There are only 25 days to go until the national
referendum on the CREDIBILITY, CHARACTER and
COMPETENCE of the _resident, the VICE _resident and
the US regimstream news media…he central issue is
Security: NATIONAL SECURITY, ECONOMIC SECURITY and
ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY...TWhy does the LNS say
that the Nov. 2 election is a national referendum on
the US regimestream news media as well as the Bush
abomination itself? Because the US regimestream news
media has almost unreservedly for more than four years
acted as a full partner in a Triad of shared special
interest (i.e. oil, weapons, media, pharmaceuticals,
tobacco, chemicals, etc.) with the Bush cabal itself
and its wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-know-as-the-Republican-Party.
The US regimestream news media OBSCURED the Truth
about the Theft of the 2000 Election, the US
regimestream news media OBSCURED the Truth about the
Bush abomination’s involvement with Enron and its
complicity in the phoney “California energy crisis,”
US regimestream news media OBSCURED the Truth about
the devastating impact of the Bush abomination’s TWO
obscene tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, the US
regimestream news media OBSCURED the Truth about the
Bush abomination’s pre-9/11 negligence and post-9/11
incompetence. The US regimestream news media OBSCURED
the Truth about the Mega-Mogadishu in Iraq as well as
the fabricated rationales that were used to justify
it. The US regimestream news media also OBSCURED the
Truth about Abu Ghraib… Now the US regimestream news
media is OBSCURING the Truth about this campaign, just
as it OBSCURED the Truth about the 2000 and 2002
campaigns…It has only 26 days to REDEEM itself…or will
it choose to go into the tank with its Triad partners?
There is an Electoral Uprising coming at the Ballot
Box on Nov. 2…Here are SIX important stories. Please
read them and share them with others. Please vote and
encourage others to vote. Please remember that the US
regimestream news media does not want to inform you
about this election, it wants to DISinform you...
Agence France Press: President George W. Bush's
administration is in denial over the lack of weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq before the US-led invasion
in 2003, ex-chief US arms inspector David Kay said.
A report by the Iraq Survey Group that Kay ran
until he quit at the start of the year found Iraq had
no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons when Bush
was saying that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was a
growing threat.
The White House has insisted Saddam was a threat
to the United States and had weapons of mass
destruction capability, but Kay told NBC television:
"All I can say is 'denial' is not just a river in
Egypt."
Iraq "was not an imminent and growing threat
because of its own weapons of mass destruction," he
added.
Bush said Wednesday there was a risk that Iraq
could have transferred weapons to terrorist groups.
But Kay told CNN television "Right now we have a
lot of people who are desperate to justify the Bush
administration's decision to go to war with Iraq…
"He had a lot of intent. He didn't have
capabilities. Intent without capabilities is not an
imminent threat."
Andrew Dys, The Herald (Rock Hill, South Carolina): The highest-ranking woman in U.S. Army history campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in Rock Hill on Wednesday, telling Democratic
Party faithful that President Bush had no clue what he
was getting into in Iraq.
Retired Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy said Bush has no clue
how to get out of Iraq either.
Kennedy, a 32-year Army veteran, was the first woman
to become a three-star Army general. She served as
deputy chief of staff for intelligence under President
Clinton. Kerry is the right person to finish the job
in Iraq, she said.
Bush and Cheney have continued to say recently that
the war was the right thing to do. Both Bush and
Cheney say Kerry's criticism of war strategy and his
votes against funding have hurt the troops.
But Kennedy and several other retired military leaders
who support Kerry disagree. The military under Kerry
would win the peace by building a world coalition to
both fight terror and help pay for the war, Kennedy
said. She called the Bush-Cheney team's wartime
performance "incompetent," and said Bush looked
"completely clueless" during last week's debate with
Kerry.
"It is embarrassing to see George Bush pretending to
be president," she told an audience of about 30
Democrats at York County Democratic headquarters.
Center on Budget & Policy Priorities: Fiscal Year
2004 ended on September 30, and today the
Congressional Budget Office reported that the deficit
for 2004 was $415 billion.[1] At $415 billion:
The 2004 deficit marks the fourth consecutive year of
fiscal deterioration, the first time this has happened
since the U.S. entered World War II.
The deficit increased in 2004 even though the
recession officially ended in November 2001. This is
the first time since before the Depression of the
1930s that the deficit has continued to increase this
far into a recovery.
The 2004 deficit was $41 billion higher than the 2003
deficit, which stood at $375 billion.
The 2004 deficit equaled 3.6 percent of GDP, up from
the 2003 level of 3.5 percent of GDP and the highest
level since 1993.
The growth of deficits has largely reflected stunning
revenue declines. Federal tax revenues this year are
at their lowest level, measured as a share of the
Gross Domestic Product, since 1959. In contrast,
federal spending in 2004, measured as a share of GDP,
is slightly below its average level of the last four
decades.
The Administration is likely to claim that a $415
billion deficit is “good news” or represents an
“improvement.” Such a claim is misleading at best.
