How George Bush Stole The White House
How the GOP Gamed the System in Florida
Go to Bush Inaugural Special: 100 Links to Bush info
He Still Dares Call It Treason
AN EXCLUSIVE BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW WITH VINCENT BUGLIOSI
None Dare Call It Treason by Vincent Bugliosi
How George W. Bush stole the White House from America's voters
Florida's 'Disappeared Voters': Disfranchised by the GOP
HOUSE BILL PROPOSES LIFTING BAN ON ASSASSINATIONS
Clinton, Israel and the Pardons connection
Cocaine, Columbia, WTC, Mossad and the Bush Family Links Page
How George W. Bush stole the White House
from America's voters
by Harvey Wasserman
1/18/01
It's official. The Banana Republicans now occupy the White House.
In direct, and predictable, contradiction to his campaign rhetoric of
accommodation and compromise, George "Shrub" Bush begins his
illegitimate
regime like countless other coup figureheads, with cynicism and an iron hand.
How firmly will the forces of democracy oppose him? Remember that Bush was
allowed to take power precisely because the "New Democrats" lack the
strength or character to stand up to the hard right. Predictably, their
performance at the dawn of the Shrub years is already discouraging. Indeed,
if the nation and its natural environment are to survive at all, clear and
powerful resistance must come from where it always comes, the grassroots,
but with far more conviction than we've seen in many a decade.
The clearest sign of the Bush hard line comes with his chief law
enforcement officer. Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft is a carbon
copy of countless martial strongmen installed in Third World countries by
the father of the new president and the national security apparatus Bush
Sr. once ran. The former Missouri Senator (who was beaten for re-election
by a dead man) is the creation of the corporations and fundamentalist
church groups that paid for his losing campaign, and for that of his new boss.
Ashcroft is pro-corporation (especially tobacco), pro-gun, pro-military,
pro-death penalty, pro-welfare for religious schools, and an ardent fan of
the Confederacy. He is anti-black, anti-choice, anti-feminist, anti-gay,
anti-speech, anti-poor, anti-green and anti-labor.
In short, he's a poster child for the Bush junta, a humorless gray cabal of
old economy types whose primary agenda will be to further the Reaganite
redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich while raping the natural
planet along the way. They'll add billions in church and corporate welfare.
In the name of "liberty," they'll erase as many individual rights and
freedoms as their dominance of a bought Supreme Court can facilitate.
Star wars is only the most visible of the massive military and other scams
this militant right-wing crew intends to foist on the public in the coming
years, to the benefit of their corporate and fundamentalist sponsors. We
can also expect an escalated drug war, new jungle bloodshed in Central
America, heightened tensions with China and Russia, and a relentless
assault on the natural environment and basic freedoms of speech and the
press. All are sure to come.
The regime has been pre-bought by more than $350 million in contributions
made to the Bush campaign in a larger national "election" that cost
some $3
billion, much of that paid to electronic media, whose opposition to
campaign finance reform is thus guaranteed.
Alongside Ashcroft is Gale Norton as Bush's Secretary of Interior nominee.
A fanatic "property rights" cultist, Norton says the public can't
impose
environmental or other restrictions on private property owners. Thus she
opposes the Clean Air and Water Acts, the National Parks system and all
other communal attempts to preserve the natural environment and other life
support systems essential to our collective survival.
Norton's ideology got new swagger last week from the U.S. Supreme Court,
which used a "states' rights" argument to vastly weaken the Clean
Water Act
in a case involving a landfill in northern Illinois. By the usual 5-4
margin, the right-wing majority said the federal government could not
overrule the states to save a body of water, even though that natural
entity is part of a larger national eco-system. For pure hypocrisy, the
Supreme Court ruling is hard to top. It's a reminder of who, exactly, is
taking control of the White House, and how.
The Y2K electoral theft
History will recall that in the election of 2000, George W. Bush lost the
nationwide popular vote to Al Gore by some 539,947 votes, plus the
uncounted thousands in Florida. Not to mention another 2.6 million votes
that went to Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.
History will note that, in a dozen different ways, Bush almost certainly
lost the popular vote in Florida. Had Bush's brother not been governor
there, Gore would have won the state's electoral votes and the electoral
college. Had Bush's cousin not been perched at Fox News, and was the first
network election chief to call the state for Shrub, the other TV networks
might not have followed suit and instead covered the race properly on
election night.
History will further note that with its fraternal Republican Governor and a
Republican Secretary of State that was Bush's campaign chair, the state of
Florida waged a systematic and effective campaign to disenfranchise blacks
and Jews who were known to be supporting Gore by margins of four-, five-
and even nine-to-one.
Black citizens were removed from the voter rolls en masse by false charges
that they were felons, a move choreographed by a sophisticated computer
firm hired with state money to do just that. African-Americans were stopped
from reaching the polls by police who demanded various forms of impossible
identification.
African-Americans were booted from actual voting stations by phony
requirements reminiscent of the old poll taxes and other scams used by the
descendants of John Ashcroft's beloved Confederacy. Voting machines in
black and Jewish districts conveniently malfunctioned and made a mockery of
democracy.
Only the old Soviet Joe Stalin could aptly describe the Florida outcome:
"It doesn't matter who casts the votes, only who counts them."
To make sure those votes were counted for a Bush victory, the United States
Supreme Court stepped in. On a Saturday, the high court ruled that the
Florida recounts must stop. On the following Tuesday, it ruled there was no
time to resume the recount.
To justify its demand that George W. Bush win the election, the
conservative majority used a series of tortured and inconsistent arguments
that essentially imposed federal control on the state's electoral process.
The Supreme Court demanded, among other things, a uniform standard for
counting ballots when no such a doctrine has ever existed in federal law.
The court trashed the very states' rights philosophy so-called
conservatives have used for two centuries as a cover to oppose federal
guarantees of such inconvenient luxuries as civil rights, civil liberties,
voting rights and environmental protection. In short, the federal
imposition used to guarantee Bush's victory is in direct ideological
contradiction to the states' rights arguments the same justices used to
overturn the ecological protection of those waterways in Illinois.
Also lost in the shuffle were the Supreme Court Justices' own conflicts of
interest. Both Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor had long since made public their desire to retire from the bench,
along with their unwillingness to do so with a Democrat in the White House.
The wife of Justice Clarence Thomas and the sons of Justice Antonin Scalia
all had direct personal interests in a Bush victory based on jobs they held
at the time of the decision. Scalia also made known his desire to become
Chief Justice, which could only happen if Rehnquist resigned under a
Republican president, such as George W. Bush.
The electoral debacle of the year 2000 thus forever bankrupted any residual
credibility remaining to the
conservatives' arguments for states' rights. From now on, decisions such as
the Illinois wetlands destruction will be tagged with the footnote that the
court remained firm in its commitment to states' rights, except in cases
involving the election of a Republican president to the White House. Except
for his intellectual mediocrity and exceptional meanness of spirit, history
will remember Rehnquist only for his signature theft of the Y2K election,
and the permanent damage done to the Supreme Court's once-towering
credibility as an incorruptible institution of last resort.
A Shrub in deed
How will history remember George W. Bush?
Liberal pundits expect a field day with Shrub's obvious lack of
intellectual and oratorical fire power. His
voluminous malapropisms already rival those of his father. Smug Democrats
assume his lack of charisma and bandwidth will automatically render him an
ineffective, one-term failure. Having inherited the family business,
whenever a really tough decision comes along, he'll call his father.
Poppy's cabinet is his personal missile shield.
But one need only remember Ronald Reagan to recall the danger of
underestimation. Liberals branded Reagan "an amiable dunce." But he
was
neither. Ronnie's most decidedly un-amiable programs were brutal to the
poor, the environment, women, people of color, the people of Central
America. His lack of bookish intellect did not stop him from charming the
media and enough of the American public to enforce the most destructive
social agenda since Calvin Coolidge. Though his popularity ratings were far
below those of Bill Clinton, he managed to run up the biggest financial,
educational and ecological debt in national history and to imbue an entire
generation with a deep-rooted sense of materialistic cynicism.
In short, Reagan's rightist accomplishments were staggering.
Can Shrub repeat? Those who assume his deer-in-the-headlights demeanor
dooms him to failure might recall his debates with Al Gore, where the
obviously brighter but terminally arrogant Vice President flashed his
brittle core and lost an election that had been handed to him on a silver
platter.
In so doing, Gore revealed the real black hole of the coming era, the New
Democrats. The signal moment came last week, when, despite howls of rage
from the Congressional Black Caucus, not one of the 50 Senate Democrats
could muster the common decency to force a public debate over the most
obviously stolen American election since 1876.
