Liberation News Service

LNS Post Coup II Supplement (Final): Part Two -- On Black Thursday, 1/20/05, Widespread Resistance

Buzzflash Editorial: The Bush Cartel has its own form
of Omerta, and every one of its appointees is in
office because Bush has the goods on them -- and they
have the goods on Bush. The only three groups of
people capable of exposing Bush Cartel wrong doings
and prosecuting the Bush "perps" are controlled by
Bush or are long-term Republican hacks: The Congress,
the Attorney General's Office and the Federal
Judiciary (with the Supreme Court as the back-up.)
With Bush's second coronation, he is the law.
We are no longer a nation of laws to which the
president is held accountable. Alberto Gonzales, who
will ensure that no significant Bush figure is
indicted or seriously investigated for the multiple
crimes that have already been committed -- and will
inevitably occur -- has stated that the President
alone can decide when to break the law and have people
tortured, and when to thumb his nose at treaties.
Remember that is was Gonzales, who as Bush's personal
lawyer in his Texas days, got Bush off serving on a
jury so that he wouldn't have to admit that he had
been arrested for drunken driving…
The Godfather, the King: They both see themselves as
THE law, not just above it. Such it is with the
Kennebunkport Political Crime Cartel. Their loyalty is
to themselves. We are just the innocent bystanders and
bankers of their wasteful, failed endeavors.
It's not our money.
It's not our media
It's not our law.
Those have been seized and usurped by a failed
bloodline that has mistaken its incompetence for
divine indulgence.
Over such violations of human rights a revolution was
started in 1776.
If democracy in America has had its peaks and valleys
over this nation's history, surely this time we have
reached the nadir.

Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col. USAF (ret.), Military
Week: Looking forward to a gala second inaugural ball,
Mr. Bush is one happy man.
The administration has many things to celebrate. No –
none, nada, zilch – weapons of mass destruction or
programs producing them were ever found in Iraq,
despite literally hundreds of White House promoted
statements about dangerous weapons, weapons systems,
weapons stockpiles, weapons technologies, gases,
diseases – the list goes on.
Isn't that a good thing? Most of the world's
intelligence gathering agencies, including many parts
of our own, as well as thinking people everywhere,
looked upon the administration's statements in 2002
and 2003 with healthy skepticism. These observers were
proven correct, of course.
It is indeed a happy time. A few weeks after the
President called off the search for WMD in Iraq he
announced that there was "no reason to hold any
administration officials accountable for mistakes or
misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the
violent aftermath."
Instead, the President believes that his
administration already had an "accountability moment."
Please, no blinking! That moment was the re-election
of George W. Bush…
Americans were all too willing to trust those men in
suits, armed as they were with a willingness to say
anything, to justify anything, and an agenda on Iraq
that to this day they are unwilling to share publicly.
• A need to permanently shift the American military
presence from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and even Turkey
into a perfectly located Iraq, using long-term leases
signed with the Iraqi puppet government to permit
their construction.
• A desire to "Do It Their Way" in the inevitable
post-sanctions Iraq investment free-for-all, something
stubborn former ally Saddam Hussein would have never
permitted.
• A need for oil to remain dominantly a dollar
commodity, something Saddam Hussein quietly undermined
with his switch to the euro in November 2000. After
Bush toppled Saddam Hussein, his first executive order
on Iraq switched it back.
But that's all so 2002 and 2003. It's time to
celebrate! As ballrooms and parade grounds are
prepared and decorated, funded by hundreds of donors
interested in a lot more of what George W. Bush can
deliver (Iraq as the perfect bling bling), the "moment
of accountability" has come and gone. The
administration passed with flying colors, and none of
the miscreants lost their job…I'm sure the inaugural
ball will be a smashing success. One wonders if
George W. Bush and his crowd of ambitious retainers
would, in a quiet moment, consider the Army and Marine
fashions for the coming year – body armor, backless
hospital gowns, gauze and bandages, and of course, the
perfectly efficient body bag.
George W. Bush has visited few of the injured, and he
has attended none of the funerals. Instead, he has
clamped down on news and images of these, hoping to
protect his refined sensitivities. Such staid, serious
events, those hospital visits and funerals. All the
sadness and misery and guilt. It's just so ... last
year…
Like a modern Marie Antoinette, the Bush
administration in 2005 gaily throws a glittering party
and says "Let them dance."

Greg Palast: Our President said, "It is the policy of
the United States to seek and support the growth of
democratic movements and institutions in every
nation." Well, no, it isn't.
Our President said, "We will widen retirement savings
and health insurance." No, he won't.
Our President said, "America will not pretend that
jailed dissidents prefer their chains." Yes, he will.
Our President said, "And our country must abandon all
the habits of racism." Oh, sure.
He doesn't believe a single word he's saying. And all
over America, everyone knows he's lying and America is
truly relieved.
America doesn't want to give up the habit of racism.
Karl Rove doesn't. Jeb Bush doesn't. If not for
challenging hundreds of thousands of voters in Black
precincts of Ohio and other swing states, if not for
purging thousands more from voter rolls for the crime
of voting while Black, you wouldn't be president now,
would you, Mr. President?

Elizabeth Shogren, LA Times: As President Bush was
taking the oath of office at noon Thursday, Amy
Caudill, 24, marched down 16th Street toward the White
House, carrying the front of a mock coffin draped with
an American flag. Caudill hoped to send the message
that many loyal Americans adamantly opposed Bush and
the war in Iraq…
At demonstrations scattered around the city, along
long stretches of the parade route and even in
downtown subway stations, protesters often seemed more
prevalent than Bush supporters.
They appeared to have achieved their goal of making
their presence known both to the president, who has
rarely come close to protesters in four years in
office, and to the American public.
They shouted chants of "Bring them home," "Liar!" and
"Peace now!" and carried homemade signs with slogans
like "Look, the emperor has no clothes," "He's not my
president," "Who made torture an American value?" and
"Yeehaw is not a foreign policy."

Andy Sullivan, Reuters: Flag-draped coffins and
jeering anti-war protesters competed with pomp and
circumstance on Thursday at the inauguration of
President Bush along the snow-dusted, barricaded
streets of central Washington.
As the president's motorcade made its way down
Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White
House amid the tightest security in inaugural history,
thousands of protesters along the parade route and
nearby downtown streets booed, chanted slogans and
carried placards condemning Bush's policies at home
and abroad.
Some turned their back as the president drove slowly
past. Others yelled, "George Bush, you can't hide. We
charge you with genocide." Among the forest of protest
signs, some read "Blood is on your hands" and "Iraq is
Arabic for Vietnam." Others called for electoral
reform, gay rights, abortion rights and the use of
renewable energy.
"There are a lot of people dying overseas for nothing
and I'm here to get my voice heard," said Bill
Coffelt, 40, an engineer from Fairfax, Va…
One group of protesters carried hundreds of mock
coffins along 16th Street, a downtown thoroughfare
leading to the White House, to remind Americans of the
mounting casualties in Iraq…
"It's beyond comprehension the damage this man has
done," said Meredith Lair, 32, who just completed a
doctorate in history at Pennsylvania State University.
"I think it's horrifying what we're doing to Iraq,"
said Lair, who was carrying a sign that read, "Mr.
Bush, under my mittens I'm giving you the finger."

www.commondreams.org: As George W. Bush gave his
inaugural address in front of the U.S. Capitol, six
women peace activists stood up on their chairs in the
VIP section and shouted “bring the troops home!” The
women also held up banners reading “No War,” “Out of
Iraq Now,” and “Bush Mandate: Troops Home Now.” They
were dragged out of the inaugural ceremony by the
police, and two of the women are still in police
custody…
“The killing in Iraq doesn’t stop because the
inauguration is happening, so our efforts to end the
war and occupation can’t stop either,” said Jodie
Evans, one of the women who spoke out during Bush’s
inaugural address.
“Bush’s occupation of Iraq has led to needless
suffering of US soldiers and Iraqis, increased
anti-American sentiment globally, and has made us less
safe at home. We spoke out because the Bush
administration needs end the occupation of Iraq and
its bellicose policy towards Iran and other nations,
and instead commit the United States to the rule of
law—including the US constitution and bill of rights,
the UN charter and the Geneva conventions,” said Medea
Benjamin, who also spoke out during the inaugural
address and is still in police custody…
The six women who held up banners and chanted in the
VIP section during the president’s inaugural speech
were Diane Wilson 56 years old; Jodie Evans, 50,
Elaine Broadhead, 55, Mara Duncan, 58, Tiffany Burns,
29, and Medea Benjamin 51. They are from California,
Texas, and Washington, DC. Benjamin and Wilson are
being held by the police; the other women have been
released.
An additional ten CODEPINK activists, who were seated
further back in the crowd, also held up banners or
spoke out against the Iraq war inside the inauguration
ceremony. Three men were also held up a banner, and
are being held by the police with Benjamin and Wilson.

www.mediamatters.org: During January 20 inauguration
coverage, hosts and commentators on CNN, MSNBC, and
FOX News ridiculed inauguration protesters; downplayed
their numbers and significance; and implied that they
posed a security threat.
CNN host Wolf Blitzer seemed to ignore fellow host
Judy Woodruff's point that parade watchers generally
had to pay for seats (and therefore likely supported
President Bush), asserting that in contrast with the
protesters -- whom he called "angry, angry people" --
"there are a lot more people who have gathered along
Pennsylvania Avenue who love this president."
Later, Blitzer again downplayed the protesters'
significance: "And we don't want to make too much of
the protesters, because we don't know how many there
were. Certainly, the nature of this business, the
nature of television, we could over-exaggerate based
on the images, and they might just be a tiny, tiny
overall number." A January 21 New York Times article
rebutted Blitzer's assessment, noting that the number
of protesters in the protest-designated space alone
was in the "thousands," and that there were also
protesters interspersed with Bush supporters
throughout the parade route: "The numbers of
protesters along Pennsylvania Avenue might have been
greater, but the swarm of people trying to pass
through security checkpoints made it hard to reach the
parade route quickly."

www.mediamatters.org: Media Matters for America
inventoried all guests who appeared on FOX News, CNN,
and MSNBC during the channels' Jan. 20 inauguration
coverage. Between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Republican and
conservative guests and commentators outnumbered
Democrats and progressives 19 to 7 on FOX, 10 to 1 on
CNN (not including a Republican-skewed panel featuring
Ohio voters), and 13 to 2 on MSNBC. Moreover, the rare
Democrat or progressive guest usually appeared
opposite conservatives, whereas most Republican and
conservative guests and commentators appeared solo or
alongside fellow conservatives.

Thom Hartmann, www.commondreams.org: The Robber Barons
are back. They're staging a celebration of their
power in Washington, DC, where they help write the
majority of legislation and hold captive all but a
very few of our nation's legislators. The television
networks they own are showing the party in all its
pomp and ceremony. The newspapers and magazines they
own are telling us what a fine time is being had by
all in Washington, DC. The radio stations, networks,
and talk show hosts they own are reassuring us that
they know what is best, that all will be well, that
"freedom is on the march."
Every generation, it is often said, must relearn the
lessons of history. This generation is getting a crash
course.
Shall we have a government of, by, and for We, the
People? Or shall we be governed by a powerful elite
made up of the super-rich, multi-national
corporations, and well-paid shills who do their
bidding?
It seems that the shift from FDR's vision of We the
People to Reagan's vision of corporate governance has
only happened in the past thirty years - when Reagan,
in his first inaugural address, declared war on We the
People by saying: "Government is not the solution to
our problem. Government is the problem."
But it's really a battle that's gone back to 1762,
when Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote "The Social
Contract," and directly challenged - for the first
time in nearly two thousand years - the idea that
people must be governed by a powerful father-figure
King, Pope, or Feudal Lord.
"Man was born free," Rousseau opened his book with,
"and he is everywhere in chains." Those chains, he
suggested, were forged by a belief that people's
inherent nature was weak and evil, and people were
incapable of governing themselves. Rousseau - and,
following him, Jefferson, Madison, Washington,
Franklin, and others among our nation's Founders -
rejected the belief that society would disintegrate
without kings, popes, or rule by a rich elite. The
Founder's ideals - although under siege - are still
alive in America…
They live on in the many Americans who support
progressive causes with contributions, send letters to
the editors of their local papers, make calls to talk
shows, attend protest rallies, pamphleteer by email,
correspond with their elected representatives, and
support progressive candidates for office.
They live on with those who mourn George W. Bush's
coronation, who turn their back on him and his
policies, who daily work for social justice, equality,
and a world at peace.
But democracy will only survive in this nation if
people like you and me continue to
stand up, speak out, and keep bringing tea to the
party.

Robert Parry. www.consortiumnews.com: What some
Americans may have found annoying about George W.
Bush’s second Inaugural Address was his use of a
rhetorical device in which he stated obvious truisms
about “freedom” with the suggestion that opponents of
his policies – from invading Iraq to privatizing
Social Security – must be people who hate freedom.
Bush has used this rhetorical technique before, as in
Campaign 2002 when he created the impression that
Senate Democrats who objected to Bush’s version of a
Homeland Security bill were “not interested in the
security of the American people.”
Though employed more subtly in his second Inaugural,
the rhetorical device was back as Bush mixed together
platitudes about “freedom” with oblique references to
both his foreign and domestic policies.
The presidential message seemed to be that Americans
who complain about his defiance of international law
in Iraq, his assertion of near-unlimited presidential
powers in the War on Terror or his plan to revamp the
Social Security system by shifting it toward
individual retirement accounts are not just Bush
opponents but opponents of freedom…
Though TV pundits and newspaper columnists quickly
praised Bush’s address for its lofty tone and supposed
idealism, many Americans surely were wondering why
Bush was subjecting them to this strange lecture.
At one level, Bush may have simply wanted to wrap his
controversial policies – that have included tolerance
of torture and denial of due process to American
citizens he dubs “enemy combatants” – in the cloak of
“freedom.”
But other Americans may have felt that Bush was trying
to maneuver them rhetorically into positions where
their criticism of him could be demonized. Just as
Democratic senators – such as triple-war-amputee Sen.
Max Cleland – became politicians who were “not
interested in the security of the American people” in
2002, now Americans who refuse to follow Bush can be
labeled enemies of “freedom.”
Indeed, the most troubling subtext tucked inside
Bush’s paean to “freedom” may have been that the
ultimate freedom for Americans today is their freedom
to follow him.

Robin Cook, Guardian: Inauguration does not do justice
to the exuberant celebrations of this week. Coronation
would come closer. Washington ended yesterday with
nine official balls. The night before George Bush gave
a new spin to the phrase moveable feast by fitting in
three separate banquets. He then expended as much
ordnance in peppering the sky over the Capitol with
fireworks as would get his occupation forces in Iraq
through a whole 24 hours.
The contrasts between this uninhibited triumphalism
and the real world are as wide as the American
continent. One visible contrast was provided by the
demonstrators camping out on the streets to protest at
such extravagant waste by an administration waging its
own jihad on programmes against poverty on the grounds
that the federal budget cannot afford welfare.
Yesterday, Bush gave a new spin on welfare cuts by
presenting them as progress to an ownership society.
The thousands of wealthy donors to the campaign to
re-elect the president who turned up at those dinners
adore this concept of an ownership society in which
they get hefty tax cuts paid for by the poor who get
their budgets cuts.
Then there is the sharp contrast between the
self-indulgent hubris of the festivity and the fragile
political victory which it celebrated. Bush was
reelected by the smallest margin in 100 years of those
presidents who won a second term. His approval ratings
this week are the lowest ever plumbed by any president
at the date of his inauguration…
Lastly there is the biggest contrast of all between
the smug complacency of the administration over its
electoral victory and the disastrous military failure
of its adventure in Iraq. Since George Bush was
reelected over 200 more US soldiers have been killed
in Iraq…
The lawless background to the forthcoming elections
has imposed whole new dimensions to the concept of a
secret ballot. Most of the candidates will remain a
secret lest they are assassinated. Polling stations
are kept secret by the authorities lest they are blown
up before election day in a week's time…
The president and his speech writers have yet to
confront the tension between their rhetoric about
freedom, which is universally popular, and their
practice of projecting US firepower, which is resented
in equal measure. That explains why, on the very day
when the president set forward his mission to bring
liberty to the world, a poll revealed that a large
majority of its inhabitants believe that he will
actually make it more dangerous. The first indication
of whether they are right to worry will be whether the
Bush administration mediate their differences with
Iran through the state department or through the US
air force.

John Nichols, The Nation: First Lady has always
merited her designation as "the brighter Bush." But,
clearly, she needs to study up on American history.
With concern mounting about the wisdom of the Bush
team's plans for four days of lavish inaugural
festivities, Laura Bush was dispatched to make the
case for the $40 million blowout that was organized to
erase any doubt about who is in charge. Like her
husband and his aides, the First Lady announced her
approval of the ridiculous extravagance that will
accompany what that is starting to look more and more
like a royal coronation. The excess is necessary, she
explained, because big parties at the opening of a
presidential term are "an important part of our
history." "They're a ceremony of our history; they're
a ritual of our government," she said of free-spending
inaugural celebrations, after being asked whether it
was appropriate to spend tens of millions of dollars
on ten different parties at a time when the nation is
at war and much of the world is still recovering from
the tsunami disaster…
In truth, however, only one President has marked his
inauguration in the true spirit of the American
experiment.
That President understood the experiment better than
most because he, Thomas Jefferson, had had such a
central hand in launching it…
On the morning of March 4, 1801, the President-elect
awoke in his small room in Conrad's Boarding House on
Capitol Hill--where he had lived during the past four
years when he served as a dissident Vice President.
After dressing in simple clothes, he went to the
breakfast room and took his usual seat at the table,
declining the offer of a place at the head of the
table that had been made in deference to the fact that
on this day he would be sworn in as the nation's third
President.
Just before noon, Jefferson left Conrad's and walked
through the muddy streets of Washington to the
Capitol, where he was sworn in without pomp or
circumstance. He quietly delivered an inaugural
address..
Jefferson then walked back to his rooming house, where
at dinner time he again refused a place of honor at
the table--displaying not merely in words, but in
deeds, his belief that the President was a servant of
the people, not their better and certainly not their
ruler...
The new President wanted Americans to put behind them
the trappings of their colonial past.
He believed that the age of kings and queens was
ending, while the age of the democracy was beginning.

Jim Harding, Financial Times: As the inaugural
festivities ended on Friday, dissection began on
President George W. Bush's commitment to bury tyranny.
Peggy Noonan, the former speechwriter for President
Ronald Reagan and a self-proclaimed Bush supporter,
voiced the misgivings of many Republicans in Friday's
Wall Street Journal. “It left me with a bad feeling
and reluctant dislike,” she wrote in an editorial
column. The White House authors of a “heaven-ish”,
“God-drenched speech” needed to be reminded that “this
is not heaven, it's earth”, she said.
The speech was “over the top”, she complained, saying
the Bush White House was suffering a case of “mission
inebriation”.
Republicans in the realist camp echoed concerns that
Mr Bush's second inaugural address had handed US
foreign policy over to the neoconservative moralists.
“It was a strong sermon that resonated with calls for
freedom throughout the world and an end to tyranny,
but completely deficient of any guidelines about what
this call for freedom means in practice,” said
Geoffrey Kemp, a former official in the Reagan White
House and now at the Nixon Center. Mr Bush's
commitment to the end of oppressive regimes and “the
expansion of freedom in all the world”, Mr Kemp said,
amounted to a challenge not only to America's chosen
enemies, but to some strategic partners, including
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and even Uzbekistan.
The remarks also raise questions about Washington's
future dealings with Russia and China, which
apparently puts in doubt “the campaign for nuclear
non-proliferation and. . . the very solvency of the US
economy”, he said.
Robert Novak, the conservative columnist, reported on
Friday: “The Bush speech did not even please all
members of his own political base. . . To some
orthodox conservatives, Bush's message sounded too
much like Woodrow Wilson or neoconservative diehards.”
Pat Buchanan, the former presidential candidate and
the most outspoken representative of the Republicans'
shrinking isolationist wing, was appalled.
“It is utterly utopian. He is giving out IOUs that
this country and its military cannot honour,” he said
Friday. “Rhetorically, it commits America to do more
than America has the resources or power to do. . . it
commits America not to permanent peace but to
permanent war, and wars are the deaths of republics.”

Black Thursday, 1/20/05: Widespread Resistance to A
National Tragedy and An International Disgrace

BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/01/ale05020.html

The Kennebunkport Corleone WASPs Seize Firm Control of
America Inc. on Inauguration Day, 2005
Note: This marks the 20th of 20 consecutive editorials
BuzzFlash will be publishing through January 20th.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
The Bush Cartel has its own form of Omerta, and every
one of its appointees is in office because Bush has
the goods on them -- and they have the goods on Bush.
The only three groups of people capable of exposing
Bush Cartel wrong doings and prosecuting the Bush
"perps" are controlled by Bush or are long-term
Republican hacks: The Congress, the Attorney General's
Office and the Federal Judiciary (with the Supreme
Court as the back-up.)
With Bush's second coronation, he is the law.
We are no longer a nation of laws to which the
president is held accountable. Alberto Gonzales, who
will ensure that no significant Bush figure is
indicted or seriously investigated for the multiple
crimes that have already been committed -- and will
inevitably occur -- has stated that the President
alone can decide when to break the law and have people
tortured, and when to thumb his nose at treaties.
Remember that is was Gonzales, who as Bush's personal
lawyer in his Texas days, got Bush off serving on a
jury so that he wouldn't have to admit that he had
been arrested for drunken driving.
Gonzales's job is simple: do what Bush wants and
protect anyone else who does it at a senior level.
Ignore the Constitution, because Bush is the sole
decision maker of divinely inspired "law," even if it
places us, as a nation, at the level of savages.
The Democrats will mostly vote for Gonzales and seal
their own legal political death warrant. After eight
years of a Republican Circus that hijacked our legal
process to try and unseat Clinton over a blow job, the
Republicans will get away with the darkest violations
of the law, because Gonzales is a loyal court servant
-- and if he were to bring Bush down, Gonzales knows
that he will end up in the docket, too.
What is true for Gonzales is true for all the lead
players in this organized crime political family that
uses its decadent bloodline as its armor of integrity
whenever confronted with the illegality, lies and
barbarity of its actions.
Condi Rice got all indignant when Barbara Boxer held
her accountable for her actions, accusing the Senator
of attacking her "integrity." Oh, Condi learned well
from her mentor. When your only success is failure,
play the "integrity" card.
In August of 2001, as BuzzFlash has often written,
Rice and Bush were warned that Al Qaeda was planning
to hijack planes in the United States in the near
future. Bush went off to drink a few brews down in
Texas (along with a few of those faux "I cut the brush
like a Marlboro Man" photo-ops) and Condi ignored the
warning. She said that they weren't warned of planes
being flown into buildings, so she didn't need to do
anything special.
As BuzzFlash has repeated again and again, without
making any impression on the brain dead mainstream
press, the way you prevent a hijacking that results in
planes being flown into buildings is the same way you
prevent hijackings: You send out an alert and make it
a high priority White House crisis management
situation to prevent hijackings. But those were
apparently two dots too difficult for the National
Security Advisor of the United States to connect, let
alone our "Pet Goat" President. What we needed was a
second grader as our NSA and a third grader as our
President. Then maybe 9/11 wouldn't have occurred.
And now "Ms. Integrity," the one who was at the center
of the White House wing of the pre-Iraq War deception
campaign, coordinating it with the Defense Department,
and leaving Dick Cheney to pressure the CIA to go
along with the bogus fear hype, will be our Secretary
of State. Like the Bushes, she's an individual whose
ambition has far exceeded her ability -- and were she
to turn on the Bushes, they would leak her illegal
deeds to the press so fast it would make you forget
Valerie Plame, whom you probably already have.
Yes, if anything symbolized how the Bush Kennebunkport
Corleone family cares about itself before our national
security, it was the exposing of a CIA analyst who
specialized in the tracking of illicit sales of WMDs.
Rove and Bush wanted to let any American intelligence
analyst know that loyalty to the Bush Cartel came
before loyalty to the country -- and they would make
us less secure to prove their point. In short, "we
don't give a sh** if it harms the country, your first
loyalty is to George, not the nation."
If this sounds a bit like how the mafia works, you're
right.
Do you really think that Michael Chertoff is the best
person in America to head the Department of Homeland
Security? Of course not, he's another loyal senior
"made man" in the Bush Kennebunkport Cartel, having
proved his bonafides in working for Ken Starr and also
arguing, while working for Ashcroft, for the illegal
detention of people based on ethnic background. The
guy is going to make decisions that are in the
interest of the Kennebunkport Cartel first and
foremost. What about America, the Constitution, and
our personal safety? Oh, how naive you are!
As Rick Perlstein, a Village Voice journalist who
inspired this editorial, noted:
At that pass, reflects John Dean, Richard Nixon's
legal counsel, who served time for Watergate, "only
the attorney general can select a special counsel to
prosecute." Which takes us back to the beginning, and
last week's hearings. "As attorney general," Dean
says, "Gonzales can resist any and all efforts to
prosecute high officials of the Bush administration,
absent photographs of Dick Cheney choking Condi Rice
and dangling her off the Memorial Bridge for messing
with his policies."
The Godfather, the King: They both see themselves as
THE law, not just above it.
Such it is with the Kennebunkport Political Crime
Cartel. Their loyalty is to themselves.
We are just the innocent bystanders and bankers of
their wasteful, failed endeavors.
It's not our money.
It's not our media
It's not our law.
Those have been seized and usurped by a failed
bloodline that has mistaken its incompetence for
divine indulgence.
Over such violations of human rights a revolution was
started in 1776.
If democracy in America has had its peaks and valleys
over this nation's history, surely this time we have
reached the nadir.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/05/01/edi05022.html

Published on Friday, January 21, 2005 by the Los
Angeles Times
Mock Coffins, Real Anger
Protesters Come from Across the Country to March,
Chant and Turn their Backs on the Inaugural
Festivities for a President They Oppose

by Elizabeth Shogren

WASHINGTON — As President Bush was taking the oath of
office at noon Thursday, Amy Caudill, 24, marched down
16th Street toward the White House, carrying the front
of a mock coffin draped with an American flag. Caudill
hoped to send the message that many loyal Americans
adamantly opposed Bush and the war in Iraq.

"There are a lot of people who are proud, frustrated
and patriotic at the same time," said Caudill, a
student at the State University of New York at Albany,
who was one of thousands of antiwar protesters who
marched and lined the route of the inaugural parade.

At demonstrations scattered around the city, along
long stretches of the parade route and even in
downtown subway stations, protesters often seemed more
prevalent than Bush supporters.

They appeared to have achieved their goal of making
their presence known both to the president, who has
rarely come close to protesters in four years in
office, and to the American public.

They shouted chants of "Bring them home," "Liar!" and
"Peace now!" and carried homemade signs with slogans
like "Look, the emperor has no clothes," "He's not my
president," "Who made torture an American value?" and
"Yeehaw is not a foreign policy."

Most demonstrators were peaceful, but police used
pepper spray and water cannons to quell unruly
protesters stuck outside security checkpoints trying
to get to the parade route.

U.S. Park Police arrested four women who crossed
police lines along the parade route and disrobed to
protest the wearing of furs, according to U.S. Park
Police Sgt. Scott Fear.

Washington police arrested three people, two in
assaults on police officers and another who allegedly
set a bonfire, said officer Quintin Peterson.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the Code Pink: Women for
Peace antiwar group, and two other protesters were
jailed after they unfurled a banner that said "Out of
Iraq" and chanted "Bring home the troops" while in a
VIP section along the parade route, according to June
Brashares, who works with Benjamin at Global Exchange,
a human-rights organization in San Francisco.

Some Bush supporters were furious that demonstrators
tried to spoil the patriotic pageant. But others were
happy to share sidewalks and subways with people who
were chanting antiwar and anti-Bush slogans, even as
the president's limousine passed by.

"I think this is what makes the country great," said
Laura Flaherty, 45, a Bush supporter and high school
social studies teacher from Columbus, Ohio, who
brought 40 students to the inauguration. "They have as
much right to be here as we do."

The protesters came from across the country. They
included a Jamaican immigrant from Brooklyn whose
grandson was fighting in Iraq, a 46-year-old lawyer
from Sacramento who called the president inept and a
38-year-old woman from Virginia who dressed as Jesus.

"Jesus would be opposed to this war and most of what
this administration stands for," said Tara White, a
graduate student at Old Dominion University, in
Norfolk, Va., who wore a crown of thorns and a white
robe.

White joined a hodgepodge of several thousand
protesters who gathered at Meridian Hill Park, also
known as Malcolm X Park, and marched about two miles
down 16th Street, stopping a few blocks short of the
White House.

They carried dozens of coffins draped in flags or
black cloth to draw attention to the more than 1,300
U.S. military service members who had died in the Iraq
war.

But the biggest protest was along the parade route.
For several blocks toward the beginning, protesters
far outnumbered supporters. They were sprinkled
throughout the crowd along much of the rest of the
route and again made up the majority of the crowd near
Freedom Plaza, a few blocks from the White House.

Answer Coalition, an antiwar group, was given a permit
to congregate and set up bleachers near the start of
the parade route. As the president's limousine
approached, riot police stood shoulder-to-shoulder in
a human barricade. Many in the group chanted: "Racist,
sexist, anti-gay, Bush and Cheney go away!" Others,
including Ryan Rebarchick, simply turned their backs
toward the limousine.

"I can't respect him at all," said Rebarchick, 23, a
waitress. "He has done so many things wrong — with the
war and the rest of his policies — that he doesn't
deserve to be president."

Jane Myers an elementary school teacher, came from
Gainesville, Fla., despite a broken foot.

"Nothing was going to stop me," she said. "I was too
poor and young to protest in the 1960s, so now that
I'm 60, and I have a little money, I came to protest
the war."

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

Mock Coffins and Jeers as Bush Sworn In
By Andy Sullivan
Reuters
Friday 21 January 2005
Washington - Flag-draped coffins and jeering anti-war
protesters competed with pomp and circumstance on
Thursday at the inauguration of President Bush along
the snow-dusted, barricaded streets of central
Washington.
As the president's motorcade made its way down
Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White
House amid the tightest security in inaugural history,
thousands of protesters along the parade route and
nearby downtown streets booed, chanted slogans and
carried placards condemning Bush's policies at home
and abroad.
Some turned their back as the president drove
slowly past. Others yelled, "George Bush, you can't
hide. We charge you with genocide." Among the forest
of protest signs, some read "Blood is on your hands"
and "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam." Others called for
electoral reform, gay rights, abortion rights and the
use of renewable energy.
"There are a lot of people dying overseas for
nothing and I'm here to get my voice heard," said Bill
Coffelt, 40, an engineer from Fairfax, Va.
Protesters also traded insults with the more
numerous, cheering Bush supporters, many of whom wore
fur coats and paid for the best viewing spots at the
first inaugural parade since the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks.
In one area, police briefly sought to disperse
with pepper spray demonstrators who hurled bottles,
trash and snowballs at officers while trying to break
through a security fence holding them back from the
parade.
At least one snowball hit Vice President Dick
Cheney's limousine, and Bush's limousine sped up to
get past the commotion.
One group of protesters carried hundreds of mock
coffins along 16th Street, a downtown thoroughfare
leading to the White House, to remind Americans of the
mounting casualties in Iraq.
And an American flag was set alight just outside a
security checkpoint at 13th and Pennsylvania.
"It's beyond comprehension the damage this man has
done," said Meredith Lair, 32, who just completed a
doctorate in history at Pennsylvania State University.
"I think it's horrifying what we're doing to Iraq,"
said Lair, who was carrying a sign that read, "Mr.
Bush, under my mittens I'm giving you the finger."
Isolated Scuffles
Police said there were at least 13 arrests, two
for assaulting an officer and the rest for disorderly
conduct or other violations. One was a man who
embarrassed police four years ago by sneaking past
security to get a handshake from Bush. He did not get
a chance for another grip this inauguration.
Police also scuffled with about 30 protesters two
streets away from the parade route, using pepper spray
and batons to disperse the group of self-styled
anarchists, who wore bandannas to hide their faces.
"He (Bush) says he's bringing freedom to the
world, and we're getting pepper-sprayed for our First
Amendment rights. That's kind of ironic," said
22-year-old Dustin, who works for the National
Institutes of Health and did not want to give his full
name.
Just outside the White House grounds, 17
protesters staged a "die-in." After shouting a chant
of "Stop the killing, stop the war," they dropped to
the pavement one by one as one of them began reading a
list of those killed in Iraq.
One spectator apparently found the act so credible
that he began administering CPR. Others were less
sympathetic.
"I hope you don't get up. I hope you freeze your
ass off," said another, who was among a group heading
toward the parade-viewing grandstands nearest the
White House.
Throughout the city, thousands of police and
military troops were on patrol with bomb-sniffing
dogs, and spectators had to pass through metal
detectors before attending any inaugural events or
heading to the parade.
Police sealed off 100 blocks around the White
House and parade route, barring all traffic except
official security and police cars.
Demonstration organizers had complained they were
not being given adequate access to protest, while Bush
supporters were granted prime locations along the
parade route.
Women Peace Activists Dragged Out of Inauguration
Ceremony by the Police
Members of CodePink: Women for Peace Unfurl Banners
and Speak Out Against the Iraq War During George
Bush’s Inaugural Address
WASHINGTON -- January 20 -- As George W. Bush gave his
inaugural address in front of the U.S. Capitol, six
women peace activists stood up on their chairs in the
VIP section and shouted “bring the troops home!” The
women also held up banners reading “No War,” “Out of
Iraq Now,” and “Bush Mandate: Troops Home Now.” They
were dragged out of the inaugural ceremony by the
police, and two of the women are still in police
custody.

“The killing in Iraq doesn’t stop because the
inauguration is happening, so our efforts to end the
war and occupation can’t stop either,” said Jodie
Evans, one of the women who spoke out during Bush’s
inaugural address.

“Bush’s occupation of Iraq has led to needless
suffering of US soldiers and Iraqis, increased
anti-American sentiment globally, and has made us less
safe at home. We spoke out because the Bush
administration needs end the occupation of Iraq and
its bellicose policy towards Iran and other nations,
and instead commit the United States to the rule of
law—including the US constitution and bill of rights,
the UN charter and the Geneva conventions,” said Medea
Benjamin, who also spoke out during the inaugural
address and is still in police custody.

Evans and Benjamin are co-founders of the national
women’s peace group, CODEPINK, which has 90 chapters
throughout the United States and the world. CODEPINK
is known for its creative and bold approach to
anti-war activism, and for its members’ success in
interrupting prime time speeches three nights in a row
during the Republican National Convention in New York
City. Evans and Benjamin have both traveled to Iraq
several times to witness first-hand the reality of the
occupation.

The six women who held up banners and chanted in the
VIP section during the president’s inaugural speech
were Diane Wilson 56 years old; Jodie Evans, 50,
Elaine Broadhead, 55, Mara Duncan, 58, Tiffany Burns,
29, and Medea Benjamin 51. They are from California,
Texas, and Washington, DC. Benjamin and Wilson are
being held by the police; the other women have been
released.

An additional ten CODEPINK activists, who were seated
further back in the crowd, also held up banners or
spoke out against the Iraq war inside the inauguration
ceremony. Three men were also held up a banner, and
are being held by the police with Benjamin and Wilson.

On Wednesday night, CODEPINK co-sponsored a protest
outside the “Black Tie and Boots” inaugural ball,
where peace and justice activists chanted, “End the
Celebration, Stop the Occupation” and “The champagne
is flying, while soldiers are dying.”

Hundreds of counter-inaugural events are being held
throughout the country this week, in what many are
calling the “other” inauguration: the inauguration of
the second term of the anti-war movement.
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0120-06.htm

http://militaryweek.com/withoutreservation.shtml

LINKS TO MORE ARTICLES BY COL. KWIATKOWSKI

Without Reservation

A biweekly column by Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col. USAF
(ret.)

posted 17 January 05

Ball Gowns and Hospital Gowns

Looking forward to a gala second inaugural ball, Mr.
Bush is one happy man.

The administration has many things to celebrate. No –
none, nada, zilch – weapons of mass destruction or
programs producing them were ever found in Iraq,
despite literally hundreds of White House promoted
statements about dangerous weapons, weapons systems,
weapons stockpiles, weapons technologies, gases,
diseases – the list goes on.

Isn't that a good thing? Most of the world's
intelligence gathering agencies, including many parts
of our own, as well as thinking people everywhere,
looked upon the administration's statements in 2002
and 2003 with healthy skepticism. These observers were
proven correct, of course.

It is indeed a happy time. A few weeks after the
President called off the search for WMD in Iraq he
announced that there was "no reason to hold any
administration officials accountable for mistakes or
misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the
violent aftermath."

Instead, the President believes that his
administration already had an "accountability moment."
Please, no blinking! That moment was the re-election
of George W. Bush.

He's right, of course. While only slightly over half
of the votes last November went to George W. Bush, and
less than half of Americans today believe the war in
Iraq was either necessary, prudent or in America's
interest, I recall a time in late 2002 and early 2003
when I was still in the Pentagon reading the news, the
policy papers and watching the President,
Vice-President, Secretaries Rumsfeld and Powell wax
eloquent on, well, all those things of which we no
longer speak.

