his legal counsel with respect to the recount for President and Vice President of the United States, with full authority to act on behalf of him and John Edwards, including appointing witnesses to attend the recount. Also enclosed is a letter personally signed by John Kerry designating witnesses to attend the recount in your county.
On behalf of John Kerry and John Edwards I am making the following requests regarding the conduct of the recount:
1. The selection of precincts for the three percent hand count should be according to a scientifically valid random sampling method. I am aware that you have received a letter from Votewatch regarding this issue with an offer by that organization to provide resources to ensure that the sampling method is valid. We urge you to accept this offer of assistance or otherwise be able to demonstrate that the method employed by the Board to select the precincts for the three percent hand count is scientifically valid.
2. We request that each candidate be given the opportunity to select at least one precinct for a hand count, either as part of or in addition to the three percent hand count.
3. For those counties that use touch screen voting systems, we request that the three percent hand count include a hand count of three percent of the ballot images stored in the each of the redundant memories of the machines selected for the recount and on any paper trail for the machines.
4. We request that the Board provide the opportunity for candidates participating in the recount to have the programming and calibration of the tabulating system, scanners, and electronic voting machines verified by independent experts.
5. We request that the test used by the Board to verify the logic and accuracy of the computer tabulating program be performed for each precinct, including any separate absentee precinct. Further, the test should include testing for under and over voted ballots.
6. We request that computer printouts of the recount results include the under and over votes recorded in each precinct.
7. John Kerry and John Edwards hereby request to have their witnesses visually inspect all ballots for which your voting system has not recorded a vote for President and Vice President, i.e. the undervote and overvote ballots. If the Board does not agree to a visual inspection of these ballots, then we hereby request to visually inspect all ballots pursuant to R.C. § 3515.04 and OAG 74-103.
8. We request to inspect envelopes and related paperwork for all uncounted provisional and absentee ballots. This includes documents stating the reason or reasons that a ballot was not counted and the documentation to support the same.
9. In order to verify candidate rotation, we request to inspect the ballot page assemblies of all punch card voting devices and the ballot faces of all touch screen voting machines used at the polls or at the Board’s office.
10. For those counties where the names of Nader and Camejo were visible to voters on the ballots, ballot pages or faces of voting machines, i.e. where the names were not covered over with a sticker or blacked out or the ballots were not reprinted without their names, we request to know whether any votes were cast for Nader and Camejo for President and Vice President.
11. We request that absentee ballots which were postmarked by election day, November 2, 2004, and were received by the board no later than November 12, 2004, be counted if the voter did not vote at the polls.
The above requests are in addition to any other requests that may be made by our witnesses.
If you should have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Very truly yours,
cc: Daniel J. Hofheimer
Kerry-Edwards State Counsel, Ohio
Donald J. McTigue
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121404Z.shtml
Author's Note | I delivered the following remarks during a rally on Boston Common on Sunday 12 December. While I was there, I received this press release from the office of Rep. John Conyers:
IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 12, 2004
CONTACT: Dena Graziano (202)226-6888
Conyers Alarmed at Efforts to Obstruct Ohio Recount Effort, Calls Witness to Monday Hearing to Detail Such Efforts
Yesterday, it came to the attention of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff that efforts to audit poll records in Greene County, Ohio are being obstructed by County Election officials and/or Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. According to Joan Quinn and Eve Robertson, two election observers researching voting records, Greene County officials initially gave Quinn and Robertson access to poll records, and then abruptly withdrew such access. Greene County Director of Elections Carole Garman claimed that she had withdrawn access to the voting records at the direction of Secretary Blackwell. Regardless of who ordered the denial of this access, such an action appears to violate Ohio law. Later, at the same office, election observers found the office unlocked, and what appeared to be locked ballot boxes, unattended. Prior to the withdrawal of access to the books, observers had found discrepancies in election records, and possible evidence of minority vote suppression.
House Judiciary Committee Democrats wrote a letter to Blackwell on December 2 requesting answers to 34 questions about election irregularities and fraud in Ohio. This letter included questions about major discrepancies in Perry County poll books. Since that letter, additional documentation has been provided to the Democratic staff demonstrating similar problems in other counties.
Because of the urgency of the Greene County matter, Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, has requested that Ms. Quinn testify at a hearing scheduled Monday in Columbus, Ohio. Ms. Quinn has agreed to do so and will also present sworn statements from corroborating witnesses. Conyers issued the following statement:
"The Recount effort is simply a search for the truth of what happened during the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. We have now repeatedly seen election officials obstruct and stonewall this search for the truth. I am beginning to wonder what it is they are trying to hide."
When all is said and done, the activities taking place in Greene County could become the most important story from the 2004 election. My remarks below expand further on this issue. - wrp
The Greene County Lockdown
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 13 December 2004
There are people out there who think we are crazy, who think we are bitter-enders, sore losermen, conspiracy theorists and tinfoil hatters. We just cannot accept the outcome of a truly legitimate American election, and we are flailing about like pathetic boated fish trying to change what cannot be changed.
Hm. I wonder why. Maybe because of stories like this one, which started popping off late Friday night. This was the story as it first began to develop: On Friday December 10, two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell's office. The Director Board of Elections stated that "all voter records for the state of Ohio were "locked-down," and now they are "not considered public records."
The volunteers were working with voter printouts received directly from Carole Garman, Director, Greene County Board of Elections. Joan Quinn and Eve Roberson, retired attorney and election official respectively, were hand-copying voter discrepancies from precinct voting books on behalf of the presidential candidates Mr. Cobb (Green) and Mr. Badnarik (Libertarian), both of whom had legitimately requested the recount.
One of the goals of their work was to determine how many minority voters were unable to vote or denied voting at the polls. Upon requesting copies of precinct records from predominantly minority precincts, Ms. Garman contacted Secretary of State Blackwell's office and spoke to Pat Wolfe, Election Administrator. Ms. Wolfe told Ms. Garman to assert that all voter records for the State of Ohio were "locked down" and that they are "not considered public records."
Quinn and Roberson asked specifically for the legal authority authorizing Mr. Blackwell to "lock down" public records. Garman stated that it was the Secretary of State's decision. Ohio statute requires the Directors of Boards of Election to comply with public requests for inspection and copying of public election records. As the volunteer team continued recording information from the precinct records in question, Garman entered the room and stated she was withdrawing permission to inspect or copy any voting records at the Board of Elections. Garman then physically removed the precinct book from Ms. Roberson's hands. They later requested the records again from Garman's office, which was again denied.