Eight years ago, when a legitimately elected Bill Clinton assumed office,
Republican zealots waited nary a nanosecond to launch a full bore partisan
attack over everything from gays in the military to the new president's
persona. For two full terms, conservatives waged an unrelenting assault on
every particle of Clinton's moderate agenda, capping it off with a
full-blown impeachment over his endlessly entertaining love life.
Clinton obliged by fighting hard for nothing except NAFTA and a wildly
creative redefinition of what constitutes sex. The New Democratic agenda
was a corporate-funded moderate Republican charade dressed in baby boomer
blue-jeans.
Clinton-Gore proposed a feeble national health care plan, then tossed it at
the first sign of corporate opposition.
They dismantled the welfare system (for the poor, not the corporations) in
ways no Republican could have dared.
They compiled a truly horrendous record on civil liberties in general and
wiretapping in particular. They escalated the drug war, jacking the U.S.
prison population to a staggering two million while arguing to the U.S.
Supreme Court, in the administration's dying days, that state referenda for
medical marijuana should be overturned.
Clinton-Gore did greatly aid the environment by vetoing, for eight years
running, the nuclear power industry's attempt to flood the highways and
railways with high-level radioactive waste headed to Nevada. But they broke
their promise to shut the WTI toxic waste incinerator in East Liverpool,
which became a symbol for the administration's lack of green integrity and
nerve.
Perhaps the most telling moment came in the Shrub debates, when the Texas
oil man accused Gore of failing to implement an energy policy. The
accusation could hardly have been more hypocritical, except that it was
accurate. For eight years, right into the Gore campaign, the administration
talked a good game about fighting global warming and pushing renewable
energy sources over fossil fuels. But Clinton-Gore's tangible
accomplishments were marginal at best. They fudged on everything from auto
efficiency standards to government purchases of recycled paper to utility
deregulation to reactor safety. Clinton failed even to restore to the White
House roof the solar panels installed by Jimmy Carter then removed by Reagan.
In the waning moments of his regime, with political costs lowest and
exposure at its peak, Clinton indulged in a showy (but welcome) outburst of
conservationism. His high-profile creation of millions of acres of national
monuments, roadless wilderness and protected forests came like rain after
an interminable drought. But why at the end of his term, and not at the
beginning? And why did he flinch from using the National Monuments Act to
protect the Alaska Wildlife Refuge, soon to be pillaged by Shrub's
hate-nature oil assault team?
Green salvation
Which brings us to the real reason the New Democrats leave the White House
with such an excruciatingly short list of tangible accomplishments: Money.
Bill Clinton's campaign genius has been to wed the hard realities of
corporate cash with the slick gloss of social commitments. When push came
to shove, he could always manage to ditch just enough of the social agenda
to keep him funded, but not too much to blow it with the public.
Al Gore's downfall was his inability to simultaneously dance to
contradictory tunes. He raised so many millions that when George W. Bush
astonishingly accused him of spending more on his campaign than the
Republicans, Gore simply sighed and groaned, but had no comeback. For all
his populist prattle, his soul was sold.
Because he couldn't double-dip like Clinton (and because he was too uptight
to let Elvis campaign for him) Gore will (gratefully) fade into history
along with Mike Dukakis and Walter Mondale. Clinton still runs the New
Democratic Party. His brilliant celebrity wife will dominate those 50
Senators, bide her time, learn the ropes, expand her base and, sooner or
later, her time will come. And the New Democrats will become ever more
besotted with corporate money and the illusions of social justice.
But they will not stand up to the Bush junta. There have already been
gutter fights over appointees like Linda Chavez and Gale Norton. But the
heavy lifting, as usual, will be left to those outside the mainstream, in
this case, those who supported Ralph Nader and the Green Party.
For years to come, the New Democrats will scapegoat Nader for the Y2K
debacle. They will point to Nader's 90,000 votes in Florida and thousands
more in New Hampshire as the deciding factor. They will ignore the fact, as
they did last week in the U.S. Senate, that Gore actually won both the
popular and the electoral vote.
And that Nader had nothing to do with Bill Clinton's dalliance with Monica
Lewinsky, or the spring crash of NASDAQ, or the untimely explosion of
warfare in the Middle East, or the failure of Clinton-Gore to carry their
own states of Tennessee and Arkansas (not to mention the perennial
Democratic stronghold of West Virginia), any one of which could have put
Gore in the White House.
Nor did Nader cause Gore's pathetic showings in three debates (from which
Nader was in fact physically removed), or Jeb Bush's theft of Florida, or
the Supreme Court's cynical intervention. The New Democrats will also
suppress the fact that even though Gore was a miserable candidate who ran a
miserable campaign, the election still had to be stolen by Bush, pure and
simple.
Not that Nader didn't try to meet Gore halfway. Nader met with the new
"green" VP in 1993, then offered to convene a national grassroots
gathering
for him. In a conference call a week before the 2000 election, Nader told
me he wrote Gore a dozen times and called him three times in the lead-up to
last November. But Gore refused to meet him.
Nonetheless, it will be convenient for the New Democrats to point to every
Shrub transgression as something that would not have happened had Ralph
Nader not run for president. And then to do nothing about it.
Most important, the New Democrats will forget the moment that Al Gore had
the election wrapped up. At the Democratic National Convention in Los
Angeles, Gore stole Nader's thunder and ignited the activist constituency.
Gore gave the speech of his life, a straightforward populist call to
action, perfectly designed to bring the truly committed back into the
Democratic fold. In fact, Gore endorsed the agenda perfected over the past
35 years by none other than America's leading consumer activist.
Gore soared to a 15-point lead.
And then he wilted, as if his corporate sponsors panicked, and ripped up
his roots. Gore gracelessly helped bar Nader from the debates, then lost
them. Instead of co-opting the green agenda, Gore and his flunkies attacked
the messenger, as if their chief opponent was a 66-year-old bachelor flying
coach with his nephew, charging admission to his speeches.
"Only Al Gore can beat Al Gore," David Letterman said, because it was
never
clear what he stood for, other than for Al Gore. Slick Willie could pull it
off. Stiff Al couldn't.
We can expect the New Democrats to fight the fringe battles over
appointments and the like. But the only Americans who'll reliably resist
the brunt of the Shrub assault are precisely those the New Democrats
trashed, along with those the Bush junta so methodically disenfranchised.
The thousands of young and aging activists who paid to hear Nader rant. The
2.6 million who voted for him. The millions more who grudgingly voted for
Gore but loathed his short-changed agenda and are ready to fight it out as
the corporate New Democrats aren't.
The same millions who expected a fair national hearing on how this election
was stolen, and were denied it by a spineless Senate.
After the early skirmishes, and except for the easy battles, the New
Democrats will roll over for the Bush junta.
Their money comes from the same corporations. They won't withstand a
focused, massively financed right-wing juggernaut intent on substituting
raw muscle for the lack of a popular mandate.
That's the way they do it in the Third World. Who will stop them here?
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The Nation Article
Fri, 19 Jan 2001
palast@aol.com
Florida's 'Disappeared Voters':
Disfranchised by the GOP
by GREGORY PALAST
In Latin America they might have called them votantes desaparecidos,
"disappeared voters." On November 7 tens of thousands of eligible
Florida voters were wrongly prevented from casting their ballots--some purged
from the voter registries and others blocked from registering in the first
instance. Nearly all were Democrats, nearly half of them African-American.
The systematic program that disfranchised these legal voters, directed by the
offices of Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris,
was so quiet, subtle and intricate that if not for George W. Bush's 500-vote
eyelash margin of victory, certified by Harris, the chance of the purge's
discovery would have been vanishingly small.
The group prevented from voting has few defenders in either party: felons. It
has been well reported that Florida denies its nearly half a million former
convicts the right to vote. However, the media have completely missed the
fact that Florida's own courts have repeatedly told the Governor he may not
take away the civil rights of Florida citizens who committed crimes in other
states, served their time and had their rights restored by those states.
People from other states who have arrived in Florida with a felony conviction
in their past number "clearly over 50,000 and likely over 100,000,"
says
criminal demographics expert Jeffrey Manza of Northwestern University. Manza
estimates that 80 percent arrive with voting rights intact, which they do not
forfeit by relocating to Florida.
Nevertheless, agencies controlled by Harris and Bush ordered county officials
to reject attempts by these eligible voters to register, while, publicly, the
governor's office states that it adheres to court rulings not to obstruct
these ex-offenders in the exercise of their civil rights. Further, with the
aid of a Republican-tied database firm, Harris's office used sophisticated
computer programs to hunt those felons eligible to vote and ordered them
thrown off the voter registries.