Americans were all too willing to trust those men in
suits, armed as they were with a willingness to say
anything, to justify anything, and an agenda on Iraq
that to this day they are unwilling to share publicly.

• A need to permanently shift the American military
presence from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and even Turkey
into a perfectly located Iraq, using long-term leases
signed with the Iraqi puppet government to permit
their construction.
• A desire to "Do It Their Way" in the inevitable
post-sanctions Iraq investment free-for-all, something
stubborn former ally Saddam Hussein would have never
permitted.
• A need for oil to remain dominantly a dollar
commodity, something Saddam Hussein quietly undermined
with his switch to the euro in November 2000. After
Bush toppled Saddam Hussein, his first executive order
on Iraq switched it back.

But that's all so 2002 and 2003. It's time to
celebrate! As ballrooms and parade grounds are
prepared and decorated, funded by hundreds of donors
interested in a lot more of what George W. Bush can
deliver (Iraq as the perfect bling bling), the "moment
of accountability" has come and gone. The
administration passed with flying colors, and none of
the miscreants lost their job.

It is a happy new year for the Bush administration,
and this week we'll see the loveliest of parties in
downtown Washington. Afterwards, sated and smiling,
they will say, "we could have danced all night."

Others, not far from the festivities in Washington, at
Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed and Fort
Belvoir, and in military and civilian hospitals across
the country and in Germany, won't be having the same
happy New Year. The half a million serving soldiers
and Marines who have already seen time in Iraq, many
with more than one tour in hell, and the almost
160,000 there now, are not having such a great year.

The 25,000 mentally or physically injured who have
been returned from what we now understand as the
unnecessary but politically-demanded recreational
fields of battle in Iraq are not dancing on air. The
over 11,000 seriously injured are spending their time
learning how to adapt to crippling, blinding and
disfiguring injuries, and how to use their new
prosthetics instead of perfecting their waltz, rumba,
and line-dance technique. The almost 1,500 soldiers
and marines who have died in Iraq, like the 100,000
dead Iraqis, are blessedly unaware of the gala
celebrations in Washington.

Buying ball gowns – spending lots of money on an
expensive and gratuitous trifle, doing so with the
help of the enthusiastic exaggeration of imaginative
and pushy salespeople, emotion and desire trumping
practicality and logic – is something the Bush
administration celebrators and donors have been doing
for almost four years.

They are quite good at it. I'm sure the inaugural ball
will be a smashing success. One wonders if George W.
Bush and his crowd of ambitious retainers would, in a
quiet moment, consider the Army and Marine fashions
for the coming year – body armor, backless hospital
gowns, gauze and bandages, and of course, the
perfectly efficient body bag.

George W. Bush has visited few of the injured, and he
has attended none of the funerals. Instead, he has
clamped down on news and images of these, hoping to
protect his refined sensitivities. Such staid, serious
events, those hospital visits and funerals. All the
sadness and misery and guilt. It's just so ... last
year.

The "moment of accountability" is blithely past for
George W. Bush by his own estimation. For thousands of
young Americans, it will instead be a long struggling
lifetime, launched with shattered bodies, broken minds
and dreams crushed.

Like a modern Marie Antoinette, the Bush
administration in 2005 gaily throws a glittering party
and says "Let them dance."

© 2005 Karen Kwiatkowski

Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski can be reached at
karen@militaryweek.com.

OAF OF OFFICE
Thursday, January 20, 2005

by Greg Palast

Watching John Kerry lip-synch the oath of office, I
couldn't help wondering, 'what if.'

Here on stage nd tax cuts against the strange,
nipple-chilling cold. Hell had frozen over.

Our President said, "It is the policy of the United
States to seek and support the growth of democratic
movements and institutions in every nation." Well, no,
it isn't.

Our President said, "We will widen retirement savings
and health insurance." No, he won't.

Our President said, "America will not pretend that
jailed dissidents prefer their chains." Yes, he will.

Our President said, "And our country must abandon all
the habits of racism." Oh, sure.

He doesn't believe a single word he's saying. And all
over America, everyone knows he's lying and America is
truly relieved.

America doesn't want to give up the habit of racism.
Karl Rove doesn't. Jeb Bush doesn't. If not for
challenging hundreds of thousands of voters in Black
precincts of Ohio and other swing states, if not for
purging thousands more from voter rolls for the crime
of voting while Black, you wouldn't be president now,
would you, Mr. President?

You won't "pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their
chains," unless they are chained by your buck-buddies
in Saudi Arabia.

You'll "support democratic movements" so long as the
citizens of Venezuela don't get carried away and
decide that democracy means they can choose a leader
you don't like.

And you'll "widen Social Security and health
insurance"? Who are you kidding? I just got a doctor
bill for $5,200 … should I send it to you at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue?

You said, "You have seen that life is fragile, and
evil is real, and courage triumphs." What you meant
was, "Courage is fragile and real evil triumphs."
Indeed your entire campaign was about American
cowardice: "they" are coming to get us. Americans,
scared for their lives, soiled their underpants and
waddled to the polls crying, "Georgie, save us!"

Franklin Roosevelt said in his inaugural, "We have
nothing to fear but fear itself." But he didn't have
Dick Cheney creating from his bunker a government
which is little more than a Wal-Mart of Fear: midnight
snatchings of citizens for uncharged crimes, wars to
hunt for imaginary weapons aimed at Los Angeles, DNA
data banks of kids and grandmas, the Chicken Little
sky-is-falling social security spook-show, and
shoe-searches in airports. Fear is your only product.

In another world, in which all votes are counted, J.F.
Kerry would have gathered most of those arcane chits
called "electoral votes" and would have taken that
oath today.

But, dear Reader, there's one cold statistic Kerry
voters must face. The fact that Republicans monkeyed
with the votes in swing states doesn't wash away that
big red stain: 59 million Americans marched to the
polls and voted for George W. Bush.

If Osama doesn't scare you, THAT should.

Because if 59 million Americans agreed with George
Bush that every millionaire's son, like him, shouldn't
have to pay inheritance taxes; that sucking up to
Saudi petrocrats constitutes a foreign policy; that
killing Muslims in Mesopotamia will make them less
inclined to kill us in Manhattan; that turning over
social security to the casino operators that gave us
Enron, WorldCom and world depression is smart
economics; then, fine, Mr. Bush deserves the job. But
most Americans, bless'm, don't actually believe any of
that hokum. YET MOST STILL VOTED FOR HIM!

What we witnessed on November 2, 2004 was a 59-million
strong army of pinheads on parade ready to gamble away
their social security so long as George Bush makes
sure that boys kill each other, not kiss each other;
who feel right proud that our uniformed services can
kick some scrawny brown people in the ass in some far
off place when we're mad and can't find Osama; who
can't bring themselves to vote for a guy with a snooty
Boston accent who's never been to a NASCAR tractor
pull and who certainly thinks anyone who does is a
low-Q beer-burping blockhead. And they are.

Today we witnessed more than the coronation of some
privileged little munchkin of mendacity. It is the
triumphal re-occupation of our nation by nitwits who
think Ollie North's a hero not a conman, who can't
name their congressman, who believe that Saddam
Hussein and Osama bin Laden were going steady, who
can't tell Afghanistan from Souvlaki-stan. Bloated
with lies and super-size fries, they clomped to the
polls 59 million strong to vent their small-minded
little hatreds on us all.

When I looked today at the oaf of office, I could not
shake the feeling that this election was an
intelligence test that America flunked.

Catch Greg Palast's documentary, "Bush Family
Fortunes," at the Freedom Film Festival at Sundance,
Thursday, January 27.

For more information, go to
http://www.gregpalast.com/

To receive Palast's investigative reports, sign up at
http://www.gregpalast.com/contact.cfm

Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller,
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=410&row=0

Cable news dismissed and ridiculed inauguration
protesters

During January 20 inauguration coverage, hosts and
commentators on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News ridiculed
inauguration protesters; downplayed their numbers and
significance; and implied that they posed a security
threat.

CNN host Wolf Blitzer seemed to ignore fellow host
Judy Woodruff's point that parade watchers generally
had to pay for seats (and therefore likely supported
President Bush), asserting that in contrast with the
protesters -- whom he called "angry, angry people" --
"there are a lot more people who have gathered along
Pennsylvania Avenue who love this president."

Later, Blitzer again downplayed the protesters'
significance: "And we don't want to make too much of
the protesters, because we don't know how many there
were. Certainly, the nature of this business, the
nature of television, we could over-exaggerate based
on the images, and they might just be a tiny, tiny
overall number." A January 21 New York Times article
rebutted Blitzer's assessment, noting that the number
of protesters in the protest-designated space alone
was in the "thousands," and that there were also
protesters interspersed with Bush supporters
throughout the parade route: "The numbers of
protesters along Pennsylvania Avenue might have been
greater, but the swarm of people trying to pass
through security checkpoints made it hard to reach the
parade route quickly."

As the Bushes' limousine passed the designated
protester area, CNN guest and Harvard University
historian Barbara Kellerman remarked: "I doubt very
much they [the Bushes] are taking the protesters very
seriously at this point. I think they are celebrating
the moment. And I must say, who can blame them?"

On FOX News, homeland defense correspondent Catherine
Herridge also downplayed the number of protesters,
stating that of those associated with the protest
coalition Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER)
"only a few dozen people have shown up." But The New
York Times reported that the ANSWER-led coalition
"filled [the protest-designated space] with thousands
of people who were as close to Mr. Bush as those who
came to cheer him."

HERRIDGE: This is the designated site for an anti-war
group that's called ANSWER. That's an acronym for Act
Now to Stop War and End Racism. This has been billed
as the largest demonstration. It's sort of early days,
but you can see with your own eyes that only a few
dozen people have shown up. ANSWER had told the park
police they were expecting somewhere in the area of
10,000. While they're demonstrating against the
administration's policies -- both domestic and foreign
-- there are groups today that will be demonstrating
in support of the president. The D.C. chapter of
[conservative online forum] Free Republic will be here
supporting the president and also our troops overseas,
and they told the park police they were expecting
somewhere around 1,000 people.

Later, FOX News host, managing editor, and chief
Washington correspondent Brit Hume, observing the
presidential motorcade leaving the White House on its
way to the Capitol, called the protesters not "very
important":

HUME: We'll keep an eye out as well for protesters
along the way. They've been granted more access in
some cases than is usual to the spots along
Pennsylvania Avenue. So we'll keep an eye out for any
of that. It isn't very important, but it's kind of
interesting, and it's sort of typical of this country
that you'd have this grand celebration of the second
term of a new president, and dissenting voices have a
spot in all of it.

On CNN, national correspondent Bob Franken linked
increased security to the protesters:

Of course, the inauguration brings with it pageantry.
But since September 11, 2001, it has met intense,
unbelievable security and an angry nation. The
protesters are set up in various spots. One of the
authorized ones is right in back of me. ... The police
forces are probably going to outnumber the
demonstrators. They are part of a security effort --
most of which we're seeing, highly visible, some of
which we're not -- which is designed to allow this to
be a national security event that becomes a
celebration, as opposed to something that would be
unthinkable.

On MSNBC, Washington Times editorial page editor Tony
Blankley ridiculed animal rights organization People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), calling
them, "People Eating Tasty Animals." Blankley's
comment came as he, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, and
MSNBC contributor and analyst Monica Crowley discussed
the fur coats some wore to inaugural events:

MATTHEWS: I guess there's no -- what do they call it,
PETA? -- they're not around.

CROWLEY: And I like all the fur-lined Stetsons.

BLANKLEY: PETA, isn't that People Eating Tasty
Animals?

MATTHEWS: I don't think so at all. I'd be very
careful, Tony.

— N.C.

Posted to the web on Friday January 21, 2005 at 4:01
PM EST

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rights reserved.
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http://mediamatters.org/items/200501210007

No Room for Progressives on Cable News Inauguration
Coverage, Says Media Matters for America

WASHINGTON -- January 21 -- Media Matters for America
inventoried all guests who appeared on FOX News, CNN,
and MSNBC during the channels' Jan. 20 inauguration
coverage. Between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Republican and
conservative guests and commentators outnumbered
Democrats and progressives 19 to 7 on FOX, 10 to 1 on
CNN (not including a Republican-skewed panel featuring
Ohio voters), and 13 to 2 on MSNBC. Moreover, the rare
Democrat or progressive guest usually appeared
opposite conservatives, whereas most Republican and
conservative guests and commentators appeared solo or
alongside fellow conservatives. In this survey, Media
Matters included only those commentators whose party
or political affiliation is generally known.
REPUBLICANS OR CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATORS
FOX News
-- Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.)
-- Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)
-- Brian Harlan, head of officially authorized
Bush-Cheney inaugural memorabilia
-- Ashley Faulkner, star of "Ashley's Ad," campaign
spot by pro-Bush political action committee
-- Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)
-- Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.)
-- Bush-Cheney '04 chief campaign strategist Matthew
Dowd
-- Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes
-- U.S. News & World Report senior writer Michael
Barone
-- National Review editor Rich Lowry
-- Wall Street Journal contributing editor Peggy
Noonan
-- Weekly Standard editor William Kristol
-- Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer
-- Radio host and FOX News contributor Mike Gallagher
(opposite Beckel)
-- Pro-Bush singer Tony Orlando
-- FOX News political analyst and radio host Tony Snow
-- Former Bush-

LNS Post Coup II Supplement (Final): Part Three -- The Bush Abomination’s Three Greatest Failures

Part Three -- The Bush Abomination’s Three Greatest
Failures: National Security, Economic Security and
Environmental Security

Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure National Security

Richard A. Clarke, on “Ten Years Later,” Atlantic
Monthly: Having ignored al-Qaeda until September
11,2001, President George W. Bush responded to the
attack in three ways. First, he ordered an end to the
terrorist sanctuary in Afghanistan. For five years
thereafter a token US. military force assisted the
Kabul government in its attempts to rule the warlords
and suppress the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Second, he
moved to strengthen US. domestic law enforcement with
the first Patriot Act (a law that civil libertarians
would find benign from today's perspective) and the
Department of Homeland Security, which in those early
years of the war on terror was largely ineffectual.
[1] Third, Bush ordered the ill-fated invasion and
occupation of Iraq, which effectively turned his
administration into an active recruiting office for
al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups around the world.
The move against Afghanistan did set al-Qaeda and the
jihadi movement back. Although regional affiliates
were. able to stage spectacular attacks in Riyadh,
Istanbul, Bali, Madrid, Baghdad, and elsewhere, and
although there were twice as many attacks worldwide in
the three years after 9/11 as there had been in the
five years before that day, no al-Qaeda-related
attacks took place in the United States in the years
immediately following 9/11.
The several years without an attack on US. soil lulled
some Americans into thinking that the war on terror
was taking place only overseas. Few corporations
increased security spending. Americans increasingly
questioned President Bush's security policies, the
Patriot Act, and Secretary of Homeland Security Tom
Ridge's ridiculed color codes. In the 2004
presidential election George W. Bush won a second term
in part by dismissing such issues as whether the
mishandling of the Iraq War had made us less secure,
whether we had paid enough attention to al-Qaeda, and
whether we were adequately addressing our
vulnerabilities at home.
Then the second wave of al-Qaeda attacks hit America.
Since then we have spiraled downward in terms of
economic strength, national security, and civil
liberties. No one could stand here today, in 2011, and
say that America has won the war on terror. To
understand how we failed to win, and exactly what has
been lost along the way, J want to look at the past
seven years in some detail.

Amy Goodman interviews Seymour Hersch, DemocracyNow!:
On Monday, the Pentagon criticized major aspects of
the article, saying in a written statement "Hersh's
article is so riddled with errors of fundamental fact
that the credibility of his entire piece is
destroyed." But President Bush, when asked by NBC's
David Gregory whether he would rule out military
action against Iran, said: "I hope we can solve it
diplomatically, but I will never take any option off
the table."
Amy Goodman: Your response to what President Bush has
said?
Seymour Hersh: Well, I mean, the thing that's
wonderful about that is that, of course, if he really
hopes we're doing something politically, he should
join in with the talks that have been underway for
more than a year. Since 2003, the European Union,
primarily led by England, France and Germany, has been
in extensive negotiations with the Iranians. I think
there's an understanding that Iran has ambitions to
become a nuclear power. It's not there yet. The goal
of these talks is to offer them, I guess, to use a
cliche, the carrot they need in terms of increased
trade and increased credits and dual-use goods, goods
that they have been denied by sanctions because of
their activities, in exchange for a commitment to
stop.
The United States has not joined in those talks,
absolutely has nothing to do with them. In the
article, I quoted senior Western diplomats -
everyone's so nervous about being quoted about
anything these days with this administration - anyway,
a senior European diplomat said to me, we're in a
lose-lose position, because as long as America doesn't
join in these negotiations we really don't have the
leverage. What kind of a commitment can we make for
Iran's security if America stays out of it? And as
long as they don't join in, we're eventually going to
have to go to the United Nations for sanctions because
we can't do it through diplomacy to stop them, and at
that point, everybody understands that Russia and
China will probably veto it, and then the Bush
administration can claim, 'Aha! The U.N. is not
working again,' which is analogous to what happened in
2003 when we went into Iraq. We didn't give the
negotiations there a chance to work. So, if you really
are interested in negotiations, it's simple. Start
talking to Iran.

Bush Abomination’s #2 Failure: Economic Security

Sidney Blumenthal, Salon: In his second term,
President Bush is intent on regime change. The country
whose order he seeks to overthrow is not ruled by
Islamic mullahs or Baathists. But members of his
administration have compared its system to communism
and have used the image of the Berlin Wall to describe
its rot. The battle will be "one of the most important
conservative undertakings of modern times," the deputy
to White House political director Karl Rove wrote in a
confidential memo. Since the election, the president
has spoken often of the "coming crisis," and he has
mobilized the government to begin a propaganda
campaign to prepare public opinion for the conflict
ahead. The nation whose regime he is set on toppling
is the United States.
One part of his strategy is to pack the federal bench
with judges pledged to restore what conservatives call
the "Constitution in exile" - the Constitution before
the New Deal. Bush has renominated for judgeships
"those" already rejected by the Senate, including
William Haynes, who as the Pentagon's general counsel
advised on the policy that the president isn't bound
by laws governing torture, and Janice Brown, who has
denounced the New Deal as a "socialist revolution" and
is opposed to the incorporation of the Bill of Rights
in the Constitution.
Since the New Deal, the American social contract has
been built upon acceptance of its reforms. When Dwight
Eisenhower became the first Republican president after
Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, he never
challenged the New Deal, solidifying the political
consensus that has prevailed for decades. Not even
Ronald Reagan, who, after all, began as a fervent New
Deal Democrat, attempted to overturn it. But now Bush
has launched an assault on the social contract in
earnest, seeking to blast away at its cornerstone,
Social Security, which disburses pensions to the
elderly and payments to the disabled.
The end of the election marked the start of Bush's new
campaign, and he is stumping relentlessly to replace
this "flat-bust, bankrupt" system by siphoning Social
Security funds into private stock market accounts. His
motive was best explained by his political aide, Peter
Wehner, in a memo circulated through the White House.
"For the first time in six decades, the Social
Security battle is one we can win," Wehner wrote
triumphantly in the afterglow of the election victory.
"And in doing so, we can help transform the political
and philosophical landscape of the country."

Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure: Environmental Security

Steve Connor, Independent (UK): The Government's chief
scientific adviser is being aggressively targeted by
American lobbyists trying to discredit his view that
man-made pollution is behind global warming.
In an interview with The Independent, Sir David
King said he was being followed around the world by
people in the pay of vested-interest groups that want
to cast doubt on the science of climate change.
Last year, Sir David said the threat from global
warming was greater than that posed by international
terrorism and he has criticised the Bush
administration for pulling out of the Kyoto treaty to
limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Since then, he has given many lectures to
international audiences but found individuals among
them who are there solely to create the impression
that he is presenting biased information.
"They'll be in the audience to stand up and raise
questions to get into the audience's mind that I
haven't represented a balanced view," he said.

Los Angeles Times Editorial: "Collapse," UCLA
physiology professor Jared Diamond's probing
historical analysis of why some civilizations endure
while others decline, and "State of Fear," Michael
Crichton's lurid thriller about the evils of radical
environmentalists, are literary and scientific polar
opposites. The two talked-about books do share a
tendency to finger as villains narrow-minded leaders
who put ideology and power above scientific truth. But
Diamond, whose views reflect those of most mainstream
scientists, and Crichton, author of popular medical
and scientific potboilers, part company over what the
truth is.
Crichton's enviro-villains try dastardly things - such
as blowing up part of Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf and
swamping California with a tsunami - to scare the
public into thinking that global warming is a growing,
catastrophic problem. Diamond's historical villains go
out of their way to ignore environmental danger.
Diamond explains, for example, how Mayan kings were so
occupied with their own political struggles that they
willfully ignored the ecological damage inflicted by
their economy, from eroded hills to denuded forests.
That damage was, Diamond says, a chief cause of the
collapse of the Mayan empire…
A worldview like Crichton's has kept Congress from
ratifying the oldest of global warming treaties, the
Kyoto Protocol. With Russia having added its
signature, the treaty to reduce greenhouse gases is
set to take effect in more than 100 nations next month
The United States, a major author of the 1997 treaty
but still not a signatory, won't be participating.

Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press: The U.S.
delegation to a global conference on disasters wants
to purge a U.N. action plan of its references to
climate change as a potential cause of future natural
calamities.
The U.S. stand reflects the opposition of the Bush
administration to treating global warming as a
priority problem…
The chief U.N. official here had a different view.
"I hope there will be a global recognition of climate
change causing more natural disasters," said Jan
Egeland, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian
affairs.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a
U.N.-organized network of scientists, said in its
latest major assessment of climate science that the
planet is warming and that this is expected to cause
more extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and
droughts, as the century wears on.

Elaine Lies, David Fogarty, Planetark.com: Earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters could kill millions in the world's teeming megacities and time is running out to prevent such a catastrophe, the
United Nations point man on emergency relief said on Tuesday.
Jan Egeland, the UN Director of Disaster Relief, said
many of the world's megacities, including Tokyo, are
extremely vulnerable to natural disasters and the poor
were most at risk from a lack of investment and
planning.
"Perhaps the most frightening prospect would be to
have a truly megadisaster in a megacity," he said on
the first day of a disaster prevention conference in
the Japanese city of Kobe, where an earthquake killed
nearly 6,500 people a decade ago.