The Administration’s claim comes about only because
the deficit did not increase as much in 2004 as the
Administration earlier predicted it would. This is
like a football coach predicting his team will go from
a record of 6 wins and 10 losses to a 4-12 record the
next year, and then celebrating when the team
“improves” to 5-11.
Michael Levenson, Boston Globe: In an attack on
President Bush's environmental record, former vice
president Al Gore accused his 2000 opponent last night
of consistently appointing industry-friendly
regulators to oversee the nation's air, land, and
water, a practice he said amounted to abandonment of
the nation's natural resources.
In a speech to a receptive audience of about 200
people at the Lenox Hotel in Boston, Gore charged the
White House with being "truly radical and
breathtakingly irresponsible in its . . . willingness
to ignore the future consequences of their present
actions."
Without naming officials or giving specific examples,
Gore said, "If you look carefully . . . their practice
has been in almost every case to appoint people whose
immediate prior careers have been aimed at the
destruction of the laws they are now being asked to
enforce."
"It really is institutionalized corruption," he said.
"It is deeply unethical and its effect is to place the
private, narrow interests of wealthy and powerful
industrial groups above the interests of the
Gore gave a hearty endorsement to his former Senate
colleague, Democrat John F. Kerry, saying there was
"no senator who had a better record in the environment
and none who offered more visionary leadership on
issues related to the global environment."
He quickly contrasted that with the president's
leadership, saying to applause, "George W. Bush has by
all odds been by far the worst president for the
environment in the entire history of the United States
of America -- bar none."
Mark Niquette, COLUMBUS DISPATCH: mnThe battle over who
gets to vote in Ohio escalated yesterday, even as
Democrats and Republicans said they’re recruiting
thousands of lawyers here and in other key states to
monitor voting Nov. 2 for potential problems.
Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell yesterday
warned county boards of elections’ officials to obey
his directive regarding provisional voting or face
removal from office, after some said they would
disregard it.
Blackwell sent a warning letter to the Cuyahoga County
Board of Elections — with copies to all other county
elections boards — reminding them they may only issue
provisional ballots to voters in the precinct where
the voters live, unless a court rules otherwise.
Such ballots are expected to be cast by thousands of
voters who have moved or believe they are eligible to
vote but do not appear on registration rolls. More
than 98,000 provisional ballots were issued in Ohio in
the 2000 general election.
Blackwell sent the letter after The Plain Dealer of
Cleveland reported the Cuyahoga board had decided to
defy Blackwell and issue provisional ballots to all
voters who requested one, even if they are in the
wrong precinct…
The Ohio Democratic Party has filed a federal lawsuit
arguing Blackwell’s directive violates the federal
Help America Vote Act — passed after the controversial
2000 presidential election. The League of Women Voters
and other civic groups filed their own lawsuit
yesterday on that and other issues…
In response to the controversy and other concerns
about whether every vote will be counted, the John
Kerry campaign and Democratic National Committee
announced a "voter protection" project yesterday in
Ohio and 22 other battleground states.
The project includes educating voters before the
election about their rights, stationing lawyers at key
precincts on Election Day to ensure eligible voters
can cast ballots, and creating "swat teams" of lawyers
to help file lawsuits after the election if needed.
Steve Perry, City Pages: Sibel Edmonds's claims of
incompetence, malfeasance, and possible espionage in
the FBI's translation unit have received only sporadic
attention since she first aired them widely in a 60
Minutes report in October 2002--not least because of
the veil of silence that the Bush Justice Department
has tried to draw over the case. In July of this year,
a Bush-appointed judge dismissed Edmonds's lawsuit
against the FBI on the grounds that the case would
necessarily expose state secrets. Judge Reggie
Walton's logic parroted that of Attorney General John
Ashcroft, who in May 2004 issued an order
retroactively classifying all the information that had
been presented to Congress in her case because of its
alleged national security sensitivity.
But l'affaire Edmonds is heating up again. Last month
Edmonds filed a new lawsuit seeking to compel release
of the documents in her case under the Freedom of
Information law. And last Tuesday's page one New York
Times story about the 120,000-hour backlog of
untranslated intelligence tapes the FBI is presently
sitting on lent additional credence to her charges.
(Some al Qaeda communiqués, the Times reported, were
automatically deleted by the overloaded computer
system in the department before they could be
translated.)
It wasn't the first time Edmonds had been featured on
the front page of the Times; she was the subject of a
July 29 dispatch which disclosed that the DoJ
Inspector General had completed a report--classified,
of course--concluding that her whistleblowing
activities were a factor in her April 2002 firing,
after just six months-plus of employment at the FBI.
Despite the legal walls the FBI and the Bush
administration have attempted to build around her
case, it's nonetheless clear from letters and
documents that are already irretrievably in the public
realm that Edmonds's claims (give or take those of
Richard Clarke) may be the most explosive yet lodged
against the U.S. government's anti-terrorism work
post-9/11.