Ohio Revised Code Title XXXV Elections, Sec. 3503.26 that requires all election records be made available for public inspection and copying. ORC Sec. 3599.161 makes it a crime for any employee of the Board of Elections to knowingly prevent or prohibit any person from inspecting the public records filed in the office of the Board of Elections. Finally, ORC Sec. 3599.42 clearly states: "A violation of any provision of Title XXXV (35) of the Revised Code constitutes a prima facie case of election fraud within the purview of such Title." (Source attribution)
By late Saturday night, however, this story had taken even a wackier turn. The records taken from Quinn and Roberson's hands on Friday stood in an unlocked Board of Elections office Saturday morning, apparently overnight. Several observers arrived Saturday morning, noticing cars in the parking lot, and looked for officials in the office, but found nobody in the unlocked building. Law enforcement and media contacts had been alerted and were at the site before County officials arrived. Deputy Director of Elections Lynn McCoy arrived later and stated that all election records were still "locked down" and remained unavailable to the public.after having spent the night unsecured in an unlocked building on the eve of a recount. (Source attribution)
Hm.
So there's that. But then there's this. On election night, Warren County Ohio commissioners ordered a complete security lockdown at the County Administration Building, citing a terrorism threat. No one has offered a clear explanation for why the lockdown happened. The lockdown was done upon the recommendation of Frank Young, the county's emergency services director, who said he got information from an FBI agent. According to one source, the county was ranked 10 on a 1-to-10 threat scale. Young refused to identify the agent he said gave him the warning, and the FBI said they never issued any such warning, nor did they have any reason to suspect a specific threat against Warren County. No one but the officials in Warren County saw the need to lock all the doors, refuse entry to the press or other observers of the vote count, and generally treat the county building as if it were the Pentagon itself.
So there's that. But then there's this. Most of you are aware, I am sure, of the hearing held by Representative John Conyers last week in Washington. Can we take a moment for a cheer for Mr. Conyers for having the courage of his convictions. The process towards that hearing began with the letter from Rep. John Conyers to Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell. In that letter, Conyers described a long series of irregularities in the Ohio Presidential election that amounted to an accusation of fraud. The letter was the basis for the hearing, and made sure to invite Blackwell to participate. It is worth noting that Blackwell did not show up.
The hearing itself was a showcase for both fact and passion. The witnesses, the Representatives before them, and the crowd that filled the room lit the place up with a concerned electricity. Some believed the irregularities and outright fraud which marred the Ohio vote require immediate redress, a successful completion of which could come to overthrow the results of last month's election. Others saw the hearings as a gift to their children and the future, a means to ensure that any and all elections to come will not suffer the kind of nonsense that afflicted both November of 2004 and November of 2000.
The hearing took place in a unique moment in our history. Election fraud and voter disenfranchisement are not new in our history, but have been as much a part of the process as campaign buttons and baby-kissing. The fact that the electorate's voting habits are becoming more clearly drawn, and the fact that so many were watching like hawks after Florida in 2000, means that the standard-issue fraud which has always existed now has a bright light shining upon it, and means the new kinds of fraud involving electronic machines and computer tabulators are likewise suffering intense scrutiny. In this moment, that bright light means the problems, both new and old, can be and must be addressed, repaired, and purged from our democratic process.
Why, then, in this historic moment that benefits all Americans regardless of party, is the Ohio GOP thwarting all attempts at reform, thwarting attempts at even airing problems? You see, the Ohio GOP got wind of Conyers' intention to hold a hearing tomorrow in Columbus, at the City Hall, in the chambers of the City Council. The Ohio GOP has denied all requests for a room to hold this hearing. Conyers is going anyway, along with all his people, and will have their hearing on the damn City Hall steps if they have to.
But it is telling indeed that the Ohio GOP is refusing, flatly refusing, to allow the public the opportunity to hear of the problems that threaten the very basis of participatory democracy.
There are people out there who think we are crazy, who think we are bitter-enders, sore losermen, conspiracy theorists and tinfoil hatters. We just cannot accept the outcome of a truly legitimate American election, and we are flailing about like pathetic boated fish trying to change what cannot be changed. But the Ohio Secretary of State is brazenly breaking the law by denying public access to public records. The terrorism bugaboo was thrown in the way of those who wished to observe the counting process in Warren County, though nobody seems to know who tossed out the warning nor why terrorists would want to blow something up in southwestern Ohio. And now, legitimate hearings on these issues are being thwarted.
If demanding answers to these questions, along with all the other questions that have arisen - more than 30,000 reports of voting irregularities and fraud all across the country, including thousands of reports of malfunctioning electronic touch-screen voting machines, plus the disenfranchisement of as many as a million minority voters, and the startling reality that virtually every single 'malfunction' or error favored George W. Bush - if demanding answers to these questions makes me crazy, then damn it, bring on the boys with the butterfly nets, because I am completely out of my mind.
Hell, even the centrist shrinking violets at the DNC are apparently joining the crazy wacko club. The Democrats used their weekly radio address just yesterday to focus on ensuring accurate ballot counts and elections free of voter intimidation. Donna Brazile said on the radio, "America's story is one of expanding opportunity and suffrage, and one of our fundamental principles is that every eligible citizen is entitled to cast his or her vote and have that vote counted. We owe it to the students of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, who waited up to 10 hours to vote. We owe it to thousands of Ohio voters who wonder whether their votes were counted with the use of new electronic voting machines, and we owe it to countless other Americans. There is no place in our democracy for faulty voting equipment, long lines at the polls, untrained poll workers and any forms of chads. As a nation, we should not rest until our elections are free from the problems of elections past and until all Americans can cast their ballots on Election Day fully confident that their votes have been counted."
I'd like to get back to the Conyers hearing last week for a moment, and focus on the presence of Reverend Jesse Jackson, and his son, at that event. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. made the point that we must have a standardized national voting process and take the matter out of the hands of individual states, which can keep the process "separate and unequal." We must have a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. How can people argue that the right to own a gun is explicitly stated in the constitution, and then turn around and say it is acceptable to have the right to vote only be 'implicit' in the constitution?