After reviewing The Nation's findings, voter demographics authority David
Bositis concluded that the purge-and-block program was "a patently obvious
technique to discriminate against black voters." Bositis, senior research
associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in
Washington, DC, notes that based on nationwide conviction rates,
African-Americans would account for 46 percent of the ex-felon group wrongly
disfranchised. Corroborating Bositis's estimate, the Hillsborough County
elections supervisor found that 54 percent of the voters targeted by the
"scrub" are African-American, in a county where blacks make up 11
percent of the voting population.
Bositis suggests that the block-and-purge program "must have had a partisan
motivation. Why else spend $4 million if they expected no difference in the
ultimate vote count?" Florida's black voters gave Al Gore nine out of ten
of
their votes; white and Hispanic felons, mostly poor, vote almost as solidly
Democratic. A recently released University of Minnesota study estimates that,
for example, 93 percent of felons of all races favored Bill Clinton in 1996.
Whatever Florida's motive for keeping these qualified voters out of the
polling booths on November 7, the fact is that they represented several times
George W. Bush's margin of victory in the state. Key officials in Bush's and
Harris's agencies declined our requests for comment.
The NAACP, tipped off to the racially suspect voter purge by early reports of
this investigation, added the tainted felon-hunt to its lawsuit, filed
January 10, against Harris, her elections unit chief Clay Roberts and their
private database contractor. The suit accuses them of violating the Voting
Rights Act of 1965 and the Constitution's equal protection amendment. The
NAACP demands an immediate injunction to halt the felon purge.
The disfranchisement operation began in 1998 under Katherine Harris's
predecessor as secretary of state, Sandra Mortham. Mortham was a Republican
star, designated by Jeb Bush as his lieutenant governor running mate for his
second run for governor.
Six months prior to the gubernatorial contest, the Florida legislature passed
a "reform" law to eliminate registration of ineligible voters: those
who had
moved, those who had died and felons without voting rights. The legislation
was promoted as a good-government response to the fraud-tainted Miami mayoral
race of 1997.
But from the beginning, the law and its implementation emitted a partisan
fragrance. Passed by the Republican legislature's majority, the new code
included an extraordinary provision to turn over the initial creation of
"scrub" lists to a private firm. No other state, either before or
since, has
privatized this key step in the elimination of citizens' civil rights.
In November 1998 the Republican-controlled office of the secretary of state
handed the task to the single bidder, Database Technologies, now the DBT
Online unit of ChoicePoint Inc. of Atlanta, into which it merged last year.
The elections unit within the secretary of state's office immediately
launched a felon manhunt with a zeal and carelessness that worried local
elections professionals. The Nation has obtained an internal Florida State
Association of Supervisors of Elections memo, dated August 1998, which warns
Mortham's office that it had wrongly removed eligible voters in a botched
rush "to capriciously take names off the rolls." However, to avoid a
public
row, the supervisors agreed to keep their misgivings within the confines of
the bureaucracies in the belief that "entering a public fight with [state
officials] would be counterproductive."
That November Jeb Bush had an unexpectedly easy walk to the governor's
mansion, an election victory attributed, ironically, to his endorsement by
black Democratic politicians feuding with their party.
Over the past two years, with Republicans in charge of both the governorship
and the secretary of state's office, now under Harris, the felon purge has
accelerated. In May 2000, using a list provided by DBT, Harris's office
ordered counties to purge 8,000 Florida voters who had committed felonies in
Texas. In fact, none of the group were charged with anything more than
misdemeanors, a mistake caught but never fully reversed. ChoicePoint DBT and
Harris then sent out "corrected" lists, including the names of 437
voters who
indeed had committed felonies in Texas. But this list too was in error, since
a Texas law enacted in 1997 permits felons to vote after doing their time. In
this case there was no attempt at all to correct the error.
The wrongful purge of the Texas convicts was no one-of-a-kind mishap. The
secretary of state's office acknowledges that it also ordered the removal of
714 names of Illinois felons and 990 from Ohio--states that permit the vote
even to those on probation or parole. According to Florida's own laws, not a
single person arriving in the state from Ohio or Illinois should have been
removed. Altogether DBT tagged for the scrub nearly 3,000 felons who came
from at least eight states that automatically restore voting rights and who
therefore arrived in Florida with full citizenship.
A ChoicePoint DBT spokesman said, and the Florida Department of Elections
confirms, that Harris's office approved the selection of states from which to
obtain records for the felon scrub. As to why the department included states
that restore voting rights, Janet Modrow, Florida's liaison to ChoicePoint
DBT, bounced the question to Harris's legal staff. That office has not
returned repeated calls.
Pastor Thomas Johnson of Gainesville is minister to House of Hope, a
faith-based charity that guides ex-convicts from jail into working life, a
program that has won high praise from the pastor's friend Governor Jeb Bush.
Ten years ago, Johnson sold crack cocaine in the streets of New York, got
caught, served his time, then discovered God and Florida--where, early last
year, he attempted to register to vote. But local elections officials refused
to accept his registration after he admitted to the decade-old felony
conviction from New York. "It knocked me for a loop. It was
horrendous," said
Johnson of his rejection.
Beverly Hill, the elections supervisor of Alachua County, where Johnson
attempted to register, said that she used to allow ex-felons like Johnson to
vote. Under Governor Bush, that changed. "Recently, the [Governor's Office
of
Executive] Clemency people told us something different," she said.
"They told
us that they essentially can't vote."
Both Alachua's refusal to allow Johnson to vote and the governor's directive
underlying that refusal are notable for their timing--coming after two court
rulings that ordered the secretary of state and governor to recognize the
civil rights of felons arriving from other states. In the first of these
decisions, Schlenther v. Florida Department of State, issued in June 1998,
Florida's Court of Appeal ruled unanimously that Florida could not require a
man convicted in Connecticut twenty-five years earlier "to ask [Florida] to
restore his civil rights. They were never lost here." Connecticut, like
most
states, automatically restores felons' civil rights at the end of their
sentences, and therefore "he arrived as any other citizen, with full rights
of citizenship."
The Schlenther decision was much the talk at a summer 1998 meeting of county
elections officials in Orlando. So it was all the more surprising to Chuck
Smith, systems administrator with Hillsborough County, that Harris's
elections division chiefs exhorted local officials at the Orlando meeting to
purge all out-of-state felons identified by DBT. Hillsborough was so
concerned about this order, which appeared to fly in the face of the court
edict, that the county's elections office demanded that the state put that
position in writing--a request duly granted.
The Nation has obtained the text of the response to Hillsborough. The letter,
from the Governor's Office of Executive Clemency, dated September 18, 2000,
arrived only seven weeks before the presidential election. It orders the
county to tell ex-felons trying to register that even if they entered Florida
with civil rights restored by another state's law, they will still be
"required to make application for restoration of civil rights in the state
of
Florida," that is, ask Governor Bush for clemency--exactly the requirement
banned by the courts. The state's directive was all the more surprising in
light of a second ruling, issued in December 1999 by another Florida court,
in which a Florida district court judge expressed his ill-disguised
exasperation with the governor's administration for ignoring the prior edict
in Schlenther.
Voting rights attorneys who reviewed the cases for The Nation explained that
the courts relied on both Florida statute and the "full faith and
credit"
clause of the US Constitution, which requires every state to accept the legal
rulings of other states. "The court has been pretty clear on what the
governor can't do," says Bruce Gear, assistant general counsel for the
NAACP.
And what Governor Bush can't do is demand that a citizen arriving in Florida
ask him for clemency to restore a right to vote that the citizen already has.
Strangely enough, the governor's office does not disagree. While Harris, Bush
and a half-dozen of their political appointees have not returned our calls,
Tawanna Hayes, who processes the requests for clemency in the governor's
office, states unequivocally that "we do not have the right to suspend or
restore rights where those rights have been restored in another state."
Hayes
even keeps a copy of the two court decisions near her desk and quotes from
them at length. Then why have the governor and secretary of state ordered
these people purged from the rolls or barred from registering? Hayes directed
us to Greg Munson, Governor Bush's assistant general counsel and clemency
aide. Munson has not responded to our detailed request for an explanation.
A letter dated August 10, 2000, from Harris's office to Bush's office,
obtained under Florida's freedom-of-information act, indicates that the chief
of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections also questioned
Harris's office about the purge of ex-cons whose rights had been restored
automatically by other states. The supervisors' group received the same
response as Hillsborough: Strike them from the voter rolls, and if they
complain, make them ask Bush for clemency.