Certainly she is the most dangerous whistleblower the
FBI has spawned to date, because her allegations
include claims that the FBI not only failed to do its
job, but also knowingly employed a foreign-born
translator with ties to individuals and at least one
organization then under investigation. Edmonds claimed
that this translator actively obstructed the
translation and dissemination of communiqués involving
foreign suspects to whom she had personal ties. In
addition, Edmonds has charged that the FBI suppressed
evidence that it received a specific, detailed, and
ultimately accurate description of the 9/11 plot from
an Iranian source in April 2001.
The following conversation took place by phone on
Tuesday, September 28..
Support Our Troops, Save the US Constitution,
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Restore Fiscal Responsibility in the White House,
Thwart the Theft of a Second Presidential Election,
Save the Environment, Break the Corporatist
Stranglehold on the US Mainstream News Media, Rescue
the US Supreme Court from Right-Wing Radicals, Cleanse
the White House of the Chicken Hawk Coup and Its
War-Profiteering Cronies, Show Up for Democracy in
2004: Defeat the Triad, Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/100804W.shtml
Bush Administration in Denial about Lack of Iraq
WMD: Kay
Agence France Presse
Thursday 07 October 2004
WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush's
administration is in denial over the lack of weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq before the US-led invasion
in 2003, ex-chief US arms inspector David Kay said.
A report by the Iraq Survey Group that Kay ran
until he quit at the start of the year found Iraq had
no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons when Bush
was saying that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was a
growing threat.
The White House has insisted Saddam was a threat
to the United States and had weapons of mass
destruction capability, but Kay told NBC television:
"All I can say is 'denial' is not just a river in
Egypt."
"The report is scary enough without
misrepresenting what it says," he added.
Iraq "was not an imminent and growing threat
because of its own weapons of mass destruction," he
added.
Bush said Wednesday there was a risk that Iraq
could have transferred weapons to terrorist groups.
But Kay told CNN television "Right now we have a
lot of people who are desperate to justify the Bush
administration's decision to go to war with Iraq.
"They will focus on issues such as intent. You
will also hear that although we haven't found the
weapons or manufacturing capability, they could have
been shipped across the border. You can't ship that
which you haven't produced. You can't bury that which
you haven't obtained or produced."
"Look, Saddam was delusional. He had a lot of
intent. He wanted to be Saladin the Great, of the
Middle East yet again. He wanted to put Iraq in a
preeminent position to remove the US from the region,"
Kay added.
"He had a lot of intent. He didn't have
capabilities. Intent without capabilities is not an
imminent threat."
"There is the issue that remains as to whether the
scientists and engineers living in the chaotic,
corrupt situation in Iraq might have transferred
individually technology to terrorists," he said.
But "that was not the case the administration
made."
Saddam gave some information to US interrogators
which was used for the report, but Kay said "it's not
very credible without further collaboration."
Kay said there was less chance that assessments of
Iran's and North Korea's weapons programmes were
wrong.
"We in fact have international action and
international inspectors confirming the major details
of both the Iranian and the North Korean capability.
"In the case of North Korea, we have them
practically bragging about it."
Kay said the United States would now face a
credibility problem because of the Iraq episode.
"The point is not whether we are wrong, but
whether anyone will believe us. And indeed, that is
the burden we are going to carry forward because of
the intelligence failure of Iraq," he said calling for
major intelligence reform.
"No one will believe us as long as we haven't
changed the system."
http://www.heraldonline.com/local/story/3965513p-3639164c.html
Tracy Smith-Kimball • The Herald Retired Lt. Gen.
Claudia Kennedy talks to John Kerry supporters
Wednesday at the York County Democratic headquarters
on Oakland Avenue. Kennedy was the highest ranking
woman in the U.S. Army and was deputy chief of staff
for intelligence during the Clinton administration.
Kerry receives three-star support
Highest-ranking woman in U.S. Army history says Bush
has no idea how to get out of Iraq
By Andrew Dys The Herald
(Published October 7‚ 2004)
The highest-ranking woman in U.S. Army history
campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate John
Kerry in Rock Hill on Wed-nesday, telling Democratic
Party faithful that President Bush had no clue what he
was getting into in Iraq.
Retired Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy said Bush has no clue
how to get out of Iraq either.
Kennedy, a 32-year Army veteran, was the first woman
to become a three-star Army general. She served as
deputy chief of staff for intelligence under President
Clinton. Kerry is the right person to finish the job
in Iraq, she said.
Bush and Cheney have continued to say recently that
the war was the right thing to do. Both Bush and
Cheney say Kerry's criticism of war strategy and his
votes against funding have hurt the troops.
But Kennedy and several other retired military leaders
who support Kerry disagree. The military under Kerry
would win the peace by building a world coalition to
both fight terror and help pay for the war, Kennedy
said. She called the Bush-Cheney team's wartime
performance "incompetent," and said Bush looked
"completely clueless" during last week's debate with
Kerry.