Ten Years Later (Incredibly long future-terrorism
article by Richard Clarke)
Richard A. Clarke ^ | January/February, 2005 | The
Atlantic Monthly
“Then the second wave of al-Qaeda attacks hit
America”
A leading expert on counterterrorism imagines the
future history of the war on terror. A frightening
picture of a country still at war in 2011
This is a transcript if the Tenth Anniversary 9/11
Lecture Sunday, September 11, 2011
John F. Kennedy School if Government Cambridge,
Massachusetts
Professor Roger McBride
Dean, Honored Guests,
It is a great honor to be chosen to give this
tenth-anniversary lecture. This year, more than at any
other time since the beginning of the war on terror, I
think we can see clearly how that war has changed our
country. Now that the terror seems finally to have
receded somewhat, perhaps we can begin to consider the
steps necessary to return the United States to what it
was before 9/11. To do so, however, we must be clear
about what has happened over the past ten years. Thus
tonight I will dwell on the history of the war on
terror.
2001-2004: The response to 9/11
Having ignored al-Qaeda until September 11,2001,
President George W. Bush responded to the attack in
three ways. First, he ordered an end to the terrorist
sanctuary in Afghanistan. For five years thereafter a
token US. military force assisted the Kabul government
in its attempts to rule the warlords and suppress the
Taliban and al-Qaeda. Second, he moved to strengthen
US. domestic law enforcement with the first Patriot
Act (a law that civil libertarians would find benign
from today's perspective) and the Department of
Homeland Security, which in those early years of the
war on terror was largely ineffectual. [1] Third, Bush
ordered the ill-fated invasion and occupation of Iraq,
which effectively turned his administration into an
active recruiting office for al-Qaeda and other jihadi
groups around the world.
The move against Afghanistan did set al-Qaeda and the
jihadi movement back. Although regional affiliates
were. able to stage spectacular attacks in Riyadh,
Istanbul, Bali, Madrid, Baghdad, and elsewhere, and
although there were twice as many attacks worldwide in
the three years after 9/11 as there had been in the
five years before that day, no al-Qaeda-related
attacks took place in the United States in the years
immediately following 9/11.
The several years without an attack on US. soil lulled
some Americans into thinking that the war on terror
was taking place only overseas. Few corporations
increased security spending. Americans increasingly
questioned President Bush's security policies, the
Patriot Act, and Secretary of Homeland Security Tom
Ridge's ridiculed color codes. In the 2004
presidential election George W. Bush won a second term
in part by dismissing such issues as whether the
mishandling of the Iraq War had made us less secure,
whether we had paid enough attention to al-Qaeda, and
whether we were adequately addressing our
vulnerabilities at home.
Then the second wave of al-Qaeda attacks hit America.
Since then we have spiraled downward in terms of
economic strength, national security, and civil
liberties. No one could stand here today, in 2011, and
say that America has won the war on terror. To
understand how we failed to win, and exactly what has
been lost along the way, J want to look at the past
seven years in some detail.
2005: Return to the homeland battlefields
The US. government had predicted that future attacks,
if they came, would likely be on financial
institutions, noting that Osama bin Laden had issued
instructions to destroy the US. economy. Thus when the
casinos were attacked, it was a surprise. It shouldn't
have been; we knew that Las Vegas had been under
surveillance by al-Qaeda since at least 2001. Despite
that knowledge casino owners had done little to
increase security, not wanting to slow people down on
their way into the city's pleasure palaces. [2]
Theme-park owners were also locked into a pre-9/11,
"it can't happen here" mindset, and consequently were
caught off guard, as New Yorkers and Washingtonians
had been in 2001. The first post-9/11 attacks on u.s.
soil came not from airplanes but from backpacks and
Winnebagos. They were aimed at places where we used to
have fun, what we then called "vacation destinations."
These places were particularly hard to defend.
Peter and Margaret Rataczak, of Wichita, Kansas, were
the first to die on June 29, 2005, in a new wave of
suicide attacks launched against the United States in
retaliation for the killing of Osama bin Laden that
spring, and for the continuing presence of U.S. troops
in Iraq. These attacks were every bit as well planned
as those of 9/11 and, in typical al-Qaeda fashion,
used low-technology means to achieve maximum public
impact. What we know about the attacks' planning and
execution comes in large part from tourists who
provided photos and video from their travels. Without
these images we might never have known that the
Rataczaks' killers were non-Arab. lt would also have
been harder to discover that they seem to have entered
the United States by driving across the border from
Canada. [3]
In order to save money for the poker tables that
night, Peter chose to stay at an RV campground,
parking his Winnebago at around 4:00 P.M. Shortly
thereafter a casually dressed Asian couple approached
the Rataczaks' secluded campsite with a map unfolded
in front of them. Only the birds heard the silenced
shots. The first murders by the group calling itself
al-Qaeda of North America had been carried out.
With the bodies in the back of the darkened camper,
the Asian couple drove back toward a safe house they
had quietly rented in the hills. (The landlord had no
reason to suspect they were fundamentalist Muslims;
their religion was of no concern to him. Nor,
certainly, would his standard background credit check
have turned up their association with an Indonesian
al-Qaeda affiliate.) The man quickly backed into the
garage and loaded an ammonium nitrate device into the
van. His leader had said the device would force the
unbelievers in "Sin City" to realize that even in
their ignorance they were guilty of conspiring with
the Zionists to destroy Islam. After a good night's
sleep and his morning prayers, the man carefully
helped the woman into her vest and belt before leaving
her to finish dressing and praying.
It was only an hour's drive to the city limits, and
the man was careful never to exceed the speed limit.
State troopers at the exit ramp to the city ignored
the van. At 3:00 P.M. the streets were packed as
crowds wandered the Strip. On Tropicana Avenue the man
stopped briefly to let his partner out with an
exchange of nods and a whispered statement: "God is
great." The woman blended seamlessly into the flow of
people walking into the Florentine casino, looking
like one of the millions of annual visitors to Las
Vegas from the Pacific Rim. She seemed a little heavy
for her frame, and the jacket she wore seemed a little
out of place in the heat, but the doormen, as security
videos later showed, didn't even give her a second
look. She had been there many times before.
The woman never hesitated. She walked to the roulette
table, fifty feet from the front door, and pushed a
detonator, blowing herself up. The explosion instantly
killed thirty-eight people who were standing and
sitting at nearby tables. The nails and ball bearings
that flew out of the woman's vest and belt wounded
more than a hundred others, even though slot machines
absorbed many of the miniature missiles. [4] Eighteen
of the hundreds of elderly gamblers in the casino
suffered heart attacks that proved fatal when they
could not be treated fast enough amid the rubble.
Just seconds later the man drove his van into the
lobby of the Lion's Grand and detonated his cargo.
This bomb was designed to wreak tremendous damage that
would remain in the consciousness of the American
people for years to come. Whereas the damage done to
the Florentine casino was repaired in just under a
month, the billion-dollar Lion's Grand was closed for
more than a year while security enhancements and
structural improvements were made. Losing the use of
5,034 rooms, plus casino gaming and concerts and other
special events, cost the Lion's Grand a million
dollars a day, and damaged its bond rating.
The long-term economic effects continue today: tourism
in Las Vegas has never returned to its pre-2005 level,
and unemployment in the city is at 28 percent. [5]
The attacks in Nevada occurred at almost the same time
as the ones in Florida, California, Texas, and New
Jersey. Two women strolling separately through
Mouseworld's Showcase of the Future detonated their
exploding belts in the vicinity of tour groups in the
"Mexican Holiday" and "Austrian Biergarten" exhibits.
Similar attacks took place at WaterWorld, in
California; Seven Pennants, near Dallas; and the
Rosebud Casino, in Atlantic City. By the end of the
day 1,032 people were dead and more than 4,000
wounded. The victims included many children and
elderly citizens. Among the dead were only eight
terrorists, two each from Iraq, Indonesia, Pakistan,
and the Philippines.
The next morning CNN's Los Angeles bureau received a
video purporting to be from al-Qaeda of North America.
On the tape the group claimed responsibility for the
incidents and pledged that attacks would continue
until America left the Middle East. We can all recall
the soft, steely voice in which the chilling words
were delivered: "We are not terrorists. We are
patriots trying to throw off the mantle of an
oppressive society. We do not look like you think we
do. And we will kill you until you leave our holy
lands."
Eyewitnesses supported the recording's assertions,
telling investigators that some of the terrorists who
had committed these atrocities did not look like
Arabs. Three of the terrorists were women. The FBI,
the Department of Homeland Security, and the local
authorities were momentarily stunned, and began
frantically trying to prepare for what they feared
were further imminent attacks. The DHS raised the
nationwide terror-alert level to red.
The social effect of the attacks was widespread. In
Detroit, northern New Jersey, northern Virginia, and
southern California armed gangs of local youths
attacked mosques and Islamic centers. At the request
of local clerics, the governor of Michigan ordered
National Guard units into the city of Dearborn and
parts of Detroit to stop the vigilante violence
against Islamic residents.
The reaction from the White House and Congress was
swift. Patriot Act II, which had been languishing on
Capitol Hill, passed in July. As more evidence was
made public, it became increasingly clear that the
attacks had been perpetrated by terrorists who were in
the United States illegally, either on false passports
or having overstayed their visas.[6] Two were Iraqis
pretending to be South Africans, using passports that
had been stolen in Cape Town the year before. [7]
Others had actually been picked up before the attacks
for being "out of visa status," but had been released
because immigration detention facilities were full.
[8]
The attorney general sought broad emergency powers to
impose extended pre-arraignment detention,
investigative confinement, broader material-witness
authority, and expanded deportation authority. After
the passage of Patriot Act II, federal agents
conducted large-scale roundups of illegal immigrants
and members of ethnic groups that were suspected of
hiding terrorists in their midst. Many citizens who
had been forcibly detained were held "with probable
cause" for allegedly "planning, assisting, or
executing an act of terrorism"; they were denied
access to an attorney for up to seven days, "by order
of the judicial officer on a showing that the
individual arrested has information which may prevent
a terrorist attack." [9] Many detainees, if they
failed to produce proof of citizenship or immigrant
status, were moved to new DHS illegal-immigration
detention facilities for further investigation and
possible deportation. The camps were in remote areas,
including one in Arizona that ended up holding 42,000
suspected illegals. [10]
Although the American Civil Liberties Union vigorously
condemned these roundups, most of the public accepted
them as not only a suitable precaution against
possible future attacks but also a brake on further
vigilante violence. [11] The fear that follow-on
attacks were likely was enough to satisfy the
judiciary that state and federal law enforcement
should be allowed to begin broad sweeps of communities
suspected of harboring sympathizers.
Roundups based on ethnicity succeeded only in enraging
local ethnic communities. This made it more difficult
for the authorities to enlist cooperation in either
investigating hate crimes or preventing future attacks
from within these communities. Despite earlier
warnings from sympathetic foreign officials, the U.S.
government, with the support of federal judges and the
American people, deemed these detentions the only way
to hold those who had collaborated with the suicide
bombers and to capture those who might carry out the
next attack. [12] In short, "the gravest imminent
danger to the public safety," which had justified the
internment of Japanese-American citizens during World
War II, was invoked again to support the widespread
use of pre-trial detentions and material-witness
warrants. [13]
Over the objections of the Pentagon, Congress had in
2004 created a cabinet-level director of national
intelligence and given the position budgetary control
of all intelligence agencies and operational control
over all agencies except the Defense Intelligence
Agency and the armed services' individual intelligence
branches. By this point most Americans were well aware
of the lapses in U.S. intelligence produced by a lack
of spies in the Middle East. [14] Not long after 9/11
George Tenet, then the director of the CIA, had
suggested that it would take at least five years to
raise the CIA's human-intelligence capacity to where
it needed to be. Although the new law gave the
national intelligence director the muscle to manage
all U.S. intelligence, Tenet turned out to have been
right: it took more than five years to train even a
fraction of the new field agents needed for a global
war on terror.
One price the United States has paid for security is a
significant decrease in foreign students at our
colleges and universities, effectively preventing
young people from all over the world from meeting one
another and building bridges between warring
ideologies. Foreign attendance is now down by more
than a third from what it was in 2001, resulting in
the closing or consolidation of some graduate programs
in science and engineering, and producing severe
budget cuts in others. [15] At the same time, research
institutions in France, England, India, China, and
Singapore have all grown. Many of us are now using the
Asiapac operating system on our laptops and taking
drugs imported from such foreign companies as Stem
labs and EuroPharmatica.
The summer and autumn of 2005 passed without further
attacks. By Thanksgiving many Americans believed what
government spokesmen were telling them: that the
attacks had been the work of eight isolated
terrorists, the last of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's
al-Qaeda cells in America.
The government spokesmen were wrong.
On December 2, 2005, the Mall of the States became a
victim of a low-tech terrorist attack. In the
preceding years malls in Israel, Finland, and the
Philippines had been attacked; so far, American malls
had been spared. As security professionals knew, this
was partly luck; such targets are difficult to
protect. [16] In June of 2004, after learning of
intelligence reports indicating that the Madrid train
bombers had originally planned to strike a suburban
shopping area, Charles Schumer, a Democratic senator
from New York, called for increased funding to secure
U.S. shopping centers and malls. [17] Congress chose
instead to focus on defending other targets against
more-sophisticated terrorist acts.
The 4.2-million-square-foot mall, located in
Minnesota, was globally recognized as the largest
entertainment and retail complex in America, welcoming
more than 42 million visitors each year, or 117,000 a
day. On this day neither the 160 security cameras
surveying the mall nor the 150 safety officers
guarding it were able to detect, deter, or defend
against the terrorists. [18] Four men, disguised as
private mall-security officers and armed with TEC-9
submachine guns, street-sweeper 12-gauge shotguns, and
dynamite, entered the mall at two points and began
executing shoppers at will.
It had not been hard for the terrorists to buy all
their guns legally, in six different states across the
Midwest. A year earlier Congress had failed to
reauthorize the assault-weapons ban. Attorney General
John Ashcroft had announced a proposal, on July 6,
2001, to have the FBI destroy records of weapons sales
and background checks the day after the gun dealer had
the sale approved. This meant that if a gun buyer
subsequently turned up on the new Integrated Watch
List, or was discovered by law-enforcement officials
to be a felon or a suspected terrorist, when
government authorities tried to investigate the sale,
the record of the purchase would already be on the way
to the shredder. [19]
The panic and confusion brought on by the terrorists'
opening volleys led many shoppers to run away from one
pair of murderers and into the path of the other,
leading to more carnage, Two off-duty police officers
were cited for bravery after they took down one pair
of terrorists with their personal weapons, before the
local SWAT team could get to the scene. Meanwhile, one
of the other terrorists used his cell phone to
remotely detonate the rental van he had driven to the
mall; this resulted in even more chaos in the parking
garages, Once the SWAT team arrived, it made short
work of the two remaining terrorists, By the time the
smoke had cleared, more than 300 people were dead and
400 lay wounded. In the confusion of the firefight the
SWAT team had killed six mall guards and wounded two
police officers. [20]
At the same moment, at the Tower Place, in Chicago;
the Crystal Place, in Dallas; the Rappamassis Mall, in
Virginia; and the Beverly Forest Mall, in Los Angeles,
the scene was much the same: four shooters and
hundreds of dead shoppers. America's holiday mall
shopping effectively ended that day, as customers
retreated to the safety of online retail.
The December attacks were achieved with a relatively
small amount of ammonium nitrate, some Semtex plastic
explosive, and a few assault weapons in the hands of
twenty people who were willing to die. Some of the
terrorists were Iraqis, members of the fedayeen
militias, who had been radicalized by the American
presence in Baghdad, Others were Saudis. Only one was
captured alive, at the Rappamassis Mall. Through
continued questioning of him, said to involve
CIA-trained interrogators, it was discovered that more
shootings were planned for the New Year, Acting on
this information, FBI agents, in concert with the
Texas Rangers and the Seattle police, thwarted two
follow-up attacks, aimed at New Year's Eve festivities
on Sixth Street in Austin and in the Pike Place Market
area of Seattle, As the bloody year ended, the
president pointed to our having prevented those two
attacks as evidence that we had turned a corner, and
that the United States would be safer in 2006. [21]
2006: Mobilizing the home front
Well before the end of the first quarter of 2006 the
economic effects of the previous year's attacks were
clear. The closing of casinos and theme parks around
the country had increased only regional unemployment,
but the national effect on the already ailing airline
industry was significant. The pre-Christmas attacks on
shopping centers had been the most damaging of all.
Economic indicators in the first quarter of 2006
showed the dramatic ripple effect of the collapse of
retail shopping on top of the earlier economic
devastation of recreational travel: GDP growth was
negative, and national unemployment hit 9.5 percent in
January. [22]
There were rumors that in his State of the Union
speech the president would call for the military to
take on more security missions at home and would
federalize all National Guard units. Acting to
pre-empt him, eighteen governors met and announced
that they were abolishing their National Guard forces
and creating state militias, which could not be put
under Washington's control and could not be sent
overseas. [23] Speaking for the rebellious governors,
Rhode Island's chief executive said, "The promises of
more security at home have yet to be backed by
concrete action. Our modern-day Minutemen are needed
in Woonsocket, not Fallujah. My problem is empty
shopping malls, not whether Shiites or Sunnis or Kurds
or Turkmen run this or that part of Iraq." She then
ordered the first units of the Ocean State Militia to
begin screening cars and shoppers at three shopping
centers. Rhode Islanders emerged from their homes in
response.
In January, when the president actually delivered the
speech, he called for immediate passage of Patriot Act
III. "We are a nation at war," he said. "We need to
start acting that way. We can no longer be in denial.
We must mobilize the home front." To that end he
proposed four things: adding 200,000 members of the
Army, to compensate for National Guard shortfalls;
deploying three squadrons of new unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) to conduct reconnaissance in the
United States; suspending the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act
(which had prevented the military from conducting
arrests in the United States); and modifying the
charter of the National Security Agency to permit
"unfettered use of its capabilities" in support of the
FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. [24]
Several senators immediately denounced the plan as the
militarization of America, and promised to filibuster
to stop the law's passage. Polls showed that 62
percent of Americans believed the president knew best
what was necessary to defend America.
Skeptical civil libertarians were concerned that the
new UAVs, which included Predators and Global Hawks,
would be deployed not only to kill or intercept
terrorists but also to monitor Americans. Girded by
the polls, the president pressed forward with his
plan. The secretary of homeland security welcomed the
additional monitors, saying, "The more eyes we have
looking at our coastline and borders, the more likely
we are to interdict future terrorists and deter their
attacks." The Air Force announced that deploying these
UA V patrols domestically would finally provide large
municipalities with the air security they demanded.
The governors and mayors did not complain.
Then came Subway Day. Public-transit systems in
Atlanta, Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia were all
struck at 8:15 A.M. eastern time, on a Monday in
April. Unlike the previous year's attacks, these
strikes did not appear to involve suicides. The bombs
were apparently hidden on trains while they sat in
rail yards, or were placed in newspaper racks and
ticket machines. "We knew something was up," the
homeland-security secretary said, in a remark that
many believe led to his resignation a week later. "We
hesitated to raise the alert level to red again
because we lacked actionable intelligence and we
didn't want an increase in the terror alert to tip off
the terrorists." More than 200 people died and more
than 3,000 were injured. [25]
Subways and commuter rail lines in New York,
Washington, and Chicago moved quickly to halt trains
and clear stations, causing chaos even in those cities
that were not under attack. San Francisco closed its
system for the day at 5:45 A.M. Pacific time, a half
hour after the attacks in the east and before most
commuters had left home, forcing workers onto the
highways. Most cities kept their transport systems
closed for the next day or two, leading to enormous
traffic problems and numerous car accidents, as local
officials struggled desperately to put
passenger-screening systems in place.
The mayor of Chicago, whose security investments and
preparations had often been lauded by the
homeland-security secretary, was defiant as he pledged
to ride the storied "El" to city hall each day. He
also promised to speed up the installation of his once
controversial "smart" surveillance cameras throughout
public areas in the city. The system linked all video
monitoring to a central emergency-management site,
where police officers and sophisticated software
programs could track suspicious activity on public
thoroughfares. The mayor's actions received unanimous
support from the city council. Chicagoans responded by
continuing to use the trains.
Thursday was Railroad Day. Improvised explosive
devices — or IEDs, popularized by Iraqi insurgents
after the American invasion — exploded as interstate
trains passed by or over them in Virginia, Colorado,
Missouri, Connecticut, and Illinois. [26] The five
charges resulted in almost a hundred deaths. Among the
fatalities was the national rail service itself, as
terrorists finally broke congressional will to fund
the money-losing venture any further: fifty pounds of
explosives had accomplished what no appropriations
committee could. It suspended operations that day and
went into closure and liquidation the next month. The
"Patriot" line, from Boston to Washington, reopened
later, after the Federal Railroad Police were created.
The Ferpys, as they quickly became known, eventually
took over security for all subway and commuter rail
lines except the New York subway (which stubbornly
resisted federal protection). The numerous agents on
trains, along with the Ferpys' bright-yellow
surveillance helicopters, are now a reassuring
everyday sight in most large metropolitan areas —
supplemented, of course, by the many UAVs, which are
much harder to see.
Although Congress acted quickly on the president's
proposal, creating the Ferpys took time. It was 2007
before all 155,000 officers had been hired, trained,
and deployed. That delay was the major reason the Army
went into the cities.
Most analysts now agree that Subway Day and Railroad
Day not only caused the Senate filibuster to end,
permitting the passage of Patriot Act III, but also
finally triggered the withdrawal of some 40,000 troops
from Iraq. The Army was needed in the subways.
In announcing the Reaction Enclave Strategy, the
CENTCOM commander acknowledged, "Our goal now is just
to prevent Iraq from becoming a series of terrorist
training camps. If the new Iraqi army can't keep the
peace among the factions, that's its problem." The
strategy, which was also adopted in Afghanistan, has
reduced the U.S. force deployment to those troops
necessary to sanitize the area around the U.S.
Counter-Terrorism Reaction Force (CTRF) camps. Iraq,
with its three bases, and Afghanistan, with its two,
require only 20,000 and 7,500 members of the U.S.
armed forces respectively. Although some have
criticized military and political leaders for allowing
both countries to become "failed states" again, our
CTRFs do at least retain the ability to strike
terrorist facilities whenever they are detected.
Improved intelligence collection and analysis have
increased the success rate of the CTRFs and limited
collateral damage.
The attacks in April of 2006 finally made possible the
creation of the National Transportation Security
Identity Card, or SID, as we now call it. [27] Recall
that before 2006 each of the fifty states actually
issued its own card, in the form of a driver's
license. The SID is a biometric smart card with the
owner's photo, retinal signature, fingerprints, Social
Security number, birthday, and address encoded in it.
It has (so far, anyway) proved foolproof. Today a SID
is required for passage through card-reader turnstiles
at train stations, subway stations, and airports. Soon
all automobiles will be equipped with SID readers
connected to their ignition systems.
Even the Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz,
whose wariness of unnecessary government intrusion is
well known, had acknowledged several years earlier
that a national TO card would offer some benefits.
Just a few weeks after 9/11 Dershowitz wrote,
Anyone who had the card could be allowed to pass
through airports or building security more
expeditiously, and anyone who opted out could be
examined much more closely. As a civil libertarian, I
am instinctively skeptical of such tradeoffs. But I
support a national identity card with a chip that can
match the holder's fingerprint. It could be an
effective tool for preventing terrorism, reducing the
need for other law-enforcement mechanisms — especially
racial and ethnic profiling — that pose even greater
dangers to civil liberties … A national ID card would
not prevent all threats of terrorism, but it would
make it more difficult for potential terrorists to
hide in open view, as many of the Sept. 11 hijackers
apparently managed to do.
The American Civil Liberties Union had disagreed,
arguing not only that the government would misuse ID
cards but also that corporations would be allowed to
learn more about our private habits, and that
foreign-looking people would still suffer more
discrimination. The National Rifle Association made
common cause with the ACLU, noting that requiring gun
buyers to use the card would create a de facto gun
registry. For several years the ACLU, the NRA, and
their supporters helped prevent the introduction of a
national ID card. After the mall massacres,
perpetrated with assault rifles, Congress finally
broke ranks with its NRA donors.
Not only has the SID increased identity security, but
it could ultimately yield billions of dollars in
savings by reducing bureaucracy. Local governments are
using it to improve the delivery of state services and
to cut down on waste and fraud by adding other
information (gun and fishing licenses; welfare,
unemployment, and insurance information) to the card.
The SID uses the same technology that has also been
put in place on all shipping containers, which now
incorporate tags that can provide location data when
swept by a radar beam. Radar beams from towers, UAVs,
and even satellites cause a SID to emit a signal that
rides back to the transceiver on the return beam. That
signal provides the card's number, and the processor
computes its location. The signal is no stronger than
that used for years at airports and in police speed
traps. It is almost certainly safe, according to
studies by the National Institutes of Health. [28]
There were those who thought that the radar signals
would be used to track Americans carrying the SID. The
homeland-security secretary declared, "Our computers
do not have the processing capability to track that
many signals. We are focused on maintaining the
integrity of our immigration system by keeping
illegals out and expelling those individuals staying
beyond their visas. We use the US-VISIT cards to do
that." Still, some Americans refused to sign up for a
SID. They are the people you now see waiting in lines
at airports for the special interrogation and search
procedures. The suspension of rail transport for parts
of 2006, along with the collapse of the national rail
service and some of the airlines, exacerbated the
economic problems that had emerged in 2005 and caused
national unemployment to reach double digits by
December. The GDP declined again, as both the
manufacturing and retail sectors suffered. The federal
deficit as a percentage of GDP reached a new high,
because the government needed to pay for additional
security measures but, with the economy in such poor
shape, didn't dare to raise taxes.
2007: Iran and Saudi Arabia
At the beginning of the year three decisions
demonstrated the differences between America and
Europe yet again. First, Chuck Hagel, a Republican
senator from Nebraska, sponsored a resolution calling
on the administration to reach out to the Islamic
world with a number of specific proposals and to join
the proposed EU Tolerance and Reconciliation
Initiative. For several years Hagel had been
articulating a foreign-policy strategy based on the
"humble" approach promised by President Bush before
9/11. [29] Early in 2007 the administration rejected
the Hagel resolution as "buckling under to
terrorists." The plan went down to defeat in the
Senate.
Second, the European Union reached a compromise on the
issue of admitting Turkey. The EU president claimed
that Turkey's membership would destabilize the
"Christian EU" and flood Europe with Muslim
immigrants. [30] Turkey agreed to a limit on
immigration and was admitted. The EU passed the
Tolerance and Reconciliation Initiative and opened
talks with the nations of the Islamic Conference.
Third, the United States and Europe parted ways over
what to do about "definitive intelligence" showing
that Iran had six nuclear devices ready to be mounted
on mobile long-range missiles. The war on terror had,
admittedly, distracted U.S. national-security
officials from dealing with Iran and nuclear
proliferation generally. [31]
We had suspected that Iran had assembled some nuclear
weapons, but only owing to the good work of the
British Secret Intelligence Service did we learn that
all the weapons would be in one place at one time. The
president decided to launch a pre-emptive attack;
given the circumstances, he could hardly have done
otherwise. The B-2 strike in May did indisputably
destroy all the mobile missiles and their launchers.
(Regrettably, it also killed some Chinese defense
contractors.) To the president's dismay, the attack
apparently did not destroy any of the nuclear
warheads, because they had not yet arrived at the
base. Intelligence is still not good enough to provide
precision. The good news was that without their
missiles, the Iranians had very few ways of using
their nuclear warheads. The bad news was that this
revived fears that the warheads would fall into
terrorist hands.
The Iranians responded to the attack by launching
their older SCUD missiles, armed with conventional
warheads, at the Saudi oil facilities at Ras Tanura.
Iranian navy units attacked Saudi tankers. The result
of all this was quite unsettling, both to regional
stability and to the U.S. economy. World oil prices
spiked to $81 a barrel, before falling back to $ 72 a
month later.
Then, on the day before Thanksgiving, Hizbollah, the
Iraqi Shia militia, and special operatives of Iran's
elite Qods ("Jerusalem") Force acted. [32] (They no
doubt chose that day because it was then still a
relatively heavy travel day in America.) "Stinger
Day," as it came to be known, did not actually involve
Stinger missiles, as originally thought. Rather, the
missiles were SA-14s and SA-16s stolen from Iraqi army
stockpiles way back in 2003, after the U.S. invasion.
The United States had failed to secure the Iraqi
weapons depots, giving terrorists an opportunity to
help themselves to Saddam Hussein's guns, explosives,
and missiles. The missiles were later smuggled across
the Canadian border into Minnesota, Washington, and
Montana. [33]
SA-I4s and SA-16s are much like Stingers, heat-seeking
and easily portable. The four missile strikes that
succeeded that day (in Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, and
Los Angeles) were all aimed at 767s. The death toll
was nearly 1,200, including those who died on the
ground where the aircraft crashed. There is some
dispute about whether three or four additional
attempts failed in other cities. The most widely
reported incident involved the killing by New Jersey
state police officers of two Lebanese Hizbollah
members who had been discovered sitting in a car with
an SA-14 on a police ramp over 1-95 next to Newark
International.
Scarcely six years after 9/11 had briefly shut down
commercial aviation and driven several major airlines
into bankruptcy, the same thing occurred again.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans were stranded for
days that weekend. The Air Line Pilots Association
refused to allow its members to return to the skies
until all U.S. aircraft had been equipped with
defenses against surface-to-air missiles, such as the
ones used by Israel's air fleet. [34] Airline
executives halted flights until troops had been
deployed along all the takeoff and landing corridors
at airports. Even then few people flew. In truth, the
"legacy carriers," those airlines left over from the
days when the industry was federally regulated, such
as Delta, US Airways, and United, would probably have
failed anyway. They already had crushing debt, and had
been in and out of bankruptcy since 9/11. Their basic
economic model (relying on outdated "hub and spoke"
systems) was flawed, and they lacked the versatility
of the regional carriers. In any event, having
exhausted all federal loan guarantees and direct
bailout packages, the remaining legacy airlines were
closed down and broken up.
The emergency program to develop infrared
counter-measures for civilian passenger aircraft is
one of the best examples of America's using its
high-tech advantage to battle the terrorists. [35] The
IRCMs were produced at a cost of less than $2 million
per aircraft, and 2,000 were installed (at taxpayer
expense) before the next Thanksgiving rolled around.
Today we have almost 4,000 in place on the two new
major U.S. airlines that have supplanted the old
carriers. It has taken four years, but travelers are
slowly returning to the air.
The U.S. bombers that struck Iran had been refueled
from and then landed in Saudi Arabia. This gave
fundamentalist forces in that country the spark and
the distraction they needed to finally stage a coup
against the regime, which they did in August. The coup
succeeded, and the House of Saud was driven out, at
which point the price of oil reached the vicinity of
$85 a barrel and stayed there. The Saudi coup marked
one of the worst U.S. intelligence failures in years.
We were caught off guard because we had not been able
to effectively collect intelligence inside "the
kingdom," as it was then called. We relied on the
Saudi Ministry of the Interior to tell us how strong
the jihadis were, and whether there was serious
opposition to the king. As it turned out, opposition
was widespread, even among the royal family and the
Saudi National Guard that had been created to protect
it. [36]
The main stimulus for the coup probably came from the
many Saudis who had returned from neighboring Iraq,
where they had been radicalized by their experiences
fighting the U.S. occupation. Osama bin Laden's final,
pre-death request, captured on video and broadcast
worldwide on al-Jazeera and other media networks, was
that the royal family be deposed. It unexpectedly
unified a variety of Saudi dissident groups.
By dawn on the third day of the coup the surviving
members of the House of Saud had fled or were in
prison, the oil fields were in the hands of troops
loyal to the ruling clerics, and all foreigners were
being rounded up and escorted to the airports or the
borders. Iraq was the first country to acknowledge the
new government. Other Gulf states soon followed.
Had the United States welcomed the new government,
which we now know as Islamiyah, the effect on the
world oil market might have been different. Instead we
cut off the flow of spare parts needed to maintain the
billions of dollars' worth of high-tech arms we had
sold to the Saudis throughout the 1980s and 1990s; we
also withdrew the U.S. contractors who knew how to
make the systems work. Naturally, the new regime
responded by canceling all oil contracts between U.S.
firms and Saudi Arabia's national oil company. The
company made up much of what it had lost in dumping
the U.S. contracts by signing new long-term deals with
China; recent economic growth had raised China's
demand for overseas oil to about the level of
America's, which had been depressed by economic
stagnation. [37] The dislocation in the world oil
supply was short-lived, but it was a cold winter in
the northern United States that year.
The real economic effect of the oil-price increase
didn't hit until the last quarter of the year. Still,
2007 ended with U.S. unemployment at 15 percent and
GDP down again. The "good news," as the president
pointed out in his Christmas message, was that because
rail and air travel had been so heavily curtailed, and
because fewer people were hanging out at shopping
malls, and because many "destination venues" remained
closed, Americans were spending more time together as
families.
2008: Election year and virtual war
Iran's hostile reaction to the U.S. bombing continued
into 2008 and made use of Hizbollah allies.
(Hizbollah, although composed largely of Palestinians
and Lebanese, was created in the 1980s by Iran, which
closely controlled it for more than twenty years.)
Iran also employed its Qods Force, the covert arm of
its Revolutionary Guards. American counterterrorism
specialists had always feared Hizbollah and the Qods
Force, because their "tradescraft" was so superior to
that of other terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda and
its many progeny. Diplomats and military leaders had
for years used numerous back channels to keep both
groups on the sidelines while we engaged in
counter-terrorist warfare. Our overt attack on Iran
brought their full power to bear on our citizenry,
with tragic results.
Working with the remnants of al-Qaeda, the Iranians
staged a significant cyberattack in the United States
during the 2008 election year. Reliance on cyberspace
for retail had, of course, increased significantly
after the many mall closings. More important, America
had been using cyberspace to control its critical
infrastructure since the late 1990s. Electrical-power
grids, gas pipelines, train networks, and banking and
financial markets all depended on computer-controlled
systems connected to the Internet. President Bill
Clinton had acknowledged this dependence and
vulnerability in a 1998 presidential directive.
President Bush had articulated the National Strategy
to Secure Cyberspace in 2003, but he had done little
to implement it. [38] Meanwhile, many nations created
information-warfare units and did surveillance on U.S.
networks. [39] Iran was one of those nations.
The cyberattack began with a "Zero Day worm," a piece
of self-propagating software that exploited a hitherto
unknown vulnerability in a widely used computer
operating system. [40] The worm bypassed computer
firewalls and placed applets on companies' networks.
The applets sent back covert messages describing what
kind of network they had penetrated. Then, all at
once, the worms erased the operating systems on key
computers throughout the United States, and in their
place installed a program that caused the computers to
repeatedly reboot whenever they were turned on.
Freight trains stopped. Nuclear-power plants shut
down. Banks and brokerage houses froze. In some cities
the emergency-call systems crashed; in others traffic
lights shut off. [41]
Then, as cybersecurity teams were attempting to figure
out what had happened, a second worm penetrated the
operating system of the most widely used routers on
U.S. computer. networks. Once inside, the worm found
the routing tables, called border gateway protocols,
that told Internet traffic where to go. It scrambled
the tables so that packets were lost in cyberspace.
Confused by the traffic errors, many of the routers
exceeded their processing capabilities and collapsed.
The stock market closed, as did the commodities
markets. Major hospitals canceled all but emergency
surgeries and procedures. Three major power grids
experienced brownouts. Police and state militia units
were ordered into the cities to maintain order and
minimize looting. Millions of Americans, now staring
at blank computer screens, were sent home from work.
The already reeling economy took another hit. The US.
software industry was hurt the most. As a result
open-source software, which had already spread widely
in Europe and Asia, now dominates US. servers,
routers, and desktops. The "free" software movement
badly hurt revenues at several US. firms. Intervention
by the new Federal Cyber Security Service, through its
monitoring of all Internet traffic, has since somewhat
reduced the prevalence of worms and viruses. Although
some Americans complained about loss of privacy,
others noted the benefits, such as a significant
reduction in the volume of spam e-mail.
State and local police forces, state militias,
Homeland Security Department personnel, and private
guards now protected airports, the neighborhoods
around them, train stations, the tracks connecting
them, shopping malls, and US. borders. By the middle
of 2008 there were 220,000 more such security officers
than there had been in 2000. The armed forces had
grown by 215,000 during the same period. Yet these new
jobs hardly put a dent in unemployment, which hovered
at 16 percent as the election approached.
During the campaign the two major parties had
attempted to outdo each other in their anti-terror
fervor. The similarity of their hawkish strategies
helped give rise to an influential third party, the
American Liberty Party, which challenged the Patriot
Acts. San Francisco's mayor, a Chinese-American woman,
surprised the experts by garnering 12 percent of the
popular vote for the presidency on a platform built
almost exclusively on shoring up civil liberties. Two
new governors were elected on the American Liberty
ticket, as were fourteen congressmen, who became a
vocal minority in the new Congress.
2009: “Nuke Squads” and the new draft
The Homeland Protection and Service Act of 2009 could
not have been introduced in an election year. It was
controversial when the president proposed it, in his
2009 State of the Union address, and, frankly, remains
so today. Had he proposed it in 2008, it is likely
that the American Liberty Party would have roused even
more support than it did. The "new draft," as its
opponents have labeled it, is different in important
respects from earlier conscriptions in US. history.
Conscripts are randomly selected and may serve any two
consecutive years, as long as their service begins
before age twenty-two. Most draftees are given
monitoring or first-responder jobs here at home; few
are required to go through weapons training. Despite
these differences from Vietnam-era conscription, draft
dodging and A WOLs have already become such a large
problem that the US. Marshals have created special
squads to hunt down recalcitrants and force them back
into service.
The act also included funding for special federal
courts (which would operate in secret, to protect the
judges and lawyers involved) to determine whether US.
citizens, resident aliens, and illegal aliens detained
on suspicion of terrorist activity should be treated
as POWs or as enemy combatants. Recognizing how long
it would take for the government to process the
increasing number of detainees, Congress authorized
the detention of suspected terrorists for up to three
years without a hearing, subject to review every six
months by the attorney general.
Meanwhile, the attorney general worried openly about
the threat from those terrorists who were not yet
known to the government and did not appear on any
watch lists: freshly arrived illegal immigrants,
members of sleeper cells, and new religious converts.
He conceded that capturing these people before they
committed acts of terror was next to impossible.
Announcing that the Department of Justice would crack
down on Islamic prayer in prisons, he instructed the
authorities to track released prisoners thought to
have converted to Islamic fundamentalism. al Qaeda and
its imitators did not have to work hard to make
converts within the US. prison system. A
disproportionate majority of the prison population was
nonwhite. Radical Islamists preached to these
prisoners that the society that had imprisoned them
should be made to pay. [42]
Shortly after his inauguration the president announced
that US. intelligence had detected plans by Iran and
Hizbollah to bring nuclear weapons into the United
States in retaliation for the US. bombing of Iran.
[43] He announced the Safe Sea Approaches Program,
which required all ships within 200 nautical miles of
the US. coast to broadcast on a satellite frequency,
squawking their location, name, departure and
destination ports, and cargo. Ships not complying
would be intercepted and might be sunk. In the first
months of the program only one ship, a small
Yemeni-flagged oil tanker bound for a refinery in
Trinidad, was sunk, by a U.S. attack submarine 120
miles off Puerto Rico, causing limited environmental
damage.
The Safe Sea effort also aimed to replace the entire
global inventory of shipping containers with smart
shipping units. [44] SSUs contain sensors that
automatically and continuously transmit information
about the contents of the containers from the moment
they are sealed until they are opened. The Department
of Homeland Security deployed 12,000 U.S. customs
inspectors in overseas ports to ensure that the SSUs
were not tampered with and to keep any non-SSU
containers off U.S.-bound ships. Radiation portals and
imaging equipment were also installed in foreign ports
and shipping depots, providing real-time images of
every container's contents as the container was loaded
into a ship or a truck bound for America.
Concerned that Iran had already slipped nuclear
weapons into the country, the Department of Homeland
Security greatly expanded its nuclear
search-and-disarmament teams, or "nuke squads," as
they became known. Under an amendment to Patriot Act
III the nuke squads were empowered to search
"anywhere, anytime," with Geiger counters and other
devices that could detect gamma rays and neutron flux.
The squads regularly raided self-storage facilities
and set up checkpoints at weigh stations on interstate
highways. Initially, federal courts differed on
whether other illegal materials found in these
searches could be used as a basis for arrests; the
Supreme Court ultimately ruled that searches for
nuclear weapons did not require a warrant, and that
any incriminating material found in the course of such
a search could be used as evidence in court.
When Canada refused to allow U.S. nuke squads to
conduct warrantless searches at customs stations on
the Canadian side of the border, we built the Northern
Wall, which channeled trucks and freight trains to a
limited number of monitored border crossings. Barbed
wire, radar installations, and thousands of security
workers made our border with Canada resemble our
border with Mexico. [45]
The quick and thorough response to the threat of
smuggled Iranian nuclear weapons was successful. Iran
was evidently deterred, and no terrorist nuclear
weapons have ever been found in the United States or
en route to it. [46]
2010: Using our own chemicals against us
It had been three years since a terrorist bomb had
been detonated on U.S. soil when executive jets packed
with explosives slammed into chlorine-gas facilities
in New Jersey and Delaware. Fortunately, in New Jersey
much of the potential gas cloud was consumed by the
flames of the initial explosion, and winds sent what
remained of the plume over a largely uninhabited area.
Delaware, however, was less fortUnate: the poisonous
cloud produced by the explosion left 1,500 dead and
4,000 injured, some as a result of panic during the
evacuation of the Wilmington area. [47]
Both al-Qaeda and Hizbollah claimed responsibility for
the attacks on the chemical plants, although Iran
condemned them and offered assistance to the affected
communities. Investigation into the attacks is still
officially ongoing. The United States has not yet
retaliated, and the Pentagon is reported to have
recommended against a retaliatory bombing of a
nuclear-armed Iran. (The president has publicly denied
that the Pentagon made any such recommendation, and
points out that we bombed Iran as recently as 2007.)
Although the deaths in Delaware did not result from
terrorist use of a chemical weapon, they nonetheless
highlighted the dangers of a chemical attack and led
directly to the issuing of gas masks to all citizens
in metropolitan areas and rural counties with chemical
plants or refineries. The masks were sound despite
their mass production, but improper training caused
some deaths from suffocation or coronary arrest during
practice exercises.
Heavy lobbying by the chemical industry in the years
following 9/11 had prevented any congressional
regulation that would have imposed terrorism-specific
security requirements or standards on chemical plants
near large municipalities. Some reports claimed that
the Bush administration had tried to undermine the
Environmental Protection Agency by relaxing the system
for evaluating plant security, in order to reduce the
number of facilities deemed high-risk. [48] Indeed,
both the facilities that were attacked had at one
point been on the EPA's high-risk list but were not on
the Bush administration's. Therefore they never
underwent the security upgrades that a more severe
risk assessment might possibly have induced. Outrage
at this realization led to substantial new regulations
and security requirements for private chemical and
nuclear plants. Whereas the federal government might
once have helped fund and carry out these
improvements, the economic sitUation now placed the
burden on companies and state militias. Money was
drying up.
2011: What we might have done differently
Nine months into this year we have so far been spared
any new terrorist attacks on our soil. Of course there
have been incidents at our embassies and some
U.S.-owned hotels overseas, as there have been nearly
every year for more than a decade, but they have
produced few U.S. casualties.
Some believe that the jihadi movement has lost its
fervor. Others believe that with jihadi governments
holding power in the former Saudi Arabia and in
Pakistan, as well as in large parts of Iraq and
Afghanistan, the terrorists are now too busy governing
to be planning further assaults. I think the real
reason for the diminished number of attacks is that
the United States has hardened itself. We have greatly
reduced our overseas profile, generally limiting our
presence to highly secure embassies. It has become
extremely difficult for people or cargo to get into or
out of the United States without extensive inspection.
The number of security workers per capita within
America's borders is now higher than in any other
country, including long-embattled Israel. A would-be
terrorist knows that his communications can easily be
monitored and his vehicles and facilities searched
with little provocation. If suspicious materials are
found, or if an informant provides a potential lead,
suspected terrorists can be held for an extensive
period of time pending investigation. All this has
made it more difficult to carry out attacks on U.S.
soil. Of course, it has also hurt us in world trade,
swelled our national debt, and depressed our CDP.
As we mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and the
launch of our global war on terror, it is hard for
many Americans to remember when the sight of police
officers with automatic weapons and body armor was
rare. Yet it wasn't so long ago that we could enter a
shopping mall, a train station, an airport, or a
public building without "see-through scanners" and
explosive-sniffers. The use of SlDs is now so routine
that we can hardly believe we ever did without them.
For all the additional security these developments
have afforded us, however, they have also produced a
powerful political backlash. Polls show that the
American Liberty Party may draw up to a third of the
popular vote in the campaign next year.
Could the global war on terror have played out
differently?
If the war had been restricted to eliminating al-Qaeda
in the two years following 9/11, it is possible that
the first generation might have been suppressed before
al-Qaeda metastasized into a multi-group jihadi
movement. In 2002 especially, we squandered
opportUnities to unite the global community in a
successful counterterrorism effort. If we had
initially sent a more substantial U.S. force to
Afghanistan, bin Laden might have been killed in the
first few weeks of the war, perhaps preventing many of
the attacks that took place around the world in the
following three years.
Had we not invaded Iraq, many of the jihadis we know
today would never have been recruited to the
terrorists' cause. Not invading Iraq would also have
freed up money for earlier investments in domestic
security: for instance, upgrades for chemical plants,
trains, container shipping, and computer networks.
Because we developed most such protective measures too
late, panicking under political pressure, we too often
used brute-force methods that were costly, intrusive,
and less effective than we hoped. With more time,
money, and careful consideration, the body politic
might have persuaded the private sector to join the
federal government in a real partnership to enhance
the security of critical infrastructure. More
important, we would have been . better able to carry
on an open national dialogue about the tradeoffs
between security and civil liberties, and about the
ways in which strong civil liberties and strong
domestic security can be mutually reinforcing.
Perhaps, too, we could have followed the proposal of
the 9/11 Commission and engaged the Islamic world in a
true battle of ideas. Indeed, if we had not from the
start adopted tactics and rhetoric that cast the war
on terror as a new "Crusade," as a struggle of good
versus evil, we might have been able to achieve more
popular support in the Islamic world. Our attempts to
change Islamic opinion with an Arabic-language
satellite-television news station and an Arabic radio
station carrying rock music were simply not enough. We
talked about replacing the hate-fostering madrassahs
with modern educational programs, but we never
succeeded in making that happen. Nor did we
successfully work behind the scenes with our Muslim
friends to create an ideological counterweight to the
jihadis. Although we talked hopefully about negotiated
outcomes to the Palestinian conflict and the struggle
in Chechnya, neither actually came to pass. Because we
were afraid to "reward bad behavior," we let Iranian
nuclear-weapons development get too far along, to the
point where our only option was to attack Iran. This
set back the Iranian democratic reform movement and
added Hizbollah to our list of active enemies.
Although we occasionally lectured Arab states about
the need for democracy and reform, we never developed
a country-by-country program, or provided practical
steps for moving theocracies and autocracies in that
direction. Moreover, our haranguing Arab governments
to be nicer to their citizens ended up producing a
backlash against us, because our exhortations were
seen as hypocritical in view of our bombing, torture,
and occupation tactics in Iraq.
It can still be debated whether we accelerated the
fall of the House of Saud with our arrogant tactics.
The almost total lack of intelligence about what was
going on in Saudi Arabia before the revolution did,
however, make it hard for U.S. policy-makers to
develop sound strategies.
Despite years of earnest-sounding talk about "energy
independence" and weaning ourselves from our addiction
to foreign oil, no president since Jimmy Carter in the
1970s has ever seemed serious about these goals. We
never developed truly fuel-efficient vehicles, so our
foreign energy imports drastically harm the economy
when oil prices soar.
As early as 2004 our nation's leaders were admitting
that the war on terror would probably last a
generation or more, even as they continued to argue
among themselves about whether it could ever truly be
won. If they had acted differently — sooner, smarter —
we might have been able to contain what were at one
time just a few radical jihadis, and to raise our
defenses more effectively. Instead our leaders made
the clash of cultures a self-fulfilling prophecy,
turning the first part of the twenty-first century
into an ongoing low-grade war between religions that
made America less wealthy, less confident, and
certainly less free. [49]
[1] As of June 28, 2004, about a year after the
Department of Homeland Security's operational startup,
only forty of 104 key changes recommended by the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) had been
implemented. "Status of Key Recommendations,"
GAO-04865R, July 2,2004.
[2] Surveillance tapes obtained in 2002 by Justice
Department officials in Detroit and Spanish
authorities in Madrid included footage of the MGM
Grand, Excalibur, and New York, New York casinos on
the Las Vegas Strip, along with the World Trade Center
in New York and Disneyland, in California. Las Vegas
authorities and casino representatives declined to
alert the public, possibly fearing a decline in
tourism or an increase in the casinos' legal
liability. “Despite Two Terror Tapes, Public Not
Alerted to Vegas Threat, Memos Show,” Associated
Press, August 10,2004. Also “Las Vegas, California
Authorities Reacted Differently to Same al-Qaida
Footage," Associated Press, August 11,2004.
[3] Canada's ethnically diverse population, liberal
immigration and refugee policies, and long border with
the United States make it a good place for terrorists
to raise funds, procure supplies and fake documents,
and plan attacks. The Canadian Security and
Intelligence Service acknowledged in 2003 that it
considered more than 300 people in Canada to be
members of various terrorist organizations, including
al-Qaeda.
The Mexican border is even more porous than the
Canadian. More than 4,000 illegal immigrants cross
into Arizona alone each day. Most are Mexican, but a
large number hail from other countries. The Border
Patrol, less than 10,000 strong, is no match for this
enormous wave. For every person it picks up, at least
three elude capture. “The Challenge of Terror," Time
International, January 27, 2003. Also “Who Left the
Door Open?" Time, September 20, 2004.
[4] According to notebooks kept by jihadi students in
Uzbekistan in the mid-1990s, instruction in explosive
devices — from antipersonnel mines to bombs capable of
destroying buildings — was a standard part of the
curriculum at terrorist training camps. “The Terrorist
Notebooks," Foreign Policy, March/ApriI2003.
[5] After 9/11 the casino operator MGM Mirage — which
owns the Mirage, the MGM Grand, and the Bellagio,
among others — reported that its fourth-quarter
earnings for 2001 were about a third of what they had
been the year before
(www.bizjournals.com/pacific/storics/2002/0I/28/daily54.html).