While almost all county supervisors buckled, Carol Griffen did not. Griffen,
Washington County's elections chief, concluded that running legal voters
through Jeb Bush's clemency maze would violate a 1993 federal law, the
National Voter Registration Act, which was designed to remove impediments to
the exercise of civil rights. The law, known as "Motor Voter," is
credited
with helping register 7 million new voters. Griffen quotes from the Florida
section of the new, NVRA-certified registration form, which says, "I affirm
I
am not a convicted felon, or if I am, my rights relating to voting have been
restored." "That's the law," says the adamant Griffen, "and
I have no right
stopping anyone registering who truthfully signs that statement. Once you
check that box there's no discussion." Griffen's county refused to
implement
the scrub, and the state appears reluctant to challenge its action.
But when Pastor Johnson attempted to register in Alachua County, clerks
refused and instead handed him a fifteen-page clemency request form. The
outraged minister found the offer a demeaning Catch-22. "How can I ask the
governor for a right I already have?" he says, echoing, albeit unknowingly,
the words of the Florida courts.
Had Johnson relented and chosen to seek clemency, he would have faced a
procedure that is, admits the clemency office's Hayes, "sometimes worse
than
breaking a leg." For New Yorkers like Johnson, she says, "I'm telling
you
it's a bear." She says officials in New York, which restores civil rights
automatically, are perplexed by requests from Florida for nonexistent papers
declaring the individual's rights restored. Without the phantom clemency
orders, the applicant must hunt up old court records and begin a complex
process lasting from four months to two years, sometimes involving
quasi-judicial hearings, the outcome of which depends on Jeb Bush's
disposition.
Little wonder that out of tens of thousands of out-of-state felons, only a
hardy couple of hundred attempted to run this bureaucratic obstacle course
before the election. (Bush can be compassionate: He granted clemency to
Charles Colson for his crimes as a Watergate conspirator, giving Florida
resident Colson the right to vote in the presidential election.)
Was Florida's corrupted felon-voter hunt the work of cozy collusion between
Jeb Bush and Harris, the President-elect's brother and state campaign chief,
respectively? It is unlikely we will ever discover the motives driving the
voter purge, but we can see the consequences. Three decades ago, Governor
George Wallace stood in a schoolhouse door and thundered, "Segregation now!
Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" but he failed to block entry to
African-Americans. Governor Jeb Bush's resistance to court rulings, conducted
at whisper level with high-tech assistance, has been far more effective at
blocking voters of color from the polling station door. Deliberate or
accidental, the error-ridden computer purge and illegal clemency obstacle
course function, like the poll tax and literacy test of the Jim Crow era, to
take the vote away from citizens who are black, poor and, not coincidentally,
almost all Democrats. No guesswork there: Florida is one of the few states to
include!
both party and race on registration files.
Pastor Johnson, an African-American wrongfully stripped of his vote, refuses
to think ill of the governor or his motives. He prefers to see a dark comedy
of bureaucratic errors: "The buffoonery of this state has cost us a
President." If this is buffoonery, then Harris and the Bushes are wise
fools
indeed.
If you are interested in a free subscription to The
Konformist Newswire, please visit:
http://www.eGroups.com/list/konformist
HOUSE BILL PROPOSES LIFTING BAN ON
ASSASSINATIONS
BUSH ADMINISTRATION WASTING NO TIME
IN MOVING TOWARD WAR FOOTING
Armitage The Executioner
FTW 1/24/01 - HR 19, Introduced by Republican Georgia Congressman Bob Barr
on January 3, 2001, the first day of the new 107th Congress, would
legislatively repeal sections of three Executive Orders specifically
prohibiting assassinations by the United States Government.
Entitled the "Terrorist Elimination Act of 2001", the bill, submitted to the
House International Relations Committee, would specifically nullify sections
of three previous Executive Orders including one initiated by Ronald Reagan
in 1981. It is interesting to note that acts of Congress are not required to
nullify previous Executive Orders (EOs) which are, by definition, orders
issued by the President and Commander in Chief to all federal employees
(including military) under his authority. All that is necessary to reverse
one EO is another EO. This is exactly what President George W. Bush did with
respect to EOs issued by President Clinton on the environment in the last
days of his administration.
Section 3 of HR 19 specifically states:
"The following provisions of Executive orders shall have no further force or
effect:
(1) Section 5(g) of Executive Order 11905.
(2) Section 2-305 of Executive Order 12306.
(3) Section 2.11 of Executive Order 12333." [By Ronald Reagan]
Section 5 (g) of Executive Order 11905, signed by Gerald Ford on 2/18/76
specifically prohibited "political" assassination. Section 2-305 of
Executive Order 12036, signed 1/24/78 by Jimmy Carter renewed the ban.
Section 2.11 of Executive Order 12333, signed by Ronald Reagan on 12/4/81
renewed the ban on assassinations, or conspiracy to commit assassinations,
as part of a broader package which gave virtually complete control of the
American National Security apparatus to then Vice President George H.W.
Bush.
The full text of HR 19 may be viewed at http://thomas.loc.gov. Enter a
search in the 107th Congress for 19 and it will take you straight to the
bill.
The bold move, unreported and ignored by any major media, offers a chance
for an early referendum on the new administration's full-speed run at a more
violent and brutish foreign policy.
The current bill, introduced by staunch Bush supporter and Clinton
impeachment leader Barr, indicates that the Bush administration is seeking
to add legitimacy to the move by implying that Congress and the American
people support the action. This can only mean that there is quite likely a
list of people the Bush Administration wants to start killing fairly
quickly. The appointment of career covert operative and Annapolis graduate
Richard Armitage as Deputy Secretary of State under Colin Powell only
underscores the clear message that the Bush Administration is sending to the
world.
Armitage, who was denied a 1989 appointment as Assistant Secretary of State
because of links to Iran-Contra and other scandals, served as Assistant
Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan years.
U.S. Government stipulations in the Oliver North trial specifically named
Armitage as one of the DoD officials responsible for illegal transfers of
weapons to Iran and the Contras. But Armitage's dirty past goes much deeper.
A Vietnam veteran and graduate of Annapolis, Armitage's roots have been
thoroughly intertwined with the likes of CIA veteran Ted Shackley, Richard
Secord, Heine Aderholt, Elliot Abrams, Dewey Clarridge, Edwin Wilson and Tom
Clines. All of these men have been directly linked to CIA covert operations,
the drug trade, the abandonment of U.S. prisoners of War after Vietnam
and/or Iran-Contra. Armitage has also been routinely discussed in FTW as a
Bush-era covert functionary who has been linked to covert operations, drug
smuggling and the expansion of organized crime operations in Russia, Central
Asia and the Far East.
In 1986 a private dispute between POW activist Ross Perot and Armitage went
public as photos of Armitage with a topless Vietnamese nightclub owner
Nguyen O'Rourke brought allegations of gambling and prostitution very close
to Armitage's doorstep. The stories went public when TIME and "The Boston
Globe" wrote lengthy stories on the feud in 1986 and 1987. That scandal
arose as a result of 1984 investigations by President Reagan's Commission on
Organized Crime in which the photo and documentation of gambling charges and
prostitution led directly to Armitage's close association with O'Rourke.
Then LAPD Assistant Chief Jesse Brewer, a former Commanding Officer of this
writer, served on the Reagan Commission.
The 1992 best-seller "Kiss The Boys Goodbye" by former "60 MINUTES" producer
Monika Jensen-Stevenson details Armitage's role as Reagan point man on
Vietnam POW-MIA issues and describes why Armitage has earned the enmity of
many POW activists. However, in a 1995 interview with "The Washington Post",
Colin Powell referred to Armitage as his "white son." This, notwithstanding
the fact that the 6 foot, balding, power-lifter, now 56, can still bench
press 300 or more pounds and reportedly "enjoys killing."
William Tyree, Special Forces Veteran who has provided much reliable
information and documentation to FTW in the past said, "Armitage used to
'sit ambush' on the trails in Laos and Cambodia. He liked it. Now when
Powell, 'the dove,' sits down at a table with Armitage 'the killer' beside
him the message will be that Armitage can reach across the table and deal
with the other party on the spot." That message will not go unheard.
[For more on Armitage we recommend using the search engine at
www.copvcia.com and also at The Progressive Review, www.prorev.com.]
There is reason to believe that a repeal of the assassination ban would lead
to an immediate series of deaths. Remember, the Iran-Contra team is coming
back to power with a vengeance.
The completion of a February 11, 1982 memorandum between Reagan Attorney
General William French Smith and CIA Director Bill Casey removed any
requirement for CIA to report drug trafficking by its agents, contractors
and proprietary employees. Immediately thereafter cocaine consumption into
the United States multiplied as imports rose from approximately 80 tons in
1982 to 600 tons by 1989.
[A copy of that memorandum, published by the CIA in 1998, is available in
FTW's Extracts and Commentary on Volume II of the CIA Inspector General's
Report" originally published on 10/8/98.]