"It is embarrassing to see George Bush pretending to
be president," she told an audience of about 30
Democrats at York County Democratic headquarters.
The war was started for false reasons, Kennedy said,
and some in the Bush administration have said there
haven't been enough soldiers in Iraq to do the job
right.
Kennedy spoke of her own three decades of service to
blast both Bush and Cheney for not serving in the
active-duty military. She said Kerry served as a "fine
combat leader" in Vietnam.
"The price of war is way too high to go in as the
first option," Kennedy said.
Kennedy has traveled the country campaigning for Kerry
in an appeal to both women and veterans groups. Her
local visit was another partisan event for Democrats
sponsored by Women for Kerry.
Women are more likely to support Kerry than Bush,
Kennedy said, but in 2000 15 million women between 18
and 24 didn't register to vote. Another 4 million who
were registered didn't vote.
Clinton had a motto about building a bridge to the
21st century, Kennedy said, but "Bush has become the
Hurricane Ivan to that bridge."
Yet Kerry supporter Wayne Clark pointed out that he
hadn't heard much from Kerry about the tough choices
he'll face in Iraq if he wins.
Kennedy said an international coalition would help
Kerry win the peace.
The Muslim world, fractured politically before the
Iraqi invasion, has now become more united against
Bush and the U.S. as a result of the war, she said.
Andrew Dys •329-4065
adys@heraldonline.com
http://www.cbpp.org/10-6-04bud.htm
October 6, 2004
NEW CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE REPORT SHOWS FOURTH
YEAR OF DEFICIT GROWTH,
DESPITE ECONOMIC RECOVERY;
This Marks First Time Since World War II that Deficit
Grew for Four Straight Years
by Richard Kogan and Robert Greenstein
PDF of this analysis
View Related Reports
If you cannot access the files through the links,
right-click on the underlined text, click "Save Link
As," download to your directory, and open the document
in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Fiscal Year 2004 ended on September 30, and today the
Congressional Budget Office reported that the deficit
for 2004 was $415 billion.[1] At $415 billion:
• The 2004 deficit marks the fourth consecutive year
of fiscal deterioration, the first time this has
happened since the U.S. entered World War II.
• The deficit increased in 2004 even though the
recession officially ended in November 2001. This is
the first time since before the Depression of the
1930s that the deficit has continued to increase this
far into a recovery.
• The 2004 deficit was $41 billion higher than the
2003 deficit, which stood at $375 billion.
• The 2004 deficit equaled 3.6 percent of GDP, up from
the 2003 level of 3.5 percent of GDP and the highest
level since 1993.
• The growth of deficits has largely reflected
stunning revenue declines. Federal tax revenues this
year are at their lowest level, measured as a share of
the Gross Domestic Product, since 1959. In contrast,
federal spending in 2004, measured as a share of GDP,
is slightly below its average level of the last four
decades.
The Administration’s “Good News” Claim Is Based on
Gamesmanship about Expectations
The Administration is likely to claim that a $415
billion deficit is “good news” or represents an
“improvement.” Such a claim is misleading at best.
The Administration’s claim comes about only because
the deficit did not increase as much in 2004 as the
Administration earlier predicted it would. This is
like a football coach predicting his team will go from
a record of 6 wins and 10 losses to a 4-12 record the
next year, and then celebrating when the team
“improves” to 5-11.
Moreover, both of the Administration’s earlier deficit
forecasts appear to have been deliberately overstated,
perhaps in anticipation of a desire to spin the straw
of a rising deficit into the gold of “good news.” In
February of this year, when the Administration first
overestimated the 2004 deficit (and predicted it would
reach $521 billion), we issued a report explaining
that its deficit figure appeared to have been
purposely overstated.[2] We made this point again in
July, when the Administration officially estimated the
2004 deficit at $445 billion, even as Treasury data
was quietly being issued data showing the deficit
would, in fact, be about $418 billion.[3] (Just three
days after OMB’s $445 billion deficit estimate was
released, the Treasury reported that it expected to
borrow an additional $91 billion by the end of the
fiscal year. That, plus the deficit of $327 billion
for the fiscal year to date — as reported in a
different Treasury document — equals $418 billion for
2004.)
Economic Growth Has Not Exceeded Expectations
Finally, the fact that the 2004 deficit did not grow
as much as the Administration predicted does not mean
the economy is exceeding expectations and thus that
the “tax cuts are working.” The simple fact is that
the economy grew no faster in 2004 than OMB and CBO
projected last winter when they issued higher deficit
forecasts. Last winter, CBO and apparently OMB each
projected that the economy would grow at an annual
average rate of 4.8 percent in the first three
quarters of the fiscal year. According to the latest
GDP estimates, that is exactly what the economy has
done. That the deficit did not climb as much in 2004
as earlier projected appears to reflect factors such
as higher-than-expected inflation and an increased
concentration of income at the top of the income
scale. It cannot be explained by
stronger-than-expected economic growth since
stronger-than-expected growth did not occur.