[6] The 9/11 Commission's investigation into the
attacks of 2001 found that lax screening by
immigration officials and poor communication between
security agencies allowed the hijackers to enter the
United States even though they used fraudulent
passports, provided incomplete and false statements on
visa applications, and were listed as suspect in
intelligence-community information systems. As many as
fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were potentially
vulnerable to interception by border authorities, the
commission concluded. The 9/11 Commission Report,
Norton, 2004.
[7] According to Belgian police, 19,050 blank Belgian
passports have been stolen from various embassies,
consulates, and town halls since 1990. Belgium's poor
security, as well as the country's location at the
crossroads of Europe (through which a high volume of
human traffic passes), makes it an attractive base for
terrorists and a global capital of identity fraud.
Thousands of passports stolen from other countries
also circulate on the black market. "How to Fake a
Passport," The New York Times Magazine, February 10,
2002.
[8] On July 19,2004, days after wading across the Rio
Grande, a Pakistani woman with a doctored South
African passport was arrested at an airport in Texas.
Because of inadequate funding, the DHS's Office of
Detention and Removal is capable of detaining only
about 200,000 illegal immigrants a year — even though
some 1.2 million arc apprehended. The lack of space
has led to a system of "catch and release," in which
border officials return hundreds of thousands of
Mexican nationals to Mexico, only to see them return
repeatedly to the United States. Non-Mexican illegals
are released directly into U.S. communities on
personal-recognizance bonds with summonses to appear
in court. More than 90 percent never show up. Not even
all those illegal immigrants from countries that
sponsor terrorism, such as Syria and Iran, are
detained, because the DHS is not required by statute
to detain illegal aliens unless they are felons, known
terrorists, associates of terrorists, or persons
suspected of certain other criminal violations.
"Transforming the Southern Border: Providing Security
and Prosperity in the Post 9/11 World," House Select
Committee on Homeland Security, September 2004.
[9] These procedures for treatment of detainees are
drawn from recommendations made by the anti-terrorism
experts Philip Heymann and Juliette Kayyem in their
final report for Harvard University's Long-Term Legal
Strategy Project. In the report the authors strive to
balance the need for increased security

LNS Post Coup II Supplement (1/17/05)

At least three more US soldiers have died in Iraq. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich. Nothing more…Today, Jan. 17, 2005, is Martin Luther King Day, a day to be grateful for, a celebration of all that is truly great in the American experiment, the principles that the most enlightened of our forefathers fought for, the promise that Martin Luther King Jr., the Kennedy brothers, Medgar Evers, those four little girls in that church in Alabama, those three civil rights workers found in that river in Mississippi and many others (including Sen. Paul Wellstone) have died for... Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005, will be a day of national mourning for a
Republic stolen by corporatists (a more apt word than
“fascists” Mussolini suggested), in plain site, with
the complicity of the US mainstream news media and the
capitulation of much of the leadership of the
Democratic Party (with the exception of Jesse Jackson,
the Congressional Black Caucus, Sen. Barbara Boxer,
Rep. Jerold Nadler (D-WTC) and a few others…Here are
some damning news items and op-ed pieces to review and share with others. This vigil is almost over. The last LNS Post Coup II Supplement will publish on Jan. 21, 2005. The LNS's Editor-in-Chief and his Foreign Correspondent, Dunston Woods, will resurface after a brief hiatus with a new site, a new mission and a new agenda. The LNS will continue on-line as an archive(remember the searchable database) of courage and cowardice in what were perhaps the final days of the Republic. Remember, this battle is not over ideology, it is a battle for REALITY itself – because that what the Bush Abomination and its full partners in the Corporatist News Media are dismantling now, REALITY itself..

Theft of 2004 Election

Steve Freeman, SF Chronicle: In three national
elections over the past 13 months, the official count
was sharply at odds with an independent national exit
poll. As in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and
Ukraine, U.S. exit polls projected a clear victory for
the challenger. John Kerry was projected to win the
national popular vote by a 2 percent to 3 percent
margin and was ahead in nearly every closely contested
state. Of course, the official counts, as in the other
nations, showed an almost mirror image victory for the
incumbent party candidate.
The citizens of Georgia and Ukraine refused to accept
the official tallies, protested vigorously and , with
international support, overturned the election, but
U.S. voters have passively accepted the results of
their election and gone back to business, oblivious to
the discrepancy and blind to the implications.
A 5 percent shift in a poll like this is
extraordinary. Exit pollsters do not have to guess
about who is actually going to vote, or whether they
might change their mind. Exit polls can achieve larger
samples cost-effectively: the national election-day
sample had more than 13,000 respondents, meaning that
it should have accurately forecast the result within
plus or minus 1 percent.

Leila Atassi, Cleveland Plain Dealer: Lawyer Ray
Beckerman was so stunned that he nearly crashed his
car into a light pole when he heard Sen. John Kerry
was expected to concede the election.
All at once, the election night volunteerism, which
Beckerman thought would be a nice community service,
had lit a fire beneath the 56-year-old commercial
litigation attorney. Within two months, Beckerman
would become one of the nation's foremost bloggers on
Ohio's voting irregularities, devoting 90 percent of
his time to his cause.
The lawyer had spent election night in Columbus,
manning the Democratic Party hot line to advise voters
reporting trouble at the polls. He and 19 other
lawyers heard more than 1,000 stories from people who
waited up to 10 hours to vote, never received absentee
ballots, had provisional ballots rejected or said they
were interrogated by poll challengers for no reason.

John Conyers, Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee: I want to thank you for the time and energy
you have already given to help me in my pursuit of the
truth about the 2004 Presidential election,
particularly the truth about what happened in Ohio. I
also want to let you know what I will be working on in
the coming months.
I believe what we achieved on January 6 will be a
seminal event in the history of progressive politics,
and significantly advance the cause of electoral
reform. For this challenge to Ohio’s electors to have
occurred, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the
internet activists, who spread the story of my efforts
and supported me in every way possible. I am also
thankful to the alternative media, including talk
radio and blogs that gave substantial attention and
investigation to these matters when all but a handful
in the mainstream media refused to examine the facts.
I cannot thank all of you personally, but you know who
you are.
With the exigency of January 6 behind us, I wanted to
let you know what I will be doing in the coming
months. First, my investigation of Ohio voting
irregularities is not over. In an effort to get as
much information confirmed and circulated in advance
of January 6, many valuable leads still need to be
pursued and I pledge to do so. Substantial
irregularities have come to light in other states
during the course of this investigation and I will
also pursue those leads. While there has been powerful
opposition to my efforts and personal attacks against
me as a result of my efforts, I want to assure you I
remain steadfast.
Second, there are other matters involving wrongdoing
by Administration officials that I will continue to
pursue. Among other things, I will continue to seek
answers about the role of senior Bush Administration
officials in outing an undercover Central Intelligence
Agency operative. I will also continue to examine the
sources of the fraudulent case for the Iraq war, which
intersects with the outing of this operative…

John Nichols, Capital Times: At the grass-roots
level, there appears to be growing support for a
count-every-vote,
eliminate-every-opportunity-for-fraud standard that
would radically alter the way in which the United
States runs elections.
And to some small extent, this enthusiasm for election
reform has been communicated to those members of
Congress who are still interested in what their
constituents say - as was evidenced by Thursday's
decision on the part of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer,
D-Calif., to support the objection by members of the
House to the certification of Ohio's electoral votes…
The point, said Tubbs Jones, was to expose the
fundamental flaws in the current system and to
highlight the need for reform. It was, Boxer added, a
matter of "electoral justice."
Unfortunately, that point was lost on every Republican
member of the House and Senate and on the vast
majority of Democrats. When all was said and done,
only one member of the Senate (Boxer) took a stand for
electoral justice by refusing to back certification of
the Ohio results...
Boxer and the 31 House members who objected were not
being courageous. They were simply performing their
duties in the manner that was intended. The founders
of this country gave the legislative branch the
responsibility of certifying election results because
they understood the need for oversight of elections -
especially for a position so powerful as the
presidency. And they trusted that congressional
representatives, who were more directly accountable to
the citizenry, would ensure that partisan pressures
did not trump democracy.
Last Thursday, however, democracy got trumped. The
vast majority of the members of the House and Senate
chose not to live up to the responsibility rested upon
them by the founders…I hope David Cobb, who has worked
so hard on these issues, is right. I hope we are
seeing the birth of a multipartisan movement for
election reform that will establish a universal set of
standards for registering voters, casting votes and
counting ballots, and a deep commitment to ensure that
the system works for all Americans. Because, as
Thursday's failure of responsibility by most members
of Congress illustrated, we are still far short of
electoral justice.

Complicity of the Corporatist News Media

David Brock, www.mediamatters.org: I'm writing today
to bring to your attention a report in the January 7
edition of USA Today that conservative commentator
Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 by the U.S.
government to promote a Bush administration education
initiative -- a financial relationship he failed to
disclose to readers, listeners, and viewers.
If the facts as reported by USA Today are correct, Mr.
Williams was being secretly paid by the Bush
administration to promote government policies at the
same time that he was participating in public debate
on those policies. I presume that you are as troubled
by this gross conflict of interest as I am. I
respectfully ask that you immediately review your
professional relationship with Mr. Williams and take
whatever actions you may deem appropriate, including
severing that relationship, on the grounds that Mr.
Williams's integrity has been irrevocably damaged by
taking money to influence the public debate without
disclosing those payments.

Letter from Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) to the US
GAO: We are writing to request that the Government
Accountability Office examine the use of covert
propaganda by departments and agencies under the Bush
Administration.
In the past year, GAO has released two legal analyses
finding that the Department of Health and Human
Services and the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy violated the congressional prohibition
on publicity and propaganda by distributing fabricated
video news reports. Last week, we learned that the
Department of Education paid a conservative
commentator to support the No Child Left Behind Act in
television and radio appearances.
The federal use of covert propaganda is unethical,
damaging to our democracy and open society, and, as
you know, illegal. While the three incidents described
above are deeply troubling and are a cause for concern
in their own right, it would be abhorrent to our
system of government if these incidents were part of a
pattern of covert propaganda funded with taxpayer
dollars…
In particular, we request that GAO:
1. Survey federal departments and agencies to identify
and describe all contracts signed since January 1,
2001, with public relations firms, advertising
agencies, media organizations, and individual members
of the media. Please include in the description (a)
the costs of each contract, (b) a summary of the
purposes of the contract, (c) the method by which the
contract was awarded, and (d) a description of the
work performed under the contract.
2. In the case of any contract identified under (1)
that relies on subcontracts, identify and describe the
subcontracts. Please include in the description (a)
the costs of each subcontract, (b) a summary of the
purposes of the subcontract, (c) the method by which
the subcontract was awarded, and (d) a description of
the work performed under the subcontract.
3. Assess whether the contracts and subcontracts
comply with the prohibitions on publicity and
propaganda and the requirements of the Anti-Lobbying
Act.

Greg Palast, www.gregpalast.com: "Independent" my ass.
CBS' cowardly purge of five journalists who exposed
George Bush's dodging of the Vietnam War draft was
done under cover of what the network laughably called
an "Independent Review Panel."
The "panel" was just two guys as qualified for the job
as they are for landing the space shuttle: Dick
Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi.
Remember Dickie Thornburgh? He was on the Bush 41
Administration's payroll. His grand accomplishment as
Bush's Attorney General was to whitewash the
investigation of the Exxon Valdez Oil spill, letting
the oil giant off the hook on big damages…
Then there's Boccardi, not exactly a prince of
journalism. This is the gent who, as CEO of the
Associated Press, spiked his own wire service's
exposure of Oliver North and his traitorous dealings
with the Ayatollah Khomeini…
Mapes and Rather did make a mistake, citing a memo
which could not be authenticated. But let's get
serious folks: this "Killian" memo had not a darn
thing to do with the story-in-chief - the President's
using his daddy's connections to duck out of Vietnam.
The Killian memo was a goofy little addition to the
story (not included in my Guardian or BBC reports).
So CBS inquisitors took this minor error and used it
to discredit the story and ruin careers of reporters
who allowed themselves an unguarded moment of courage.
And, crucial to the network's real agenda, this
nonsensical distraction allowed the White House to
resurrect the fake reputation of George Bush as
Vietnam-era top gun.
CBS executives' model was clearly the hatchet job done
on BBC news last year by the so-called "Hutton
Report." In that case, some used-up lordship viciously
attacked the BBC's ballsy uncovering of an official
lie: that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction. Lord Hutton seized on a minor error by
one reporter to attempt to discredit the entire BBC
investigation of governmental mendacity…
Yes, I believe heads should roll at CBS: those of the
"news" chieftains who for five years ignored the
screaming evidence about George Bush's dodging the
draft during the war in Vietnam.
At the top of the network's craven and dead wrong
apology to the President is that cyclopsian CBS
eyeball. But I suspect that CBS itself has little
interest in eating its own flesh. This vile
spike-after-broadcast serves only its master, the
owner of CBS, Viacom Corporation.
"From a Viacom standpoint, the election of a
Republican administration is a better deal. Because
the Republican administration has stood for many
things we believe in, deregulation and so on.... I
vote for Viacom. Viacom is my life, and I do believe
that a Republican administration is better for media
companies than a Democratic one." That
more-than-revealing statement, made weeks before the
presidential election, by Sumner Redstone, billionaire
honcho of CBS' parent company, wasn't reported on CBS.
Why not? Someone should investigate.

The War in Iraq is Worse than Immoral or Illegal, It
is Stupid, Insanely Stupid

Frances D'emilio, Associated Press: The Italian
cardinal sent by Pope John Paul II last year to try to
dissuade President Bush from invading Iraq said Monday
the president promised that the U.S. operation would
be "quick."
"When I went to Washington as the pope's envoy just
before the outbreak of the war in Iraq, he (Bush) told
me: `Don't worry, your eminence. We'll be quick and do
well in Iraq,'" Laghi told Italian Catholic TV station
Telepace, which was broadcasting pontiff's annual
address to diplomats.
When the United States went to war in Iraq, Laghi
called the attack on Baghdad "tragic and
unacceptable."
"Unfortunately, the facts have demonstrated afterward
that things took a different course -- not rapid and
not favorable," the prelate told Telepace. "Bush was
wrong."

Charles Laurence, Telegraph (UK): American Army
soldiers are deserting and fleeing to Canada rather
than fight in Iraq, rekindling memories of the
thousands of draft-dodgers who flooded north to avoid
service in Vietnam.
An estimated 5,500 men and women have deserted since
the invasion of Iraq, reflecting Washington's growing
problems with troop morale.
Jeremy Hinzman, 26, from South Dakota, who deserted
from the 82nd Airborne, is among those who - to the
disgust of Pentagon officials - have applied for
refugee status in Canada.
Dana Priest and Robin Wright, Washington Post: Brent
Scowcroft, national security adviser for President
George H.W. Bush and a leading figure in the U.S.
foreign policy establishment, said yesterday that he
has grown pessimistic about prospects for stability
and democracy in Iraq, a view increasingly expressed
by other foreign policy figures in both parties.
"The Iraqi elections, rather than turning out to be a
promising turning point, have the great potential for
deepening the conflict," Scowcroft said. He said he
expects increased divisions between Shiite and Sunni
Muslims after the Jan. 30 elections, when experts
believe the government will be dominated by the
majority Shiites.
Scowcroft predicted "an incipient civil war" would
grip Iraq and said the best hope for pulling the
country from chaos would be to turn the U.S. operation
over to NATO or the United Nations -- which, he said,
would not be so hostilely viewed by Iraqis.

Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure: National Security

Dana Priest, Washington Post: Iraq has replaced
Afghanistan as the training ground for the next
generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according
to a report released yesterday by the National
Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.
Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a
recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing
technical skills," said David B. Low, the national
intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There
is even, under the best scenario, over time, the
likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not
killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home
is, and will therefore disperse to various other
countries."
Low's comments came during a rare briefing by the
council on its new report on long-term global trends.
It took a year to produce and includes the analysis of
1,000 U.S. and foreign experts. Within the 119-page
report is an evaluation of Iraq's new role as a
breeding ground for Islamic terrorists.
President Bush has frequently described the Iraq war
as an integral part of U.S. efforts to combat
terrorism. But the council's report suggests the
conflict has also helped terrorists by creating a
haven for them in the chaos of war.
"At the moment," NIC Chairman Robert L. Hutchings
said, Iraq "is a magnet for international terrorist
activity."
Before the U.S. invasion, the CIA said Saddam Hussein
had only circumstantial ties with several al Qaeda
members. Osama bin Laden rejected the idea of forming
an alliance with Hussein and viewed him as an enemy of
the jihadist movement because the Iraqi leader
rejected radical Islamic ideals and ran a secular
government.

Seymour Hersh, New Yorker: George W. Bush’s reëlection
was not his only victory last fall. The President and
his national-security advisers have consolidated
control over the military and intelligence
communities’ strategic analyses and covert operations
to a degree unmatched since the rise of the
post-Second World War national-security state. Bush
has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that
control—against the mullahs in Iran and against
targets in the ongoing war on terrorism—during his
second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be
downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as
one government consultant with close ties to the
Pentagon put it, as “facilitators” of policy emanating
from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney.
This process is well under way.
Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq,
the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic
long-range policy goal in the Middle East: the
establishment of democracy throughout the region.
Bush’s reëlection is regarded within the
Administration as evidence of America’s support for
his decision to go to war. It has reaffirmed the
position of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon’s
civilian leadership who advocated the invasion,
including Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of
Defense, and Douglas Feith, the Under-secretary for
Policy. According to a former high-level intelligence
official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met
with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the
election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers
had been heard and the American people did not accept
their message. Rumsfeld added that America was
committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be
no second-guessing…
Rumsfeld will become even more important during the
second term. In interviews with past and present
intelligence and military officials, I was told that
the agenda had been determined before the Presidential
election, and much of it would be Rumsfeld’s
responsibility. The war on terrorism would be
expanded, and effectively placed under the Pentagon’s
control. The President has signed a series of findings
and executive orders authorizing secret commando
groups and other Special Forces units to conduct
covert operations against suspected terrorist targets
in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South
Asia.
The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the
operations off the books—free from legal restrictions
imposed on the C.I.A. Under current law, all C.I.A.
covert activities overseas must be authorized by a
Presidential finding and reported to the Senate and
House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted
after a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies
involving C.I.A. domestic spying and attempted
assassinations of foreign leaders.) “The Pentagon
doesn’t feel obligated to report any of this to
Congress,” the former high-level intelligence official
said. “They don’t even call it ‘covert ops’—it’s too
close to the C.I.A. phrase. In their view, it’s ‘black
reconnaissance.’ They’re not even going to tell the
CINCs”—the regional American military
commanders-in-chief. (The Defense Department and the
White House did not respond to requests for comment on
this story.)
In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next
strategic target was Iran. “Everyone is saying, ‘You
can’t be serious about targeting Iran. Look at Iraq,’”
the former intelligence official told me. “But they
say, ‘We’ve got some lessons learned—not militarily,
but how we did it politically. We’re not going to rely
on agency pissants.’ No loose ends, and that’s why the
C.I.A. is out of there.”

Bush Abomination’s #2 Failure: Economic Security

Paul Krugman, NY Times: It's the standard Bush
administration tactic: invent a fake crisis to bully
people into doing what you want. "For the first time
in six decades," the memo says, "the Social Security
battle is one we can win." One thing I haven't seen
pointed out, however, is the extent to which the White
House expects the public and the media to believe two
contradictory things.
The administration expects us to believe that drastic
change is needed, and needed right away, because of
the looming cost of paying for the baby boomers'
retirement.
The administration expects us not to notice, however,
that the supposed solution would do nothing to reduce
that cost. Even with the most favorable assumptions,
the benefits of privatization wouldn't kick in until
most of the baby boomers were long gone. For the next
45 years, privatization would cost much more money
than it saved…
A responsible administration would reverse course on
tax cuts and the botched 2003 Medicare drug bill, both
of which pose much greater threats to the government's
solvency than the modest financial shortfall of the
Social Security system. But Mr. Bush has declared his
tax cuts inviolable, and he says that his drug bill
will actually save money. (The Medicare trustees say
it will cost $8 trillion.)
There's an iceberg in front of us, all right. And Mr.
Bush wants us to steam right into it, full speed
ahead.

Bush Abomination’s #3 Failure: Environmental Security

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., AlterNet: It's worth noting
that President Bush largely avoided mentioning his
environmental record during the campaign because it
made him more vulnerable in the eyes of most voters.
All the more reason then to be wary of his
administration claiming a false mandate to continue
pursuing its hostile environmental agenda.
Consider the words of EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt,
who told reporters a few days after Bush's re-election
that the administration's agenda has been "validated
and empowered" by the voters.
A mandate on the environment? Nothing could be further
from the truth.
When people were given the opportunity to vote on a
purely environmental issue, as they did this year in
ballot initiatives around the country, they almost
always voted overwhelmingly in favor of protecting the
environment.
By a more than two-to-one ratio, voters in Washington
state approved a ballot initiative to prevent more
waste from being dumped at the federal Hanford nuclear
site, the nation's most contaminated federal facility.
The decision will require cleanup of the
586-square-mile site before any additional waste is
stored there. That is, if this common-sense measure
survives a legal challenge by the Bush Justice
Department.
In Montana, a conservative state that went for Bush,
voters upheld a ban on using cyanide, a toxic
chemical, in open pit mining. In Colorado, another
"red" state, voters approved a requirement that
utilities must generate 10 percent of their
electricity from renewable sources of energy, like
solar and wind. And let's not forget the revolt of
ranchers, anglers and hunters - particularly out West
- who expressed outrage and bitter disappointment over
the Bush administration's destructive public lands
policies…
In the face of recent rhetoric about an alleged
mandate, it's clear the challenge is greater than
ever. But the important thing is that the fundamental
politics of the environment did not change with this
election. To the contrary, the forces that have worked
to protect our communities remain firmly in place.
There is strong bipartisan support for a safer,
cleaner approach - particularly in the U.S. Senate and
among the nation's governors. And the fight won't just
be about holding the line; in fact, we will see
increasing efforts to move forward on pressing
problems like mercury contamination, water pollution,
ocean restoration and perhaps most importantly, global
warming.

An Illegitimate, Incompetent & Corrupt Regime

Sidney Blumenthal, The Guardian: Two days after the
tsunami struck, President Bush, who had made no public
statement, was vacationing at his ranch in Texas, and
a junior spokesman was trotted out. The offer of U.S.
aid was $15m - $2m less than the star pitcher of the
Boston Red Sox was paid that year.
On December 27, UN emergency relief coordinator Jan
Egeland had criticised wealthy nations for
"stinginess". The next day Bill Clinton described the
tsunami as a "horror movie", and explained that
international leadership was required for a sustained
effort once the "emotional tug" waned.
Now the White House spokesman reassured the country
that Bush was "clearing some brush this morning; I
think he has some friends coming in ... that he enjoys
hosting; he's doing some biking and exercising ...
taking walks with the first lady..." The spokesman
said U.S. aid would be increased to $35m, and added a
jibe at Clinton: "The president wanted to be fully
briefed on our efforts. He didn't want to make a
symbolic statement about 'we feel your pain'. "
Eight days after the tsunami, Bush appeared in the
White House flanked by his father and Clinton, who, he
announced, would lead a private aid effort, and
moreover that U.S. aid would be increased tenfold to
$350m. Attacking Clinton hadn't worked; so Bush
recruited him to deflect criticism...
Bush administration policy has been conflicted,
confused and negligent. The leading neoconservative at
the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of
defence,has tried to overthrow U.S. restrictions on
aid to, and relations with, the Indonesian military.
The neoconservative thrust is undeterred by the
military's obstruction of the FBI investigation into
the murder of two U.S. businessmen in 2002, killings
that appear to implicate the military. When the state
department issued a human rights report on Indonesia's
abysmal record, its spokesman replied: "The U.S.
government does not have the moral authority to assess
or act as a judge of other countries, including
Indonesia, on human rights, especially after the abuse
scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison."

John Pilger, The New Statesman: The west's crusaders,
the United States and Britain, are giving less to help
the tsunami victims than the cost of a Stealth bomber
or a week's bloody occupation of Iraq. The bill for
George Bush's coming inauguration party would rebuild
much of the coastline of Sri Lanka. Bush and Blair
increased their first driblets of "aid" only when it
became clear that people all over the world were
spontaneously giving millions and that a public
relations problem beckoned. The Blair government's
current "generous" contribution is one-sixteenth of
the £800m it spent on bombing Iraq before the invasion
and barely one-twentieth of a £1bn gift, known as a
soft loan, to the Indonesian military so that it could
acquire Hawk fighter-bombers…
The hypocrisy, narcissism and dissembling propaganda
of the rulers of the world and their sidekicks are in
full cry. Superlatives abound as to their humanitarian
intent while the division of humanity into worthy and
unworthy victims dominates the news. The victims of a
great natural disaster are worthy (though for how long
is uncertain) while the victims of man-made imperial
disasters are unworthy and very often unmentionable.
Somehow, reporters cannot bring themselves to report
what has been going on in Aceh, supported by "our"
government. This one-way moral mirror allows us to
ignore a trail of destruction and carnage that is
another tsunami… This other tsunami is worldwide,
causing 24,000 deaths every day from poverty and debt
and division that are the products of a supercult
called neoliberalism. This was acknowledged by the
United Nations in 1990 when it called a conference in
Paris of the richest states with the aim of
implementing a "programme of action" to rescue the
world's poorest nations. A decade later, virtually
every commitment made by western governments had been
broken, making Gordon Brown's waffle about the G8
"sharing Britain's dream" of ending poverty as just
that: waffle. Very few western governments have
honoured the United Nations "baseline" and allotted a
miserable 0.7 per cent or more of their national
income to overseas aid. Britain gives just 0.34 per
cent, making its "Department for International
Development" a black joke. The US gives 0.14 per cent,
the lowest of any industrial state…
"The most spectacular display of public morality the
world has ever seen", was how the writer Arundhati Roy
described the anti-war anger that swept across the
world almost two years ago. A French study now
estimates that 35 million people demonstrated on that
February day and says there has never been anything
like it; and it was just a beginning.

John P. O’Neill Wall of Heroes

James Harding, The Financial Times: A group of
billionaire philanthropists are to donate tens of
millions more dollars to develop progressive political
ideas in the US in an effort to counter the
conservative ascendancy.
George Soros, who made his fortune in the hedge fund
industry; Herb and Marion Sandler, the California
couple who own a multi-billion-dollar savings and loan
business; and Peter Lewis, the chairman of an Ohio
insurance company, donated more than $63m (£34m) in
the 2004 election cycle to organisations seeking to
defeat George W. Bush.
At a meeting in San Francisco last month, the
left-leaning billionaires agreed to commit an even
larger sum over a longer period to building
institutions to foster progressive ideas and people…
The details of the San Francisco meeting are closely
held. Mr Soros and his son Jonathan, the Sandlers and
Mr Lewis asked aides to leave the room as they
discussed the planned financial commitment.
But the still-evolving plan, according to one person
involved, is "joint investment to build intellectual
infrastructure."
The intention is to provide the left with
organisations in Washington that can match the heft of
the rightwing think-tanks such as Heritage Foundation
and the American Enterprise Institute…
Several people said their understanding was that the
billionaires had decided to spend more, rather than
less, than they did in 2004.

Ted Birdis, Associated Press: The FBI never
adequately investigated complaints by a fired contract
linguist who alleged shoddy work and possible
espionage inside the bureau's translator program, even
though evidence and witnesses supported her, the
Justice Department's senior oversight official said
Friday.
The bureau's response to complaints by former
translator Sibel Edmonds was "significantly flawed,"
Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a report that
summarized a lengthy classified investigation into how
the FBI handled the case. Fine said her claims "raised
substantial questions and were supported by various
pieces of evidence."
Edmonds maintains she was fired in March 2002 after
she complained to FBI managers about shoddy wiretap
translations and told them an interpreter with a
relative at a foreign embassy might have compromised
national security by blocking translations in some
cases and notifying targets of FBI surveillance.
In response to the new report, the FBI said Friday it
still was investigating Edmonds' claims. It also said
FBI Director Robert Mueller has reminded senior bureau
officials to protect employees against retaliation for
raising concerns. The government has said Edmonds did
not qualify for formal whistle-blower job protections
because she worked with the FBI under a personal
contract.
"The report substantiated the most serious of Sibel's
allegations and demonstrates that the FBI owes Sibel
an apology and compensation for its unlawful firing of
her rather than hiding behind its false cloak of
national security," said her lawyer, Mark Zaid.

Restore the Sanctity of the Vote! Restore Independent, Aggressive, Principled Journalism! Restore the Republic!

-------
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/011205J.shtml

Published on Thursday, January 6, 2005 by the San
Francisco Chronicle

Keeping Our Democracy Alive
Did Voters Really Count in US Election?

by Steve Freeman

In three national elections over the past 13 months,
the official count was sharply at odds with an
independent national exit poll. As in the former
Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine, U.S. exit
polls projected a clear victory for the challenger.
John Kerry was projected to win the national popular
vote by a 2 percent to 3 percent margin and was ahead
in nearly every closely contested state. Of course,
the official counts, as in the other nations, showed
an almost mirror image victory for the incumbent party
candidate.
The citizens of Georgia and Ukraine refused to accept
the official tallies, protested vigorously and , with
international support, overturned the election, but
U.S. voters have passively accepted the results of
their election and gone back to business, oblivious to
the discrepancy and blind to the implications.
A 5 percent shift in a poll like this is
extraordinary. Exit pollsters do not have to guess
about who is actually going to vote, or whether they
might change their mind. Exit polls can achieve larger
samples cost-effectively: the national election-day
sample had more than 13,000 respondents, meaning that
it should have accurately forecast the result within
plus or minus 1 percent.
Polling error beyond statistical margins of error is
possible, of course. That's why we actually count the
votes, and why the count determines the winner. But
when there are serious questions over how elections
are conducted, we look to these exit polls.
So what if an incumbent party controls the election
machinery and there are other reasons to doubt the
count? Irregularities similar to those found in the
Ukrainian election have been documented here.
An investigation by members of the House Judiciary
Committee limited to Ohio alone has substantiated:
-- Deliberate vote suppressions (unmailed and lost
absentee ballots; obstacles to registration, such as
rejection of forms over a technicality; lack of voting
machines in Democratic strongholds resulting in waits
of more than eight hours, while Republican areas had
surplus machines; widespread misinformation about
polling places; overuse of provisional ballots, many
not subsequently counted);
-- Apparent fraud (undercounts in Democratic precincts
where 25 percent of voters reportedly did not vote for
president; unreasonably high numbers of votes recorded
for third-party candidates in 10 heavily Democratic
precincts in Cleveland; extraordinarily high voter
registration and turnout inconsistent with records in
precincts of Appalachian Ohio) and
-- Secret counts and recounts (Warren County locked
out count observers because of a terrorist threat
attributed to the FBI, which the FBI has denied;
recounts conducted in the absence of observers and in
pre-selected precincts, violating state law; testimony
that representatives of a voting system supplier
improperly participated in the recount).
Beyond these conventional manipulations, the United
States has introduced electronic voting, a new system
of potential mass and undetectable manipulation.
Thirty percent of Americans in this election used
electronic voting machines, which produce no
confirmation that votes are recorded as cast -- the
"paper trail." Stanford University computer scientist
David Dill draws the analogy of telling a man behind a
curtain whom you want to vote for and trusting that he
has recorded it faithfully. Voters using electronic
voting machines likewise blindly trust that the
programmer has written code that can and will record
their votes as cast.
The system is made worse yet by a concentrated
electronic voting-machine industry characterized by
overt partisanship, conflicts of interest and a lack
of transparency in nearly every aspect of operations.
So why is the response rebellion in the former Soviet
Union nations but passive acceptance here? It's not
that exit polls are reliable everywhere but here. In
fact, both of the exit polls in the Ukraine were
flawed. One did not adequately cover the strongholds
of the government candidate; the other used
face-to-face interviews, thus asking respondents to
risk retribution. Both polls are alleged to have been
sponsored by the West, principally the United States,
hoping to install a friendly, pro-NATO government. The
U.S. exit poll, in contrast, was independent,
well-funded and run by the most experienced exit
pollsters in the world.
We may believe that "it can't happen here": After all,
we are not only a democracy, but the democracy. Voting
is embedded in all our cultural values and
institutions. Paradoxically, however, U.S. democratic
traditions may have led to unwarranted laxity. Other
countries do not take democracy for granted. They
know, as the founders of our country did, how
vulnerable it is, and that the price of liberty is
eternal vigilance.
The purpose of conducting research and questioning the
election outcome is not partisan -- it is equally
democratic, republican and libertarian. Americans
should take up this cause as neither "for Kerry" nor
"against Bush." Indeed, one reason resistance to the
count has not coalesced is that for the past year, the
country has looked to Kerry and George W. Bush as its
leaders. But it's clear that neither is taking the
lead on protection of voting rights. When I documented
the discrepancy between the official count and
exit-poll predictions, thousands of people e-mailed me
to thank me for stating the obvious. Why weren't
others asking these questions?
The absence of questions does not make a democracy
function; democratic processes do. It has been a long
time since this country has paid a price for liberty.
It seems clear now that a large payment of vigilance
is long overdue.
Steve Freeman is on the faculty of the Center for
Organizational Dynamics at the University of
Pennsylvania. To view his 2004 election research, go
to www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm.
© 2005 San Francisco Chronicle
###
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0106-27.htm

Published on Sunday, January 9, 2005 by the Cleveland
Plain Dealer

Many Americans Refuse to Concede 'Stolen Election'
On Eve of Bush's Inauguration, Challenges Continue

by Leila Atassi

While a two-hour debate raged on the floors of the
U.S. House and Senate over the certification of the
presidential election, more than 400 activists waited
outside to learn which of their leaders would join
their cause.
Under an overcast sky, the Rev. Jesse Jackson told the
activists - still refusing to accept the results of
the November election - not to be bitter.
As he spoke, many of them wept, because for some, the
anger over what they refer to as "the stolen election"
is precisely what won't let them let go.
It has been more than two months since President Bush
declared victory. But the activists who assembled
Thursday in Washington, D.C., and countless others
across the country say they refuse to concede and have
made investigating voter irregularities in Ohio their
top priority - sometimes forsaking their livelihood or
former selves.
A close look at four of the many activists who refuse
to concede the election.
Kerry concession ignites blogger's passion
Lawyer Ray Beckerman was so stunned that he nearly
crashed his car into a light pole when he heard Sen.
John Kerry was expected to concede the election.
All at once, the election night volunteerism, which
Beckerman thought would be a nice community service,
had lit a fire beneath the 56-year-old commercial
litigation attorney. Within two months, Beckerman
would become one of the nation's foremost bloggers on
Ohio's voting irregularities, devoting 90 percent of
his time to his cause.
The lawyer had spent election night in Columbus,
manning the Democratic Party hot line to advise voters
reporting trouble at the polls. He and 19 other
lawyers heard more than 1,000 stories from people who
waited up to 10 hours to vote, never received absentee
ballots, had provisional ballots rejected or said they
were interrogated by poll challengers for no reason.
The next day, Beckerman was on his way back to New
York City, where he has practiced business and
entertainment law for 26 years. He flipped through the
radio stations searching for news that echoed the
reports of the Ohio voters he spoke to the night
before, but heard nothing. Beckerman called his son,
Eli, an astrophysicist in Somerville, Mass., and asked
for an update on the chaos in Ohio.
"Haven't you heard?" his son said. "Kerry's about to
concede."
"I absolutely could not believe he was conceding,"
Beckerman said. "And all over, we later heard that,
except for the long lines, the election went smoothly
in Ohio. Never mind that almost everyone in long lines
had black faces or were in Democratic precincts."
Beckerman wrote his election night experiences in an
e-mail to friends, but within days he learned that his
e-mail, which he titled "Basic Report from Columbus,"
had been circulating on the Internet. Beckerman, who
had written only a general Web log before the
election, decided to shift the focus of his blog to
voter disenfranchisement.
"I decided there must be some kind of grass-roots
organizing to bring this to the attention of the
world," he said.
Beckerman's blog includes a list of upcoming protests
and hundreds of links to material he calls "primary
evidence" of an unfair election in Ohio. The attorney
said that to free up time for his law practice, he
must pull his efforts away from election reform and
focus on pending investigations of the election.
"I have to do this for my children and my children's
children," Beckerman said. "Years from now, if someone
were to ask me what I was doing during this period in
history, I want to say I was fighting it."
Beckerman's blog can be found at:
http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com.
Poll watcher won't rest until she sees reforms
On election night, after Dr. Patricia Blochowiak
finished her duties as a Democratic poll watcher at
Lakeside Baptist Church in East Cleveland, she headed
over to the Sheraton hotel to celebrate with
Cleveland's Democratic Party.
She didn't stay long. She was exhausted. And Ohio, she
figured, would put John Kerry over the top.
"I remember knowing at some point that [John] Edwards
said he wanted to make every vote count, and that
seemed like good news," Blochowiak said.
But while she drafted a letter to lawyers, describing
long lines and the harassment of voters at the East
Cleveland polling place, she heard over the radio that
Kerry had given up. She vowed she would not.
Blochowiak, a family doctor with a history of
advocating peace and sustainable energy, visited
meet-ups for several Democratic candidates last year
before deciding on Kerry.
"I appreciated that he fought in Vietnam and then for
peace when he returned," she said. "And also, as a
physician, I just really believed in his plan for
health-care reform."
The East Cleveland doctor threw herself onto the
campaign trail, serving on the steering committee of
Doctors for Kerry, going door-to-door with literature,
distributing bumper stickers outside of theaters
showing the anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11" and
housing out-of-state members of Kerry's campaign team.