There are no choices and this is no longer a convenient exercise of protected liberty. This is now a true struggle against tyranny. Call your
Congressman. Call your local media. Call your neighbor. A loud enough uproar
can stop this criminal move in its tracks. Silence can only invite
bloodshed.
Special thanks to Mike Whybark and Jim Galasyn of Independent Media Centers
for bringing this travesty to my attention. Please visit their site at
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=19541.
Michael C. Ruppert
Publisher/Editor
"From The Wilderness"
http://www.copvcia.com
(c) Copyright 2001, From The Wilderness Publications and Michael C. Ruppert.
P.O. Box 60-350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413. This message may be copied and
reproduced in any "not-for-profit" mode so long as proper sourcing appears."
More on the new Bush Administration will appear in the January issue of
"From The Wilderness" for paid subscribers only.
Fear and Furs
<http://www.laweekly.com/ink/01/10/news-ehrenreich.shtml>
The pomp and protests of W.'s stolen
inauguration
by Ben Ehrenreich
Jan. 26 - Feb. 1, 200
It was at his first inaugural address in the early years of the Great
Depression that Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously warned that fear was the
nation's greatest danger "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified
terror." In
these more prosperous times, fear itself was the dominant note at George W.
Bush's tainted inauguration in Washington, D.C., last weekend fear and
furs, lots of furs, mink after mink after mink, the lustrous hides of
entire generations of rodents. In the most heavily guarded inaugural
celebration in American history, more than 7,000 officers from more than a
dozen law-enforcement agencies flooded the city to ensure that Bush and
his legions of tuxedoed and mink-wrapped supporters could enjoy their $40
million corporate-sponsored victory party in royal style.
As thousands of demonstrators from widely disparate backgrounds trooped
through the cold and rain-soaked streets to voice their outrage, National
Guardsmen lurked nearby, outfitted for urban combat; armored cars and a
70-man FBI SWAT team waited out of sight. Police set up 10 checkpoints
through which the general public including tens of thousands of
parade-goers as well as protesters had to pass to get to the inaugural
parade route. All bags, even umbrellas, were searched at the checkpoints.
Following a lawsuit brought by protest organizers, U.S. District Judge
Gladys Kessler grudgingly approved the security plan despite "very, very
deep concerns." She warned, "The very term 'checkpoint' has what I
would
call an odious connotation of repression . . . Every citizen has the
freedom to walk the streets of this land."
Agreeing with Kessler, protesters took over the streets of the capital for
the day on Saturday, cheerfully braving the assaults of both the weather
and the police, defying aggressive attempts to contain them, charging
through one of the security checkpoints and raining on the presidential
parade with loud and visible dissent. Along with cheers from onlookers in
cashmere overcoats and furs, the executive limousine was greeted with great
choruses of boos, with nearly as many protest signs as black umbrellas, and
at one point with a skillfully lobbed orange.
By the end of the day, Bush had broken into the White House, with the
blessings of the Supreme Court; police had arrested about 10 protesters on
charges ranging from disorderly conduct to felony assault on a police officer.
Hours before Bush was sworn in on the Capitol steps, protesters were
converging throughout downtown Washington. The International Action Center
(IAC), leading a call to "Stop the Death Machine" and protesting a
range of
issues from capital punishment to police brutality to corporate
globalization, staked out the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route four hours
before the procession was scheduled to begin. The Justice Action Movement,
a coalition of progressive groups, and the Million Voter March, composed
largely of more centrist Democrats angry about the election debacle and
Bush's far-right cabinet appointees, rallied at Dupont Circle before
heading to Pennsylvania Avenue. Several hundred New Black Panthers marched
to declare a "Day of Outrage" at the disenfranchisement of
African-American
voters in Florida. Reverend Al Sharpton led over 1,000 in a "Shadow
Inauguration" at Stanton Park, swearing: "We've taken an oath today
that we
will turn this nation around, and it'll take more than senior Bush or
little junior Bush to turn us around." The Revolutionary Anti-Authoritarian
Bloc, better known as the Black Bloc, convened at Franklin Square, yards
away from the spot where anarchist protesters were clubbed and tear-gassed
by D.C. police during last April's rallies against the International
Monetary Fund.
The day's first confrontation with police took place not long after the
latter group, about 500 anarchists wearing black bandannas and hooded
sweatshirts, joined by the odd mainstream Gore supporter, began marching at
10 a.m. to chants of "Who is the enemy? The state is the enemy!" By 11
a.m.
they had picked up an escort of about two dozen cops on foot at the rear of
the march. This happened after an hour of parading through the streets,
waving signs (a sampling of messages: "No Aid to Israeli Apartheid,"
"Protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," "End the Racist
Death
Penalty," "Genetic Engineering: What Are You Doing to Our Food?"
"The Real
Elections Are in the Streets"), occasionally targeting the property of
their adversaries with a brick (one was thrown at the window of an Armed
Forces Recruitment Center it missed) or can of spray paint (the facade of
the Washington Post building was tagged with circled A, as the crowd yelled
"Fuck Corporate Media!"), dragging newspaper boxes into the street to
slow
the police cars trailing them.
As the group turned the corner at 14th and L streets, just a block from its
starting place at Franklin Square, police charged the crowd without
warning, batons swinging. Several protesters and an AP photographer
were
thrown to the ground, some were beaten. Matt Even, a 24-year-old Washington
resident, was bludgeoned with a baton as he turned to run from the
advancing police. Knocked briefly unconscious and bleeding badly from the
head, he was pulled to safety by friends. (Even was soon back on his feet,
his head hastily bandaged: "It looks like it's going to need stitches but I
don't want to leave the protest," he said two hours later.) More police
appeared from the opposite direction and quickly lined up, boxing in about
200 people on the sidewalk at 14th and K. That group dwindled slightly when
about 50 pushed through police lines and fled. One young man was tackled
and arrested, his shirt torn off and his face bruised and bleeding.
The stage seemed to be set for the now-familiar police tactic of mass
arrests, used both in D.C. last April and during the Democratic National
Convention in Los Angeles. Police began pulling journalists, at times
forcefully, from the group, and pushed all other protesters, who were
gathering in the surrounding intersection, onto the sidewalks, where they
stood angrily waiting for buses to arrive to haul off their captured
companions. D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer, always eager
for a photo op (in April he could be seen wrestling teenage protesters to
the ground himself), was at the scene, but refused comment when asked why
his officers had charged the crowd.
Within a few minutes and apparently without any foreknowledge of what they
were walking into, a band of several thousand demonstrators, filling at
least two blocks the JAM and Million Voter March groups, who, marching
from Dupont Circle, according to one protest organizer, "just happened to
walk up on the mass arrest" arrived from the north on 14th Street and
began chanting, "Let them go!" Overwhelmed by the sheer number of
protesters, the police dissolved the line separating the captive anarchists
from the rest of the crowd. After a few minutes of tense confrontation,
during which officers tried with limited success to keep demonstrators on
the sidewalks, the entire crowd marched off, joining forces on K Street and
chanting triumphantly, "The people united, will never be defeated!" A
few
miles away, George W. Bush pontificated about courage and compassion and
the duties of citizens to be neither spectators nor subjects.
Elated by its victory and unexpected release, Black Bloc marched behind a
banner reading "Whoever They Voted For, We Are Ungovernable," heading
for
the parade route, joined now on all sides by thousands of others, including
five wearing papier mâché caribou heads in solidarity with Alaskan
wildlife, and a gentleman from Boston, his heading poking through a hole in
an enormous butterfly ballot, who asked to be called Chad. At one point two
anxious-looking Bushite couples en route to the parade found themselves in
the midst of the crowd. One black-garbed marcher politely offered a
pamphlet to one man, who ignored his offer, staring stubbornly ahead as if
being pestered by a persistent panhandler. At the same time, another
protester spray-painted an anarchist "A" on the back of his wife's fur
coat
and slipped away unnoticed.
Chanting "Whose Streets? Our Streets!" the crowd stormed through a
checkpoint at Seventh and Pennsylvania with little resistance from police,
filling the Navy Memorial plaza, across the street from the imposing
Corinthian-columned National Archives building. Two lines of riot police
closed in behind them, but soon filed off in rigid formation.
Protesters bid them adieu with a serenade of the Mickey Mouse Club theme.
For the next hour and a half, the crowd milled about in the frigid rain,
teenage protesters drummed on overturned trash bins, sandal-clad
environmentalists mingled with Boy Scouts and Secret Service agents,
Radical Cheerleaders danced beside bleachers brimming with blanketed
Republican ticket holders in yellow slickers and, inevitably, furs.