________________________________________
End Notes:
[1] CBO, “Monthly Budget Review, October 2004,” issued
October 6, 2004. CBO bases its figure on the budget
statements released daily by the U.S. Treasury. The
final, official deficit figure is likely to be issued
by the Treasury and the Office of Management and
Budget the third week in October.
[2] Richard Kogan, “Does the Administration’s Budget
Overstate the Likely 2004 Deficit?” CBPP, February 2,
2004, available at http://www.cbpp.org/2-2-04bud2.pdf.
[3] David Kamin, Richard Kogan, and Robert
Greenstein, “Deficits and the Mid-Session Review: The
Administration’s Efforts to Make Harmful Deficits
Appear Benign,” CBPP, originally issued July 30, 2004,
revised October 1, 2004, available at
http://www.cbpp.org/7-30-04bud.pdf. See also Richard
Kogan, “Administration’s Latest 2004 Deficit
Projection Appears Overstated; Will Final Deficit
Figure Be Presented as Progress in Deficit Reduction?”
CBPP, August 10, 2004, available at
http://www.cbpp.org/8-10-04bud.pdf.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2004/10/07/gore_calls_bush_worst_ever_president_for_environment/
Gore calls Bush worst-ever president for environment
Said appointees seek 'destruction' of protective laws
By Michael Levenson, Globe Correspondent | October
7, 2004
In an attack on President Bush's environmental record,
former vice president Al Gore accused his 2000
opponent last night of consistently appointing
industry-friendly regulators to oversee the nation's
air, land, and water, a practice he said amounted to
abandonment of the nation's natural resources.
In a speech to a receptive audience of about 200
people at the Lenox Hotel in Boston, Gore charged the
White House with being "truly radical and
breathtakingly irresponsible in its . . . willingness
to ignore the future consequences of their present
actions."
Right from the start, Gore, who won the popular vote,
poked fun at his own tumultuous loss in the 2000
presidential election, introducing himself by saying,
"I am Al Gore, I used to be the next president of the
United States. Actually, I'm a recovering politician.
I'm on about step 9."
But he quickly moved from a lighthearted tone to
serious policy. In an address that lasted about 45
minutes, he swung into a professorial mode, using a
laser pointer to highlight slides of the earth in a
darkened ballroom.
Without naming officials or giving specific examples,
Gore said, "If you look carefully . . . their practice
has been in almost every case to appoint people whose
immediate prior careers have been aimed at the
destruction of the laws they are now being asked to
enforce."
"It really is institutionalized corruption," he said.
"It is deeply unethical and its effect is to place the
private, narrow interests of wealthy and powerful
industrial groups above the interests of the American
people, generally."
Repeated calls to the Bush-Cheney campaign seeking a
response to Gore's speech were not returned.
Gore gave a hearty endorsement to his former Senate
colleague, Democrat John F. Kerry, saying there was
"no senator who had a better record in the environment
and none who offered more visionary leadership on
issues related to the global environment."
He quickly contrasted that with the president's
leadership, saying to applause, "George W. Bush has by
all odds been by far the worst president for the
environment in the entire history of the United States
of America -- bar none."
The event was organized by Environment 2004, a
Washington-based group that is raising money to turn
voters against what it calls the Bush administration's
"destructive environmental agenda."
The group says it is targeting its efforts through
media, rallies, advertising, and direct voter contact
focused on the battleground states of Florida,
Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. Guests at the
event, who nibbled hors d'oeuvres and sipped wine,
paid between $75 and $250 for tickets.
For Gore, it was only the latest in a string of
appearances aimed at attacking the president's record
and boosting the Democratic nominee.
Gore became one of the earliest and fiercest critics
of the Iraq war and in February told a gathering of
Tennessee Democrats that Bush had "betrayed this
country" by using the Sept. 11 attacks to justify the
invasion of Iraq.
Along with onetime Democratic presidential candidate
Howard Dean, whom he endorsed in the primaries, Gore
was credited with emboldening the antiwar wing of the
Democratic Party.
Since Dean, the former Vermont governor, dropped out
of the race in February, Gore has supported Kerry and
continued to hammer away at the Bush administration.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
Officials warned not to defy ballot order
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Mark Niquette
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The battle over who gets to vote in Ohio escalated
yesterday, even as Democrats and Republicans said
they’re recruiting thousands of lawyers here and in
other key states to monitor voting Nov. 2 for
potential problems.
Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell yesterday
warned county boards of elections’ officials to obey
his directive regarding provisional voting or face
removal from office, after some said they would
disregard it.
Blackwell sent a warning letter to the Cuyahoga County
Board of Elections — with copies to all other county
elections boards — reminding them they may only issue
provisional ballots to voters in the precinct where
the voters live, unless a court rules otherwise.
Such ballots are expected to be cast by thousands of
voters who have moved or believe they are eligible to
vote but do not appear on registration rolls. More
than 98,000 provisional ballots were issued in Ohio in
the 2000 general election.