Blochowiak thought her work was done on election night
and she could return to her work with Global Awareness
Through the Arts (& Sciences), the nonprofit group she
founded to broaden the perspectives of children in
East Cleveland. But it was just the beginning.
Blochowiak observed ballot recounts in Medina,
Jefferson and Cuyahoga counties. None of them, the
doctor said, was done according to state law.
"We were not allowed to see the way the pretest of the
tabulating machines was done," she said. The precincts
were not chosen at random. "In Medina, they were
chosen according to size. The rationale was that
otherwise we'd be here all day."
The unsatisfied doctor helped organize a public
hearing in East Cleveland, where voters related
stories of painfully long lines and unnecessary
harassment at the polls. The transcripts have been
sent to Congress, Blochowiak said, but even after
Bush's inauguration on Jan. 20, she won't rest until
the process of voting has been reformed.
"We need paper ballots that people mark with X's" to
avoid hanging chads, she said. "And counting needs to
be done publicly and on videotape. We cannot have the
votes counted by people who are committed to
delivering the vote to the Republicans."
A history of activism dating from the '60s
Harvey Wasserman was in the middle of his workout when
Kerry conceded the election.
All around him people ran on treadmills, paying little
attention to the health club television - or to the
Columbus-based activist who listened in shock to
Kerry's speech.
"It was short and quick, like a thief in the night,"
Wasserman said. "After he spent all this time and half
a billion dollars to put himself forward as the
candidate who would win the election for the
Democratic Party, to concede less than 24 hours after
the election was a complete abdication of
responsibility."
Before he went to bed on election night, Wasserman
learned that the tide had turned away from Kerry's
victory. But he had no idea that, for the Democrats,
the controversial election would be over so soon - or
that for his corps of activists, it was the beginning
of a struggle to prevent Bush's inauguration.
Wasserman's résumé as an activist and journalist dates
to the early 1960s civil rights movement. In the
1970s, he helped launch the grass-roots anti-nuclear
movement and helped coin the phrase "No Nukes." He
teaches history at Columbus State Community College
and has spent most of his career speaking and writing
against nuclear power and promoting trends in
renewable energy.
Currently, he is senior editor at www.freepress.org,
an alternative Web site, which started as a
publication in 1970 as a forum for activism and
protest against the Vietnam War. Since Nov. 2,
Wasserman has rallied support for investigations into
voting irregularities, organized public hearings in
Columbus, worked on a documentary and called for a
revote in Ohio.
The hearings and demonstrations and a
soon-to-be-released book and the documentary, which
contains what Wasserman called "devastating footage"
from election night, will stand as historic record,
the activist said. But Bush's inauguration won't end
Wasserman's activities.
"The people of progressive politics who are despairing
should remember what happened to Nixon after he was
re-elected in the midst of Watergate," he said. "We
must make sure the crimes of this election are not
lost in their impact. Bush can't steal an election and
walk away without consequences."
'Nobody's giving up,' activists are galvanized
Sheri Myers was in the Orlando, Fla., airport, coming
off of John Kerry's Florida campaign operation, when
she got the call. Her mom phoned to tell her that
Kerry had conceded the election.
"You know that feeling when you're in a relationship,
and you know in your soul that someone has been
cheating on you?" she said, remembering that moment in
the airport terminal. "That's how I felt. I knew
something was terribly wrong."
Myers started Mar Vista Neighbors for Peace and
Justice, a protest group in her Los Angeles
neighborhood, and is a member of Code PINK, a women's
peace organization, which made waves in September when
members were arrested outside the Republican National
Convention.
Myers helped mobilize 200 volunteers in Marion County,
Fla., who worked the phones, drove the elderly to the
polls and distributed literature. But the mission,
Myers said, only intensified after Kerry gave up.
Myers is distributing a DVD as part of a "Voter Fraud
Activist Kit." The video, produced by Columbus
filmmaker Linda Byrket and titled "Ohio/Nov2-Standing
in the Rain with Jim Crow," depicts long lines, voters
waiting in the rain or being told they're at the wrong
precinct, Myers said.
"What we have here is a civil rights violation on a
massive level," she said.
Originally from Delaware, Ohio, Myers spread the word
about the DVD on her e-mail list of 300 activist
friends. She also distributed copies of the DVD along
her bus tour to Washington, D.C., to protest Congress'
certification of the election.
Even as Bush prepares for his inauguration, Myers said
she will galvanize her protest by linking up with
activists in other major cities and bringing them to
Washington.
"Nobody's giving up," she said. "Thousands of people
are gonna come to Washington by the busload, because
now we know how to do it. Nothing is stopping us.
These buses are gonna roll."
© Copyright 2005 The Plain Dealer
###
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0109-01.htm

John Conyers Thanks Internet Activists and Stands Up
to Fight!
by Bob Fertik on 01/10/2005 10:37pm. - revised
01/10/2005 10:41pm
You GO, John!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Friend:
I want to thank you for the time and energy you have
already given to help me in my pursuit of the truth
about the 2004 Presidential election, particularly the
truth about what happened in Ohio. I also want to let
you know what I will be working on in the coming
months.
I believe what we achieved on January 6 will be a
seminal event in the history of progressive politics,
and significantly advance the cause of electoral
reform. For this challenge to Ohio’s electors to have
occurred, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the
internet activists, who spread the story of my efforts
and supported me in every way possible. I am also
thankful to the alternative media, including talk
radio and blogs that gave substantial attention and
investigation to these matters when all but a handful
in the mainstream media refused to examine the facts.
I cannot thank all of you personally, but you know who
you are.
With the exigency of January 6 behind us, I wanted to
let you know what I will be doing in the coming
months. First, my investigation of Ohio voting
irregularities is not over. In an effort to get as
much information confirmed and circulated in advance
of January 6, many valuable leads still need to be
pursued and I pledge to do so. Substantial
irregularities have come to light in other states
during the course of this investigation and I will
also pursue those leads. While there has been powerful
opposition to my efforts and personal attacks against
me as a result of my efforts, I want to assure you I
remain steadfast.
Second, there are other matters involving wrongdoing
by Administration officials that I will continue to
pursue. Among other things, I will continue to seek
answers about the role of senior Bush Administration
officials in outing an undercover Central Intelligence
Agency operative. I will also continue to examine the
sources of the fraudulent case for the Iraq war, which
intersects with the outing of this operative.
Third, I intend to develop and introduce legislation
in a number of areas. Most importantly, I intend to
introduce comprehensive election reform legislation in
the coming weeks, and I will fight for its passage at
the earliest possible moment. I intend to hold further
hearings on this issue. I will also continue to fight
the job loss and the loss of retirement security that
has so negatively impacted working families in my
district, and I will fight the economic policies of
this Administration that are the cause of these
serious problems. Finally, the Judiciary Committee
will also be at the center of the efforts to oversee
the U.S.A. Patriot Act and ascertain which, if any,
provisions should be renewed. I expect to lead the
fight against a number of provisions that I believe
compromise our civil liberties.
Again, thank you for all you have done. I look forward
to working with you on these and other important
matters in the weeks and months ahead.
Sincerely,
John Conyers, Jr.
http://blog.democrats.com/node/2499

John Nichols
John Nichols: On Ohio vote, Congress shirked its duty
By John Nichols
January 11, 200
About John
John Nichols is a native Wisconsinite, who has written
for The Capital Times for the past decade.
Email John

David Cobb, the Green Party presidential candidate who
has devoted the past two months to the arduous task of
pressing for a full review of the mess that Ohio
officials made of the election in that state, called
Friday afternoon to proclaim a sort of victory.
"I think we've finally got a movement going for
election reform in this country," he said.
To an extent, he's right.
At the grass-roots level, there appears to be growing
support for a count-every-vote,
eliminate-every-opportunity-for-fraud standard that
would radically alter the way in which the United
States runs elections.
And to some small extent, this enthusiasm for election
reform has been communicated to those members of
Congress who are still interested in what their
constituents say - as was evidenced by Thursday's
decision on the part of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer,
D-Calif., to support the objection by members of the
House to the certification of Ohio's electoral
votes. The objection, and the congressional debates that
followed, were decried by the usual suspects - White
House spokesman Scott McClellan, who has the
distinction of having never told the truth in his
official capacity, dismissed evidence of
disenfranchisement of minority voters as "conspiracy
theories." But the objection also drew enough
thoughtful coverage and editorial comment from
mainstream media to suggest that the fight was worth
it.
A lot more Americans now know about our flawed voting
systems. And a few more Democrats in Congress seem to
have gotten the point that it is not appropriate to
casually certify the results of an election that has
been tainted by evidence of disenfranchisement, voter
suppression and official misdeeds.
While critics tried to remake the congressional
challenge as an attempt to reverse the result of the
2004 election in Ohio, and by extension nationally,
U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, explained
that "this objection does not have at its root the
hope or even the hint of overturning or challenging
the victory of the president."
The point, said Tubbs Jones, was to expose the
fundamental flaws in the current system and to
highlight the need for reform. It was, Boxer added, a
matter of "electoral justice."
Unfortunately, that point was lost on every Republican
member of the House and Senate and on the vast
majority of Democrats. When all was said and done,
only one member of the Senate (Boxer) took a stand for
electoral justice by refusing to back certification of
the Ohio results.
There was more support in the House, from 31 members.
Sadly, none of them was from Wisconsin, a state that
historically has been able to count on its
representatives to take the defense of democracy a
little more seriously than representatives from some
other states.
That Wisconsin's two senators and eight House members
failed to act is not a matter of lack of courage.
Rather, it is a matter of lack of responsibility.
Boxer and the 31 House members who objected were not
being courageous. They were simply performing their
duties in the manner that was intended. The founders
of this country gave the legislative branch the
responsibility of certifying election results because
they understood the need for oversight of elections -
especially for a position so powerful as the
presidency. And they trusted that congressional
representatives, who were more directly accountable to
the citizenry, would ensure that partisan pressures
did not trump democracy.
Last Thursday, however, democracy got trumped. The
vast majority of the members of the House and Senate
chose not to live up to the responsibility rested upon
them by the founders.
Congressional Democrats who failed to support the
objection to the Ohio count - as well as those
moderate Republicans who would like to think of
themselves as anything more than rubber stamps for a
president who has never displayed respect for the
Constitution - need to ask themselves some questions:
What is it about the phrase "electoral justice" that
they don't understand? Is there any level of minority
disenfranchisement that they would take seriously? Do
they really believe that conservative Republicans in
Congress would go along with certification of election
results from a state where there was significant
evidence of disenfranchisement of a Republican-leaning
group, such as evangelical Christians?
They know the answers to those questions. And if they
are honest with themselves, those thinking members of
Congress who failed to object to the certification of
the Ohio results know that they let down the American
people.
So the people will have to respond. I hope David Cobb,
who has worked so hard on these issues, is right. I
hope we are seeing the birth of a multipartisan
movement for election reform that will establish a
universal set of standards for registering voters,
casting votes and counting ballots, and a deep
commitment to ensure that the system works for all
Americans. Because, as Thursday's failure of
responsibility by most members of Congress
illustrated, we are still far short of electoral
justice.
John Nichols is associate editor for The Capital
Times. E-mail: jnichols@madison.com. For more on the
objection to the Ohio results, visit
www.thenation.com.
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/nichols/index.php?ntid=24073
Published: 7:25 AM 1/11/05

Letter from David Brock, RE: Armstrong Williams
January 7, 2005
Kevin Klose
President and Chief Executive
National Public Radio
635 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
David D. Smith
Chief Executive Officer
Sinclair Broadcasting Group, Inc.
10706 Beaver Dam Road
Hunt Valley, MD 21030
Roger E. Ailes
Chairman and CEO
FOX News Channel
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Jonathan Rodgers
CEO
TV One
101 Wayne Avenue, 10th floor
Silver Spring, MD 20910
David D. Williams
President and CEO
Tribune Media Services
435 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
Dear Sirs:
I'm writing today to bring to your attention a report
in the January 7 edition of USA Today that
conservative commentator Armstrong Williams was paid
$240,000 by the U.S. government to promote a Bush
administration education initiative -- a financial
relationship he failed to disclose to readers,
listeners, and viewers.
If the facts as reported by USA Today are correct, Mr.
Williams was being secretly paid by the Bush
administration to promote government policies at the
same time that he was participating in public debate
on those policies. I presume that you are as troubled
by this gross conflict of interest as I am. I
respectfully ask that you immediately review your
professional relationship with Mr. Williams and take
whatever actions you may deem appropriate, including
severing that relationship, on the grounds that Mr.
Williams's integrity has been irrevocably damaged by
taking money to influence the public debate without
disclosing those payments.
In my view, the payments, if made -- as well as Mr.
Williams's failure to disclose the payments -- would
disqualify Mr. Williams from appearing in the media as
an independent commentator.
Yours,
David Brock
President and CEO
Media Matters for America
Posted to the web on Friday January 7, 2005 at 5:01 PM
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Rep. Slaughter Demands GAO Investigation into Bush
Administration Propaganda Contracts
Press Release
Tuesday 11 January 2005
Washington, DC - Today, Rep. Louise Slaughter
(NY-28), Ranking Member of the House Committee on
Rules joined House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi,
Rep. Henry Waxman and other members of the House
Democratic leadership in calling for an immediate and
thorough examination of departments and agencies under
the Bush Administration into their use of covert
propaganda.
Last week Rep. Slaughter sent a letter to the
Chief Executives of the Sinclair Broadcasting Group
and TV ONE, demanding that their contracts with
syndicated broadcaster Armstrong Williams be
terminated immediately.
As reported in USA Today, Williams was allegedly
paid $240,000 by the Bush Administration to discuss
the No Child Left Behind program in a favorable light
as a regular part of his radio and television
broadcasts on stations owned by the two broadcast
groups.
"The Armstrong Williams incident is a serious breach
of the public trust. The American people deserve to
know if there are more secret propaganda contracts
being funded with their hard earned money," stated
Slaughter.
The text of the letter follows:
January 11, 2005
The Honorable David M. Walker
Comptroller General
U.S. Government Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20548
Dear Mr. Walker:
We are writing to request that the Government
Accountability Office examine the use of covert
propaganda by departments and agencies under the Bush
Administration.
In the past year, GAO has released two legal
analyses finding that the Department of Health and
Human Services and the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy violated the congressional
prohibition on publicity and propaganda by
distributing fabricated video news reports. Last week,
we learned that the Department of Education paid a
conservative commentator to support the No Child Left
Behind Act in television and radio appearances.
The federal use of covert propaganda is unethical,
damaging to our democracy and open society, and, as
you know, illegal. While the three incidents described
above are deeply troubling and are a cause for concern
in their own right, it would be abhorrent to our
system of government if these incidents were part of a
pattern of covert propaganda funded with taxpayer
dollars.
In particular, we request that GAO:
1. Survey federal departments and agencies to identify
and describe all contracts signed since January 1,
2001, with public relations firms, advertising
agencies, media organizations, and individual members
of the media. Please include in the description (a)
the costs of each contract, (b) a summary of the
purposes of the contract, (c) the method by which the
contract was awarded, and (d) a description of the
work performed under the contract.
2. In the case of any contract identified under (1)
that relies on subcontracts, identify and describe the
subcontracts. Please include in the description (a)
the costs of each subcontract, (b) a summary of the
purposes of the subcontract, (c) the method by which
the subcontract was awarded, and (d) a description of
the work performed under the subcontract.
3. Assess whether the contracts and subcontracts
comply with the prohibitions on publicity and
propaganda and the requirements of the Anti-Lobbying
Act.
We recognize that a comprehensive survey of
federal departments and agencies may be a large
undertaking. We ask that you focus your initial
attention on covert propaganda related to the
following seven topics:
The No Child Left Behind Act and its implementation;
The Medicare Modernization Act and its implementation;
Tax legislation signed or proposed by President Bush;
Social Security reform;
The war in Iraq;
Homeland security;
Energy and the environment.
We are available to work with you to refine this
request as you proceed with the investigative work
-
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/011305J.shtml
CBS' Cowardice and Conflicts behind Purge
By Greg Palast
GregPalast.com
Tuesday 11 January 2005
Network's craven back-down on Bush draft dodge report
sure to get a standing Rove-ation at White House.
"Independent" my ass. CBS' cowardly purge of five
journalists who exposed George Bush's dodging of the
Vietnam War draft was done under cover of what the
network laughably called an "Independent Review
Panel."
The "panel" was just two guys as qualified for the
job as they are for landing the space shuttle: Dick
Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi.
Remember Dickie Thornburgh? He was on the Bush 41
Administration's payroll. His grand accomplishment as
Bush's Attorney General was to whitewash the
investigation of the Exxon Valdez Oil spill, letting
the oil giant off the hook on big damages.
Thornburgh's fat pay as counsel to Kirkpatrick &
Lockhart, the Washington law-and-lobbying outfit, is
substantially due to his job as a Bush retainer. This
is the kind of stinky conflict of interest that hardly
suggests "independent." Why not just appoint Karl Rove
as CBS' grand inquisitor and be done with it?
Then there's Boccardi, not exactly a prince of
journalism. This is the gent who, as CEO of the
Associated Press, spiked his own wire service's
exposure of Oliver North and his traitorous dealings
with the Ayatollah Khomeini. Legendary AP
investigative reporters Robert Parry and Brian Barger
found their stories outing the Iran-Contra scandal in
1986 stopped by their bosses. They did not know that
Boccardi was on those very days deep in the midst of
talks with North, participating in the conspiracy.
Today I spoke with Parry at his home in Virginia.
He was sympathetic to Boccardi who at the time was
trying to spring AP reporter Terry Anderson held
hostage in Iran. But to do so, Boccardi joined,
unwittingly, in a criminal conspiracy to trade guns
for hostages. He then spiked his own news agency's
investigation of it. Parry later discovered a 1986
email from North to John Poindexter in which North
notes that Boccardi "is supportive of our terropism
(sic) policy" and wants to keep the story "quiet."
Poindexter was indicted, then pardoned. Boccardi was
not, and there is no indication he knew he was
abetting a crime. But the AP demoted journalist Barger
and forced him to quit for - the offense of trying to
report the biggest story of the decade. This hardly
gives Mr. Spike the qualification to pass judgment on
working journalists.
And who are the journalists whom CBS has burned at
the corporate stake? The first lined up for career
execution is '60 Minutes' producer Mary Mapes. Besides
the Bush draft dodge story, Mapes produced the exposé
of the torture at Abu Ghraib when other networks had
the same material and buried it.
I admit to a soft spot for Mapes. Four years ago,
BBC Television London broadcast my report that Jeb
Bush had wrongly purged thousands of African-Americans
from the voter rolls, thereby fixing the election for
his big brother. CBS Evening News ran away scared from
the story, as did ABC and other U.S. networks. This
year, when Bush tried to repeat the trick, Mapes
wanted to put it on '60 Minutes.' However, after the
draft dodge story hullabaloo, that was not going to
happen.
And what was the crime committed by Mapes and,
let's not forget, Dan Rather, whose career was also
toasted by the story?
CBS said, "The Panel found that Mapes ignored
information that cast doubt on the story she had set
out to report - that President Bush had received
special treatment 30 years ago, getting to the [Texas
Air National] Guard ahead of many other applicants
...."
Well, excuse me, but that story is stone cold
solid, irrefutable, backed-up, sourced, proven to a
fare-thee-well. I know, because I'm one of the
reporters who broke that story ... way back in 1999,
for the Guardian papers of Britain. No one has
challenged the Guardian report, or my follow-up for
BBC Television, whatsoever, though we've begged the
White House for a response from our self-proclaimed
"war president."
CBS did not "break" this Chicken-Hawk George
story; it's just that Dan Rather, with Mapes'
encouragement, found his journalistic soul and the
cojones, finally, after 5 years delay, to report it.
Did Bush get special treatment to get into the Guard?
Baby Bush tested in the 25th percentile out of 100.
Yet, he leaped ahead of thousands of other Vietnam
evaders because the then-Speaker of the Texas
legislature sent a message to General Craig Rose, head
of the Guard, to let in Little George and a few other
sons of well-placed politicos. (See some of the
documentation at
http://www.gregpalast.com/ulf/documents/draftdodgeblanked.jpg
and a clip from the BBC Television report at
http://www.gregpalast.com/images/TrailerClips.mov.)
Mapes and Rather did make a mistake, citing a memo
which could not be authenticated. But let's get
serious folks: this "Killian" memo had not a darn
thing to do with the story-in-chief - the President's
using his daddy's connections to duck out of Vietnam.
The Killian memo was a goofy little addition to the
story (not included in my Guardian or BBC reports).
So CBS inquisitors took this minor error and used
it to discredit the story and ruin careers of
reporters who allowed themselves an unguarded moment
of courage. And, crucial to the network's real agenda,
this nonsensical distraction allowed the White House
to resurrect the fake reputation of George Bush as
Vietnam-era top gun.
CBS executives' model was clearly the hatchet j

LNS Post Coup II Supplement (1/7/05)

Nine more US soldiers died in Iraq within the past 24
hours. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three
Stooges Reich. Meanwhile, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama disgraced themselves on 1/6/05. Talk is cheap. The bottom line is that they voted for fascism in America. They capitulated. They did not vote with Sen. Barbara Boxer. They are complicit in the second consecutive theft of the Presidency...This self-deception that you hear from so many now (even Al Franken) that Bush "won" and deep denial (Obama has even said "Bush won fair and square") is the psychological equivalent of "He really is a good man" or "We gotta stay together for the kids." He is not a good man. He is a viscious, ignorant, troubled man. And the "kids," i.e. the country, would be better off in a bitter divorce that pitted the blue states (where the bills for the country are paid, and the majority of the population toils) against the red states (where a pathological White Taliban reigns in a faith-based Gehenna)…We need a Kulchur War to restore the Republic…We need people who are willing to declare that 2+2=4 to restore the Republic…
John Kerry disgraced himself on 1/6/05, by going to Baghdad when he should have been in the well of the US Senate defending the US Constitution. Yes, Kerry doubly disgraced himself by running away to Baghdad -- because he voted to send them there…The war is worse than illegal or immoral, it is stupid -- insanely stupid…and Kerry voted for it…and yes, we vigorously fought for his election anyway, because of Anwar, Kyoto, Abu Ghraib, the next twenty years of the US Supreme Court, the fracturing of the Western Alliance, women's reproductive rights, the obscence tax cuts, the obscene deficit, the obscene drive to "privatize" social security, the separation of church and state, the Middle East peace process and more, and because, in spite of the political cowardice and cravenness he displayed in voting for the war, he never would have started it himself. But that's all behind us now. Fascism has come for real in America. The struggle is not about ideology it is about REALITY. The REALITY is that our electoral system has been compromised by brown shirts, the US mainstream news media is wholly complicit and the Democratic leadership is apparently willing to play the role of a ceremonial, faux opposition party...yes, the corporatist news media is wholly complicit, and the leadership of the Democratic Party is content to be Bush's bitch...We need people who are willing to denounce this war as insanely stupid, not pretend that it is simply a matter of mismanagement -- another self-deception, like Bush won "fair and square" Kerry has proven himself, since election night, to be first and foremost a creature of his status, just as Reid, Clinton and even Obama…They have all decided they are better off (i.e., safer) keeping their limos in the motorcade -- even if it is going off a cliff… No one who voted to certify the Ohio electors should be considered as a candidate for national office in 2008, whether they participated in the 'debate" or not...Talk is cheap...What will they do on the day of the Inauguration later this month? Will they dress up and act if as some solemn democratic process is being adhered to? Will they salute the flag? The flag that Bush has so dishonored by fracturing the Western Alliance, mocking the Geneva Accords, lying his way into a foolish war and consigning our troops to a Mega-Mogadishu without adequate equipment, moral high ground or even an exit strategy? What will they do on the night of the State of the Union? Will they applaud? Will they smile and shake Bush's hand? Remember, friends, Bush LOST the 2000 election. Bush KNEW enough to do something about 9/11 but did not act. Bush LIED about needing to go to war over WMD in Iraq, and Bush LOST AGAIN in 2004…Remember, friends, 2+2=4...Jesse Jackson stood in the park across the street from the White House on Thursday fighting not just for the sanctity of the vote but for REALITY itself...Senator John Kerry, Jackson said, was in Baghdad. "And we need him here in Washington today. Those who cannot lead today cannot lead in 2006 or 2008. This is the moment of truth!" Yes, it was, and except for the Congressional Black Caucus, and Dennis Kuchinich, Congressman Nadler (the World Trade Center *was* in his district) and Sen. Barbara Boxer, the Democratic Party was like W, *their* Commander in Chief, during the war in Vietnam, AWOL...They are as complicit now as the US regimstream news media...But no, it does not make the shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Ralph-Nader any less of a traitor to all that is good. Remember, in 2000, he said here was no difference. There was a huge difference: Kyoto, Anwar, the Supreme Court, no war in Iraq, no foolish tax cuts to gut the federal surplus and turn it into a deficit, no prostitution of the EPA, no Abu Ghraib, no phoney energy crisis in California (and therefore no professional body builder in Sacramento} and yes, maybe no 9/11. Remember, in 2004, he took Rove's money...Remember, 2+2=4..."You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." But if you get confused, follow Maxine Waters (D-CA) or Cynthia McKinney (D-GA). They will be going in the right direction.

William Rivers Pitt: You the People: The greatest
heroes in this process have been the ordinary
Americans – the teachers and lawyers and builders and
students – who took the time to write and call and fax
and email members of congress in such volume that
ultimately, the demand for action could not be
ignored. By Thursday morning, every avenue of
communication on Capitol Hill had become totally
paralyzed by the amount of incoming messages from
people who wanted to see something done. The other
names on this list played their part, but were it not
for you the people, their efforts would have come to
nothing. It was an awe-inspiring performance, and was
the reason why Thursday’s challenge happened.
There is a debate taking place now as to what, if
anything, happened in congress on Thursday. Some feel
that the failure of any Senator to stand with Boxer
obviates the whole process. Others believe Thursday
was a good step forward, the opening of a national
dialogue on election reform, and proof that the people
can force congress to act.
At the end of the day, however, I believe Thursday was
a victory because of the people I have listed above,
and because of all the other heroes I failed to name.
All these horses are running together at speed, and
have proven they can get things done. If you believe
in the cause of election reform, be warmed by the
knowledge that these men and women are out there,
working for you, and their efforts have only just
begun.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA): For most of us in the
Senate and the House, we have spent our lives fighting
for things we believe in - always fighting to make our
nation better.
We have fought for social justice. We have fought for
economic justice. We have fought for environmental
justice. We have fought for criminal justice.
Now we must add a new fight - the fight for electoral
justice…
Why did voters in Ohio wait hours in the rain to vote?
Why were voters at Kenyan College, for example, made
to wait in line until nearly 4 a.m. to vote because
there were only two machines for 1300 voters?
Why did poor and predominantly African-American
communities have disproportionately long waits?
Why in Franklin County did election officials only use
2,798 machines when they said they needed 5,000? Why
did they hold back 68 machines in warehouses? Why were
42 of those machines in predominantly African-American
districts?
Why did, in Columbus area alone, an estimated 5,000 to
10,000 voters leave polling places, out of
frustration, without having voted? How many more never
bothered to vote after they heard about this?
Why is it when 638 people voted at a precinct in
Franklin County, a voting machine awarded 4,258 extra
votes to George Bush. Thankfully, they fixed it - but
how many other votes did the computers get wrong?
Why did Franklin County officials reduce the number of
electronic voting machines in downtown precincts,
while adding them in the suburbs? This also led to
long lines.
In Cleveland, why were there thousands of provisional
ballots disqualified after poll workers gave faulty
instructions to voters?
Because of this, and voting irregularities in so many
other places, I am joining with Congresswoman
Stephanie Tubbs Jones to cast the light of truth on a
flawed system which must be fixed now.

Micheal Moore: Something historic happened yesterday.
For the first time since 1877 a member of the House
and a member of the Senate stood up together to object
to the outcome of a presidential election.
This is the first step on a necessary road toward
making sure that everyone is allowed to vote and that
every vote is counted (something we did not see in
2000 or 2004) so the next time around ALL of us can be
confident, when the election results come in, that
they reflect the will of the people, not the whim of
mechanical error and human obstruction.
Unlike 2000, when the black members of Congress were
told to sit down and shut up, this time a senator had
the courage to stand with them, as the law requires,
to force Congress to go back to their separate
chambers to discuss and debate the issues surrounding
the vote count. Senator Barbara Boxer rose to the
occasion and stood with Ohio Representative Stephanie
Tubbs Jones and 29 other Representatives "to cast the
light of truth on a flawed system which must be fixed
now." The ensuing debate, at times, became a debate
over me and all of you and the fact that we would dare
make the attempt to protect our democracy.
I was blown away when Representative Maxine Waters
took to the floor and said, "Mr. Speaker and members,
I dedicate my objection to Ohio's electoral votes to
Mr. Michael Moore, the producer of the documentary
'9/11' and I thank him for educating the world on the
threats to our democracy and the proceedings of this
house on the acceptance of the electoral college votes
for the 2000 presidential election."
I am honored to the point of embarrassment because it
is Maxine Waters who deserves thanks for defending our
most basic right, not once, but twice.

David Swanson, ILCA: Nearly two hours later, the
Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr., took the stage -- the
final speaker before the crowd of about 300 activists
in orange clothes (as worn in the Ukraine) headed down
Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol. Jackson told
the crowd - to shouts and cheers, and in some cases
tears - that Boxer would be joined by Senators Chris
Dodd, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, and Barak Obama.
>From the House, Jackson said, Congressman John Conyers
would challenge the Ohio vote, with the support of
Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Dennis Kucinich, Jesse Jackson
Jr., Maxine Waters (who also spoke at the morning
rally), Robert Scott, Mel Watt, and Jerrold Nadler.
Senator John Kerry, Jackson said, was in Baghdad. "And
we need him here in Washington today. Those who cannot
lead today cannot lead in 2006 or 2008. This is the
moment of truth!" Jackson spoke, as many of the
speakers did, of building a coalition of blacks and
progressives. The cheers cannot have been missed
inside the walls of the White House.

Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr., Letter to Congress: Today,
you are being asked to certify the reported votes of
the Electoral College even though the status of the
Ohio electors is still the subject of the meritorious
election contest. You are being asked to do so on the
basis of one or more of the following three fallacies:
1) The faith-based neocon fallacy that vote counts do
not have to be independently verified.
2) The fallacy that Karl Rove is a nice guy/clean
campaigner, and those who suspect otherwise with
respect to this election which Bush was expected to
lose, are conspiracy theorists.
3) The rule of power fallacy which exempts those in
power from the rule of law and the rules of evidence.

LNS Subscriber's Letter to the Editor: We all know that the election was screwey on Nov.2, 2000 when the exit polls suddenly meant nothing, when victory was claimed before electoral points added up, when it all came down to Florida civil rights be damned. Constitution be damned by the Supreme Court Justices who selected a president. And yet not one senator had courage to stand up for democracy. But not this time. Instant replay OHIO 2005. Oh, say, can you see...that Senator Boxer believes in the democratic process? Not one republican is really refudiating the truth that Conyers presented when his investigation revealed the covert hacking fraud of Triad's voting machines. No one can refute the obvious voter supression in OHIO 2005. All of those beautiful Americans standing in line for hours, past midnight to vote. This is why it is called voter suppression. And again the African Americans are targeted. This is why its called racism. Yes this is America. Thank Senator Barbara Boxer for her brave declaration of Independence in the face of opposition. The opposition that can lie so well but cannot refudiate the truth with truth. She is American democracy without fear and un-craven. Thank her for a backbone like Atlas. Thank her for representing what apparently is soon to be lost, America.

Restore the Sanctity of the Vote! Restore the Freedom of the Press! Restore the Republic!

http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010805X.shtml
Heroes
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 07 January 2005
"I think of a hero as someone who understands the
degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom."

- Bob Dylan
As one of the journalists privileged to be able to
report on the events which culminated in Thursday’s
challenge to the Ohio Electors, I have had the chance
to meet and observe a whole crowd of remarkable
people. They deserve to be recognized.
David Cobb and Michael Badnarik: The presidential
candidates for the Green Party and Libertarian Party
deserve the lion’s share of praise and credit for the
events of Thursday January 6th. Before anyone else
came within a mile of pushing the pile towards some
kind of national reckoning regarding the election
‘irregularities’ in Ohio, Cobb and Badnarik had their
shoulders down and were throwing weight. Their
lawsuits in Ohio may develop into a truly significant
process, particularly if their motions to preserve
evidence, examine the voting machines and depose the
election players are allowed to proceed. The outcome
and ultimate results of Thursday’s Electoral challenge
may still be in the wind, but one thing is certain:
Cobb and Badnarik forced the Democrats to do the right
thing, and that makes Thursday a banner day for third
parties in America.
Jon Bonifaz and Cliff Arnebeck: These two attorneys
are at the heart of the Cobb/Badnarik legal effort in
Ohio. In both the Ohio state court and the Federal
court, they are working to bring these challenges to a
fruitful conclusion. Bonifaz and Arnebeck have also
been central in elevating public awareness of the
problems we endure in our election process, and worked
diligently to educate members of congress about what
we face.
Bev Harris and Andy Stephenson: The two pillars of
BlackBoxVoting.org, Bev and Andy basically killed
themselves over the two years before the 2004 election
to bring public attention to the catastrophic problems
involved in ‘electronic voting.’ I have clear memories
of crossing paths with Andy in Seattle, and remember
being amazed that he was still on his feet. The bags
under his eyes could have had ‘Samsonite’ stamped on
them, but still he kept on. There has recently been a
falling-out among the BlackBoxVoting crew, and I take
no position whatsoever on that sad little soap opera.
Whatever you may think about that, the fact remains
that Bev and Andy were the first, and the best,
advocates for election reform regarding these new
machines.
Rep. John Conyers and his Judiciary staff: The ranking
minority member of the Judiciary Committee played a
central role in orchestrating the events which
culminated in Thursday’s challenge. He organized
hearings in Washington and Ohio to highlight the
problems with the November election, educated his
fellow members, and released a watershed report on the
issues that will serve as a guide for any and all
future actions. Conyers and his staff got the chariot
rolling up on the Hill, and everyone you saw stand up
and speak Thursday in Congress were basically hitching
a ride with him.
Reverend Jesse Jackson: The motivation and energy
brought to this cause by Jackson in recent weeks
cannot be overstated. Reverend Jackson preached,
cajoled, browbeat and pushed to make sure the
challenge took place on Thursday. His presence in this
struggle represents a new day, a combination of the
mostly-white progressive reform movement and the
African-American civil rights movement. This new
coalition is going to have a lot to say and do over
the coming weeks and months, and may come to be the
decisive factor in the fight to make sure every vote
counts, and every vote is counted.
Tim Carpenter and Kevin Spidel: These two men, who
make up the backbone of Progressive Democrats of
America, came out of the Kucinich campaign. Carpenter
the former deputy campaign manager and Spidel the
former national field organizer used the skills and
contacts they developed in that campaign to bring
enormous popular attention to the problems with the
2004 election. Both men have gone with out sleep for
months and have spent countless hours on the road to
push this issue.
Senator Barbara Boxer: It took a good degree of
courage for Senator Boxer to stand up on Thursday and
vote against the certification of the Ohio Electors.
In the House, Republican Representatives accused her
of aiding terrorism and betraying our troops in Iraq.
Though such accusations are utter balderdash, they do
carry a sting. In 2000, no Senator would stand with
the Congressional Black Caucus to challenge what
happened in Florida. Boxer, on Thursday, removed that
stain, and is to be commended.
You the People: The greatest heroes in this process
have been the ordinary Americans – the teachers and
lawyers and builders and students – who took the time
to write and call and fax and email members of
congress in such volume that ultimately, the demand
for action could not be ignored. By Thursday morning,
every avenue of communication on Capitol Hill had
become totally paralyzed by the amount of incoming
messages from people who wanted to see something done.
The other names on this list played their part, but
were it not for you the people, their efforts would
have come to nothing. It was an awe-inspiring
performance, and was the reason why Thursday’s
challenge happened.
There is a debate taking place now as to what, if
anything, happened in congress on Thursday. Some feel
that the failure of any Senator to stand with Boxer
obviates the whole process. Others believe Thursday
was a good step forward, the opening of a national
dialogue on election reform, and proof that the people
can force congress to act.
At the end of the day, however, I believe Thursday was
a victory because of the people I have listed above,
and because of all the other heroes I failed to name.
All these horses are running together at speed, and
have proven they can get things done. If you believe
in the cause of election reform, be warmed by the
knowledge that these men and women are out there,
working for you, and their efforts have only just
begun.