It was this last point, made over and over again by Reverend Jackson, that drew the most applause from the audience and attention from the Congressmen. In demanding a constitutional amendment cementing the simple right to vote, Jackson spoke of the long line that reached from Selma, Alabama to Ohio, and into this room. "This is not about who won or lost," he said. "This is about participating in democracy. The 2004 election is not past-tense. We are not whining. It is time to take this struggle to the streets and fully legitimize this struggle." Well, here we are, Reverend. Here we are.
The importance of the presence of Reverend Jackson was described best by Cliff Arnebeck, who chairs Common Cause Ohio. "If you look at who was here," said Arnebeck, "you had leaders from the generally white political reform movement, and leaders from the black civil rights movement. This is a powerful coalition. We are not talking about one group having dominance over the other, but a real partnership of the traditional political reform community with the traditional civil rights community, and Reverend Jackson is the one that proposed it, has initiated the organization of it."
At the end of the day, the hearing was a beginning, a chance for those fighting this fight to look upon one another and know they are not alone. Rep. Conyers and his fellow Congressmen are to be commended for putting the process in motion. The most striking moment came when the hearing ended, and all of the people assembled began embracing one another. They had made their voices heard, they knew they were not alone, and it smelled like vindication in there when all was said and done.
The hearing was a beginning. There will be more, especially in Ohio. The lawsuits will continue. Rep. Conyers intimated that he might object to the seating of the Ohio Electors when the certification process begins. The protests will continue to grow across the country. Perhaps, if we can follow through and accomplish the cleansing of our democratic process, we will look back on that day in room 2237 of the Rayburn House Office Building and know that yet another popular movement towards achieving that more perfect union began there, in that time, and in that place.
On this day, this very day four years ago, a man was anointed President of the United States by the Supreme Court who did not win that office. There are many reasons why this happened, so many that I am not going to bother explaining all of them. At the end of the day, the main reason why this happened is straightforward and clear: George W. Bush gained his office because we did not count all of the votes that were cast, and the mainstream media smiled their way through all the reports of voting irregularities and fraud. Every study that came out after that election stated flatly that, had all the votes been counted, George W. Bush would be peddling his papers in West Texas, the war in Iraq would still be a neoconservative pipe dream, and perhaps two towers would still be casting their long shadows over the island of Manhattan.
We did not count all the votes in 2000, and we are on the edge of making the same mistake once again. Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell is doing everything he can to make sure the votes in his state are not being counted. Yet the fight continues. Jon Bonifaz of the National Voting Rights Institute, along with Cliff Arnebeck, will be filing their suit to demand a recount tomorrow, armed with statistical analyses of vote fraud, exit polls, and armed further with subpoenas for forensic examinations of the voting machines.
I asked Bonifaz about his suit at the Conyers hearing. He said: "The main focus is that we want a full recount of all votes cast in Ohio for President in the 2004 election. While that recount will continue past the time of the Electoral College meeting on December 13th, we will insist that it be completed in a timely manner, and by January 6th, when that recount is completed, there may in fact be a different set of Electors. I can't say for sure whether that will happen, but a recount is important to ensure the proper counting of every vote."
If you want to help Bonifaz, go to DefendTheRecount.org and join the legal defense fund. While you are at it, call or write Representative Conyers and support him in his stated desire to object to the seating of the Ohio electors if that recount is still in process. Join with Common Cause and demand the recusal of Secretary of State Blackwell from any process that involves a recount, and alert the media to his blatantly illegal actions in Greene County. Join the coalition being formed by Conyers and Jackson.
Push your Senators and House Representatives to support the GAO investigation into the election. Donate to the organization that brought us all here today - you will find out how shortly. I also strongly, strongly recommend that you join the forums at DemocraticUnderground.com and seek out the specific forum called 2004 Election Results and Discussion. 90% of what I have learned about this last election was located thanks to the remarkable researchers and activists in that place. Arm yourself with the facts.
By the way, Bonifaz and Arnebeck are working together on this, as I said before.and the recounters who got shut out of Greene County by Blackwell on Friday have contacted an attorney.one Cliff Arnebeck. So stay tuned on that.
President John F. Kennedy once said, "We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." It appears all to evident today that the government of this nation is afraid of its people, afraid of the truth.
This is nothing new. Alexis De Toqueville observed long ago that, "The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through."
We are seeing those colors breaking through today in the privatization of the vote, in the denial of access to the results of that vote, and in the complete blackout by the mainstream news media of the simple fact that this is happening. Yet here we stand, and here we will remain. I support the effort to pass a constitutional amendment establishing the explicit right to vote in this country. A federal right to vote would bolster the National Voter Registration Act standards for voter registration activities, while also prohibiting voter intimidation and granting the Attorney General the power to intervene where voting irregularities of fraud occurs.
You may groan at that last bit, remembering who sits in the AG chair today, and who will sit there when Ashcroft is gone, but this is a fight for the future, and we will clean that house one day and seat an attorney general who is not...how do I put this? One day we will seat an attorney general who understands his or her job involves more than frightening people on cue whenever Bush lands in political hot water. A federal right to vote makes all of the things we have seen happening since the November election a matter of constitutional law. Diebold would be exposed by this. Blackwell would be exposed by this. The truth would be exposed by this.
I can think of nothing more important than the defense of our right to vote, I can think of nothing more important than the demand that all votes be counted, and I can think of nothing more important than the fight to cleanse our system of those who would steal from us these basic, essential democratic requirements. I can think of no coherent argument against enshrining our right to vote within the sacred document that defines us as a nation.
This is not a partisan political issue. I do not know what the party registration was of the woman going through chemotherapy, who fainted in line while waiting to vote. She left the line without voting because the line was too long, because there were not enough machines at her polling place. I do not know the party registration of the single mom who would have gotten fired from her job had she stood in that long line to vote. What about the man who was in the hospital and did not receive his absentee ballot, so he stood in that line with an IV in his arm. I have no idea who these people would of voted for. I couldn't care less. These people, and millions more besides, were disenfranchised in this last election. This is intolerable. Period.
We stand upon the precipice of history. What we do now defines our future. Thank you for being here, thank you for standing up, thank you for your patriotism. Thank you.
________________________________________
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.'