Blackwell sent the letter after The Plain Dealer of
Cleveland reported the Cuyahoga board had decided to
defy Blackwell and issue provisional ballots to all
voters who requested one, even if they are in the
wrong precinct.
Blackwell’s letter was addressed to Robert T. Bennett,
who is chairman of the Cuyahoga board and the Ohio
Republican Party.
"Be advised that your actions are not in compliance
with Ohio law and further failure to comply with my
lawful directives will result in official action,
which may include removal of the board and its
director," Blackwell wrote.
Bennett said Blackwell misinterpreted the board’s
position. Poll workers won’t give a provisional ballot
to someone they know to be in the wrong precinct, he
said.
But if voters demand a provisional ballot and poll
workers aren’t certain, a ballot will be issued. If
the board later finds the voter was in the wrong
location, it won’t be counted, he said.
Still, Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said the
warning applies to all boards — some of which have
said they were following a policy different from
Blackwell’s directive.
In Delaware County, for example, the practice has been
to count provisional ballots cast in the wrong
precinct because it only occurs when a poll worker
makes a mistake, said Janet L. Brenneman, director of
the county’s board of elections.
Poll workers are instructed to find the correct
polling location for voters if they try to vote in the
wrong precinct.
The issue has become controversial because Democrats
and others say thousands will lose the right to vote
provisionally if they aren’t told they are in the
wrong precinct or if they don’t have time to go to the
correct one.
The Ohio Democratic Party has filed a federal lawsuit
arguing Blackwell’s directive violates the federal
Help America Vote Act — passed after the controversial
2000 presidential election. The League of Women Voters
and other civic groups filed their own lawsuit
yesterday on that and other issues.
Judge James G. Carr of U.S. District Court in Toledo
has asked the parties in the Democrats’ case to file
written arguments by Monday instead of holding a
hearing, and he will rule shortly thereafter, his
office has said.
Three Toledo-area Republican voters also have asked
the court to intervene in that case on grounds that
changing how Ohio handles provisional ballots could
lead to fraud and dilute the value of their votes.
But while Blackwell says he is merely following state
law, critics say the directive is part of a systematic
effort by Republicans to suppress votes — especially
among minorities and the poor, who tend to vote more
Democratic than affluent voters.
In response to the controversy and other concerns
about whether every vote will be counted, the John
Kerry campaign and Democratic National Committee
announced a "voter protection" project yesterday in
Ohio and 22 other battleground states.
The project includes educating voters before the
election about their rights, stationing lawyers at key
precincts on Election Day to ensure eligible voters
can cast ballots, and creating "swat teams" of lawyers
to help file lawsuits after the election if needed.
Not to be outdone, Republicans also are recruiting
lawyers and other volunteers to monitor voting and
counter Democratic efforts — all designed to prevent
problems that plagued the presidential vote in Florida
in 2000.
The goal in Franklin County, for example, is to have
lawyers at 200 county precincts, said attorney Thomas
Rosenberg, voter protection coordinator for Franklin
and 16 other central Ohio counties.
Ohio coordinator David Sullivan said, "We’re going to
protect everyone’s right to vote and to have votes
counted accurately."
Republicans declined to say how many lawyers they will
have but said they will match Democrats’ actions.
"The Democrats are making an attempt to lawyer up the
voting booths on Election Day," said Jason Mauk,
spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party.
"It’s clear the Democrats are willing to engage in any
legal maneuver necessary to win this election, and we
will not stand by and allow them to throw Ohio’s
electoral process into legal chaos," he said.
mniquette@dispatch.com
http://www.citypages.com/databank/25/1244/article12523.asp
An October Surprise for Bush and the FBI?
The Ashcroft Justice Department retroactively threw a
veil of secrecy over Sibel Edmond's claims
FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds talks about her case
--and hints at a forthcoming scandal
by Steve Perry
Sibel Edmonds's claims of incompetence, malfeasance,
and possible espionage in the FBI's translation unit
have received only sporadic attention since she first
aired them widely in a 60 Minutes report in October
2002--not least because of the veil of silence that
the Bush Justice Department has tried to draw over the
case. In July of this year, a Bush-appointed judge
dismissed Edmonds's lawsuit against the FBI on the
grounds that the case would necessarily expose state
secrets. Judge Reggie Walton's logic parroted that of
Attorney General John Ashcroft, who in May 2004 issued
an order retroactively classifying all the information
that had been presented to Congress in her case
because of its alleged national security sensitivity.
But l'affaire Edmonds is heating up again. Last month
Edmonds filed a new lawsuit seeking to compel release
of the documents in her case under the Freedom of
Information law. And last Tuesday's page one New York
Times story about the 120,000-hour backlog of
untranslated intelligence tapes the FBI is presently
sitting on lent additional credence to her charges.
(Some al Qaeda communiqués, the Times reported, were
automatically deleted by the overloaded computer
system in the department before they could be
translated.)
