AN ELECTION MOST FOUL

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By; A miscellany for our times by Bruce J. Miller, editor, TAKE THEM

AT THEIR WORDS, Shocking, Amusing, and Baffling Quotations from the

GOP and Their Friends, 1994-2004. Academy Chicago Publishers, ISBN

0-89733-521-x

 

Thursday, November 04, 2004

 

AN ELECTION MOST FOUL

 

 

While televised chatterers debate whether Kerry carried enough angels

on his lapel pin, serious questions about the integrity of the 2004

presidential election are, for the moment at least, being ignored.

 

As Napoleon Solo of the 1960's television show The Man from Uncle once

said, " sometimes the most obvious is the most devious. " And what is

obvious is the plan on the part of Republican state administrations to

retard the election process, suppress voter turn-out and make it

inconvenient for Democratic constituencies to vote. Whether it was J.

Kenneth Blackwell of Ohio insisting all new registrants file forms on

80-pound paper (a requirement that was rescinded) or Mary Kiffmeyer's

last-minute implementation of a cumbersome new computer system in

Minnesota the intention was clear.

 

Blackwell, despite large numbers of new registrants, appears to have

provided fewer voting machines and polling places than in 2000, based

on the anecdotal evidence of post-election television interviews with

voters. Many people waited more than 10 hours to cast their ballots.

This in and of itself is a scandal largely glossed over by the media

and treated as a human interest story: " isn't it great to see how

determined people were to cast their votes. " (Broadcasting from

" Democracy Plaza " the reports took on an eerie, Orwellian cast.)

 

In a rare moment of candor Tom Brokaw described the election as " a

nightmare " and expressed admiration for the fact that there were no

tanks in the streets, no violence, with everything resolved in a

peaceful manner. In the context of network " journalism, " this

observation at least acknowledged that something had gone seriously wrong.

 

Now to the less obvious and more substantial means of election-fixing.

Dailykos makes some essential observations:

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/3/52213/1921

 

 

Florida numbers vs 2000 - something is wrong

by Buck Mulligan

Wed Nov 3rd, 2004 at 02:22:13 PST

2000 2004

Bush 2,912,790 Bush 3,836,216

Gore 2,912,253 Kerry 3,459,293

Nader 97,421 Nader 32,035

Other 40,193 Other 28,382

= 7,355,296 (2004) - 5,963,657 (2000) = 1,392,639 new voters (99%

precincts counted, no provisionals or absentees).

So, we have 1.39 million new voters, and Kerry loses by 376,923 votes?

Thus, he lost an overwhelming majoirty of them, or he lost an

overwhelming majority of regular voters - much, much more than Gore lost.

We have 77,197 fewer third party votes, but Kerry loses the vast

majority of these?

Exit polling numbers show that Kerry had more Hispanic and Cuban

support than Gore did, and Kerry lost?

Most exit polls in Florida showed Kerry leading, yet he loses by a

massive 5%?

 

WWW.BLACKBOXVOTING.ORG has organized a massive FOIA request:

 

Voting without auditing. (Are we insane?)

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Nov 3 2004 -- Did the voting machines trump exit

polls? There's a way to find out.

 

Black Box Voting (.ORG) is conducting the largest Freedom of

Information action in history. At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box

Voting blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records

requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents from

3,000 individual counties and townships. Networks called the election

before anyone bothered to perform even the most rudimentary audit.

America: We have permission to say No to unaudited voting. It is our

right.

 

The Kerry campaign and the DNC were warned repeatedly by various

parties that touch-screen voting machines made by Diebold and other

companies were not trustworthy. The New York Times ran a series of

editorials about this problem and other problems that could prevent

the execution of a fair election (This series often contained hard

news, and so I will never figure out why more of them weren't run on

the front page).

 

Despite these warnings, the DNC conducted the campaign without

directly confronting the e-voting threat.

 

In addition to the deliberate attempt on the part of Republican

secretaries of state to discourage voting, there have been countless

reports of irregularities in various states, and most importantly,

there is an unexplained discrepancy between exit polls and actual results.