http://blog.democrats.com/ohio-absentee
62,000 Fraudulent Absentee Ballots in Ohio?
by Bob Fertik on December 12, 2004 - 9:23pm.
More Votes than Voters in Ohio:
Absentee Vote Inflated, Certified Vote in Doubt
by Dr. Werner Lange
December 12, 2004
A careful review of the absentee vote in one Ohio county revealed that many more absentee votes were cast than there were absentee voters identified.
All absentee voters must be identified as such by name and residence in the precinct poll books of the precinct in which they are registered. Over 100 precinct poll books in Trumbull County were checked for absentee voters and that number of actual absentee voters was compared to the certified number of absentee votes. There was an inflated difference in nearly every precinct of the five communities examined. The five communities whose poll books were carefully inspected for an absentee vote overcount are: Warren City (311), Howland Township (138), Newton Falls City (34), Girard City (57), and Cortland Township (40). The 106 precincts of these five Ohio communities, about 39% of all precincts in Trumbull County, netted a total of 580 absentee votes for which there were no absentee voters identified in the poll books.
The 106 precincts of these five Ohio communities, about 39% of all precincts in Trumbull County, netted a total of 580 absentee votes for which there were no absentee voters identified in the poll books.
“When there are more votes than voters, there is a big problem” stated Dr. Werner Lange, author of this study which would have been completed weeks earlier if Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, co-chair of the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign, had not unlawfully ordered all 88 boards of elections to prevent public inspection of poll books until after certification of the vote.
The absentee vote inflation rate for these five communities averages 5.5 fradulent voters per precinct. If this pattern of inflated absentee votes holds for all of Ohio’s 11,366 precincts, then there were some 62,513 absentee votes in Ohio up for grabs in the last election. Who grabbed them and how they did so should be the subject of an immediate congressional investigation.
INFLATION OF ABSENTEE VOTE IN OHIO:
Evidence from Trumbull County
LEGEND
P --|-- A --|-- B1 --|-- B2 --|-- B3 --|-- C
P = Precinct No.
A=Certified Absentee Vote
(B = Identified Absentee Voters)
B1= printed B2= handwritten B3= Total
C= Overcount
Warren:
1A --|-- 83 --|-- 48 --|-- 19 --|-- 67 --|-- 16
1B --|-- 29 --|-- 15 --|-- 5 --|-- 20 --|-- 9
1C --|-- 46 --|-- 38 --|-- 13 --|-- 51 --|-- -
1D --|-- 35 --|-- 30 --|-- 9 --|-- 39 --|-- -
1E --|-- 43 --|-- 31 --|-- 9 --|-- 40 --|-- 3
1G --|-- 41 --|-- 35 --|-- 4 --|-- 39 --|-- 2
1H --|-- 21 --|-- 19 --|-- 5 --|-- 24 --|-- -
1J --|-- 40 --|-- 27 --|-- 6 --|-- 33 --|-- 7
1K --|-- 47 --|-- 35 --|-- 2 --|-- 37 --|-- 10
1L --|-- 56 --|-- 36 --|-- 10 --|-- 46 --|-- 10
2A --|-- 38 --|-- 33 --|-- 3 --|-- 36 --|-- 2
2B --|-- 31 --|-- 24 --|-- 3 --|-- 27 --|-- 4
2C --|-- 62 --|-- 58 --|-- 6 --|-- 64 --|-- -
2D --|-- 20 --|-- 19 --|-- 6 --|-- 25 --|-- -
2E --|-- 53 --|-- 49 --|-- 0 --|-- 49 --|-- 4
2F --|-- 34 --|-- 27 --|-- 7 --|-- 34 --|-- 0
2G --|-- 48 --|-- 37 --|-- 4 --|-- 41 --|-- 7
3A --|-- 31 --|-- 16 --|-- 10 --|-- 26 --|-- 5
3B --|-- 27 --|-- 19 --|-- 5 --|-- 24 --|-- 3
3C --|-- 90 --|-- 69 --|-- 18 --|-- 87 --|-- 3
3D --|-- 43 --|-- 29 --|-- 15 --|-- 44 --|-- -
3E --|-- 63 --|-- 33 --|-- 20 --|-- 53 --|-- 10
3F --|-- 43 --|-- 24 --|-- 14 --|-- 38 --|-- 5
3G --|-- 51 --|-- 46 --|-- 9 --|-- 55 --|-- -
3H --|-- 41 --|-- 24 --|-- 9 --|-- 33 --|-- 8
3J --|-- 49 --|-- 34 --|-- 8 --|-- 42 --|-- 7
3K --|-- 54 --|-- 32 --|-- 12 --|-- 44 --|-- 10
3L --|-- 49 --|-- 31 --|-- 16 --|-- 47 --|-- 2
3M --|-- 93 --|-- 54 --|-- 34 --|-- 88 --|-- 5
4A --|-- 30 --|-- 15 --|-- 5 --|-- 20 --|-- 10
4B --|-- 35 --|-- 20 --|-- 7 --|-- 27 --|-- 8
4C --|-- 21 --|-- 13 --|-- 6 --|-- 19 --|-- 2
4D --|-- 11 --|-- 4 --|-- 4 --|-- 8 --|-- 3
4E --|-- 22 --|-- 13 --|-- 3 --|-- 16 --|-- 6
4F --|-- 25 --|-- 19 --|-- 5 --|-- 24 --|-- 1
4G --|-- 14 --|-- 5 --|-- 3 --|-- 8 --|-- 6
4H --|-- 20 --|-- 21 --|-- 3 --|-- 24 --|-- -
5A --|-- 45 --|-- 31 --|-- 13 --|-- 44 --|-- 1
5C --|-- 26 --|-- 16 --|-- 8 --|-- 24 --|-- 2
5D --|-- 64 --|-- 48 --|-- 10 --|-- 58 --|-- 6
5E --|-- 60 --|-- 34 --|-- 21 --|-- 55 --|-- 5
5F --|-- 60 --|-- 37 --|-- 13 --|-- 50 --|-- 10
5G --|-- 50 --|-- 29 --|-- 11 --|-- 40 --|-- 10
5H --|-- 63 --|-- 47 --|-- 6 --|-- 53 --|-- 10
5K --|-- 102 66 --|-- 24 --|-- 90 --|-- 12
5L --|-- 21 --|-- 17 --|-- 7 --|-- 24 --|-- -
6A --|-- 40 --|-- 27 --|-- 10 --|-- 37 --|-- 3
6B --|-- 48 --|-- 25 --|-- 13 --|-- 38 --|-- 10
6C --|-- 37 --|-- 25 --|-- 0 --|-- 25 --|-- 12
6D --|-- 39 --|-- 28 --|-- 6 --|-- 34 --|-- 5
6E --|-- 81 --|-- 50 --|-- 12 --|-- 62 --|-- 19
6G --|-- 38 --|-- 20 --|-- 14 --|-- 34 --|-- 4
7A --|-- 34 --|-- 32 --|-- 1 --|-- 33 --|-- 1
7B --|-- 66 --|-- 49 --|-- 14 --|-- 63 --|-- 3
7C --|-- 50 --|-- 35 --|-- 5 --|-- 40 --|-- 10
7D --|-- 41 --|-- 26 --|-- 0 --|-- 26 --|-- 15
7E --|-- 40 --|-- 30 --|-- 7 --|-- 37 --|-- 3
7F --|-- 16 --|-- 11 --|-- 3 --|-- 14 --|-- 2
Total Overcount: Warren 311
Howland Township:
A --|-- 34 --|-- 20 --|-- 4 --|-- 24 --|-- 10
B --|-- 22 --|-- 19 --|-- 3 --|-- 22 --|-- 0
C --|-- 53 --|-- 39 --|-- 11 --|-- 50 --|-- 3
D --|-- 61 --|-- 48 --|-- 13 --|-- 61 --|-- 0
E --|-- 43 --|-- 32 --|-- 5 --|-- 37 --|-- 6
F --|-- 41 --|-- 34 --|-- 3 --|-- 37 --|-- 4
G --|-- 44 --|-- 34 --|-- 5 --|-- 39 --|-- 5
H --|-- 122 95 --|-- 14 --|-- 109 13
J --|-- 70 --|-- 57 --|-- 9 --|-- 66 --|-- 4
K --|-- 66 --|-- 45 --|-- 11 --|-- 56 --|-- 10
L --|-- 48 --|-- 33 --|-- 9 --|-- 42 --|-- 6
M --|-- 50 --|-- 36 --|-- 9 --|-- 45 --|-- 5
N --|-- 74 --|-- 55 --|-- 9 --|-- 64 --|-- 10
P --|-- 36 --|-- 21 --|-- 5 --|-- 26 --|-- 10
Q --|-- 43 --|-- 33 --|-- 5 --|-- 38 --|-- 5
R --|-- 39 --|-- 32 --|-- 9 --|-- 41 --|-- -
S --|-- 84 --|-- 67 --|-- 7 --|-- 74 --|-- 10
T --|-- 44 --|-- 35 --|-- 3 --|-- 38 --|-- 4
V --|-- 42 --|-- 22 --|-- 7 --|-- 29 --|-- 13
W --|-- 61 --|-- 50 --|-- 9 --|-- 59 --|-- 2
X --|-- 56 --|-- 45 --|-- 6 --|-- 51 --|-- 5
Y --|-- 69 --|-- 49 --|-- 7 --|-- 56 --|-- 13
Total Overcount: Howland Township 138
Newton Falls
City:
1A --|-- 61 --|-- 44 --|-- 4 --|-- 48 --|-- 13
2A --|-- 37 --|-- 35 --|-- 0 --|-- 35 --|-- 2
3A --|-- 62 --|-- 49 --|-- 1 --|-- 50 --|-- 12
4A --|-- 41 --|-- 32 --|-- 2 --|-- 34 --|-- 7
Total Overcount: Newton Falls City 34
Girard City:
1A --|-- 58 --|-- 38 --|-- 0 --|-- 38 --|-- 20
1B --|-- 54 --|-- 41 --|-- 11 --|-- 52 --|-- 2
1C --|-- 51 --|-- 47 --|-- 8 --|-- 55 --|-- -
2A --|-- 57 --|-- 45 --|-- 5 --|-- 50 --|-- 7
2B --|-- 62 --|-- 56 --|-- 6 --|-- 62 --|-- 0
2C --|-- 35 --|-- 30 --|-- 0 --|-- 30 --|-- 5
2D --|-- 45 --|-- 29 --|-- 8 --|-- 37 --|-- 8
3A --|-- 26 --|-- 25 --|-- 4 --|-- 29 --|-- -
3B --|-- 69 --|-- 53 --|-- 18 --|-- 71 --|-- -