The police action did not begin again until three protesters climbed the
8-foot cement base of one of the plaza's two enormous flagpoles, unmooring
strings of naval banners and, to wild applause, raising the black flag of
anarchism. The cheers had not died down before about six Park Police
officers in full riot gear, eager to protect our military emblems from
insult, surrounded the flagpole, reaching up to grab at the anarchists'
ankles. One by one, the three protesters dove over the officers and into
the arms of the waiting crowd. Police, now guarding an empty flagpole,
charged the crowd, which successfully pushed them back into the street.
In the midst of the melee, two anarchists earnestly debated religion with a
middle-aged man clutching a Bible and a sign reading, "Pray for
Revival,"
but even that island of calm disappeared when police reinforcements
arrived, tackling demonstrators, trying to drag their prey back to police
lines as protesters struggled to rescue their friends. Two undercover cops,
who had been posing as parade-goers, began grabbing randomly at people, one
of them spraying protesters in the face with a small canister of either
pepper spray or Mace. Both were immediately mobbed by the crowd, and had
to be pulled to safety by uniformed officers in riot gear. Protesters
linked arms and, chanting "Shame! Shame!," pushed even the riot police
back
into Pennsylvania Avenue. To shouts of "Whose country? Our country!,"
an
upside-down American flag was raised beside the black flag. Police made no
further efforts to take them down.
By now it was well after 2 p.m., and the parade had started a mile or so to
the east. While Black Bloc marched behind the bleachers, chanting, "What do
we want? Class war! When do we want it? Now!" to an audience of fur-clad
Bush supporters smiling nervously and waving miniature Texan flags,
protesters spread throughout the parade route had already begun to jeer the
presidential escort. By the time Bush's limo reached the Navy Memorial
plaza, another scuffle had broken out between police and
activists. Apparently believing he had seen a knife, a plainclothes
officer tackled a protester, who was quickly aided by the crowd. The riot
cops moved in once more and, just as the plaza again turned into a mosh
pit, with protesters and police alike pushing and swinging, the
presidential motorcade drove by, Secret Service agents jogging beside it.
Despite the tumult, the cry went up: "Fuck you, George Bush!" Someone
hurled an orange, and a tennis ball bounced off the limousine's shiny black
roof.
Linking arms again and shouting, "Cops off the sidewalk!," protesters
once
more successfully pushed the police back into Pennsylvania Avenue. The
parade had paused to let the Secret Service scope out a much larger crowd
of protesters several blocks down, where the International Action Center
had gathered (Bush's limo eventually sped by, his Secret Service escort
breaking into a sprint to keep up), and a battalion of mounted police had
paused in front of the Navy Memorial. After one last rousing chant
"Get
those animals off of those horses!" their point made, uninterested in
standing in the rain any longer to watch the miles of marching bands,
floats and bayonet-wielding troops file by, the crowd broke up and spread
out into the downtown streets, heading for the metro, the bus station, any
place dry and warm.
Within a few hours CNN and the networks would be drooling over the "pomp
and pageantry" of the day's events, neglecting for the most part to carry
their alliteration out to its logical conclusion with more than a cursory
mention of the word protest. The protests, the largest at least since
Nixon's inauguration, would soon be forgotten, the metros teeming with
Republicans in formalwear on their way to eight inaugural balls, the
streets clogged with herds of limousines, coughing out their mink-swaddled
contents, whose tight, triumphant grins out-glowed even their pearls.
Please send as far and wide as possible.
Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com
2/2/01
Lee Markland (markland@rockisland.com)
Reading Tea Leaves
Anyone besides me trying to read tea leaves.
Actually I'm not reading tea leaves, but assessing information on the
table, information that is being revealed and extrapolating it, using
deductive reasoning, into the future.
For instance, Milocibush made campaign promises that sucked in the right
wing, and they are ecstatic.
I don't know how long it will take, or if they will ever realize, that the
methods he uses to fulfill those promises will provide results that they
didn't intend.
Taxes:
Considering his stated devotion to family values. Look for Bush to
shift the tax burden to Singles and those Married Filing Seperately. The
Married filing seperately provision was originally constructed to act as an
economic incentive to keep wives from entering the work force, to make
women dependent on men, and to keep down the number of seperations. The
social message via tax codes will be to encourage marriage, however their
are other marriage penalties especially for Seniors on Social Security and
Medicare.
Seniors who marry lose benefits and income. And of course gays who can't
marry will be penalized and bear the burden of these tax laws (which I
suspect is part of the Bushonian, Christian Right, agenda).
Coincidentally, or is it, the media (CNN at the moment) is making noise
about why young folk aren't getting married anymore (the marriage rate is
falling), this stuff is not unrelated. The Bush tax plan will clearly
disadvantage those who stay single, and those who get divorced or
seperated. It's part of the religious patriarchial plan to force women into
dependent relationships, regardless of quality, with men. Next step is a
nationwide tax Promise Keeper movement, Stepford Wives, Father knows best,
and other such shit that will fulfill the fragile psychosexual needs of the
Chris Matthews, Oreilly's, Rush Limbaughs and Jerry Falwells.
Estate or Death taxes:
All of this noise over a tax which does not affect
or benefit the vast majority of Americans and especially does not benefit
the Christian Right. I doubt seriously if the Christian Right
accumulates enough property to even be affected by the estate tax, a tax
which does not even apply to the surviving spouse, only to the children,
and doesn't kick in until the estate exceeds $665,000.
Military:
He literally bought, and is buying, the military (mercenary) vote, making
"Defense" a high priority. However his military budget addresses only
a pay
raise for the military (a bribe, for loyalty) and he says he is taking a
wait and see attitude on hardware expenditures and development.
The best analogy to todays military are the Mercenaries of the Roman Empire
around the time of Constantine. All of this blather about "patriotism"
and
putting one's life on the line for service to the country is hogwash. I'm
retired military, and know for a fact that kids join the military, to
"learn" to become men, to learn a job, and to gain respect from family
and
friends, and most importantly to secure a good income and a chance for
early retirement. Some can't hack the routine, many don't cut the grade and
are discharged honorably. However the motivation is not "patriotism"
or
service, except self service and ego building.
In fact the recruiting propaganda substantiates this claim. Be all you can
be, learn a trade, an Army of One, action packed vignettes of men doing
exciting, dangerous and ego building things such as flying jets,
rappelling, parachute jumping or slithering through swamps with faces
smeared with makeup (camoflague, DRAG for heterosexuals).
By the same token people don't join the police force because of altruistic
desire to serve. The join to bolster their ego, to pump it up, by having
power, and gaining respect through fear, and there is the security of a
job, which isn't subject to layoff's, as well as an early retirement.
Israel is headed towards a Right Wing extremist government of it's own,
headed by a personal friend of Dubya, Ariel Sharon. Dubya has fleshed out
his foreign affairs and military staff with gentile Zionists.
After Sharon gets elected, he will wage war on the Palestinians, which will
feed over into the other Muslim States, and the client regimes that run
this countries at the behest of Israel and Israel's client regime, the
U.S., will be in a dilemna. If they sit back, they will find their own
legitimacy imperiled and themselves under attack by Mullahs and the people.
They will be forced to intercede in behalf of the Palestinians.
There is a serious threat of a mid east war, or massive violence which will
be called "terrorist" by the Zionists, Americans and Israeli alike.
Expect to see the military might of the U.S. employed in behalf of their
Israeli masters.
Weapons development and manufacture takes years, the situation in the mid
east is imminent, so rather than waste money on weapons development, Dubya
will take the budget as it is and after buying the loyalty of the
mercenaries in the modern version of the Roman Legion, will throw the
resources of this country into the fray in support of Eratz Y'srael.
The so called Missle Defense Shield (Star Wars), outside of the fact that
government money will be a debt repayment to the so called Defense Industry
that pumped money into the Republican campaign. Don't expect much there as
the concept is unworkable and impossible. Even if we can develop an anti
missle missle, that won't destroy the warhead, which will continue on its
trajectory and still fall somewhere in the U.S..
So called Rogue Nations do not have the capability to develop highly
accurate missles in any significant number, and the launch of such a missle
will be suicide given our much touted second strike capability.
The ability to build and launch, not to mention target a missle by a rogue
group or individual (such as Osama bin Laden) is a joke, it is well beyond
the capability of such "terrorist groups" and "rogue
nations". We have
nothing to fear from China or No. Korea, as both are highly dependent on
trade with the U.S.. Pakistan may have nuclear capability, but has no means
of effectively delivering it, save from a fighter plane against India, and
such an event would be suicide. By the same token, Russia is no threat
either, as their ability to service, target and launch missles has
degenerated, irrecoverably, they can't even pay their troops and have to offer
tourist flights in their high speed exotic fighters just to pay the bills.