It wasn't the first time Edmonds had been featured on
the front page of the Times; she was the subject of a
July 29 dispatch which disclosed that the DoJ
Inspector General had completed a report--classified,
of course--concluding that her whistleblowing
activities were a factor in her April 2002 firing,
after just six months-plus of employment at the FBI.
Despite the legal walls the FBI and the Bush
administration have attempted to build around her
case, it's nonetheless clear from letters and
documents that are already irretrievably in the public
realm that Edmonds's claims (give or take those of
Richard Clarke) may be the most explosive yet lodged
against the U.S. government's anti-terrorism work
post-9/11.
Certainly she is the most dangerous whistleblower the
FBI has spawned to date, because her allegations
include claims that the FBI not only failed to do its
job, but also knowingly employed a foreign-born
translator with ties to individuals and at least one
organization then under investigation. Edmonds claimed
that this translator actively obstructed the
translation and dissemination of communiqués involving
foreign suspects to whom she had personal ties. In
addition, Edmonds has charged that the FBI suppressed
evidence that it received a specific, detailed, and
ultimately accurate description of the 9/11 plot from
an Iranian source in April 2001.
The following conversation took place by phone on
Tuesday, September 28.
City Pages: As I understand it, you're currently
barred from even discussing publicly the claims you
made about the translation department. Is that
correct?
Sibel Edmonds: Not exactly. Everybody else is barred.
They have not personally barred me. However, I'm
restricted because of the classification issues,
because I would be liable. But in terms of official
gagging, they have done that with the Congress. This
happened in May 2004. They gagged the Congress by
retroactively classifying everything that had to do
with me and my case. For example, congressmen can no
longer even talk about what languages I spoke. They
also barred the courts from processing this case, and
basically had them drop the case by invoking this
rarely invoked state secrets privilege. They barred
the Inspector General's office by entirely classifying
their report. So far they have not allowed them to
have even a small part declassified.
When you look at it, every other venue has been gagged
on my issue. But I have not been officially gagged.
But I'm bounded by the classification and
nondisclosure issues.
CP: Your case was dismissed by a judge in July, again
on the grounds of secrecy. I assume you're appealing.
Edmonds: We're absolutely appealing that. We've
already filed our notice of appeal. We brought that
suit in July 2002 and the judge did not hold any
hearings, no oral arguments, no discovery. And then,
in a hasty manner in June 2004, he dismissed it based
on the state secrets privilege the government
asserted. The reason it was hasty was that the victims
of 9/11 family members have an attorney who wanted to
subpoena me as a key witness. The judge had to rule
quickly so that they wouldn't subpoena my deposition.
We are appealing that, and we believe ultimately it's
going to wind up in front of the Supreme Court.
CP: Has your attorney given you any indication of how
long this battle may go on?
Edmonds: Well, July 2002 we filed it, and it took this
judge--with no hearings, no activity--two years to
rule against it. Now, with the appeals court, it
should be faster than that. However, as we know, the
government tries all sorts of ways to stall this whole
thing, by asking for extensions, etc. However,
considering these latest developments, and more
developments that are going to occur this month, in
October, I believe they are going to have a hard time
dragging out this appeal thing. Either they have to
rule against it or actually overturn this judge's
decision. So I'm optimistic with this new lawsuit and
the appeal process.
CP: Are you at liberty to discuss any of the other
news that will be breaking in October?
Edmonds: No, but many pieces of the various
information has been out. However, the dots to this
date have not been really connected. That is, the
issues I reported to the Inspector General's office in
the Department of Justice, and also to the 9/11
Commission and to Congress, can be classified in three
different categories. One had to do with intentional
blocking of translations by certain translators for
various reasons. The other had to do with just pure
incompetence. Certain translators were hired through
back doors, even though these individuals failed
proficiency exams or background security checks. And
the third, most important issue had to do with [the
fact] that the state secrets privilege was invoked not
to protect state secrets, but invoked--and this
hopefully will be out before this election--to cover
up some other issues that had nothing to do with
national security or state secrets, but [with]
intentional action, some of them criminal actions, by
certain authorities here in the United States.
Again, these issues were reported; I reported them to
the Congress, to the Inspector General, and the 9/11
Commission, along with evidence. And they have been
sitting on it. Once this comes out, they are going to
be liable, too, by not doing anything about these
issues, and abiding by these gag orders, considering
that the gag orders were illegal in the first place.
Even the National Security Archives called it illegal.
Because Ashcroft had to meet three criteria in order
to retroactively classify these investigations, and he
did not meet these three criteria.
CP: The ironic thing, of course, is that so much
regarding the substance of your claims is easily
accessible on the internet--it was even summarized
pretty well on the front page of the New York Times a
couple of months ago. So why the extraordinary lengths
to prevent any congressional or court action, do you
think?