3C --|-- 43 --|-- 35 --|-- 1 --|-- 36 --|-- 7
3D --|-- 42 --|-- 34 --|-- 0 --|-- 34 --|-- 8
4A --|-- 55 --|-- 42 --|-- 13 --|-- 55 --|-- 0
4B --|-- 43 --|-- 42 --|-- 3 --|-- 45 --|-- -
4C --|-- 36 --|-- 35 --|-- 2 --|-- 37 --|-- -
Total Overcount: Girard City 57
Cortland:
A --|-- 50 --|-- 34 --|-- 13 --|-- 47 --|-- 3
B --|-- 61 --|-- 41 --|-- 15 --|-- 56 --|-- 5
C --|-- 75 --|-- 59 --|-- 11 --|-- 70 --|-- 5
D --|-- 59 --|-- 38 --|-- 11 --|-- 49 --|-- 10
E --|-- 67 --|-- 54 --|-- 13 --|-- 67 --|-- 0
F --|-- 61 --|-- 51 --|-- 8 --|-- 59 --|-- 2
G --|-- 75 --|-- 55 --|-- 10 --|-- 65 --|-- 10
H --|-- 54 --|-- 37 --|-- 12 --|-- 49 --|-- 5
Total Overcount: Cortland --|-- --|-- --|-- --|-- 40
Total Overcount from these five Trumbull County communities: 580
Key Findings:
1. 580 votes attributed to absentee voters in these five communities had no record in the precinct poll books of the identity of the voter.
2. Only five precincts had a certified absentee vote that was equivalent to the number of identified absentee voters in the precinct poll book. The five are: Warren 2F; Howland D; Cortland E; and Girard 4A and 2A.
3. An overcount of exactly 10 absentee votes was unusually common. 17 precincts showed 10 more absentee votes than there were identified absentee voters. The 17 are:
Warren 1K; 1L; 3E; 3K; 4A; 5F; 5G; 5H; 6B; 7C; Howland A, K, N, P, S; and Cortland D and G.
Discussion:
Absentee voters, like any other registered voters, must have their name and address appear in the poll book of the precinct in which they reside and vote. No legitimate absentee ballot can be cast without the name of the registered absentee voter appearing in the precinct poll book. If application for an absentee ballot is made in a timely fashion, then “absentee voter” appears in bold print within the signature box of that voter. If the request for an absentee ballot comes close to the election, then evidently those words or similar ones are handwritten within the signature box. Also, if the registered absentee voter chooses to vote at the Trumbull Board of Elections, then this information is shared with precinct poll workers who are to write in “absentee voter.”
For this study, both the printed and written absentee voter identification were verified for each of the 106 precincts carefully scrutinized. The actual total number of identified absentee voters appears in column B3. Board of Election officials mark the certified absentee vote in red ink on the cover of the poll book as well as on the Reconciliation Certificate found within it, often changing the number which appeared on the cover in black ink. The number of absentee votes counted and certified appears in column A. If there is a higher number in column B3 than A, then not all persons receiving an absentee ballot returned them or some other legitimate reason can explain the difference.
If there is a higher number in column A than in column B3 – as happened in nearly every precinct examined – then there must have been more absentee votes cast than there were absentee voters identified in the poll books. This glaring discrepancy cries out for an explanation and investigation. There cannot and must not be more votes than voters in any legitimate election.
Conclusion:
If this pattern of overcounting absentee votes is a statewide one, then tens of thousands of phoney absentee votes were up for grabs in Ohio. Who grabbed them and how they got them should be a subject of an immediate congressional investigation.
For further information, please contact Dr. Werner Lange, author of this study, at Werlange@earthlink.com
Editor's Note:
After reading this article I asked Dr. Lange a few follow-up questions. Dr. Lange's replies are indented.
1. Were the absentee ballots counted separately in each precinct, or together at the county election HQ?
I am not certain where the absentee ballots were counted. I believe it must have been at the county election HQ (Trumbull Board of Elections) since absentee voters did not show up at the precinct polls but needed to be identified as absentee voters in the poll books whether they voted by mail or at the Trumbull BOE in the days prior to Election Day.
2. Did you examine the actual absentee ballots?
- If so, could you tally the Kerry & Bush votes?
- If so, did you notice any repeating handwriting?
No, I did not examine the absentee ballots themselves, and I believe members of the general public are not permitted to do so. The poll books are public documents; but I'm not sure if the ballots themselves have the same status.
3. Did you seek an explanation from the county election supervisor?
Not specifically, but I was told by a BOE employee that all absentee voters are identified as such in the precinct poll books.
-
2. Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure: National Security
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/weblogs/luna/archives/000977.html
Double Standard
By Carl Luna
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Friday 10 December 2004
Just a passing thought. Back in 1993, following the infamous "Blackhawk Down " disaster in Somalia, Clinton's Secretary of Defense Les Aspin resigned amidst allegations that he had failed to provide the troops in Somalia with the armored support they needed to do their mission. House and Senate Republicans, including several who hold majority leadership positions today, were in the forefront calling for Aspin's ouster.
Why then aren't these same voices calling for the resignation of Donald "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." Rumsfeld? Aspin's Somalian botch resulted in the deaths of 18 US servicemen and the wounding of 75. Rumsfeld's apparent failure to insure proper armor protection for US troops has already, to date, resulted in more lives lost or maimed than happened in Somalia.
Meanwhile Rumsfeld's off the cuff musings that, "If you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up," has to rank as one of the great non-sequiturs of any modern Defense Secretary. Does this mean you might as well go into combat naked, painted blue with beards tarred like the Celtic warriors of old? I thought the goal was to produce tanks that blew up the other side before they blew up you and armored vehicles that kept soldiers from dying at the hands of low-grade homemade bombs? Rumsfeld's job is to make sure the troops go into combat with everything they need to minimize loses. That he should have done so and hasn't is indicative of incompetence, if not outright criminal negligence. That he makes light of it by essentially telling the troops "Life's not fair - tough cookies - borders on reckless endangerment. For Republican members of Congress not to call for his head, they way they did with Democrat Les Aspin a decade ago, is partisan hypocrisy of the most brazen and dangerous kind.
Support the Troops - Dump Rumsfeld!
3. Bush Abomination’s #2 Failure: Economic Security