The true purpose of an anti missle system, is short range, not
intercontinental, and in defense of Israel, from Islamic countries such as
Iraq and Iran. Countries who would not be "enemies" were it not for
the
virtual genocidal actions of Israel and their dispossession of the
Palestinians.
Race:
It was alluded during the Ashcroft hearings that he, and Bush by extension
are racists. Not exactly true.
When Ashcroft said that Ronnie White was "soft on crime" that was a
code
word, for racism. But the racism of Ashcroft is conditional. He, and Bush,
are not racists when it comes to blacks that think like them, blacks that
support their agenda of religious fanaticism, and so called "traditional
family values", another set of code words. To put it bluntly, house
niggers are welcome with open arms, and any black who supports the agenda
of Ashcroft and the right wing is welcome in their house.
In otherwords Ashcroft, Bush, Republicans, Christians are still racists,
however the term racist requires a new definition, as it is not
absolute. Blacks that think and act white, honor and respect the agenda
of the right wing (so called Christian and Conservative) whites, have
a seat at the table and will have honors, well paid jobs, social
prestige and power and money bestowed upon them. Blacks who follow
these whites around like lap dogs, will be rewarded. And given the
pack animal nature of humans, and their own need and desire for
comfort, prestige and a place in the pack, there are, and will be no
shortage of such minorities.
Minority populations, such as blacks, have no real memory of their fathers
and mothers struggles for equality and opportunity, and they believe that
they have arrived at the promised land, and are now comfortable enough
to be part of the status quo. Neither do Christian and Right Wing women.
The status quo is Judeo-Christian Patriarchialism, a social structure in
which the male is dominant, and the female subservient and submissive. The
threat to the patriarchy is perceived as coming from gays and women who
seek self reliance and equality. Thus having "arrived", they now join
forces with the dominant element of society and turn their guns on what
they perceive as a threat to their own power, privilege, superior position
and domination.
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the mothers of the Women's
Rights movement, ran into this attitude head on in a public encounter with
Stephen Douglas. Stephen Douglas, the famous black orator, was propelled
into prominence by these women, who threw their weight behind support of
the fight for black rights. At the crucial moment in the fight, Stephen
Douglas stepped up and said that the rights of black men subborned those
of women. And shortly thereafter, black males obtained full and equal
rights, however they never did a thing, not raised a voice even, to ensure
that women (black and white) obtained full status as human beings and
citizen ship rights. The black man has done nothing at all in the civil
rights arena for women. In fact once they got theirs, they were faced
with the same psychosexual threats to their position of dominance and
control as the white man.
The loudest black conservative voices, either clergy or conservative talk
show hosts and columnists, are echo's of the anti women, homophobic right
wing (Christian and atheist alike). They lace their talk with the same
code words of "traditional family values".
No Bush and Ashcroft are not racists, neither are the Christian Right, not
in the old sense, not so long as the blacks and other minorities fall into
line and subborn their identity and issues to that of the
"conservatives",
and ignore the still existent inequalities and discrimination in our
society. Blacks on the margins, are perceived to be products of personal
and familial defects and the institutionalized racism extant in our society
is scoffed at and ignored.
Religion. Milocibush evidences all of the psychological traits of a
patriarchial dictator, a white version of Papa Doc. "What is good for me is
good for everyone". Prior to Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama was
Brigadier General Omar Torrijos Herrara. I didn't know him personally, but
had friends who did, and who grew up with him, I also had the occasion to
meet Noriega, and know some personal dirt on that man as well. Gen.
Torrijos was a benevolent dictator, who really loved his country and his
people, however his attitude towards "his" people was that of
possession.
On the walls of the Race Track and on billboards around the country was
posted pictures of him saying "Lo que quiero para my hijos, yo guiero para
mis pueblo". Translated: That which I want for my children, I want for my
people". The phrase is possessive, and paternalistic. His children belonged
to him and so did the citizens of Panama.
Dubya has the same mentality. He had a personal epiphany, a conversion to
religion in his recovery from alcoholism (very typical, especially in
Alcoholic Anonymous environments and meetings). The man is lacking in
moral strength and inner character, a moral weakling, that can't
"save" or
change himself without outside intervention and subservience to a higher
power. As a consequence he believes that since religion is good for him
and helped him, then it is good for everyone and will help everyone. In
otherwords in the lexicon of Christians "All things are possible through
Christ". And I'm sure that he is sincere and believes that, and as a
consequence is on a mission to bring religious fanaticism to all of
society. Not necessarily denominational, or Christian, but certainly
monotheistic and ecumenical in content in which god is defined as his, and
the Christian rights, personal version and interpretation of those non
entities Yahweh and Jesus.
Other religious beliefs will not be seated at the table, unless they
support the concept of the Judeo Christian supreme spook in the sky, as
defined by conservative Jews and Christians.
*****
Clinton, Israel and the Pardons connection
2/2/01
Lee Markland (markland@rockisland.com)
Anyone see the Clinton Interview with Israeli TV, and the love he professed
for Israel and how he misses Rabin.. Anyone notice how he said, in front of
his new Manhatton Office, that he had a request from (Ehud Barak) the
leader of the Israeli Government, to pardon Marc Rich.
And how about the pardon of the "conservative" Hasidim Jews, who
otherwise
voted for Bush.
And then Jewish activists and their media jump down Clintons throat for
pardoning Rich and the Hasidim.
Hummm. Is this an extension of Israeli Politics? Are those who now
criticizing Clinton, doing so to deflect criticism that when Israel and the
Jews holler jump, he asks how high?
Imagine that, do a guy a favor, and then he sticks it to you, abandons you,
throws you to the wolves, when he becomes embarrassed by exposure.
Clinton is a dolt, incapable of learning a lesson, he deserves what he
gets. Swim in a cesspool and you come out smelling like you know what.
Israeli Politics - American Politics
2/2/01
markland@rockisland.com (Lee Markland)
Trying to put a handle on something here.
Clinton, a self confessed admirer of Israel, friend of Rabin, friend of Barak.
Bush, a friend of Sharon, escorted personally by Sharon when he was Governor.
Press purposefully downplayed Dubya's Israeli visit, and in fact made fun
of him because he had never been overseas, a lie and a coverup. We are led
to believe that Dubya is a dunce, a stumblebum, a fool.
Clinton pardons five Jewish Swindlers, four Hasidim and Marc Rich.
Ehud Barak interceded with Clinton in behalf of Marc Rich. Hasidim of New
Square stood alone and against other Hasidim, and voted for Hillary to
obtain the Hasism pardon. The Hasidim are conservatives. Bush is a
conservative, Sharon is a conservative, whatever conservative means, other
than ready for war against perceived and created enemies.
Clinton is now subject of scandal for pardoning Marc Rich, and the Hasidim.
Jews cry "immoral" because Clinton pardoned the four Hasidim. Have
they
betrayed and abandoned Clinton since he no longer serves their purpose and
they used him up, or is he just another pawn in a bigger game, a game of
Israeli Politics? Israeli right vs Israeli left. Doves vs Hawks? Or is it
all a shell game? Heads I win, tails you lose?
Clinton - Barak
Bush - Sharon
Bush stole the election.
Sharon, who started the current Intifida, will steal the Israeli election.
War clouds gather on the horizon, Sharon will take office, his friend Bush
is in office, and foreign affairs, national security and Defense are all
controlled by ardent friends of Israel.
And not a word of this in the media, all of this crap ready to go down and
the focus is still on the Clinton trivialities.
Professional pickpockets employ a ruse, they use an accomplice to distract
you, while the pro lifts your wallet.
Probably nothing at all, except that I have too much time on my hands, however
Clinton-Barak
Bush-Sharon.
Can't get that out of my mind, while the mid east is ready to go up in
flames, and Bush is pushing his social agenda, and gathering (so strangely)
Democrats around him. Has he managed to intimidate even the awesome Sen
Edward Kennedy?
Despite the intense emotions over the Ashcroft nomination, from all
appearances the "liberal" Democrats in the Senate and House, seem to
be
falling in line supporting Dubya. Have they been taken over by some alien
body snatcher.
During the Senate Hearings on the Energy Crisis, yesterday, feisty Sen.
Feinstein who said of Dubya's pronouncement that this was a California
Problem, a DANGEROUS attitude, suddenly turned meek and silent and was
reduced to begging Enron and the other energy suppliers for "help" and
cooperation.
This is weird, something is going on, and no one is mounting an effective
opposition to Dubya's attempt to consolidate church and state and turn
religion into a welfare client dependent on the state. In fact there is not
an inkling of opposition at all to Dubya, other than the noise made over
Ashcroft, and that has passed by the table.