 

If there is truly a free press in this country, if investigative

reporting still exists (and I see evidence that it hasn't died out

completely) now is the time when news organizations must step up to

the plate and do their jobs.

 

What in the hell is going on?

 

posted by Bruce @ 7:44 AM

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY

 

" Big, big, big day. Look at all the losers: Bin Laden, George Soros,

moveon.org, Hollywood, Old Europe, the United Nations, MTV,

liberalism, the mainstream media, Dan Rather, Bruce Springsteen, and

terrorists everywhere. The winner yesterday: America, the United

States of America. "

--Rush Limbaugh during his radio broadcast.

 

posted by Bruce @ 8:32 PM

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

 

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S " POORLY TAILORED " PRESIDENCY

 

The blatant efforts of J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Ohio Secretary of

State, to limit voter turnout would make us laugh if it weren't for

the fact that the outcome of this election is so important.

 

Blackwell was prevented form imposing his 80-pound-paper-only rule for

new registration forms, but the GOP has succeeded in ovecoming court

rulings striking down their right to place multiple vote-challengers

in black neighborhoods. Like Eva, the persistently suicidal character

in Absurd Person Singular, Blackwell keeps trying to fix things his

way, no matter what. Who knows what else he is doing that has been

overlooked in plain sight or in secret?

 

Now we learn that Prince Blackwell has issued an edict banning

photographers and reporters from polling places, including the

Akron-Beacon Journal, a newspaper that has been visiting polling

places during elections for the last 30 years. Representatives of the

media (including exit pollsters) will not be allowed within 100 feet

of a polling place.

 

No exit polls? What is Blackwell hiding?

 

Indeed, what sort of guidelines are being followed by the Republican

Secretaries of State nation-wide? In Minnesota, in Florida, and in

other states where the GOP controls the office of the Secretary of

State , efforts to slow down the election and/or the registration

process and impede voting have been ongoing.

 

On July 17, 2003, The Washington Post uncovered a scandal involving

members of RAGA, the Republican Attorneys General Association:

 

" Republican state attorneys general in at least six states telephoned

corporations or trade groups subject to lawsuits or regulations by

their state governments to solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in

political contributions, according to internal fundraising documents

obtained by The Washington Post... "

 

This was clearly a coordinated and organized unethical (if not

illegal) fund-raising operation about which the participants were

unapologetic and suffered no consequences.

 

Will anyone in this nation's vast media empire investigate the

Secretaries of State, the offices of the Republican Governors, and the

GOP to find out if actions were coordinated to suppress voters, retard

the voting process, destroy the registration forms or absentee ballots

cast by Democrats?

 

When Bush was recently asked by Charles Gibson of ABC about the

clearly visible rectangular bulge under his jacket during the first

presidential debate, Bush said " I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly

tailored shirt. "

 

The entire Bush presidency has been well-tailored, using advertising

imagery to to hide the foul stench of death, incompetence and greed in

Iraq and Afghanistan; the revocation of international treaties and

environmental rules at home, the job losses, and increasing

instability of the middle class.

 

Bush's " poorly tailored shirt, " a pathetic trick to cover up the

desperate actions of a man who was never fit to be president, and

whose incompetence and lack of empathy has resulted in the death of

more than 10,000 Americans with thousands more seriously wounded, and

100,000 Iraqis, according to a study recently published in the British

Journal Lancet.

 

The poorly tailored shirt is in rags as the policies Bush said would

lead to peace and the worldwide embrace of democracy have brought

their opposites.

 

This poorly tailored and illegitimate presidency has brought us much

in the way of sartorial entertainment along with disaster and

insecurity. Bush in his cowboy outfits, his flight suit, and now

Bush's advisers dressed as hunters in a lame attempt to turn Kerry

into Dukakis.

 

If Bush's advisers had spent as much time planning the wars they have

waged as they did in selling them, perhaps we wouldn't be in such a

hideous mess.

 

If it is true that " what goes around comes around " Bush will soon be a

private citizen.