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/10/opinion/10krugman.html?oref=login&oref=login

________________________________________
December 10, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Borrow, Speculate and Hope
By PAUL KRUGMAN

he National Association of Securities Dealers," The Wall Street Journal reports, "is investigating whether some brokerage houses are inappropriately pushing individuals to borrow large sums on their houses to invest in the stock market." Can we persuade the association to investigate would-be privatizers of Social Security?
For it is now apparent that the Bush administration's privatization proposal will amount to the same thing: borrow trillions, put the money in the stock market and hope.
Privatization would begin by diverting payroll taxes, which pay for current Social Security benefits, into personal investment accounts. The government, already deep in deficit, would have to borrow to make up the shortfall.
This would sharply increase the government's debt. Never mind, privatization advocates say: in the long run, they claim, people would make so much on personal accounts that the government could save money by cutting retirees' benefits. Financial markets won't believe this claim, as I'll explain in a minute, but let's temporarily grant the point.
Even so, if personal investment accounts were invested in Treasury bonds, this whole process would accomplish precisely nothing. The interest workers would receive on their accounts would exactly match the interest the government would have to pay on its additional debt. To compensate for the initial borrowing, the government would have to cut future benefits so much that workers would gain nothing at all.
How, then, can privatizers claim that they could secure the future of Social Security without raising taxes or reducing the incomes of future retirees? By assuming that workers would invest most of their accounts in stocks, that these investments would make a lot of money and that, in effect, the government, not the workers, would reap most of those gains, because as personal accounts grew, the government could cut benefits.
We can argue at length about whether the high stock returns such schemes assume are realistic (they aren't), but let's cut to the chase: in essence, such schemes involve having the government borrow heavily and put the money in the stock market. That's because the government would, in effect, confiscate workers' gains in their personal accounts by cutting those workers' benefits.
Once you realize that privatization really means government borrowing to speculate on stocks, it doesn't sound too responsible, does it? But the details make it considerably worse.
First, financial markets would, correctly, treat the reality of huge deficits today as a much more important indicator of the government's fiscal health than the mere promise that government could save money by cutting benefits in the distant future.
After all, a government bond is a legally binding promise to pay, while a benefits formula that supposedly cuts costs 40 years from now is nothing more than a suggestion to future Congresses. Social Security rules aren't immutable: in the past, Congress has changed things like the retirement age and the tax treatment of benefits. If a privatization plan passed in 2005 called for steep benefit cuts in 2045, what are the odds that those cuts would really happen?
Second, a system of personal accounts, even though it would mainly be an indirect way for the government to speculate in the stock market, would pay huge brokerage fees. Of course, from Wall Street's point of view that's a benefit, not a cost.
There is, by the way, a precedent for Bush-style privatization. One major reason for Argentina's rapid debt buildup in the 1990's was a pension reform involving a switch to individual accounts - a switch that President Carlos Menem, like President Bush, decided to finance with borrowing rather than taxes. So Mr. Bush intends to emulate a plan that helped set the stage for Argentina's economic crisis.
If Mr. Bush were to say in plain English that his plan to solve our fiscal problems is to borrow trillions, put the money into stocks and hope for the best, everyone would denounce that plan as the height of irresponsibility. The fact that this plan has an elaborate disguise, one that would add considerably to its costs, makes it worse.
And maybe the fact that serious financial experts, the sort qualified to be Treasury secretary, understand all this is the reason why John Snow has just been reappointed.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Bob Herbert is on vacation.

4. Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure: Environmental Security
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1212-04.htm
Published on Sunday, December 12, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times

U.S. Seen as Laggard at U.N. Climate Change Meeting
As signatories to the Kyoto pact adopt ways to cut gas emissions, America is increasingly shut out, having balked at ratifying the accord.

by Héctor Tobar

BUENOS AIRES — The United States is the big odd man out as diplomats, scientists and environmentalists from more than 190 countries gather here at the 10th meeting of the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The focus of the convention is the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which mandates reduction of greenhouse gases that cause global warming and will take effect next year.
Discussions of new limits are expected to begin here when official delegations arrive Wednesday, near the end of the 12-day conference.
Among major industrial countries, only the U.S. and Australia have failed to ratify the accord, which commits signatory nations to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases to 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012.
Observers here say the U.S. is increasingly being shut out as the rest of the world adopts global mechanisms by which each country will meet its targeted reductions, including one that allows companies to trade reductions in carbon emissions in a kind of global pollution market.
The U.S., which accounts for about a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, pulled out of the agreement in 2001.
U.S. officials last week acknowledged a global rise in temperatures caused by human activity but said the increase had not yet reached the "dangerous" levels that required drastic action.
They reiterated that the Bush administration would not push for U.S. ratification of the accord.
"The Kyoto Protocol was a political agreement," said Harlan L. Watson, President Bush's senior climate negotiator and head of the U.S. delegation to the conference. "It was not based on science."
Watson, a physicist, is playing the role of spoilsport at the conference, enduring the private criticism of fellow delegates and the thinly veiled hostility of environmentalists who have come to the conference in large numbers as observers.
"I'm not sure why we are considered the 'bad boys,' " Watson said at a news conference last week. "We believe we match or exceed what any other country in the world is doing to address the issue."
Watson and other U.S. officials here point out that the Bush administration has set aside billions to fund climate research and weather-monitoring programs around the world.
In 2002, Bush committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 18% by 2012 but linked those reductions to growth in gross domestic product.
However, U.S. officials at the conference said emissions would probably be 15% above 1990 levels, far higher than mandated in the Kyoto pact.
The U.S. plan is based chiefly on voluntary measures, because administration officials believe that mandatory limits would hinder economic growth.
At another session, Watson took questions from environmentalists and acknowledged the scientific consensus on global warming: that the global temperature had risen 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit in the last century and that the increase was linked to human activity.
There is also widespread agreement that climate science is not yet able to predict with precision what the long-term consequences of global warming will be.
"There's a lot of uncertainty, and we'll leave it at that," Watson told the environmentalists. He said the U.S. would not revisit its goals for greenhouse gas reduction until 2012, when it would reassess a new round of climate studies.
In the meantime, much of the rest of the developing world will begin implementing the Kyoto Protocol. The agreement passed its final hurdle in November when Russia ratified the treaty.
Yvo de Boer, the chief negotiator on climate issues for the European Union, said the political atmosphere had changed considerably in favor of worldwide action to combat global warming.
"There was a great reluctance before the Russian ratification to begin any change toward the future," De Boer said. "That situation has clearly changed."
Environmental groups such as the World Wide Fund for Nature are pushing the signatories to move toward even stricter limits.
Although no major agreements are expected as the convention reaches a close this week, the officials will probably make progress on many of the agreement's technical details.
During a series of meetings and worksh

Posted by richard at 08:56 AM

December 11, 2004

LNS Post Coup II Supplement (12/11/04)