Edmonds: Because if they don't do that, the court
proceedings would have gone on, and that would have
exposed the issues they want to cover up. For example,
thousands of websites contain these letters written by
Senators Grassley and Leahy since 2002 about the
unclassified meeting the Judiciary Committee had with
FBI officials, during which the FBI officials
confirmed all my allegations and denied none. Now,
using this and using these letters that were
written--these were public letters, and that puts the
government at a disadvantage. They can't say, Well,
this is secret, we can't talk about it, because they
divulged this information during unclassified meetings
themselves.
They are playing it both ways, but unfortunately no
one is challenging that. Not the courts, especially
this particular judge. Which is very interesting. My
case went from one judge to another judge,
mysteriously, without being provided any explanation
on why, until it landed with this judge, Reggie
Walton, who was recently appointed by President Bush.
And it stayed in front of him. So neither the judges
nor Congress is challenging these actions.
As far as the Congress goes, the whole attitude has
been, they're afraid to be labeled unpatriotic. Or
things such as, "Well, this is Ashcroft, and you don't
mess with him. This guy's crazy." This is what the
senators, even Republicans, are saying.
CP: Most of the other whistleblowers say the Bureau
tried to destroy their reputations or portray them as
mentally unstable. Did they seek to do that to you at
any point?
Edmonds: Absolutely not. In fact, for two and a half
years--and this surprised me, because it's
rare--either with their briefings in front of the
Senate, or when they talk off the record with other
papers, they have not done that, because I think, in a
way, they know that if they do it, then based on
information, evidence, documents that I have, it's
going to get worse for them. So they have refrained
from doing any of these name-smearings. The worst
thing they said, initially, which they backed off, was
that Sibel Edmonds's contract was terminated purely
for the government's convenience. That's the only
reason they cited. Months later, the FBI leaked this
information, actually inaccurate information, to the
Associated Press, telling them that I was fired due to
being disruptive with my whistleblowing and my
allegations. Then later on, they backtracked on that.
CP: Tell me how the 9/11 families organization helped
bring your story to light.
Edmonds: That's an interesting story. In May 2003, I
wrote to 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, sent a
certified letter to his office, telling him that he
needed to interview me because of the direct
information I had about 9/11 issues. And also I knew
of other witnesses I worked with who were willing to
provide testimony to the 9/11 Commission if they were
asked. They couldn't go voluntarily, because some of
these witnesses are still working for the FBI, but
they wanted the Commission to subpoena them so they
could give this information.
Interestingly, after following up with them, they said
no, the Commission had very limited time, and most of
the witnesses with related information would not be
interviewed. So I let it go, but months later I met
with some of the 9/11 family members, and I told them
about what happened, and I showed them the letter.
They were outraged, because they had been promised by
the Commission that no witness was going to be turned
away. They were going to talk to everybody, and look
at every single document.
So we met with the 9/11 Commission in January 2004. We
went there and we had meetings with some of the
members. And boom, a month later they scheduled me to
go out and provide testimony. And also I myself drove
certain other witnesses--translators, assets,
informants--to their offices to be interviewed.
However, lots of these issues were not discussed in
the report. They just referred to the IG report. And
the IG report, as you know, is highly classified so
far.
Later I attended the public hearings that the
Commission held, and I worked with the family members
and introduced them to other witnesses. Some of them
are still working for the Bureau, so I would arrange
meetings for them with the family members. They
trusted the family members more than the Commission.
They knew this Commission would not really put out
most of the facts.
CP: Have you had any members of Congress in your
corner during this battle?
Edmonds: So far it has been very disappointing, and
not even in a partisan way, which is very surprising.
I have gone to so many people, banged on so many doors
in the past two and a half years that you would be
amazed. The response has not been partisan. I have had
certain Republicans who have been very supportive, and
I have had certain Democrats who have been supportive,
and I have had certain Democrats who have wanted to do
absolutely nothing with it. In fact they would say
that they don't want to mess with it, because
considering the upcoming election, it would hurt the
Democrats.
So I haven't seen any partisan attitude about it.
Senator Grassley's office, and Senator Grassley
himself, have been by far, by far, the most straight
to their word, the most consistently supportive person
out there. He has defied all these fear reactions that
other senators and congressmen have: We don't want to
be labeled, we don't want to touch this thing. He has
been talking to the press; he has come on various TV
news programs and has been plainly outspoken about the
issues. His staff and his office have been absolutely
valuable. In fact, if it was not for Senator Grassley
and Senator Grassley's office, the IG would have not
even talked about finishing this report. They demanded
that the report and investigation be expedited. They
also provided the press with information and
confirmation that was necessary to get the story out
there. Because what happens, many media outlets will
hear your story and think you may be crazy. You may be
a liar. You may have an agenda. They want to go
somewhere and verify the issues. With Senator
Grassley, and to a certain extent with Senator Leahy,
they have been very effective and very good. I don't
think they've gone all the way, but relatively
speaking, they have been the best.
A longer version of this interview, along with links
to the online documents Edmonds alludes to, can be
found at bushwarsblog.com.