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://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010705V.shtml
Why I Must Object
Senator Boxer
t r u t h o u t | Statement
Thursday 06 January 2005
Statement on her objection to the certification of
Ohio's electoral votes.
For most of us in the Senate and the House, we have
spent our lives fighting for things we believe in -
always fighting to make our nation better.
We have fought for social justice. We have fought for
economic justice. We have fought for environmental
justice. We have fought for criminal justice.
Now we must add a new fight - the fight for electoral
justice.
Every citizen of this country who is registered to
vote should be guaranteed that their vote matters,
that their vote is counted, and that in the voting
booth of their community, their vote has as much
weight as the vote of any Senator, any Congressperson,
any President, any cabinet member, or any CEO of any
Fortune 500 Corporation.
I am sure that every one of my colleagues - Democrat,
Republican, and Independent - agrees with that
statement. That in the voting booth, every one is
equal.
So now it seems to me that under the Constitution of
the United States, which guarantees the right to vote,
we must ask:
Why did voters in Ohio wait hours in the rain to vote?
Why were voters at Kenyan College, for example, made
to wait in line until nearly 4 a.m. to vote because
there were only two machines for 1300 voters?
Why did poor and predominantly African-American
communities have disproportionately long waits?
Why in Franklin County did election officials only use
2,798 machines when they said they needed 5,000? Why
did they hold back 68 machines in warehouses? Why were
42 of those machines in predominantly African-American
districts?
Why did, in Columbus area alone, an estimated 5,000 to
10,000 voters leave polling places, out of
frustration, without having voted? How many more never
bothered to vote after they heard about this?
Why is it when 638 people voted at a precinct in
Franklin County, a voting machine awarded 4,258 extra
votes to George Bush. Thankfully, they fixed it - but
how many other votes did the computers get wrong?
Why did Franklin County officials reduce the number of
electronic voting machines in downtown precincts,
while adding them in the suburbs? This also led to
long lines.
In Cleveland, why were there thousands of provisional
ballots disqualified after poll workers gave faulty
instructions to voters?
Because of this, and voting irregularities in so many
other places, I am joining with Congresswoman
Stephanie Tubbs Jones to cast the light of truth on a
flawed system which must be fixed now.
Our democracy is the centerpiece of who we are as a
nation. And it is the fondest hope of all Americans
that we can help bring democracy to every corner of
the world.
As we try to do that, and as we are shedding the blood
of our military to this end, we must realize that we
lose so much credibility when our own electoral system
needs so much improvement.
Yet, in the past four years, this Congress has not
done everything it should to give confidence to all of
our people their votes matter.
After passing the Help America Vote Act, nothing more
was done.
A year ago, Senators Graham, Clinton and I introduced
legislation that would have required that electronic
voting systems provide a paper record to verify a
vote. That paper trail would be stored in a secure
ballot box and invaluable in case of a recount.
There is no reason why the Senate should not have
taken up and passed that bill. At the very least, a
hearing should have been held. But it never happened.
Before I close, I want to thank my colleague from the
House, Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones.
Her letter to me asking for my intervention was
substantive and compelling.
As I wrote to her, I was particularly moved by her
point that it is virtually impossible to get official
House consideration of the whole issue of election
reform, including these irregularities.
The Congresswoman has tremendous respect in her state
of Ohio, which is at the center of this fight.
Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones was a judge for 10
years. She was a prosecutor for 8 years. She was
inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in 2002.
I am proud to stand with her in filing this objection.

-------
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
January 7, 2005
Dear Friends,
Something historic happened yesterday. For the first
time since 1877 a member of the House and a member of
the Senate stood up together to object to the outcome
of a presidential election.
This is the first step on a necessary road toward
making sure that everyone is allowed to vote and that
every vote is counted (something we did not see in
2000 or 2004) so the next time around ALL of us can be
confident, when the election results come in, that
they reflect the will of the people, not the whim of
mechanical error and human obstruction.

Unlike 2000, when the black members of Congress were
told to sit down and shut up, this time a senator had
the courage to stand with them, as the law requires,
to force Congress to go back to their separate
chambers to discuss and debate the issues surrounding
the vote count. Senator Barbara Boxer rose to the
occasion and stood with Ohio Representative Stephanie
Tubbs Jones and 29 other Representatives "to cast the
light of truth on a flawed system which must be fixed
now." The ensuing debate, at times, became a debate
over me and all of you and the fact that we would dare
make the attempt to protect our democracy.
I was blown away when Representative Maxine Waters
took to the floor and said, "Mr. Speaker and members,
I dedicate my objection to Ohio's electoral votes to
Mr. Michael Moore, the producer of the documentary
'9/11' and I thank him for educating the world on the
threats to our democracy and the proceedings of this
house on the acceptance of the electoral college votes
for the 2000 presidential election."
I am honored to the point of embarrassment because it
is Maxine Waters who deserves thanks for defending our
most basic right, not once, but twice.
Coming out of the gates like this in the very first
week of session sent a strong message that we are not
going to be pushed around. If the Republicans think
the next four years are going to be a cakewalk,
they've got another thing coming. With Michigan
Representative John Conyers leading the charge, we
showed them something not seen in over 120 years. And
we're just getting started!
Congratulations to the tens of thousands of you who
called, faxed, and e-mailed Barbara Boxer and other
senators. You have shown the world, with the strength
of your convictions, that the movement toward a truly
representative democracy will not be stopped in its
tracks. Yesterday's actions will be marked by history
books as a turning point for the electoral process and
for a Democratic Party that has for too long sat back
and taken it on the chin.
Your voices have echoed all the way up to the hallowed
halls of Congress and for that, you deserve thanks
more than anyone.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com
P.S. If you want to see portions of what took place,
check out the video clips and transcripts on the
website.

Five Senators and Eight House Members to Challenge
Election

Presidential Election 2004 / From ILCA Board and Staff
Posted by DavidSwanson on Jan 06, 2005 - 12:11 PM

Five Senators and Eight House Members to Challenge
Election
By David Swanson, ILCA

Four Senators Join Boxer, Seven House Members Join
Conyers

Senator Barbara Boxer was the first, and Kim Gandy of
the National Organization of Women announced it at a
rally in Lafayette Square Park Thursday morning,
across from the White House.

Senator Boxer would be joining Congressman John
Conyers and other House Members in challenging the
electoral votes from Ohio in a joint session of
Congress called to certify the election.

Nearl two hours later, the Reverend Jesse Jackson,
Sr., took the stage -- the final speaker before the
crowd of about 300 activists in orange clothes (as
worn in the Ukraine) headed down Pennsylvania Avenue
toward the Capitol. Jackson told the crowd - to shouts
and cheers, and in some cases tears - that Boxer would
be joined by Senators Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton,
Harry Reid, and Barak Obama. From the House, Jackson
said, Congressman John Conyers would challenge the
Ohio vote, with the support of Stephanie Tubbs Jones,
Dennis Kucinich, Jesse Jackson Jr., Maxine Waters (who
also spoke at the morning rally), Robert Scott, Mel
Watt, and Jerrold Nadler.

Senator John Kerry, Jackson said, was in Baghdad. "And
we need him here in Washington today. Those who cannot
lead today cannot lead in 2006 or 2008. This is the
moment of truth!" Jackson spoke, as many of the
speakers did, of building a coalition of blacks and
progressives. The cheers cannot have been missed
inside the walls of the White House.

Jackson left by car to go lobby senators. Phone both
of yours right now -- of either party -- right now!!
(202) 224-3121 or 1-800-839-5276.

This article is from ILCA Online
http://www.ilcaonline.org/

The URL for this story is:
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1445

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1445

Election 2004

Arnebeck letter to Congress re Presidential Electoral
Challenge
by Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr.
January 6, 2005

Dear United States Senator or Member of Congress:
Today, you are being asked to certify the reported
votes of the Electoral College even though the status
of the Ohio electors is still the subject of the
meritorious election contest. You are being asked to
do so on the basis of one or more of the following
three fallacies:

1) The faith-based neocon fallacy that vote counts do
not have to be independently verified.

This new "con" holds that facts may be overcome by
assertions of faith by those in power. Thus, the Bush
campaign co-chair for Ohio and Secretary of State
Kenneth Blackwell need not count 106,000 as yet
uncounted Ohio ballots, because he has faith they
would not make a difference in the reported 119,000
vote difference even thought these uncounted votes all
are in areas of Ohio that demonstrated strong support
for John Kerry, and because, as Secretary of State he
has the power not to count them.

A corollary of this fallacy is that Ken Blackwell need
not answer questions under oath. The answers to such
questions might upset peoples' faith in the new "con."

2) The fallacy that Karl Rove is a nice guy/clean
campaigner, and those who suspect otherwise with
respect to this election which Bush was expected to
lose, are conspiracy theorists.

Karl Rove fights hard for what he wants . . . a worthy
quality. However, no one has accused him of being a
stickler for cleanliness in his campaigns.

Yet, you are being asked to believe that fewer
machines and longer lines in Afro-American precincts,
the scandalously lower vote counts in Afro-American
precincts, the confusion over precincts and ballots
and counts and the disproportionate requirement that
Afro-American voters vote provisionally all as
unintentional glitches.

You are being asked to believe that the biggest glitch
of all, that is Ohio and national vote counts which
are realistically impossible in light of the exit poll
results, is accidental

Those of Jewish faith and Afro-American ethnicity are
being labeled as conspiracy theorists rather than
people with a special insight based upon historical
maltreatment in institutions like slavery and the
Holocaust, for their belief that anybody intentionally
directed all these glitches just at them.

3) The rule of power fallacy which exempts those in
power from the rule of law and the rules of evidence.

This fallacy is based upon the double standard where
rules applied to others do not apply to those in
power. America, because it is the world's military
superpower, may use exit polls to verify or challenge
the validity of elections in other countries, such as
the Ukraine, Mexico and others, but exit polling may
not be used to challenge election results reported in
the United States.

In the United States the party in power, that is, the
Bush-Republican Party, may exempt itself from rules
which apply to Democrats and those not in control of
the Bush-Republican Party.

The rule of power fallacy is the most important of
these three fallacies because it teaches Democrats
like John Kerry, John Edwards and Terry McAuliffe that
there is no point in challenging Bush Republicans
based upon law or fact because Bush Republicans
control the Congress, the Courts and the Presidency
and will use that control to impose their will no
matter what may be the facts or the law.

In my experience over the past four years in
successfully litigating on behalf of the non-partisan
Alliance for Democracy in partnership with Common
Cause/Ohio as Chairman of its Legal Affairs Committee
against the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber
of Commerce of the United States neither the
candidates nor the party that have been targeted by
the approximately $14 million of illegal corporate
money have been involved as parties or public
supporters of the litigation. In politics the
targeted candidates and parties place a higher
priority upon avoiding the appearance being sore
losers than upon seeking the true facts and upholding
the rule of law.

It does not surprise me, based upon my most recent
election litigation experience, that John Kerry and
the Democratic Party which appear to have been the
intended victim of the most massive election fraud in
history are not contesting this election.

In contrast to the intended victims of this fraud, you
as a United States Senator, whether a member of the
Democratic or Republican Party are called upon to
judge this election not as a party but as a judge.
You are bound by your oath to uphold the Constitution
to judge this election independently and objectively
with regard to the facts and the law.

Ohio voters who formally contest the November 2, 2004,
contest the election not only for its irregularities,
but also because the evidence shows that a majority of
Ohio voters and a majority of American voters voted
for John Kerry. We assert that the evidence for this
meets, not only the clear and convincing standard of
Ohio law for an election contest, but also the "beyond
a reasonable doubt" standard of criminal law.

Ohio's Secretary of State has refused to answer
questions under oath as to either the blatant
irregularities or the results he has certified. He is
stonewalling, on the apparent belief that Congress
will simply proceed to count Ohio's electoral votes
today, along with the votes of all the other states,
and the matter will be over. He is looking to Congress
to free him and others from responding to the
overwhelming evidence that the Ohio election results
he certified are fraudulent and that John Kerry won
Ohio and therefore the presidency. In the 2000
presidential election the U.S. Supreme Court took
responsibility for stopping the verification and
counting Florida votes for purposes of the
certification of the Florida presidential electors.
The Congress then took responsibility for accepting,
without challenge, the unverified electoral votes of
Florida.

A consortium of news organizations took the initiative
to count all the Florida votes after the inauguration
of George W. Bush. Thus, history now records the fact
that Albert Gore actually won the Florida popular vote
had all votes been properly counted.

Based upon the evidence, uncontroverted by any sworn
testimony whatsoever, if the Ohio litigation
challenging the Ohio presidential vote is allowed to
proceed, it will promptly establish as a matter of
fact that John Kerry won Ohio and Presidency.

All of the Ohio votes, whether cast or simply
tabulated on computerized voting machines, can and
should be promptly counted by independent companies
whose tabulating equipment, personnel, procedures and
software are fully transparent to both political
parties and the independent nonpartisan groups that
support an honest Ohio election.

For us to complete our non-partisan job of litigating
the Ohio election result we need your help
in challenging the electoral votes of every state,
until due process in our litigation can be completed.
If instead, you accept the reported electoral college
votes today or limit your challenge only to the Ohio
vote, it appears likely that the Ohio Supreme Court
will dismiss our election challenge as moot because
the challenged Ohio electors will today have been
fully discharged by the completed act of Congress.

Because of the importance of this matter, history
requires that the Ohio 2004 presidential election
votes ultimately be accurately counted. If that
happens after an inauguration, then, based upon the
evidence at hand, history would record that, for a
second time, George W. Bush would have been elected on
the basis of an incorrect count of the votes that were
actually cast and that, for a second time the Congress
certified an inaccurate Presidential election result.

Sincerely yours,
Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr.

Chairman of the Ohio Honest Election Campaign and
Co-Chair of the Alliance for Democracy Counsel of
Record for the Contestors in Rev. Bill Moss et al. v.
Bush et al., Supreme Court of Ohio, Case No. 04-2088
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1068

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LNS Post Coup II Supplement (1/6/05)

Five more US soldiers have died in Iraq. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich. Nothing else. No, the world is not safer. No, the US is not safer. No, the Iraqis are not better off. Nor did those five US soldiers die for democracy in Iraq. That is a cruel and bloody lie. Did they die for democracy in America? Will five US Senators stand up today, one for each US soldier’s life wasted in Iraq yesterday? Will even one Senator stand up to challenge this second consecutive theft of a national election? Or will they choose luxury over liberty and comfort over conscience? Will they settle for keeping the privledges of rank during this national lockdown? Will they accept the role of a ceremonial, faux opposition that the Bush Cabal, its wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party and the US regimestream news media has cast for them? Five US soldiers died yesterday -- for nothing. Will five US Senators stand up today -- for something?

Conyers Report: We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousand of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements and constitutional standards.
This report, therefore, makes three recommendations: (1) consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution concerning the counting of electoral votes by Congress and Federal law implementing these requirements, there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from the State of Ohio; (2) Congress should engage in further hearings into the widespread irregularities reported in Ohio; we believe the problems are serious enough to warrant the appointment of a joint select Committee of the House and Senate to investigate and report back to the Members; and (3) Congress needs to enact election reform to restore our people's trust in our democracy. These changes should include putting in place more specific federal protections for federal elections, particularly in the areas of audit capability for electronic voting machines and casting and counting of provisional ballots, as well as other needed changes to federal and state election laws.
With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.

Jesse Jackson, Chicago Sun-Times: In Ohio, the gulf between exit polls and counted votes is vast and glaring. Blatant discrimination in the distribution of voting machines ensured long lines in inner-city and working-class precincts that favored John Kerry, while the exurban districts that favored President Bush had no similar problems.
Systematic efforts were made to suppress and challenge the new voters in Kerry precincts, whether students or African Americans. Some precincts were certified with more votes than the number registered; others were certified with preposterously low turnouts. Voting machines, produced by a company headed by a vowed Bush supporter, provide no paper record. Ohio's secretary of state, the inappropriately partisan head of the state's Bush campaign, has resisted any systematic recount of the ballots.
The systematic bias and potential for fraud is unmistakable. An in-depth investigation is vital - and the partisan secretary of state has opposed it every step of the way. In this context, Conyers and his colleagues in the House are serving the nation's best interests in demanding an investigation of the irregularities in Ohio, and objecting to business as usual in counting the vote.
If Harry Reid, the new leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, has any sense, he will lead members of the caucus to support their colleagues from the House and demand a debate that will expose the irregularities in Ohio. If Kerry wants to establish his continued leadership, he will stand first to join with Conyers and demand a debate.

Michael Moore: A very embarrassing moment during the last session of Congress occurred in the first week when none of you would allow the members of Congress who were black to have the floor to object to the Florida vote count. Remember that? You thought no one would ever notice, didn't you? You certainly lucked out that night when the networks decided not to show how you shut down every single member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
No such luck this year. Everyone now knows about that moment of shame. Thank you? You’re welcome.
But this Thursday, at 1:00pm, you will have a chance to redeem yourself.

William Rivers Pitt, www.truthout.org: Four years ago, standing up was politically dangerous. The country had just endured a month of mayhem and charges and countercharges and overheated rhetoric. The Supreme Court had ruled, a judicial version of the loud voice from Mount Ararat that cannot be contravened. The tablets had been handed down.
The mainstream news media had launched into the soothing refrain, "This is an orderly transition of power...this is an orderly transition of power," and a Senator standing up in Congress to swat the hornet's nest again would have, bluntly, gotten their butt kicked up between their shoulderblades. Recall the line from the film ‘The Right Stuff': "It takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV." Four years ago, no one was feeling special enough to volunteer. Do not forget, as well, that candidate Gore asked his Senate colleagues not to join the CBC, so that they all might "heal the country."
The politics this time around are comparably dicey. Mainstream media coverage of election irregularities in Ohio and elsewhere has been meager at best. What coverage there has been has managed to be simultaneously disparaging and uninformed. Take, for example, the editorial from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer directed today at Rep. Tubbs-Jones and Rev. Jesse Jackson: "(Kerry) had the good grace and sense to acknowledge the abundantly obvious, go home and resume his life. You might consider emulating his excellent example, because what you are doing now - redoubling your effort in the face of a settled outcome - will only drive you further toward the political fringe. And that long grass already is tickling your knees."
A Senator who stands with Conyers and the CBC risks marginalization. A Senator who stands with Conyers risks blowing their credibility to smithereens on the eve of a fight over Bush's wacky judicial nominations, and on the eve of a fight over the very existence of the minority's ability to filibuster. A Senator who stands with Conyers and the CBC risks being targeted for defeat by an increasingly effective GOP machine.
The difference this time around, however, cannot be overstated, and is the reason why a Senator must step forward. Four years ago, the argument was about replacing Bush with Gore. This time, despite the earnest desires of millions of people, such an option is not on the table. The process itself, barring another edict from Ararat, precludes the notion that someone besides Bush will take the oath on January 20th. If Conyers and company stand and object with the support of a Senator, the Electoral College hearing will adjourn, and both the House and Senate will hear two hours of testimony on the reasons behind the objection. After the testimony, the House and Senate will have a straight up-or-down vote on whether to entertain the objection. Given the GOP dominance in both chambers, the outcome of such a vote is preordained.

Capital Times Editorial (Madison, WI): Conyers will be joined by several members of the House, and we hope that U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, who has previously joined Conyers in expressing concern about the Ohio irregularities, will be among them. More importantly, we hope that both Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will join members of the House in objecting to the certification of the Ohio results.
Under the rules, when the electoral votes of each state are announced, the president of the Senate calls for objections. To force a debate, a written objection must be signed by at least one senator and one member of the House. If that standard is met, the Senate withdraws from the House chamber, and each body engages in a two-hour debate on the matter. Unless both the Senate and the House separately agree to the objection, the challenged electoral votes are counted.
Considering the partisan divide in both the House and Senate, which favors the Republican Party, it is unlikely that either chamber would agree to the objection. Thus, the raising of an objection is not going to block President Bush from gaining a second term. Rather, it would focus attention on legitimate concerns that have been raised regarding the Ohio vote and count, and on broader concerns about America's inconsistent and often flawed election processes - which vary so radically from state to state that genuine equal protection concerns arise.
Indeed, the tightly focused debate that would follow upon acceptance of an objection could be just what is needed to get this Congress, and this country, talking about the steps that must be taken to ensure that American elections provide a true representation of the people's will. Yet as of now, no senators have expressed their intention to sign the statement of objection to certifying the Ohio results. It is for this reason that we urge Feingold and Kohl to join Conyers and members of the House in forcing a debate.

Robert McChesney, www.commondreams.org: Corporate media's failures constitute what legendary journalist Bill Moyers describes as the greatest threat to our nation: "Democracy can't exist without an informed public." Most Americans don't know that the presidential candidates and allied groups shattered all campaign finance records in 2004, spending $2 billion. That's right: billion. Most of that money bought political ads from the biggest media companies ... who gave us back deplorable election coverage.
The gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and more than 45 million Americans are living without health insurance, while Congress guts the critical programs that are the fabric of our democracy. Public education, Social Security, environmental protection, affordable housing, and accessible health care are all at risk.
Most Americans don't know the consequences of our ballooning $521 billion deficit and $7.1 trillion national debt. The media are silent as Congress dishes out some $125 billion every year in corporate welfare. We aren't told that global terrorism has continued to rise each year since the attacks of 9/11, while a full 49 percent of Americans still believe that Iraq had WMDs, and 52 percent believe Saddam Hussein was actively supporting Al Qaeda….
Millions of citizens understand that our bankrupt media system is the direct result of government policies made in the public's name but without our consent. Unprecedented numbers of citizens joined together and organized to win a number of historic victories in 2004, proving that public participation is indeed the answer to the media problem. A genuine media reform movement is gaining momentum and getting results.
In 2004, the FCC's attempts to loosen ownership limits to let Big Media get even bigger were rejected by the courts and Congress after massive public opposition. Sinclair Broadcast Group was forced to retract its brazenly biased Stolen Honor "news" program days before the election. Almost every egregious action by big media corporations - once met with muted opposition - was greeted with a swift response from an increasingly unified, bipartisan and vocal public.
But that's just the beginning. A growing number of citizens are taking action to stop media conglomerates from getting bigger; to strengthen alternative, independent and non-commercial media; to force media companies to serve the public interest; to limit advertising directed at our children; and to make access to communications affordable and universal.

Restore the Sanctity of the Vote!
Restore a Free, Independent, Aggressive Press!
Restore the Republic!

Preserving Democracy:
What Went Wrong in Ohio
Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff
Wednesday 05 January 2005
Executive Summary
Representative John Conyers, Jr., the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked the Democratic staff to conduct an investigation into irregularities reported in the Ohio presidential election and to prepare a Status Report concerning the same prior to the Joint Meeting of Congress scheduled for January 6, 2005, to receive and consider the votes of the electoral college for president. The following Report includes a brief chronology of the events; summarizes the relevant background law; provides detailed findings (including factual findings and legal analysis); and describes various recommendations for acting on this Report going forward.
We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively, these irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousand of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements and constitutional standards.
This report, therefore, makes three recommendations: (1) consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution concerning the counting of electoral votes by Congress and Federal law implementing these requirements, there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from the State of Ohio; (2) Congress should engage in further hearings into the widespread irregularities reported in Ohio; we believe the problems are serious enough to warrant the appointment of a joint select Committee of the House and Senate to investigate and report back to the Members; and (3) Congress needs to enact election reform to restore our people's trust in our democracy. These changes should include putting in place more specific federal protections for federal elections, particularly in the areas of audit capability for electronic voting machines and casting and counting of provisional ballots, as well as other needed changes to federal and state election laws.
With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.
First, in the run up to election day, the following actions by Mr. Blackwell, the Republican Party and election officials disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens, predominantly minority and Democratic voters:
• The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters. This was illustrated by the fact that the Washington Post reported that in Franklin County, "27 of the 30 wards with the most machines per registered voter showed majorities for Bush. At the other end of the spectrum, six of the seven wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for Kerry." (See Powell and Slevin, supra). Among other things, the conscious failure to provide sufficient voting machinery violates the Ohio Revised Code which requires the Boards of Elections to "provide adequate facilities at each polling place for conducting the election."
• Mr. Blackwell's decision to restrict provisional ballots resulted in the disenfranchisement of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of voters, again predominantly minority and Democratic voters. Mr. Blackwell's decision departed from past Ohio law on provisional ballots, and there is no evidence that a broader construction would have led to any significant disruption at the polling places, and did not do so in other states.
• Mr. Blackwell's widely reviled decision to reject voter registration applications based on paper weight may have resulted in thousands of new voters not being registered in time for the 2004 election.
• The Ohio Republican Party's decision to engage in preelection "caging" tactics, selectively targeting 35,000 predominantly minority voters for intimidation had a negative impact on voter turnout. The Third Circuit found these activities to be illegal and in direct violation of consent decrees barring the Republican Party from targeting minority voters for poll challenges.
• The Ohio Republican Party's decision to utilize thousands of partisan challengers concentrated in minority and Democratic areas likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of legal voters, who were not only intimidated, but became discouraged by the long lines. Shockingly, these disruptions were publicly predicted and acknowledged by Republican officials: Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party, admitted the challenges "can't help but create chaos, longer lines and frustration."
• Mr. Blackwell's decision to prevent voters who requested absentee ballots but did not receive them on a timely basis from being able to receive provisional ballots 6 likely disenfranchised thousands, if not tens of thousands, of voters, particularly seniors. A federal court found Mr. Blackwell's order to be illegal and in violation of HAVA.
Second, on election day, there were numerous unexplained anomalies and irregularities involving hundreds of thousands of votes that have yet to be accounted for:
• There were widespread instances of intimidation and misinformation in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection, Due Process and the Ohio right to vote. Mr. Blackwell's apparent failure to institute a single investigation into these many serious allegations represents a violation of his statutory duty under Ohio law to investigate election irregularities.
• We learned of improper purging and other registration errors by election officials that likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters statewide. The Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition projects that in Cuyahoga County alone over 10,000 Ohio citizens lost their right to vote as a result of official registration errors.
• There were 93,000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast for president, the vast majority of which have yet to be inspected. The problem was particularly acute in two precincts in Montgomery County which had an undervote rate of over 25% each - accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood in line to vote, but purportedly declined to vote for president.
• There were numerous, significant unexplained irregularities in other counties throughout the state: (i) in Mahoning county at least 25 electronic machines transferred an unknown number of Kerry votes to the Bush column; (ii) Warren County locked out public observers from vote counting citing an FBI warning about a potential terrorist threat, yet the FBI states that it issued no such warning; (iii) the voting records of Perry county show significantly more votes than voters in some precincts, significantly less ballots than voters in other precincts, and voters casting more than one ballot; (iv) in Butler county a down ballot and underfunded Democratic State Supreme Court candidate implausibly received more votes than the best funded Democratic Presidential candidate in history; (v) in Cuyahoga county, poll worker error may have led to little known thirdparty candidates receiving twenty times more votes than such candidates had ever received in otherwise reliably Democratic leaning areas; (vi) in Miami county, voter turnout was an improbable and highly suspect 98.55 percent, and after 100 percent of the precincts were reported, an additional 19,000 extra votes were recorded for President Bush.
Third, in the post-election period we learned of numerous irregularities in tallying provisional ballots and conducting and completing the recount that disenfanchised thousands of voters and call the entire recount procedure into question (as of this date the recount is still not complete):
• Mr. Blackwell's failure to articulate clear and consistent standards for the counting of provisional ballots resulted in the loss of thousands of predominantly minority votes. In Cuyahoga County alone, the lack of guidance and the ultimate narrow and arbitrary review standards significantly contributed to the fact that 8,099 out of 24,472 provisional ballots were ruled invalid, the highest proportion in the state.
• Mr. Blackwell's failure to issue specific standards for the recount contributed to a lack of uniformity in violation of both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clauses. We found innumerable irregularities in the recount in violation of Ohio law, including (i) counties which did not randomly select the precinct samples; (ii) counties which did not conduct a full hand court after the 3% hand and machine counts did not match; (iii) counties which allowed for irregular marking of ballots and failed to secure and store ballots and machinery; and (iv) counties which prevented witnesses for candidates from observing the various aspects of the recount.
• The voting computer company Triad has essentially admitted that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in numerous counties to provide "cheat sheets" to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets informed election officials how many votes they should find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law.
________________________________________
Download
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010605Y.shtml

Senators Should Object to Ohio Vote
By Jesse Jackson
The Chicago Sun Times
Tuesday 04 January 2005
This Thursday in Washington Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the senior minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will formally object to the counting of the Ohio electoral vote in the 2004 presidential election. If any senator joins him, the counting of the vote is suspended and the House and the Senate must convene separately to hear the objections filed, and to vote on whether to accept them.
The grounds for the objections are clear: The irregularities in the Ohio vote and vote count are widespread and blatant. If the Ohio election were held in the Ukraine, it would not have been certified by the international community.
In Ohio, the gulf between exit polls and counted votes is vast and glaring. Blatant discrimination in the distribution of voting machines ensured long lines in inner-city and working-class precincts that favored John Kerry, while the exurban districts that favored President Bush had no similar problems.
Systematic efforts were made to suppress and challenge the new voters in Kerry precincts, whether students or African Americans. Some precincts were certified with more votes than the number registered; others were certified with preposterously low turnouts. Voting machines, produced by a company headed by a vowed Bush supporter, provide no paper record. Ohio's secretary of state, the inappropriately partisan head of the state's Bush campaign, has resisted any systematic recount of the ballots.
The systematic bias and potential for fraud is unmistakable. An in-depth investigation is vital - and the partisan secretary of state has opposed it every step of the way. In this context, Conyers and his colleagues in the House are serving the nation's best interests in demanding an investigation of the irregularities in Ohio, and objecting to business as usual in counting the vote.
If Harry Reid, the new leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, has any sense, he will lead members of the caucus to support their colleagues from the House and demand a debate that will expose the irregularities in Ohio. If Kerry wants to establish his continued leadership, he will stand first to join with Conyers and demand a debate.
Will the debate overturn the outcome of the election? That is doubtful, although the irregularities in Ohio suggest that Kerry may well have won if a true count could be had. But the debate is vital anyway. This country's elections, each run with different standards by different states, with partisan tricks, racial bias, and too often widespread incompetence, are an open scandal.
We need national standards to ensure that we get an honest count across the country. National standards, accompanied by a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to vote for all Americans, will be passed only if leaders in the Congress refuse to close their eyes to the scandal, and instead stop business as usual.
Conyers, Reid and Kerry will face harsh criticism for violating what might be called the Nixon precedent. When Kennedy beat Nixon by a few thousand votes in an election marked by irregularities in Illinois and Texas, Nixon chose not to challenge the result. Gore essentially followed that rule after the gang of five in the Supreme Court disgraced themselves by stopping the vote count in Florida. But the effect of the Nixon precedent is to provide those who would cheat with essentially a free pass. Particularly when the state officials are partisans, they can put in the fix with little fear of exposure so long as they win.
So Conyers will step up, accompanied by other courageous members of the House. They will object to the count and demand a debate. To force that debate, they need only one member of the Senate to join them. Reid should lead the entire caucus to join them. Kerry should stand alone if necessary to demand clean elections in America.
If America is to be a champion of democracy abroad, it must clean up its elections at home. If it is to complain of fraudulent and dishonest election practices abroad, it cannot condone them at home. But more important, if our own elections are to be legitimate, then they must be honest, open, with high national standards.
The time has come to stand up for clean elections, and to let it be known that massive irregularities will not go unchallenged.
________________________________________
To call all Senators toll free: 1-800-839-5276 or 1-877-762-8762.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2005-01-04
Tuesday, January 4, 2004
Just One Senator... An Open Letter to the U.S. Senate from Michael Moore
Dear Members of the U.S. Senate,
Welcome back! The 109th session of Congress has just begun. I'm watching you on C-SPAN right now and you all look so snap-happy and clean-faced. It's like the first day of school all over again, isn't it?
I have a favor to ask of you. Something isn't right with the vote from Ohio. Seems a lot of people didn't get to vote. And those who did, thousands of theirs weren't counted.
Does that seem right to you? I'm just asking. Forget about partisan politics for a moment and ask yourself if there is a more basic right, in a democracy, than the right of the people to vote AND have ALL their votes counted.
Now, I know a lot of you wish this little problem of Ohio would just go away. And many of you who wish this are Democrats. You just want to move on (no pun intended!). I can't say I blame you. It's rough to lose two elections in a row when the first one you actually won and the second one you should have won. And it seems this time around, about 3 million more Americans preferred to continue the war in Iraq and give the rich more tax breaks than those who didn't. No sense living in denial about that.
But something isn't right in Ohio and more than a dozen members of the House of Representatives believe it is worth investigating.
So on Thursday at 1:00pm, Rep. John Conyers of Detroit will rise and object to the vote count in Ohio. According to the laws of this land, he will not be allowed to speak unless at least one of you -- one member of the United States Senate -- agrees to let him have the floor.
A very embarrassing moment during the last session of Congress occurred in the first week when none of you would allow the members of Congress who were black to have the floor to object to the Florida vote count. Remember that? You thought no one would ever notice, didn't you? You certainly lucked out that night when the networks decided not to show how you shut down every single member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
No such luck this year. Everyone now knows about that moment of shame. Thank you? You’re welcome.
But this Thursday, at 1:00pm, you will have a chance to redeem yourself.
Congressman Conyers and a dozen other members of Congress have some serious questions about how the Republican secretary of state in Ohio (who was also the state’s co-chair of Bush’s reelection campaign) conducted the election on November 2. The list of possible offenses of how voters were denied access to the polls and how over a hundred thousand of their votes have yet to be counted is more than worthy of your consideration. It may not change the outcome, but you have a supreme responsibility to make sure that EVERY vote is counted. Who amongst you would disagree with that?
If you would like to read more about the specific charges, I ask that you read these two links: “Senators Should Object to Ohio Vote” —by Jesse Jackson and “Ten Preliminary Reasons Why the Bush Vote Does Not Compute, and Why Congress Must Investigate Rather Than Certify the Electoral College”. I am asking everyone on my mailing list to send you a letter joining me in this call to you to do your job and investigate what happened before you certify the vote.
It only takes one member of the House and one member of the Senate to stop the acceptance of the Electoral College vote and force a legitimate debate and investigation. Do you know why this provision is set in stone in our nation’s laws? I mean, why would we allow just two officials in a body of 535 members to throw a wrench into the works? The law exists because nothing is more sacred than the integrity of the ballot box and if there is ANY possibility of fraud or incompetence, then it MUST be addressed. Because if we don't have the vote, what are we left with?
C'mon Senators! Especially you Democrats. Here is your one shining moment of courage. Will you allow the gavel to come down on our black members of Congress once again? Or will you stand up for their right to object?
We will all be watching.
Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com
P.S. My whereabouts this week: I will be on the Today Show Thursday morning, Jay Leno on Friday night. And... the People's Choice Awards are this Sunday night, live on CBS at 9pm! Can we defeat the superheroes Spiderman, Incredibles and Shrek for best picture? A documentary??? Whoa... tune in...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010505A.shtml
Stand Up, Senator
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report
Wednesday 05 January 2004
"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out."
- Vaclav Havel
Four years ago, members of the Congressional Black Caucus ran deliberately and vociferously into a brick wall when they chose to stand and protest the deplorable election calamity in Florida. They sought the name of one Senator, just one, which they could append to their complaints. Had they gotten that one name, a debate and discussion on what happened in Florida would have taken place in the House and the Senate. No Senator came forward, and the debate never happened.
Now, four years later, another election has come and gone. Now, four years later, there are rafts of evidence which point, once again, to overwhelming disenfranchisement of minority voters. Now, four years later, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, along with several other House members, plan to stand once again and protest an election that failed to live up to the standards required of participatory democracy. Now, four years later, they seek a Senator to stand with them.
This time, a Senator must answer the call.
Four years ago, standing up was politically dangerous. The country had just endured a month of mayhem and charges and countercharges and overheated rhetoric. The Supreme Court had ruled, a judicial version of the loud voice from Mount Ararat that cannot be contravened. The tablets had been handed down.
The mainstream news media had launched into the soothing refrain, "This is an orderly transition of power...this is an orderly transition of power," and a Senator standing up in Congress to swat the hornet's nest again would have, bluntly, gotten their butt kicked up between their shoulderblades. Recall the line from the film ‘The Right Stuff': "It takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV." Four years ago, no one was feeling special enough to volunteer. Do not forget, as well, that candidate Gore asked his Senate colleagues not to join the CBC, so that they all might "heal the country."
The politics this time around are comparably dicey. Mainstream media coverage of election irregularities in Ohio and elsewhere has been meager at best. What coverage there has been has managed to be simultaneously disparaging and uninformed. Take, for example, the editorial from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer directed today at Rep. Tubbs-Jones and Rev. Jesse Jackson: "(Kerry) had the good grace and sense to acknowledge the abundantly obvious, go home and resume his life. You might consider emulating his excellent example, because what you are doing now - redoubling your effort in the face of a settled outcome - will only drive you further toward the political fringe. And that long grass already is tickling your knees."
A Senator who stands with Conyers and the CBC risks marginalization. A Senator who stands with Conyers risks blowing their credibility to smithereens on the eve of a fight over Bush's wacky judicial nominations, and on the eve of a fight over the very existence of the minority's ability to filibuster. A Senator who stands with Conyers and the CBC risks being targeted for defeat by an increasingly effective GOP machine.
The difference this time around, however, cannot be overstated, and is the reason why a Senator must step forward. Four years ago, the argument was about replacing Bush with Gore. This time, despite the earnest desires of millions of people, such an option is not on the table. The process itself, barring another edict from Ararat, precludes the notion that someone besides Bush will take the oath on January 20th. If Conyers and company stand and object with the support of a Senator, the Electoral College hearing will adjourn, and both the House and Senate will hear two hours of testimony on the reasons behind the objection. After the testimony, the House and Senate will have a straight up-or-down vote on whether to entertain the objection. Given the GOP dominance in both chambers, the outcome of such a vote is preordained.
Even if, by some miracle, both chambers vote to uphold the objections based on the merits of the testimony, and Ohio's 20 votes are removed from the Electoral College count, the waters beyond are muddy. The constitution is vague as to whether the 270 Electoral College threshold is an absolute, or whether the candidate with the most Electoral College votes is to be declared the winner, regardless of whether or not that 270-vote line is crossed. Bush would still lead Kerry 266 to 252 if Ohio were subtracted, and in all likelihood, would carry the day with that lead.
The difference this time politically for any Senator who stands up is that this fight is not about and must not be about replacing Bush with Kerry. This is about making sure that the greatest democracy in the history of the world lives up to that title. Rev. Jesse Jackson put it best when he said, "If America is to be a champion of democracy abroad, it must clean up its elections at home. If it is to complain of fraudulent and dishonest election practices abroad, it cannot condone them at home. But more important, if our own elections are to be legitimate, then they must be honest, open, with high national standards."
A Senator must stand up with Conyers and open the door to testimony on this election in both chambers of Congress. A Senator must stand up so a national dialogue on how we run elections is created and carried forward. That dialogue must include:
• The fact that Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell engineered a series of outlandish maneuvers designed to deny citizens the ability to vote before and during the election, including junking vast numbers of new voter applications because they were not on postcard-weight paper, by making sure that heavily Democratic and minority voting districts did not have enough voting machines to accommodate the number of voters who came out, and by revoking access to public records of the election to citizens attempting to lawfully audit the poll books;
• The fact that Warren County election officials shuttered the public counting of votes based upon their claim that the FBI warned that terrorists were coming to attack them. No FBI agent anywhere on the planet has acknowledged issuing this warning, and the ballots in Warren County were subsequently left unguarded and unprotected;
• The fact that a county in Ohio shows more votes than registered voters; the fact that another Ohio county shows an underfunded Democratic State Supreme Court candidate getting more votes than an incredibly-funded Democratic presidential candidate; the fact that one machine alone in one county gave Bush 3,893 more votes than he actually got; the fact that another county registered an unheard-of 98% turnout rate, and that county subsequently handed Bush 19,000 extra votes; the fact that in another county, at least 25 voting machines transferred an unknown number of Kerry votes to Bush.
This list goes on, and on, and on.
Protecting the right to vote is not and must not be a partisan issue in this country. The fact that candidates of both parties too often acquiesce to the so-called Nixon Rule on elections - a tacit agreement not to argue the outcome of questionable elections, which came about after the riddled-with-inconsistencies 1960 presidential race - means that people who do violate the public trust by violating the sanctity of the ballot are safe from censure, especially if their actions lead to a victory.
In a perfect world, all 100 Senators would stand up because of one simple fact: They are where they are because of the vote, and if they do not protect that vote, it may be them looking at the short end of the stick come some future election day. All 100 should stand, but it only takes one. It only takes one to move us closer to that more perfect union, where every vote counts and every vote is counted, where the citizenry can trust that the people leading them were properly chosen, where partisans acting in the dark of night to thwart that simple, admirable goal are exposed and purged from our system.
Stand up, Senator. Stand up.
________________________________________
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.'
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http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010505W.shtml