At least five more US soldiers have died in Iraq. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich. Nothing more. No, the world is not safer. No, the Iraqi people are not free. No, the US will not control the last few decades of the world’s oil flow. The war in Iraq is worse than immoral, worse than illegal under international law, it is insanely stupid. It was insanely stupid in its inception, insanely stupid in its execution, and insanely stupid in its perpetuation.
Here are twenty-one pieces (some news, some op-ed) that highlight the national state of emergency that the US regimestream news media continues to CONCEAL from and LIE to you about, and that the Democratic Party leadership (in particular, John Kerry) have cravenly and cowardly refused to confront...
This LNS Post Coup II Supplement is organized into six sections: Theft of 2004 Election, Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure (National Security), Bush Abomination’s #2 Failure (Economic Security), Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure (Environmental Security), Complicity of the Corporatist News Media and More Names for the John P. O’Neill Wall of Heroes…These six categories represent the only real agenda to pursue, moving forward: Free Press in the US (i.e., Media Reform), Democracy in the US (i.e., Election Reform), National Security (Scheuer’s Imperial Hubris and Clarke’s Against All Enemies), Economic Security (fiscal responsibility, e.g., debt reduction), Environmental Security (i.e., renewable energy resources, the fight against global warming) and the Defense of Those Who Speak Out in Resistance (e.g., the John P. O’Neill Wall of Heroes)…There is no other realistic agenda, anything else (the “traditional” Democratic agenda in particular) is nothing more than denial and co-dependency…
Donate to www.blackboxvoting.org, www.moveon.org, www.buzzflash.com, www.truthout.org and www.mediamatters.org.
Do not donate to the Democratic Party unless it joins the Resistance – for REAL (as in “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor”) The Kerry capitulation is unforgivable, so is Sen. Harry Reid’s remarks about accepting Scalia as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, so is the attack on Michael Moore by Al From of the DLC…No, do not give the Democratic Party one more penny until it shows up in the streets and in the courts where the *civil* war is already underway…BUT do not fall into the revisionist thinking of those like John MacArthur who says, in the Providence Journal, “I am sorry I didn’t vote for Ralph Nader.” We are at a very dangerous juncture in the Resistance. John Kerry has betrayed us, but this tragic fact does not re-cast the betrayal of that shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Ralph-Nader. His betrayal of all that is good in 2000, and his feeble attempt to repeat that betrayal in 2004 still stand on their own as acts of ignominy. Just because Kerry too fails to understand the national state of emergency or refuses to risk what he would risk in resisting does not lessen the eggreious wrongs of the shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Ralph-Nader. Both the shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Ralph-Nader and Kerry should both be ostracized, and indeed equated, for their betrayals.

The Theft of the 2004 Election:

Mark Crispin Miller, www.buzzflash.com: As you know (and way too many others don't), Rep. John Conyers recently held open hearings in the US Congress, on the all-important subject of the voting in Ohio on November 2nd. There was a lot of harrowing testimony on the tricks and tactics used there by Bush/Cheney to suppress as many Democratic votes as possible, and to exaggerate Ohio's electoral support for the regime.
It was a public inquiry of towering importance, and not only because it was (allegedly) Ohio that gave Bush just enough electoral votes to win. Ohio matters more than anyone can say, because what went down there went down not only in Ohio. There is in fact abundant evidence--strong evidence--suggesting that Team Bush pursued that crooked twofold strategy throughout the nation. In other words, they used a broad variety of means to trash the Kerry vote and to exaggerate the Bush vote, and did so everywhere they could.
Now, this being a democratic republic (or so we've all been taught), you'd think that Conyers' charges -- and the hearing -- would get a lot of coverage in the press.
And yet the New York Times, our nation's "newspaper of record," did not even mention it, much less cover it. The hearings were on Wednesday. There was no word of it in Thursday's paper, nor any word, belatedly, in Friday's. (Thursday's Times did run a couple of long stories on the electoral situation in Ukraine, but none on the quite similar, and -- to Americans -- vastly more important story here at home.)
Such silence is bizarre. It's deeply wrong. In fact, it's un-American. For what public issue could there be that matters quite as much as the integrity of our elections? What, then, could possibly explain, or excuse, the Times' failure even to note Conyers' hearings? For that matter, what explains the Times' thorough indifference to this crucial subject? Like all American news outlets, the Times is obligated, by the First Amendment, to attempt to keep its readership informed about the government, so that the government is answerable to us, its ultimate custodians. Rather than deal squarely with the ever-mounting evidence of massive fraud by the Republicans, the Times instead has merely ridiculed those raising questions, as if such patriotic citizens were laughably insane.

Bob Fertik, www.democrats.com: On Friday December 10 two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell’s office. The Director Board of Elections stated that “all voter records for the state of Ohio were “locked-down,” and now they are not considered public records.”
Are we entering Watergate territory? Remember the coverup was worse than the crime.
Just in the nick of time, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is taking his ongoing investigation of Ohio election fraud to Columbus on Monday for a "2004 Election Forum." Conyers will be joined by Congressmembers Maxine Waters (D-CA), Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), and Ted Strickland (D-OH), along with Rev. Jesse Jackson, attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and John Bonifaz, and other Ohio leaders. The forum will address new evidence of election irregularities and fraud in Ohio, the issue of Ohio electors meeting while recounts and litigation are pending, and to discuss legislative and other responses to the problems.
First, this is a direct slap in the face to Ken Blackwell, since Columbus is where his office is. How will Blackwell respond?

www.fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com: On Friday December 10 two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell’s office. The Director Board of Elections stated that “all voter records for the state of Ohio were “locked-down,” and now they are not considered public records.”
The volunteers were working with voter printouts received directly from Carole Garman, Director, Greene County Board of Elections. Joan Quinn and Eve Roberson, retired attorney and election official respectively, were hand-copying voter discrepancies from precinct voting books on behalf of the presidential candidates Mr. Cobb (Green) and Mr. Badnarik Libertarian) who had requested the recount.
One of the goals of the recount was to determine how many minority voters were unable to vote or denied voting at the polls. Upon requesting copies of precinct records from predomina