Published on Wednesday, January 5, 2005 by the Capital Times / Madison, Wisconsin

Don't Certify Ohio Results
Editorial

The law of the land requires that, on a specified day following a presidential election, the Congress of the United States must certify the results of that election as having met the standards of legitimacy that should hold sway in the nation that describes itself as "the world's greatest democracy."
This is done before a joint session of the House and Senate when the electoral votes of the 50 states and the District of Columbia are opened, counted and then accepted as a fair and accurate representation of the will of the people in each of the jurisdictions involved.
The specified day for congressional certification of electoral votes is Thursday, Jan. 6, and it provides a rare opportunity to examine the troubled election systems of this country. If members of the House and Senate are honest with themselves, they will refuse to certify the electoral votes from the state of Ohio. The point of such a refusal is not to overturn the presidential election, or even to force a new vote in Ohio, where U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, says that there remain "numerous unexplained irregularities in the ... presidential vote, many of which appear to violate both federal and state law."
At the behest of Ohioans who objected to the handling of the election, Conyers and the minority staff of the Judiciary Committee have conducted hearings and investigations of instances of voter disenfranchisement, flawed or corrupted voting machinery, and inappropriate procedures for counting and recounting votes. They have produced a compelling report itemizing and analyzing the irregularities. On the basis of that report, Conyers plans to object to the certification of the Ohio results.
Conyers will be joined by several members of the House, and we hope that U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, who has previously joined Conyers in expressing concern about the Ohio irregularities, will be among them. More importantly, we hope that both Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will join members of the House in objecting to the certification of the Ohio results.
Under the rules, when the electoral votes of each state are announced, the president of the Senate calls for objections. To force a debate, a written objection must be signed by at least one senator and one member of the House. If that standard is met, the Senate withdraws from the House chamber, and each body engages in a two-hour debate on the matter. Unless both the Senate and the House separately agree to the objection, the challenged electoral votes are counted.
Considering the partisan divide in both the House and Senate, which favors the Republican Party, it is unlikely that either chamber would agree to the objection. Thus, the raising of an objection is not going to block President Bush from gaining a second term. Rather, it would focus attention on legitimate concerns that have been raised regarding the Ohio vote and count, and on broader concerns about America's inconsistent and often flawed election processes - which vary so radically from state to state that genuine equal protection concerns arise.
Indeed, the tightly focused debate that would follow upon acceptance of an objection could be just what is needed to get this Congress, and this country, talking about the steps that must be taken to ensure that American elections provide a true representation of the people's will. Yet as of now, no senators have expressed their intention to sign the statement of objection to certifying the Ohio results. It is for this reason that we urge Feingold and Kohl to join Conyers and members of the House in forcing a debate.
© 2005 Capital Times
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0105-36.htm

Published on Wednesday, January 5, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
The Moment Has Come for Media Reform
by Robert W. McChesney

The New Year is here, and as we take stock of the state of the world and our nation, we must put media reform even higher on our priority list. The movement to fix our badly broken media system is gathering momentum, but the decisions made this year could resonate for decades to come.
The frustrations of millions were echoed in Jon Stewart's no-nonsense critique of corporate media for "hurting America," shown live on CNN's Crossfire. People are tired of the media's partisan hackery, celebrity obsession, failure to hold government accountable, narrow range of debate, unchecked commercialism, and lack of investigative journalism.
Corporate media's failures constitute what legendary journalist Bill Moyers describes as the greatest threat to our nation: "Democracy can't exist without an informed public." Most Americans don't know that the presidential candidates and allied groups shattered all campaign finance records in 2004, spending $2 billion. That's right: billion. Most of that money bought political ads from the biggest media companies ... who gave us back deplorable election coverage.
The gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and more than 45 million Americans are living without health insurance, while Congress guts the critical programs that are the fabric of our democracy. Public education, Social Security, environmental protection, affordable housing, and accessible health care are all at risk.
Most Americans don't know the consequences of our ballooning $521 billion deficit and $7.1 trillion national debt. The media are silent as Congress dishes out some $125 billion every year in corporate welfare. We aren't told that global terrorism has continued to rise each year since the attacks of 9/11, while a full 49 percent of Americans still believe that Iraq had WMDs, and 52 percent believe Saddam Hussein was actively supporting Al Qaeda.
Is it any surprise that surveys showed many Americans went to the polls lacking the facts to evaluate the most important issues of our day? There is something terribly wrong when Americans know more about Martha Stewart's prison stay than they do about the torture scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
The good news
Millions of citizens understand that our bankrupt media system is the direct result of government policies made in the public's name but without our consent. Unprecedented numbers of citizens joined together and organized to win a number of historic victories in 2004, proving that public participation is indeed the answer to the media problem. A genuine media reform movement is gaining momentum and getting results.
In 2004, the FCC's attempts to loosen ownership limits to let Big Media get even bigger were rejected by the courts and Congress after massive public opposition. Sinclair Broadcast Group was forced to retract its brazenly biased Stolen Honor "news" program days before the election. Almost every egregious action by big media corporations - once met with muted opposition - was greeted with a swift response from an increasingly unified, bipartisan and vocal public.
But that's just the beginning. A growing number of citizens are taking action to stop media conglomerates from getting bigger; to strengthen alternative, independent and non-commercial media; to force media companies to serve the public interest; to limit advertising directed at our children; and to make access to communications affordable and universal.
Looking Ahead
All of these issues - and more - will be on the chopping block when Congress reopens the Telecommunications Act of 1996, as it is expected to do this year. The question is to what degree these crucial decisions will be shaped by informed citizen participation rather than aggressive corporate lobbying.
Free Press (www.freepress.net), the organization I founded to increase informed public participation in crucial media policy debates, will be focusing its energy in the following four areas that offer the best hope for meaningful media reform:
• Media Ownership: Blocking Consolidation, Serving the Public Interest, Fighting Commercialization. While we don't expect the FCC to lift media ownership caps in the immediate future, it's a safe bet that they will try again in the next four years. We're keeping the issue in the news, conducting research and building the legal case for ownership limits in preparation for another Bush Administration attack on the public interest. We're also working to expand the number of low-power FM radio stations available to communities nationwide.
• Community Internet: Broadband as a Nonprofit, Public Utility. This is one of the most exciting and promising opportunities for media reformers. The goal is to offer affordable broadband Internet access to residents, businesses and local governments as a basic utility - just like water, gas and electricity. New wireless technologies allow local governments to offer faster, cheaper and more reliable access than ever before. But these innovations are being fought every step of the way by the biggest telecom monopolies. We must protect the rights of local communities to determine how best to serve their own citizens.
• Public Broadcasting & Noncommercial Media: Enhanced Funding, Diversity and Accessibility. True public broadcasting in the United States - long under attack by commercial media giants and increasingly strapped for cash - is now in serious jeopardy. In 2005, Free Press will launch a national campaign to organize a broad coalition to advance proactive policies that will generate secure, long-term funding for traditional, independent and other non-commercial media - including community radio, television, expanded public access programming, student media, and local independent newspapers and Web sites.
• Cable TV: Breaking Monopoly Control of Content. Today, 70 percent of television viewers are cable subscribers. The cable franchise renewal process - an agreement between a community and its cable provider - offers a terrific opportunity to increase access to community media and broadband Internet. Yet all too often, negotiations are done quietly with little public participation.
This much is clear: Media reform will not happen without all of us getting active and bringing renewed passion and commitment to building a system that serves our families, our communities and our democracy - not just the largest media corporations.
Robert W. McChesney is the founder and president of Free Press (www.freepress.net) and the author of The Problem of the Media.
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http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0105-20.htm

LNS Post Coup Supplement (1/4/05)

Will the Democrats in the US Senate capitulate? Will they choose to live in denial? Will they opt for comfort over conscience and luxury over liberty? Or will they rise in solidarity with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)? It will be the end for them if they fail to face this moment of truth with courage. Unless the Democratic Party leadership comes to grips with reality (i.e. with a thoroughly compromised electoral process and a wholly complicit news media) and start talking about the REAL issues (i.e., election reform, media reform, real national security and renewable energy), they will become nothing more than a ceremonial faux opposition…

Theft of the 2004 Election

DALE EMCH, Toledo Blade: The Marines will take over parts of downtown Toledo as sounds of gunfire will echo off buildings when training exercises are conducted next weekend.
A Marine Corps unit based in Perrysburg will stage the exercises from 9 p.m. Jan. 7 to about noon Jan. 9, Maj. Gregory Cramer said…
Major Cramer said Marines will be dressed in green and will be carrying rifles through the streets, but the exercises should have a minimal impact on the downtown area. He said the Marines will be firing blanks and conducting operations throughout the area.
"The only request we would have of folks, if they happen to be near where an exercise is taking place, is to stay away as much as possible," Major Cramer

Bob Fertik, www.democrats.com: We've made a New Year's Resolution: to use every legal method available to remove Dictator Bush and his neo-fascist regime from power. We hope you'll join us in this resolution!
Better than eggnog! We're still high from John Conyers' declaration that he would lead the challenge to Ohio Electors and his letter to every Senator asking their support.
This morning Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) said he and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) would join Conyers “to object to the counting of the Ohio Electoral votes due to the numerous unexplained irregularities in the Ohio presidential vote when the Congress meets in a joint session on January 6 to certify each states' Electoral College votes. In the spirit of Senator John Kerry's commitment to stand with the people until every vote is fully and fairly counted, Representatives Jackson, Conyers and Tubbs Jones - and many grassroots people around the country - are urging members of the U.S. Senate - including Senator Kerry, who should stand up for all Americans who voted believing their vote would count for the candidate of their choice - to join with these House members and sign a letter to object to the counting of the Ohio Electoral votes on January 6.
”The result of at least one U.S. Senator and one member of the U.S. House stating their objections in writing would be a stoppage of the counting of Electoral Votes and a two hour debate in each chamber of Congress until the objection is finally disposed of. It would enable members of Congress to debate and highlight the problems in Ohio - which are very prevalent virtually everywhere else in the country as well - that disenfranchised innumerable Ohio voters.
"A more detailed list of the voting problems in Ohio will be released shortly, but Ohio did not follow its own procedures and meet its obligation to conduct a free and fair election.
"If Dino Rossi, Republican candidate for Governor of Washington can say to Democratic candidate Christine Gregoire - 'Our next governor should enter office without any doubt about the legitimacy of his or her office. The people of Washington deserve to know that their governor was elected fair and square. Unfortunately, the events of the past few weeks now make it impossible for you or me to take office on January 12 without being shrouded in suspicion.' - then we can say the same thing about the President of the United States. This is especially true after the debacle of 2000 when a partisan Supreme Court selected our President, " Jackson concluded.

William Rivers Pitt, www.truthout.org: Representative John Conyers, ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will object to the counting of the Ohio Electors from the 2004 Presidential election when Congress convenes to ratify those votes on January 6th. In a letter dispatched to every Senator, which will be officially published by his office shortly, Conyers declares that he will be joined in this by several other members of the House. Rep. Conyers is taking this dramatic step because he believes the allegations and evidence of election tampering and fraud render the current slate of Ohio Electors illegitimate.
"As you know," writes Rep. Conyers in his letter, "on January 6, 2005, at 1:00 P.M, the electoral votes for the election of the president are to be opened and counted in a joint session of Congress. I and a number of House Members are planning to object to the counting of the Ohio votes, due to numerous unexplained irregularities in the Ohio presidential vote, many of which appear to violate both federal and state law."
The letter goes on to ask the Senators who receive this letter to join Conyers in objecting to the Ohio Electors. "I am hoping that you will consider joining us in this important effort," writes Conyers, "to debate and highlight the problems in Ohio which disenfranchised innumerable voters. I will shortly forward you a draft report itemizing and analyzing the many irregularities we have come across as part of our hearings and investigation into the Ohio presidential election."

Susannah Meadows, Newsweek: What’s the matter with Ohio?
Rev. Jesse Jackson: In Columbus, Cincinnati, Akron, Youngstown, Cleveland, where I was, you had blacks standing in line for six hours in the rain. That’s a form of voter suppression.
Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell says that machines were allotted based on turnout in past years, and that he didn’t realize they’d need more machines until it was too late.
He had to know it because registration was up. Blackwell may have had to deliver for Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney and he got a lighter rap than [former Florida Secretary of State Katherine] Harris got. But Ohio may have been more stacked than Florida was.
So you think Blackwell stole the election for Bush?
It was under his domain to have enough machines; the machine calibration, tabulation issue. You could rig the machines. We have reason to believe it was rigged.
What is your evidence?
Based on distrusting the system, lack of paper trails, the anomaly of the exit polls. In Ukraine, there’s an exit poll gap, they say, "Let’s have another election."

Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman, Columbus Free Press: Meanwhile, a new precinct-by-precinct analysis in many Ohio counties indicates that Bush's margin here was likely obtained by fraud. That is the main claim of the election challenge suit now at the Ohio Supreme Court, where Ohio's GOP Supreme Court Chief Justice, Thomas Moyer, has refused to recuse himself, even though allegations of vote switching – where votes cast for one candidate are assigned to another in the computerized tabulation stage – involve his own re-election campaign.

Fintan Dunne, www.BreakForNews.com: Ongoing developments in Ohio legal cases have the potential to severely affect George Bush's claim on Ohio's electoral college votes; to blow the lid off corrupt practices in Ohio's political and judicial spheres; and to land a sticky mess of election fraud
and judicial bias before the US Supreme Court and/or legislators
convening to roll-call the presidential electoral college votes
on January 6th, 2005.
In an Ohio voters legal suit with potential to alter the outcome of
the 2004 U.S. presidential election, the chief justice of the Supreme
Court of Ohio has denied having personal knowledge of a plot to steal
votes; has refused an emergency motion to recuse himself from the case and has declined a request to secure election evidence in the voters' legal contest of the Ohio presidential election result.
Chief Justice Thomas Moyer made the rulings Wednesday in the 'Moss v.
Bush' case taken by thirty-seven Ohio voters to reverse the awarding
of Ohio's electoral college votes to George Bush.
The voters suit is led by Columbus, OH attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and
Bob Fitrakis. Moyer had been assigned to the case automatically by
virtue of being the senior judge of the Ohio Supreme Court.
In court documents, the voters had sought have another judge hear the
case. One of the reasons they cited was that Moyer had "wittingly or
unwittingly acquired knowledge of deliberate national and statewide
election fraud."
Moyer ruled that their assertion was "wholly without foundation and
totally lacks any degree of veracity." The voters have yet to detail
the basis of their claim.

Jay Cohen, Associated Press: Two third-party presidential candidates asked a federal court Thursday to force a second recount of the Ohio vote, alleging county election boards altered votes and didn't follow proper procedures in the recount that ended this week. Lawyers for Green Party candidate David Cobb and the Libertarian Party's Michael Badnarik made their request in federal court in Columbus.
"We've documented in this filing how this recount was not conducted in accordance with uniform standards throughout Ohio" as required by the U.S. Constitution, said John Bonifaz, a lawyer from the National Voting Right Institute representing the candidates.

Bush Abomination’s #1 Failure: National Security:

Sidney Blumenthal, Guardian: The transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots and pathologies, would make for an excellent chapter of I, Claudius. To begin with, Bush has unceremoniously and without public acknowledgement dumped Brent Scowcroft, his father's closest associate and friend, as chairman of the foreign intelligence advisory board. The elder Bush's national security adviser was the last remnant of traditional Republican realism permitted to exist within the administration…
"Words like 'incoherent' come to mind," one top state department official told me about Rice's effort to organise her office. She is unable to assert herself against Cheney, her wobbliness a sign that the state department will mostly be sidelined as a power centre for the next four years…
Meanwhile, key senior state department professionals, such as Marc Grossman, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, have abruptly resigned. According to colleagues who have chosen to remain (at least for now), they foresee the damage that will be done as Rice is charged with whipping the state department into line with the White House and Pentagon neocons. Rice has pleaded with Armitage to stay on, but "he colourfully said he would not", a state department official told me. Rice's radio silence when her former mentor, Scowcroft, was defenestrated was taken by the state department professionals as a sign of things to come. Bush has long resented his father's alter ego. Scowcroft privately rebuked him for his Iraq follies more than a year ago - an incident that has not previously been reported. Bush "did not receive it well", said a friend of Scowcroft.

Jamie Lyons, Scotsman: United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster.
The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world’s response.
But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN.
“I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,” she said.
“Only really the UN can do that job,” she told BBC Radio Four’s PM programme.
“It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.”

Complicity of the Corporatist News Media

www.newshounds.us: The amount of money the Bush administration initially pledged to the relief effort in Southeast Asia seems to change by the day on Fox News as well as on other "news" outlets. By changing the amount, the press is not only lying to the public, but giving the Bush administration a very, very BIG break as has been so frighteningly common over the last few years.
Today (December 31, 2004) on Your World w/Neil Cavuto, substitute host Stuart Varney opened a segment this way:
"As we told you earlier, the United States has upped its tsunami relief aid to $350 million. That is ten times the initial amount, but is it enough to shut those stingy comments up?"
COMMENT: So to be accurate, the initial amount was a pitiful, paltry, sickening $400,000. The $400,000 increased to $15 million and then to $35 million yesterday. However, the press, Fox included, seems to have wiped the history of this story from the books. The "initial" amount is now being reported as $35 million while the true "initial" amount was $400,000. Inaccurate reporting like this shields the administration from the shame of not only its sinful original offer of $400,000, but the pitiful offer of $15 million as well, and it doesn't paint an accurate picture of what this administration has done. Is it any wonder people in this country have no idea what Bush is about?

Illegitimate, Incompetent & Corrupt

Robbie Sherwood and Chip Scutari, Arizona Republic: We're dreaming of a White (House) Christmas . . . Several of Arizona's leading GOP muckety-mucks secured treasured invitations to Bush's swanky Christmas party Thursday. Actually, Bush holds at least three of these parties to glad-hand with delegations of big donors and politicos from all the states, or at least the red ones.
Spotted munching on the primo layout of beef, shrimp and pasta were Secretary of State Jan Brewer, Senate President Ken Bennett and soon-to-be-ex- House Speaker Jake Flake. Alberto Gutier and his son Mickey, who usually drives in Bush's motorcade when he comes to town, also made the guest list.
"It was an incredibly rewarding experience after 40 years in politics," said Gutier, who, alas, was not rewarded with a victory in his recent run for the House.
Also spotted, petition gatherer to the stars Nathan Sproul. Bush, it seems, doesn't have much of a problem with the allegations in several states that Sproul's employees misrepresented themselves as nonpartisan during a Republican National Committee voter registration drive and were accused of tossing out registrations from Democrats.

www.guerrillanews.com: Top Ten War-Profiteers -- At the beginning of the Iraq war, Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), proclaimed that the reconstruction of Iraq would look like a modern-day Marshall Plan. But a year and a half later, a combination of bureaucratic ineptitude, corporate corruption and the growing Iraqi resistance threaten to undermine the Bush administration’s grand designs.
In mid-July, U.S. officials admitted that fewer than 140 of the 2,300 reconstruction projects funded by the U.S. were underway. Although AID says “dirt has been turned” on 1,167 projects including schools and hospitals, with at least 70 new ones staring each week, it’s unlikely that the big picture has changed much. The kidnapping and execution of contract personnel and the ongoing sabotage of key projects—power plants, electricity lines and oil pipelines—has slowed work in many areas of the country to a crawl, jacking up the cost of security, insurance and other ancillary expenditures, which in most cases amount to half of the contractors’ budgets.
By August, Ambassador John Negroponte had to announce that more than $3 billion of $18 billion in U.S. aid earmarked by Congress for engineering and reconstruction work would be used for security and counterinsurgency operations.

John P. O’Neill Wall of Heroes

Martha Stewart’s Christmas Message, The Nation: When one is incarcerated with 1,200 other inmates, it is hard to be selfish at Christmas--hard to think of Christmases past and Christmases future--that I know will be as they always were for me--beautiful! So many of the women here in Alderson will never have the joy and well-being that you and I experience. Many of them have been here for years--devoid of care, devoid of love, devoid of family.
I beseech you all to think about these women--to encourage the American people to ask for reforms, both in sentencing guidelines, in length of incarceration for nonviolent first-time offenders, and for those involved in drug-taking. They would be much better served in a true rehabilitation center than in prison where there is no real help, no real programs to rehabilitate, no programs to educate, no way to be prepared for life "out there" where each person will ultimately find herself, many with no skills and no preparation for living.

Associated Press: A career FBI agent who rocked official Washington with a blistering memo to the boss alleging bureau bungling before the Sept. 11 attacks retired from the agency Friday.
Coleen Rowley, who was named one of Time magazine's Persons of the Year for 2002 for her whistleblowing efforts, retired 11 days after turning 50, when she became eligible for a full pension, the Star Tribune reported. Rowley, who worked for the FBI for 24 years, said she has no immediate plans, but wants to be considered for appointment to a new federal board that will ensure counterterrorism investigations and arrests do not infringe on people's rights. The law overhauling the nation's intelligence apparatus directs the Department of Homeland Security to create the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board…
Rowley was hailed by colleagues in Minneapolis in 2002 when she wrote a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller accusing bureau headquarters of blowing a chance to unravel the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking plot.

Restore the Sanctity of the Vote! Restore an Aggressive, Indepdendent Free Press! Restore the Republic!

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2004412290352

Marines will stay close to home for urban training
Unit to use downtown Toledo

By DALE EMCH
BLADE STAFF WRITER

The Marines will take over parts of downtown Toledo as sounds of gunfire will echo off buildings when training exercises are conducted next weekend.
A Marine Corps unit based in Perrysburg will stage the exercises from 9 p.m. Jan. 7 to about noon Jan. 9, Maj. Gregory Cramer said.
Major Cramer said most of the 130-member unit - Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines - will take part in the exercises.
"We're looking for an urban environment to do our training," he said. "Urban training is one of the proficiencies we're required to maintain."
Major Cramer said Marines will be dressed in green and will be carrying rifles through the streets, but the exercises should have a minimal impact on the downtown area. He said the Marines will be firing blanks and conducting operations throughout the area.
"The only request we would have of folks, if they happen to be near where an exercise is taking place, is to stay away as much as possible," Major Cramer said.
The exercise area roughly will be north of Monroe Street, west of the Maumee River, south and west of Cherry Street, south of Woodruff Ave., and east of Collingwood Boulevard.
Toledo Police Chief Mike Navarre said military exercises have been conducted before in the downtown area with a minimal impact on city residents. He said city and police officials have been working with the Marines to help the exercises go smoothly.
"Training is extremely important, not just in our profession, but in the military too," Chief Navarre said. "We're not going to place any obstacles in their way."
Jean Atkin, administrator for the Lucas County Common Pleas Court, said the unit was granted permission to use the courthouse grounds. The unit, though, won't use the interior of the courthouse.
"We used to do this when we were kids - you know, running around the woods," Ms. Atkin said. "They're just going to use the downtown."

http://blog.democrats.com/node/2269
Stolen Election 2004: New Year's Update
by Bob Fertik on 01/01/2005 5:29am. - revised 01/01/2005 11:56pm
Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We've made a New Year's Resolution: to use every legal method available to remove Dictator Bush and his neo-fascist regime from power.
We hope you'll join us in this resolution!
Better than eggnog! We're still high from John Conyers' declaration that he would lead the challenge to Ohio Electors and his letter to every Senator asking their support.
This morning Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) said he and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) would join Conyers
to object to the counting of the Ohio Electoral votes due to the numerous unexplained irregularities in the Ohio presidential vote when the Congress meets in a joint session on January 6 to certify each states' Electoral College votes. In the spirit of Senator John Kerry's commitment to stand with the people until every vote is fully and fairly counted, Representatives Jackson, Conyers and Tubbs Jones - and many grassroots people around the country - are urging members of the U.S. Senate - including Senator Kerry, who should stand up for all Americans who voted believing their vote would count for the candidate of their choice - to join with these House members and sign a letter to object to the counting of the Ohio Electoral votes on January 6.
"The result of at least one U.S. Senator and one member of the U.S. House stating their objections in writing would be a stoppage of the counting of Electoral Votes and a two hour debate in each chamber of Congress until the objection is finally disposed of. It would enable members of Congress to debate and highlight the problems in Ohio - which are very prevalent virtually everywhere else in the country as well - that disenfranchised innumerable Ohio voters.
"A more detailed list of the voting problems in Ohio will be released shortly, but Ohio did not follow its own procedures and meet its obligation to conduct a free and fair election.
"If Dino Rossi, Republican candidate for Governor of Washington can say to Democratic candidate Christine Gregoire - 'Our next governor should enter office without any doubt about the legitimacy of his or her office. The people of Washington deserve to know that their governor was elected fair and square. Unfortunately, the events of the past few weeks now make it impossible for you or me to take office on January 12 without being shrouded in suspicion.' - then we can say the same thing about the President of the United States. This is especially true after the debacle of 2000 when a partisan Supreme Court selected our President, " Jackson concluded.
Grassroots lobbying campaigns are moving into high gear - see our permanent Protest page.
In San Francisco, activists are pushing Sen. Barbara Boxer to be the first Senator to stand up against Stolen Election 2004. They will rally outside Boxer's office on Monday (Jan 3) at noon.
Detailing evidence and testimonials of voter suppression and intimidation at the press conference will be the following civic and political leaders: DOLORES HUERTA, United Farm Workers co-founder and civil rights leader; WALTER RILEY, labor/civil rights attorney, East Bay Votes; MARGOT SMITH, Gray Panthers; MICHAEL EISENSCHER, U. S. Labor Against the War; MAX ANDERSON, Berkeley City Council, 1st Municipal Voting Rights Resolution; TIM PAULSON, Executive Director, San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO; and MICHAEL GOLDSTEIN, Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club.
David Lytel of ReDefeatBush.com enlisted outgoing Rep. Peter Deutsch (D-FL) to highlight the election fraud issues in Florida as well as Ohio.
Preparations are underway for a public forum on Wednesday afternoon at the Capitol at which Deutch will publicly question some of the key witnesses to activities that may have surpassed the boundaries of normal partisanship and crossed over into illegal activity in Florida. In his preparation Deutsch has the assistance of Wayne Madsen, an experienced analyst and investigator who previously worked for the National Security Agency. For the benefit of Members of Congress considering supporting the challenge, Deutsch will be publicly questioning Bev Harris of Black Box Voting, who witnessed the unlawful disposal of original voter registreys that are required to be archived under Florida law. He will also question Clint Curtis, the Florida whistleblower who has testified that he was asked by Congressman Tom Feeney's to create the software necessary to modify the results of electronic voting machines.
In Ohio, Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb called on Congress to challenge the legitimacy of Ohio's Electors.
"The recount of Ohio's presidential vote was conducted in clear violation of both the spirit and the letter of the law. We can have no faith in the results when both the initial election and the recount were conducted in a haphazard and clearly illegitimate manner. Ohio's presidential electors are tainted by unresolved allegations of voter suppression and the lack of a meaningful recount. Congress must reject and challenge their votes," said Cobb.
Cobb's lawyers also went back to Federal court demanding that the recount of Ohio's presidential vote be done again, this time in conformance with state and federal law.
One of the most significant problems with the recount was that few of Ohio's 88 counties randomly selected sample precincts for the recount as is required by Ohio law. Other problems with the recount included a lack of security for the ballots and voting machines — including allegations of interference with voting machines by representatives of the Diebold and Triad corporations — and the refusal of some counties to do a full hand recount when required by law to do so.
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman added more reasons to dispute the official count.
Diebold also manufactured many of the tabulators used to count punch card ballots. In the vast majority of Ohio precincts, those tabulations were not rechecked or recounted. In at least two counties, technicians from Diebold and from Triad dismantled all or part of such tabulating machines prior to the recount. In Shelby County, election officials admitted that they discarded crucial tabulator records, rendering a meaningful recount impossible. In many cases, the recounts were conducted not by public election officials, but by private corporations, many of them with Republican ties.
In other precincts, impossibly high voter turnout figures -- nearly all of them adding to Bush's official margin -- remain unexplained. In the heavily Republican southern county of Perry, Blackwell certified one precinct with 221 more votes than registered voters. Two precincts -- Reading S and W. Lexington G -- were let stand in the officially certified final vote count with voter turnouts of roughly 124% each.
In Miami County's Concord South West precinct, Blackwell certified a voter turnout of 98.55 percent, requiring that all but 10 voters in the precinct cast ballots. But a freepress.org canvas easily found 25 voters who said they did not vote. In the nearby Concord South precinct, Blackwell certified an apparently impossible voter turnout of 94.27 percent. Both Concord precincts went heavily for Bush.
By contrast, in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County, amidst record turnouts, a predominantly African-American precinct, Cleveland 6C, was certified with just a 07.85 percent turnout. The official count was 45 votes for Kerry versus one for Bush, in a precinct where the day's overall voter turnout would have indicated eight or nine times as many voters.
Independent statistical studies of Cuyahoga County indicate that if the prevailing statewide voter turnout was really 60 percent of the registered voters, as seems likely based on turnout in other major cities in Ohio, Kerry’s margin of victory in Cleveland alone was wrongly reduced in the certified returns by 20,000 or more votes.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/123104W.shtml
Article published Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Conyers to Object to Ohio Electors, Requests Senate Allies
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Report
Thursday 30 December 2004
Representative John Conyers, ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will object to the counting of the Ohio Electors from the 2004 Presidential election when Congress convenes to ratify those votes on January 6th. In a letter dispatched to every Senator, which will be officially published by his office shortly, Conyers declares that he will be joined in this by several other members of the House. Rep. Conyers is taking this dramatic step because he believes the allegations and evidence of election tampering and fraud render the current slate of Ohio Electors illegitimate.
"As you know," writes Rep. Conyers in his letter, "on January 6, 2005, at 1:00 P.M, the electoral votes for the election of the president are to be opened and counted in a joint session of Congress. I and a number of House Members are planning to object to the counting of the Ohio votes, due to numerous unexplained irregularities in the Ohio presidential vote, many of which appear to violate both federal and state law."
The letter goes on to ask the Senators who receive this letter to join Conyers in objecting to the Ohio Electors. "I am hoping that you will consider joining us in this important effort," writes Conyers, "to debate and highlight the problems in Ohio which disenfranchised innumerable voters. I will shortly forward you a draft report itemizing and analyzing the many irregularities we have come across as part of our hearings and investigation into the Ohio presidential election."
There are expected to be high level meetings with high ranking Democratic officials next week to coordinate a concerted lobbying effort to convince Senators to challenge the vote. The Green Party and David Cobb, as has been true all along, will be centrally involved in this process, as will Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The remainder of the Conyers letter reads:
3 U.S.C. §15 provides when the results from each of the states are announced, that "the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any." Any objection must be presented in writing and "signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received." The objection must "state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof." When an objection has been properly made in writing and endorsed by a member of each body the Senate withdraws from the House chamber, and each body meets separately to consider the objection. "No votes...from any other State shall be acted upon until the (pending) objection...(is) finally disposed of." 3 U.S.C. §17 limits debate on the objections in each body to two hours, during which time no member may speak more than once and not for more than five minutes. Both the Senate and the House must separately agree to the objection; otherwise, the challenged vote or votes are counted.
Historically, there appears to be three general grounds for objecting to the counting of electoral votes. The language of 3 U.S.C. §15 suggests that objection may be made on the grounds that (1) a vote was not "regularly given" by the challenged elector(s); and/or (2) the elector(s) was not "lawfully certified" under state law; or (3) two slates of electors have been presented to Congress from the same State.
Since the Electoral Count Act of 1887, no objection meeting the requirements of the Act have been made against an entire slate of state electors. In the 2000 election several Members of the House of Representatives attempted to challenge the electoral votes from the State of Florida. However, no Senator joined in the objection, and therefore, the objection was not "received." In addition, there was no determination whether the objection constituted an appropriate basis under the 1887 Act. However, if a State - in this case Ohio - has not followed its own procedures and met its obligation to conduct a free and fair election, a valid objection -if endorsed by at least one Senator and a Member of the House of Representatives- should be debated by each body separately until "disposed of".
A key legal aspect of this is the second clause referenced in the letter. Rep. Conyers and the other House members involved do not believe the electors have been lawfully certified. They believe that there has been too much illegal activity on the part of Blackwell, other election officials, and Republican operatives on the ground and therefore, as stated in the letter, the electors were not "lawfully certified" under state law. Next week, the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff will release the report referenced in the letter, which is now still in draft form, and which led Mr. Conyers to this decision.
The Senators who shall receive the greatest focus from Conyers in this matter are Biden, Bingaman, Boxer, Byrd, Clinton, Conrad, Corzine, Dodd, Dorgan, Durbin, Feingold, Harkin, Inyoue, Jeffords, Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Mikulski, Nelson (FL), Jack Reed, Harry Reid, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Stabenow, Wyden and Obama.
________________________________________
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/123104V.shtml
Editor's Note | TO reported earlier today that Rep. John Conyers, ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will officially object to the Ohio Electoral votes being counted when Congress convenes to certify the election on January 6th. Rev. Jesse Jackson will be centrally involved in the effort to convince a Senator to join Conyers in this effort. TO will be reporting on the 6th from Washington D.C. on the hearings. - wrp
Go to Original
'We Will Not Faint'
By Susannah Meadows
Newsweek
Thursday 30 December 2004
Jesse Jackson on why he thinks John Kerry really won the election.
Ohio officials concluded their recount of the presidential vote last Tuesday-reaffirming President George W. Bush’s victory. But the state’s election woes aren’t over yet. As bloggers continue to spin conspiracy theories about a victory stolen from Democratic candidate John Kerry, the Rev. Jesse Jackson plans to lead a Monday rally in Columbus to protest alleged voting irregularities. He warmed up with Newsweek’s Susannah Meadows.

The Democratic candidate and Jackson at Sunday services before the November vote.
(Photo: Gerald Herbert / AP)

Newsweek: What’s the matter with Ohio?
Rev. Jesse Jackson: In Columbus, Cincinnati, Akron, Youngstown, Cleveland, where I was, you had blacks standing in line for six hours in the rain. That’s a form of voter suppression.
Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell says that machines were allotted based on turnout in past years, and that he didn’t realize they’d need more machines until it was too late.
He had to know it because registration was up. Blackwell may have had to deliver for Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney and he got a lighter rap than [former Florida Secretary of State Katherine] Harris got. But Ohio may have been more stacked than Florida was.
So you think Blackwell stole the election for Bush?
It was under his domain to have enough machines; the machine calibration, tabulation issue. You could rig the machines. We have reason to believe it was rigged.
What is your evidence?
Based on distrusting the system, lack of paper trails, the anomaly of the exit polls. In Ukraine, there’s an exit poll gap, they say, "Let’s have another election."
Have you been in touch with John Kerry about the issue? Does he share your concerns?
His lawyers are now involved in a minimal way. We are appealing to him to get involved. We think it should be certified provisionally, until there can be a forensic investigation of these machines, and until there’s a random recount. In only two of the counties did they do any hand recounting.
What can be done now?
Thursday is when Congress is scheduled to certify the vote. Kerry should take the floor and ask for a debate on the subject. Kerry pulled out too early. The scrutiny pulled out with him.
If the election were held again with these alleged problems solved, would Kerry win?
Of course I think that. If we deal with the anomalies, a fair random count, the urban-suppressed vote, Kerry would get at least 60,000 more votes. At least! I believe that. I don’t know that.
Is it possible that election will be overturned?
I don’t know. All we want is a fair count and a transparent election. We can live with the result. We’re fighting the odds but we will not faint in the face of the odds.
-------
Jump to TO Features for Friday December 31, 2004

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1231-02.htm

Published on Friday, December 31, 2004 by the Columbus Free Press

Ohio's Official Non-Recount Ends Amidst New Evidence of Fraud, Theft and Judicial Contempt Mirrored in New Mexico
by Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman

COLUMBUS -- The Ohio presidential recount was officially terminated Tuesday, December 28.
But the end comes amidst bitter dispute over official certification of impossible voter turnout numbers, over the refusal of Ohio's Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice to recuse himself from crucial court challenges involving his own re-election campaign, over the Republican Secretary of State's refusal to testify under subpoena, over apparent tampering with tabulation machines, over more than 100,000 provisional and machine-rejected ballots left uncounted, over major discrepancies in certified vote counts and turnout ratios, and over a wide range of unresolved disputes that continue to leave the true outcome of Ohio's presidential vote in serious doubt.
Officially, Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has confirmed substantial errors in the vote count, with a shift of some 1,200 votes based on statewide recounts of about 3% of the vote. But additional new evidence of massive vote-counting fraud across the state continues to be unearthed, calling into question George W. Bush’s alleged victory in Ohio and pending re-election in the Electoral College.
Blackwell, who was co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign, announced that his recount awarded 734 additional votes to Kerry and 449 additional votes to Bush. Meanwhile, more than 92,672 machine-rejected ballots remain unchecked and uncounted, as do at least 14,000 provisional ballots. Conservative estimates of Kerry’s net gain among those ballots are another 36,000 to 40,000 votes. No accounting in the count or recount has been made for voters turned away at the polls due to insufficient voting machines, computer malfunction, tampering with registration data, mishandling of absentee ballots, misinformation and intimidation, or a wide range of other problems.
Blackwell's certified statewide returns now give Bush a margin of 118,775 votes. Ohio's electoral votes would give Bush the presidency if they are certified by Congress on January 6. A challenge by members of the House of Representatives is expected under an 1887 law passed in response to the disputed election of 1876, during which Republican Rutherford B. Hayes took the presidency in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote. The challenge must be joined by at least one Senator.
Meanwhile, a new precinct-by-precinct analysis in many Ohio counties indicates that Bush's margin here was likely obtained by fraud. That is the main claim of the election challenge suit now at the Ohio Supreme Court, where Ohio's GOP Supreme Court Chief Justice, Thomas Moyer, has refused to recuse himself, even though allegations of vote switching – where votes cast for one candidate are assigned to another in the computerized tabulation stage – involve his own re-election campaign.
Ohio's official recount was conducted by GOP Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, despite widespread protests that his role as co-chair of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign constituted an serious conflict of interest. Blackwell has refused to testify in the election challenge lawsuit alleging massive voter fraud, as have a number of GOP county election supervisors. Blackwell also refuses to explain why he has left more than 106,000 machine-rejected and provisional ballots entirely uncounted.
The final recount tested roughly 3% of the roughly 5.7 million votes cast in the state. But contrary to the law governing the recount, many precincts tested were selected not at random, but by Blackwell's personal designation. Experts with the election challenge suit have noted many of the precincts selected were mostly free of the irregularities they are seeking to investigate, while many contested precincts were left unrecounted.
The official overall shifting of nearly 1200 votes was deemed "absolutely unacceptable" by Colby Hamilton of the Green Party, which joined the Libertarian Party in paying $113,600 to have the recount done. The Greens and Libertarians are now asking for another recount, charging that the first one was woefully incomplete and unreliable.
The Kerry campaign, which raised millions of dollars to guarantee "every vote will be counted" in the 2004 election, has challenged the results in just one county, where a technician dismantled at least one voting machine prior to the recount. Daniel J. Hoffheimer, an attorney hired by the Kerry campaign has emphasized his belief that despite that challenge, "this presidential election is over. The Bush-Cheney ticket has won."
Hoffheimer is affiliated with Taft, Stettinius and Hollister, a Cincinnati firm with deep Republican ties to Ohio's current GOP governor, Bob Taft. Hoffheimer said "the Kerry-Edwards campaign has found no conspiracy and no fraud in Ohio," but more serious researchers continue to uncover plenty. While struggling to find the financial resources necessary for the legal challenge, the Election Protection team has continued to uncover deeply disturbing evidence of manipulation, theft and fraud that went unaudited by the official recount.
Some 14.6% of Ohio votes were cast on electronic machines with no paper trail, rendering them unauditable. But on election night, electronic machines and computer software were used throughout the state to tabulate paper ballots. The contrasts are striking. Officially, Bush built a narrow margin of roughly 51% versus 48% for Kerry based on votes counted on election night. But among the 147,400 provisional and absentee ballots that were counted AFTER election night, Kerry received 54.46 percent of the vote. These later totals came from counts done by hand, as opposed to counts done by computer tabulators, many of which came from Diebold.
Many of the electronic voting machines with no paper trail also came from Republican-dominated companies, including some from Diebold, whose owner, Wally O'Dell, infamously guaranteed in 2003 that he would deliver Ohio's electoral votes to Bush.
Diebold also manufactured many of the tabulators used to count punch card ballots. In the vast majority of Ohio precincts, those tabulations were not rechecked or recounted. In at least two counties, technicians from Diebold and from Triad dismantled all or part of such tabulating machines prior to the recount. In Shelby County, election officials admitted that they discarded crucial tabulator records, rendering a meaningful recount impossible. In many cases, the recounts were conducted not by public election officials, but by private corporations, many of them with Republican ties.
In other precincts, impossibly high voter turnout figures -- nearly all of them adding to Bush's official margin -- remain unexplained. In the heavily Republican southern county of Perry, Blackwell certified one precinct with 221 more votes than registered voters. Two precincts -- Reading S and W. Lexington G -- were let stand in the officially certified final vote count with voter turnouts of roughly 124% each.
In Miami County's Concord South West precinct, Blackwell certified a voter turnout of 98.55 percent, requiring that all but 10 voters in the precinct cast ballots. But a freepress.org canvas easily found 25 voters who said they did not vote. In the nearby Concord South precinct, Blackwell certified an apparently impossible voter turnout of 94.27 percent. Both Concord precincts went heavily for Bush.
By contrast, in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County, amidst record turnouts, a predominantly African-American precinct, Cleveland 6C, was certified with just a 07.85 percent turnout. The official count was 45 votes for Kerry versus one for Bush, in a precinct where the day's overall voter turnout would have indicated eight or nine times as many voters.
Independent statistical studies of Cuyahoga County indicate that if the prevailing statewide voter turnout was really 60 percent of the registered voters, as seems likely based on turnout in other major cities in Ohio, Kerry’s margin of victory in Cleveland alone was wrongly reduced in the certified returns by 20,000 or more votes.
New research has added confirmation to apparent widespread fraud -– most likely in the computer tabulation stage -- in at least three heavily Republican southern Ohio counties. Mathematical researcher Richard Hayes Phillips, PhD., has shown that Clermont, Butler and Warren Counties, surrounding Cincinnati, netted Bush votes on par with his margin of victory in the state. But for Bush to have built up his margins in these three counties, 13,500 Democrats would have had to have split their tickets by voting for Supreme Court Chief Justice candidate Ellen Connally while simultaneously voting for Bush, by all accounts a virtually impossible event.
The numbers are startling. In Butler Country, Bush officially was given 109,866 votes. But conservative GOP Chief Justice Moyer was given only 68,407, a negative discrepancy of more than 40,000 votes. Meanwhile, Moyer's opponent, a pro-gay, pro-abortion African-American liberal from Cleveland, was officially credited with 61,559 votes to John Kerry's 56,234.
The Blackwell-approved tally would mean that more than 5,000 Butler County voters ignored Kerry's name near the top of the ballot, but jumped to the bottom of the ballot to vote for Connally. And this was to have happened in an area where some 40,000 Republicans did exactly the opposite, voting for the President while skipping the race for Chief Justice. Few who are familiar with Butler County politics believe such an outcome to be even remotely credible.
In Warren County, Bush was credited with 68,035 votes to Kerry’s 26,043 votes. But just as the county's votes were about to be counted after the polls closed on November 2, the Board of Elections claimed a Homeland Security alert authorized them to throw out all Democratic and independent observers, including the media. The vote count was thus conducted entirely by Republicans.
Here Blackwell's certified tally says the slightly funded Connally somehow outpolled Kerry by more than 2,400 votes, nearly 10 percent of his county wide total.
Phillips’ latest analysis was conducted at the precinct-by-precinct level. When looking at returns before they have been blended into countywide figures, Phillips says the suspect nature of the outcome in these three counties is heightened by the fact that precincts within them yield wildly inconsistent data. A few municipalities show Republicans and Democrats voting along party lines – as one would expect. But throughout most of these three counties are precincts with massive margins for Bush that are inconsistent with the rest of the counties and impossible to conceive except by some sort of manipulation. This is an almost certain indicator of fraud, says Phillips.
The statistical analysis of these results show Blackwell’s certified vote is deeply flawed. It does not, however, identify how the fraud was perpetrated. Based in part on these inconsistencies, the Election Protection legal team has filed suit with the state Supreme Court, asking it to overturn Ohio's presidential election.
But despite the fact that the contention rests in large part on Moyer's own re-election campaign, the Chief Justice refuses to recuse himself from this and related cases. He has helped write decisions denying a further public investigation into the count and recount processes, and has voted to protect Blackwell from providing public testimony under legal subpoena.
Parallel problems have now surfaced in New Mexico, where a bitter recount battle is also being waged. At a public hearing in Columbus convened by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), senior Democrat on the US House Judiciary Committee, Rev. Jesse Jackson testified that Sen. Kerry was informed in a phone conversation that optical scan machines were being used in New Mexico to steal votes. New Mexico allegedly went to Bush by some 7,000 votes in an election with widespread charges of manipulation and fraud, especially in heavily Hispanic precincts. According to Jackson, Kerry said he know that every single New Mexico precinct fitted with optical scan machines went for Bush, demographically a virtual impossibility.
But New Mexico's Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson has refused to cooperate with Green Party and Audit the Vote activists demanding a recount, acceding to decisions that could raise the price for a recount to well over a million dollars. Despite its huge leftover war chest, the Democratic Party has not come forward to help push New Mexico's recount, which many believe could give the state to Kerry. As of now, no recount has even begun, with the issue still mired in the courts over the question of finances.
On Monday, January 3, Rev. Jackson will lead a rally in Columbus demanding, among other things, an Ohio revote. Ironically, the apparently defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate in Washington is now demanding the same thing. Moreover, unlike Ohio, in Washington state the Democrat emerged victorious after that state’s Supreme Court ordered all ballots counted and certified totals adjusted.
If anything, Blackwell's refusal to testify, Moyer's refusal to recuse, and the staggering flood of new evidence from a non-credible non-recount have helped further spread the belief that the Ohio vote -- and thus the presidency -- has been stolen. The findings from New Mexico confirm that Ohio was not the only state where fraud and vote theft may have provided Bush with a margin of victory. Challenges in Florida have also reached the court system.
The alleged Bush victory could be challenged in the much-anticipated January 6 reporting of the Electoral College to Congress. But given the mounting indications of manipulation, fraud and theft, it is virtually certain the debate over who really won Ohio -– as well as New Mexico and Florida -- and the presidency will be bitterly disputed for many years to come.
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of OHIO'S STOLEN ELECTION: VOICES OF THE DISENFRANCHISED, 2004, to be published by http://freepress.org. Tax-deductible contributions to this book/film project are gladly accepted at http://freepress.org/store.php#don_pub or by check to the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism at 1240 Bryden Road, Columbus, OH 43205.
Copyright © 1970-2004 The Columbus Free Press
###

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=212098&mesg_id=212098

212098, OHIO JUDGE DENIES KNOWING OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FRAUD PLOT
Posted by BreakForNews on Thu Dec-30-04 04:28 PM
Ohio Judge Denies Knowing Of
Presidential Election Fraud Plot

Ohio Judge Denies Knowing Of Presidential Election Fraud Plot
http://www.breakfornews.com/articles/MoyerDeniesKnowing...

Ongoing developments in Ohio legal cases have the potential to
severely affect George Bush's claim on Ohio's electoral college
votes; to blow the lid off corrupt practices in Ohio's political
and judicial spheres; and to land a sticky mess of election fraud
and judicial bias before the US Supreme Court and/or legislators
convening to roll-call the presidential electoral college votes
on January 6th, 2005.

BreakForNews.com, 30th Dec, 2004 15:00ET
by Fintan Dunne, Editor EXCLUSIVE

In an Ohio voters legal suit with potential to alter the outcome of
the 2004 U.S. presidential election, the chief justice of the Supreme
Court of Ohio has denied having personal knowledge of a plot to steal
votes; has refused an emergency motion to recuse himself from the case
and has declined a request to secure election evidence in the voters'
legal contest of the Ohio presidential election result.

Chief Justice Thomas Moyer made the rulings Wednesday in the 'Moss v.
Bush' case taken by thirty-seven Ohio voters to reverse the awarding
of Ohio's electoral college votes to George Bush.

The voters suit is led by Columbus, OH attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and
Bob Fitrakis. Moyer had been assigned to the case automatically by
virtue of being the senior judge of the Ohio Supreme Court.

In court documents, the voters had sought have another judge hear the
case. One of the reasons they cited was that Moyer had "wittingly or
unwittingly acquired knowledge of deliberate national and statewide
election fraud."

Moyer ruled that their assertion was "wholly without foundation and
totally lacks any degree of veracity." The voters have yet to detail
the basis of their claim.

"Its speculative and ungrounded nature does not constitute grounds for
disqualification," Moyer decided. He also thanked the voters for not
claiming that he had any actual criminal involvement in such a plot.

The suit claims that patterns of irregularities in the Ohio
presidential and judicial elections on November 2, 2004 show there was
an orchestrated election fraud plot which involved tampering with
electronic vote tabulators and deliberately creating shortages of
voting machines --predominantly in minority neighborhoods and college
campuses likely to back John Kerry.

The suit continues, but Judge Moyer also rejected a request to
expedite a hearing and declined to grant discovery orders or ensure
that elections boards preserve evidence from the election.

Responding to the decision, Cliff Arnebeck, attorney for the
Massachusetts-based Alliance for Democracy, which brought the cases
said "the important thing about the judicial process is the concept
that you have a neutral judge."

"It's disappointing that doesn't seem to be the priority here,"
Arnebeck said.

MOYER'S ELECTION CHALLENGED

As well as contesting the result of the November 2nd. Ohio
presidential election, the same voters are also disputing the election
of Moyer himself on similar grounds --in the judicial elections held
on the same day.

Both cases were originally one suit, but an earlier ruling by Moyer
ordered them filed again as separate cases. The presidential challenge
case is no longer joined to that contesting his own election. As a
result, Moyer says there is now no reason for him to remove himself,
for he has nothing to gain by a change in the presidential result.

Moyer's earlier move procedurally landed the case against his own
election on the desk of Gov. Bob Taft. He assigned another Supreme
Court judge ---who has also refused an emergency motion to immediately
secure evidence, and has threatened to dismiss the suit.

Joining the club is Ohio's newest Supreme Court justice, Judith Ann
Lanzinger.

At 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Chief Justice Moyer swore in Lanzinger, in a
private meeting in chambers. She replaces retiring Democratic Justice
Francis Sweeney, and her election increases the Republican political
bias of the court's composition.

Lanzinger will attend a public swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 7 that
will be attended by Gov. Bob Taft.

SECRET JUDICIAL SMEAR FUND

Earlier this year, Moyer did recuse himself in a long-running related
suit to force the Ohio Chamber of Commerce to disclose who bankrolled
television ads it ran implying that Justice Alice Robie Resnick, a
Democrat, was being influenced by campaign contributions from wealthy
trial lawyers. That suit had its genesis in another case also by Cliff
Arnebeck.

Moyer was among four of the Supreme Court's seven justices who recused
themselves in the case. Moyer and Justices Resnick and Terrence
O'Donnell, had benefited from the television smear campaigns of an
Ohio Chamber group called "Citizens for a Strong Ohio." Judge Evelyn
Lundberg Stratton, who was a target of the ads, also recused herself.

Coincidentally, just this week the remaining Supreme Court judges
--augmented by four appeals court judges temporarily assigned to the
case, turned down an appeal against a lower court decree which imposed
a potential $25,000-a-day fine for every day the Ohio Chamber group
remains in contempt by refusing to reveal who funded the campaign.

Arnebeck says the decision ends the appeals by the Ohio Chamber which
have delayed imposition of the $25,000-a-day fine --absent an unlikely
intervention by the US Supreme Court.

"They're in contempt as of right now," said Arnebeck.

The list of donors to the Strong Ohio campaign, if revealed could
result in executives of twenty-five Ohio corporations facing legal
charges, says Arnebeck.

Corporate officers could get jail terms for making illegal biannual
declarations regarding use of corporate funds for partisan political
purposes. Arnebeck says that the ongoing failure to launch criminal
investigations in the matter is an indictment of Ohio policing,
prosecutorial and judicial systems.

OHIO ELECTION MELTDOWN

Ongoing developments in these issues have the potential to severely
affect George Bush's claim on Ohio's electoral college votes; to blow
the lid off corrupt practices in Ohio's political and judicial
spheres; and to land a sticky mess of election fraud and judicial bias
before the US Supreme Court and/or legislators convening to roll-call
the presidential electoral college votes on January 6th, 2005.

Just seven day away.

A week, they say, is a long time in politics. In law also, perhaps.

The 'Moss v. Bush' voters election contest is relentlessly exhausting
it's legal remedies before the Ohio Supreme Court -a necessary
prerequisite to any US Supreme Court appeal. Though grounds for the
higher court review of Ohio's decisions are the subject of legal
debate centering around the "safe harbor" provisions of Ohio's
peculiar election laws.

Chief Justice Thomas Moyer may find his refusal to recuse hard to
defend, if reviewed by more exalted justices. The benchmark of
judicial probity in all this was the rightful recusal by four Ohio
Supreme Court justices --Moyer included-- in the "say or pay," $25,000
a day fines case over the 2000 judicial election smear campaigns.

That earlier recusal, should have set the benchmark.

This week's ruling on that case by the specially constituted Ohio
Supreme Court --sans Moyer, came just two days before Moyer determined
that the new Arnebeck/Fitrakis 2004 election suit was suitably
tailored for him.

Solomon-like he reached for their baby case and carved it in two.

This decision despite the fact that the judicial and presidential
voting cases concerned the same voters, on the same day, in the same
state, using the same voting equipment, overseen by the same election
officials, operating under the same procedures; tainted with the same
undercurrents of political bias; and against the backdrop of possible
illegal funding swaying judicial elections.

Solomon could not carve such a baby. Neither should have Moyer.

THE PRICE OF LEGITIMACY

Even a Supreme Court predisposed to repeat the 2000 debacle and
install its "favorite son" again, may balk of doing so if it means
rubber-stamping a partisan hijack of the Ohio Supreme Court.
Especially if that hijack proves to be illegally funded.

Which is where the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and a raft of potential
criminals among Ohio corporations come in.

How much is it worth to the Ohio Chamber to grin and bear the
potential $9 million a year cost of not disclosing their donors?

Once the donors are known to be corporate entities, proof of
malfeasance will not be needed. Their false declarations are already
in the public record, to also taint the election of Ohio Supreme Court
judges.

By it's silence, the Ohio Chamber is protecting the judges. The
decisions of those judges are serving to protect Bush. Is $9 million
a small price to pay for keeping the lid on? Probably.

After all, the mystery donors have already plowed $12 million into
campaigns aimed at getting their choice of judges to administer
justice in Ohio. A extra $9 million could keep the lid on things for
another year. But only if the fine remains at $25,000 a day.

Now that the specially constituted Ohio Court decision has started the
clock ticking on the fine, perhaps the lower court will soon be
amenable to a new application to increase the fine to ensure prompt
vacation of the contempt. Such a move could be a show-stopper.

The legitimacy of the reelection of George Bush, in the end may come
down to a question of just how much Ohio hush money it is going to
take to keep him looking legitimate.

Full article with source hyperlinks:
http://www.breakfornews.com/articles/MoyerDeniesKnowing...

See Also:

Teflon Kerry: More Slick Moves On Election Fraud by Fintan Dunne
http://www.breakfornews.com/articles/TeflonKerry.htm
Kerry Preparing Grounds to Unconcede
http://www.breakfornews.com/articles/KerryPreparingGrou...
Kerry to Enter Ohio Recount Fray By William Rivers Pitt
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122404Y.shtml

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&u=/ap/ohio_vote&printer=1
Candidates Want Second Ohio Recount

Fri Dec 31,12:07 AM ET
By JAY COHEN, Associated Press Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Two third-party presidential candidates asked a federal court Thursday to force a second recount of the Ohio vote, alleging county election boards altered votes and didn't follow proper procedures in the recount that ended this week.
Lawyers for Green Party candidate David Cobb and the Libertarian Party's Michael Badnarik made their request in federal court in Columbus.
The two candidates, who received less than 0.3 percent of the Ohio vote, paid $113,600 for a statewide recount after the vote was certified earlier this month by the secretary of state. They have said they don't expect to change the election results, but want to make sure that every vote is proply counted.
Ohio and its 20 electoral votes tipped the race to President Bush (news - web sites) when Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) conceded the morning after the Nov. 2 election.
Counties finished the recount Tuesday. Bush won the state by 118,457 votes over Kerry, according to unofficial results provided to The Associated Press by the 88 counties.
"We've documented in this filing how this recount was not conducted in accordance with uniform standards throughout Ohio" as required by the U.S. Constitution, said John Bonifaz, a lawyer from the National Voting Right Institute representing the candidates.
Ohio law requires an elections board to manually recount a randomly selected 3 percent of ballots. If the totals match certified results for those precincts, all the county's votes are then machine-counted. If the hand count is off, a county must manually recount all its ballots.
The filing, part of an ongoing lawsuit originally brought by a county board of elections to stop the recount, alleges counties did not randomly select precincts for the manual recount and some workers altered votes to prevent a full hand count.
Bonifaz said the filing is based on the experiences of Green Party representatives who observed the recount.
Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, called the contentions "baseless accusations."
"The ballots were counted in Ohio, they were counted again, they were recounted. The election is over," LoParo said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1380713,00.html

A state of chaos

George Bush has purged the last of his father's senior advisers, handing over control to his neocon allies

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday December 30, 2004
The Guardian

The transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots and pathologies, would make for an excellent chapter of I, Claudius. To begin with, Bush has unceremoniously and without public acknowledgement dumped Brent Scowcroft, his father's closest associate and friend, as chairman of the foreign intelligence advisory board. The elder Bush's national security adviser was the last remnant of traditional Republican realism permitted to exist within the administration.
At the same time the vice president, Dick Cheney, has imposed his authority over secretary of state designate Condoleezza Rice, in order to blackball Arnold Kanter, former under secretary of state to James Baker and partner in the Scowcroft Group, as a candidate for deputy secretary of state.
"Words like 'incoherent' come to mind," one top state department official told me about Rice's effort to organise her office. She is unable to assert herself against Cheney, her wobbliness a sign that the state department will mostly be sidelined as a power centre for the next four years.
Rice may have wanted to appoint as a deputy her old friend Robert Blackwill, whom she had put in charge of Iraq at the NSC. But Blackwill, a mercurial personality, allegedly assaulted a female US foreign service officer in Kuwait, and was forced to resign in November. Secretary of state Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, presented the evidence against Blackwill to Rice. "Condi only dismissed him after Powell and Armitage threatened to go public," a state department source said.
Meanwhile, key senior state department professionals, such as Marc Grossman, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, have abruptly resigned. According to colleagues who have chosen to remain (at least for now), they foresee the damage that will be done as Rice is charged with whipping the state department into line with the White House and Pentagon neocons. Rice has pleaded with Armitage to stay on, but "he colourfully said he would not", a state department official told me. Rice's radio silence when her former mentor, Scowcroft, was defenestrated was taken by the state department professionals as a sign of things to come.
Bush has long resented his father's alter ego. Scowcroft privately rebuked him for his Iraq follies more than a year ago - an incident that has not previously been reported. Bush "did not receive it well", said a friend of Scowcroft.
In A World Transformed, the elder Bush's 1998 memoir, co-authored with Scowcroft, they explained why Baghdad was not seized in the first Gulf war: "Had we gone the invasion route, the US could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." In the run-up to the Iraq war, Scowcroft again warned of the danger. Bush's conservative biographers Peter and Rachel Schweizer, quoted the president as responding: "Scowcroft has become a pain in the ass in his old age." And they wrote: "Although he never went public with them, the president's own father shared many of Scowcroft's concerns."
The rejection of Kanter is a compound rejection of Scowcroft and of James Baker - the tough, results-oriented operator who as White House chief of staff saved the Reagan presidency from its ideologues, managed the elder Bush's campaign in 1988, and was summoned in 2000 to rescue Junior in Florida. In his 1995 memoir, Baker observed that the administration's "overriding strategic concern in the [first] Gulf war was to avoid what we often referred to as the Lebanonisation of Iraq, which we believed would create a geopolitical nightmare."
In private, Baker is scathing about the current occupant of the White House. Now the one indispensable creator of the Bush family political fortunes is repudiated.
Republican elders who warned of endless war are purged. Those who advised Bush that Saddam was building nuclear weapons, that with a light military force the operation would be a "cakewalk", and that capturing Baghdad was "mission accomplished", are rewarded.
The outgoing secretary of state, fighting his last battle, is leaking stories to the Washington Post about how his advice went unheeded. Secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld, whose heart beats with the compassion of a crocodile, clings to his job by staging Florence Nightingale-like tableaux of hand-holding of the wounded while declaiming into the desert wind about "victory". Since the election, 203 US soldiers have been killed and 1,674 wounded.
• Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is Washington bureau chief of salon.com
sidney_blumenthal@yahoo.com

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3944374
5:45pm (UK)
Bush 'Undermining UN with Aid Coalition'

By Jamie Lyons, PA Political Correspondent
United States President George Bush was tonight accused of trying to undermine the United Nations by setting up a rival coalition to coordinate relief following the Asian tsunami disaster.

The president has announced that the US, Japan, India and Australia would coordinate the world’s response.

But former International Development Secretary Clare Short said that role should be left to the UN.

“I think this initiative from America to set up four countries claiming to coordinate sounds like yet another attempt to undermine the UN when it is the best system we have got and the one that needs building up,” she said.

“Only really the UN can do that job,” she told BBC Radio Four’s PM programme.

“It is the only body that has the moral authority. But it can only do it well if it is backed up by the authority of the great powers.”

Ms Short said the coalition countries did not have good records on responding to international disasters.

She said the US was “very bad at coordinating with anyone” and India had its own problems to deal with.

“I don’t know what that is about but it sounds very much, I am afraid, like the US trying to have a separate operation and not work with the rest of the world through the UN system,” she added.

http://www.newshounds.us/2004/12/31/media_lies_about_initial_bush_tsunami_aid_package.php
News Hounds
We watch FOX so you don't have to.
December 31, 2004
Media Lies About "Initial" Bush Tsunami Aid Package
The amount of money the Bush administration initially pledged to the relief effort in Southeast Asia seems to change by the day on Fox News as well as on other "news" outlets. By changing the amount, the press is not only lying to the public, but giving the Bush administration a very, very BIG break as has been so frighteningly common over the last few years.
Today (December 31, 2004) on Your World w/Neil Cavuto, substitute host Stuart Varney opened a segment this way:
"As we told you earlier, the United States has upped its tsunami relief aid to $350 million. That is ten times the initial amount, but is it enough to shut those stingy comments up?"
(By the way, there was a picture of George Bush in the upper lefthand corner of the screen with the words "Stop the Bush Bashing" underneath it as Varney spoke.)
COMMENT: On the Monday, December 27, 2004 edition of this program:
Fox reporter Megyn Kendall delivered a report today (December 27, 2004) during Your World w/Neil Cavuto on the horrible tsunami in Asia. Kendall reported that the United States gave $400,000 in immediate aid today and expects to give an additional $4 million in the near future. In the end, Kendall reported, we would likely give a total of $15 million.
Here is my post from that day.
COMMENT: So to be accurate, the initial amount was a pitiful, paltry, sickening $400,000. The $400,000 increased to $15 million and then to $35 million yesterday. However, the press, Fox included, seems to have wiped the history of this story from the books. The "initial" amount is now being reported as $35 million while the true "initial" amount was $400,000. Inaccurate reporting like this shields the administration from the shame of not only its sinful original offer of $400,000, but the pitiful offer of $15 million as well, and it doesn't paint an accurate picture of what this administration has done. Is it any wonder people in this country have no idea what Bush is about?
Reported by Melanie at December 31, 2004 06:05 PM | TrackBack
Categories: Cavuto/& Your World, Hypocrisy, Melanie's

2 peas sure not from same pod
Dec. 5, 2004 12:00 AM
Political Insider is a tongue-in-cheek look at the past week in Arizona politics.

Secret Republican plot to annoy Democrats revealed! . . . Senate President Ken Bennett released the new floor seating chart Thursday and we immediately spied two new neighbors who will fit together like peas and carrots . . . moralistic and disapproving Republican peas and smart-alecky openly gay Democrat carrots, that is.

It should be a tasty session for Sen. Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, who will sit next to House refugee Karen Johnson, R-Mesa.
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We envision Johnson providing hours of entertainment for Cheuvront as she explains to him her well publicized theories on how "homosexuality is at the lower end of the behavioral spectrum." And how "sexually promiscuous sex threatens to undermine the very values and institutions, especially the family, upon which a stable and vital society is built."

And Cheuvront can invite his neighbor up to his office where he keeps a Mike Ritter political cartoon on his wall making fun of Johnson's five marriages.

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Speaking of gays, from the desk of Matt Salmon . . . The soon-to-be chairman of the Arizona Republican Party is lending his name to raise big bucks to ban gay marriage in America. Salmon, a former congressman, sent out a fund-raising letter in late November for the Gilbert-based United Families International. The group wants to change the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Salmon's letter quotes political theorist Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Hoo! We've seen a lot of pejoratives thrown around in this particular debate, but not too many uses of the "E" word.

"I read into it that the existence of gays are evil," said Sen. Ken Cheuvront, an openly gay Democrat from Phoenix (in case you missed the first item). "He's saying that gay relationships are so bad we need to call God's army. It's highly offensive."

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References available upon request . . . In a relatively slow news week, Gov. Janet Napolitano did pressroom hacks a favor by helping manufacture some news. Of course, her statements had nothing to do with aiding her political prospects (wink, wink). A radio dude asked the Guv if Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl would make a good replacement for Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

Napolitano, who has her eyes on a U.S. Senate seat sometime in the future, took the ball and gushed with it.

"I think Secretary Ridge understood some of the logistical issues you have to deal with, as a former governor, but he was not familiar with the border," Napolitano said. "Senator Kyl would start up, of course, being very, very familiar with the border and very familiar with the fact that the Arizona border, of all the borders, has the most increase in illegal trafficking. To have the secretary of homeland security who is that familiar would be a good thing for Arizona."

Nice. The Capitol press corps, always sharp as a tack, asked Napolitano the obvious follow-up query. What Republican would you name to replace Kyl? (Under state law, the replacement would have to be from Kyl's party: Republican.) Napolitano chuckled and said: "Moving right along . . . "

Someone chimed in: How about Kris Mayes? (Napolitano's one-time press secretary whom she picked to be on the Corporation Commission.) Another Napolitano laugh followed by: "Moving right along."

In reality, Kyl had less of a chance of getting the homeland security gig than the Arizona Cardinals do of making the playoffs. On Friday, President Bush picked former New York police Commissioner Bernard Kerik to fill the job. But there is a chance that Kyl, who votes almost in lockstep with the whims of the White House, could get named to another post in the Bush administration or be picked for the Supreme Court.

Just in case that happens, some names are being bandied about to fill Kyl's seat until the 2006 general election (think moderates or old-timers who would not pose a huge challenge for Democrats): Congressman Jim Kolbe; Betsey Bayless, director of the Arizona Department of Administration; state Sen. Linda Binder; and Arizona Republican Party Chairman Bob Fannin.

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We're dreaming of a White (House) Christmas . . . Several of Arizona's leading GOP muckety-mucks secured treasured invitations to Bush's swanky Christmas party Thursday. Actually, Bush holds at least three of these parties to glad-hand with delegations of big donors and politicos from all the states, or at least the red ones.

Spotted munching on the primo layout of beef, shrimp and pasta were Secretary of State Jan Brewer, Senate President Ken Bennett and soon-to-be-ex- House Speaker Jake Flake. Alberto Gutier and his son Mickey, who usually drives in Bush's motorcade when he comes to town, also made the guest list.

"It was an incredibly rewarding experience after 40 years in politics," said Gutier, who, alas, was not rewarded with a victory in his recent run for the House.

Also spotted, petition gatherer to the stars Nathan Sproul. Bush, it seems, doesn't have much of a problem with the allegations in several states that Sproul's employees misrepresented themselves as nonpartisan during a Republican National Committee voter registration drive and were accused of tossing out registrations from Democrats.

Compiled by Republic political reporters Robbie Sherwood and Chip Scutari.

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http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/article.php?id=1029
Top Ten War Profiteers of 2004
Fri, 31 Dec 2004 06:54:47 -0800

Contractors: Above the law
By Center for Corporate Responsibility
You know it's bad when Halliburton is #7
Introduction
At the beginning of the Iraq war, Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), proclaimed that the reconstruction of Iraq would look like a modern-day Marshall Plan. But a year and a half later, a combination of bureaucratic ineptitude, corporate corruption and the growing Iraqi resistance threaten to undermine the Bush administration’s grand designs.
In mid-July, U.S. officials admitted that fewer than 140 of the 2,300 reconstruction projects funded by the U.S. were underway. Although AID says “dirt has been turned” on 1,167 projects including schools and hospitals, with at least 70 new ones staring each week, it’s unlikely that the big picture has changed much. The kidnapping and execution of contract personnel and the ongoing sabotage of key projects—power plants, electricity lines and oil pipelines—has slowed work in many areas of the country to a crawl, jacking up the cost of security, insurance and other ancillary expenditures, which in most cases amount to half of the contractors’ budgets.
By August, Ambassador John Negroponte had to announce that more than $3 billion of $18 billion in U.S. aid earmarked by Congress for engineering and reconstruction work would be used for security and counterinsurgency operations.
The announcement was tacit recognition that a kind of vicious cycle is at work. The aggravation caused by the lack of electricity and other basic services is certain to be blamed on the CPA and the contractors, which could result in further support for the resistance. Exactly how much the resistance has gained from the festering resentments caused by the stalled reconstruction process is difficult to say. But an increase in attacks on construction sites – more than one a day according to the Army – indicates that they are a clear target of the resistance.
In late December, Contrack International, the lead partner on a $320 million transportation systems contract, announced that it was withdrawing from Iraq because of “prohibitive” security costs.
By the fall, news that just 7 percent of the $18 billion originally allocated for reconstruction set off fireworks in Congress. Senator Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, blasted the Bush administration as “incompetent” for failing to devote adequate on-the-ground personnel to contract administration, management, and oversight.
“It’s beyond pitiful, it’s beyond embarrassing, it’s now in the zone of dangerous,” added Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska.
Searching for Root Causes
The Professional Services Council, a trade association representing some of the Iraq contractors, says much of the blame can be placed upon “a growing politicization of government procurement,” as well as the distance between the procurement planners sitting in Washington and contractors in the field.
They have a point. The lack of accountability, reports the Project on Government Oversight in a recent report, can be attributed to the gutting of acquisition workforce and oversight personnel, mandated by Congress starting in the mid-1990s, at a time when the Pentagon began to hand out large open-ended (Indefinite-Delivery/Indefinite-Quantity) contracts to well-connected firms including Bechtel and Halliburton. The result is layer upon layer of subcontracts, with little transparency and reduced government oversight.
Ironically, the contracting agencies’ solution has been to outsource much of the oversight process itself. While the CPA’s audit staff was cut by nearly half during 2004, for example, AID and other agencies were hiring contractors to oversee other contractors with whom they already had ongoing contractual relationships, according to this report released by Henry Waxman, D-California, and Senate Democrats.
U.S. firms are not the only ones to complain about how difficult it has been to get in on the action. (Rep. James P. Moran Jr., D-Virginia, told to a Washington Post reporter that a company in his district was told by Pentagon officials that “if they want the money they really have to go though Halliburton.”) Even the administration’s closest Iraqi allies have been critical.
Last February, for example, Rend Rahim Francke, the U.S.-appointed Iraq Governing Council’s representative in Washington, openly criticized the CPA for passing over Iraqi firms when awarding billions of dollars in reconstruction contracts. Iraqi firms, she said, could easi