And Dubya even shows up at the Senatorial Democrat retreat, evidently
barging in uninvited, violating protocol and party security. And no one
says a thing.
And Papa Doc says that he will try to be understanding when we don't do
what he says.
I would pass this off as something else, except he is getting away with
this stuff, bold stuff that is passing not only under the radar, but under
everyone's noses.
There is a media love fest with Dubya, especially in the electronic media,
MSNBC, FOX,CNN, CBS, ABC
even supposedly liberal media.
There is wierdness afoot, things are not what they appear to be.
The trail of cookie crumbs leads somewhere.
Homeland Security Agency, Echelon, Email and phone sniffers, spy in the sky
satellites. Government is buying up the religious clergy with bribes of
federal handouts. War clouds on the horizon.
If you are interested in a free subscription to The
Konformist Newswire, please visit:
http://www.eGroups.com/list/konformist
How the GOP Gamed the System in Florida
(1)Printed from:
http://www.thenation.com
© 2001 The Nation Company, L.P.
FEATURE STORY | April 30, 2001
How the GOP Gamed the System in Florida
by JOHN LANTIGUA
On July 10, 2000, in the midst of the presidential campaign, GOP candidate
George W. Bush addressed the national NAACP convention in Baltimore and
denounced such "new forms of racism" as racial profiling and
redlining. But
even as he spoke, a very old, traditional form of racism was being
implemented in Florida: the disfranchisement of eligible voters, especially
blacks, which helped Bush win that state and the election.
Despite one well-reported incident involving a police checkpoint near a
polling place, disfranchisement 2000-style did not depend on intimidation.
Cattle prods and attack dogs, the legacy of former Birmingham Commissioner
of Public Safety Bull Connor, were nowhere in evidence. Instead, Florida
state elections officials and hired data crunchers used computers to target
thousands of voters, many of whom were then purged from the voter rolls
without reason. And many thousands more saw their votes thrown out as a
result of error-prone voting machines and poorly designed ballots, the
results of an underfunded and chaotic electoral system.
In all, some 200,000 Floridians were either not permitted to vote in the
November 7 election on questionable or possibly illegal grounds, or saw
their ballots discarded and not counted. A large and disproportionate number
were black.
Florida's black leaders, already engaged in an emotional, bitter
confrontation with Governor Jeb Bush, George W. Bush's brother, had mounted
an unprecedented voter registration effort to defeat candidates they saw as
political enemies. According to exit polls, 65 percent more black voters
went to the polls in Florida in 2000 than in the 1996 election, and of the
votes that were counted, blacks went at least 9 to 1 for Democrat Al Gore.
But the votes that were tallied were not enough. After the US Supreme Court
cut off ballot recounts, Bush had a margin of 537 votes out of more than 5.8
million cast. The closeness of the final count made all votes not cast and
not counted that much more crucial. (As one example, the Palm Beach Post
recently reported that Gore lost 6,600 votes in Palm Beach County alone
because of the infamous butterfly ballot, more than ten times Bush's margin
of victory.)
State officials deny racist intent in their actions, but the US Commission
on Civil Rights conducted two hearings in Florida in January and February to
determine why so many Floridians were denied the right to vote. In a
preliminary assessment, the commission noted that the Voting Rights Act of
1965 "was aimed at subtle, as well as obvious, state regulation and
practices" that could deny citizens the right to vote because of their
race.
The commission said it found evidence of "prohibited discrimination"
in
Florida's polling process. A final report is due this summer.
The NAACP and others filed suit on January 10 against Secretary of State
Katherine Harris, who was a co-chair of the campaign and is responsible for
the conduct of fair elections in Florida, and other Florida officials,
charging them with violating the Fourteenth Amendment and the 1965 Voting
Rights Act. The suit demands many reforms of the Florida electoral system.
But no future remedy can undo what happened in 2000, only a portion of which
has been revealed through the hearing, the suit and media reports. "They
done got us," said civil rights veteran Elmore Bryant of Marianna, Florida,
referring to the GOP-mandated purge of voter rolls. "They had themselves a
game and we had no game. The old leaders in the '60s wouldn't have let this
happen. We woulda had us a game too, but we didn't. They done got us good."
The stage for the November 7 election and the effort by black leaders to
defeat George W. Bush was set during Jeb Bush's initial and unsuccessful run
for governor in 1994. During a debate in Tampa on July 27 of that year, Bush
was asked by a journalist what he would do for Florida's black community if
he was elected. His answer was both concise and prophetic. "Probably
nothing," he said, explaining that he favored what he called "equality
of
opportunity" for all Floridians. Four years later, when he ran again, he
avoided such candor. But although he won, he was backed by only 10 percent
of the state's blacks, according to exit polls. In his first year in office,
Bush then eliminated most affirmative action programs benefiting minorities
and women, substituting a plan he called the One Florida Initiative. That
program ended guaranteed minority and female set-asides in state hiring, in
the awarding of state contracts (only 1 percent of state spending for
merchandise and services went to minority-owned firms as it was, according
to the Miami Herald) and in university admissions. Polls had shown that such
a move would be popular with the white majority in the state. Black and
feminist leaders called it a betrayal.
After the Governor refused to meet with them to discuss his policy, two
black state legislators staged a twenty-hour sit-in at Bush's suite of
offices. At one point Bush was overheard saying, "Kick their asses out of
here," although an aide later claimed he was referring to journalists. Bush
apologized to the public for his language but not his policy. The sit-in
attracted statewide support from blacks, women's groups and other
Floridians, forcing Bush to accept a series of public hearings. Thousands of
citizens crowded those sessions and other demonstrations, verbally
bludgeoning both the One Florida Initiative and Bush. Black student
movements, dormant for years, were resurrected. Even members of his own
party called Bush's tactics highhanded. But with an overwhelming GOP
majority in the legislature and conservative Democrats eager to help, Bush
pushed through his One Florida plan.
State Senator Kendrick Meek, one of the two sit-in heroes, labeled the
moment the lowest point in Florida racial relations in the past thirty-five
years. He and other African-Americans called for a statewide voter
registration campaign to defeat their political enemies at all levels,
starting with the Governor's brother. "We didn't need George W. doing to
the
whole nation what Jeb was doing to Florida," said Elmore Bryant.
In September 1999, the NAACP pledged $9 million to a nationwide voter
registration campaign, and $400,000 was eventually earmarked for Florida,
the most important battleground of all. Black leaders barnstormed the state
registering voters, an effort that reminded many of the 1960s civil rights
movement. "There was a tremendous spirit just then, like the old
days," said
Vivian Kelly of Gadsden County, another longtime civil rights campaigner.
Thus the stage was set for Election Day 2000, when the black vote went from
10 percent of the state total in 1996 to 16 percent, according to exit
polls. Some 300,000 more blacks voted than four years before--and that only
includes those who were actually allowed to vote. But while black Floridians
were registering in unprecedented numbers, state officials were busy
removing other blacks from the voting rolls. After a 1997 Miami mayoral
election, the Miami Herald discovered that 105 people had voted despite
having felonies on their records and having never received clemency, making
them ineligible under Florida law. The article, part of a series that helped
overturn that election because of voter fraud, also revealed that of the
total number of felons found on the county voter rolls, 71 percent were
registered Democrats.
Within weeks, the GOP-controlled state legislature passed a sweeping voter
fraud bill despite an unprecedented effort by county elections supervisors
to block it. The measure would unfairly thwart citizens from voting instead
of encouraging voter turnout, said the supervisors, who actually conduct
elections. Among other provisions, the bill called for the strict
enforcement of an 1868 law that took the vote away from all former prisoners
who had not received clemency, no matter how long they had been out of
prison and out of trouble. Florida is one of only fourteen states that do
not automatically restore civil rights to former prisoners who have
completed their sentence and parole. Florida's former prisoners must
petition the Office of Executive Clemency for the restoration of their civil
rights, and the final decision is made by the governor and three other
members of the Cabinet, all of whom are partisan politicians. Before the
voter fraud bill passed, a black Democratic legislator proposed another
bill, to grant automatic restoration of rights after completion of sentence
and parole, but it never made it out of committee.
That lawmaker had good reason to worry. Blacks would bear the brunt of this
voter purge. While the population of Florida is about 15 percent black, the
population of Florida prisons is 54 percent black. Once released and having
completed parole, former prisoners have often found clemency difficult if
not impossible to achieve. According to literature provided to former
prisoners by the state, individuals can be denied the restoration of their
civil rights for many reasons, including the possibility that they owe child
support (which a father coming out of jail probably does), a history of drug
or alcohol problems and even traffic offenses.
Although the state claims the process of applying for clemency was
simplified somewhat in 2000, only 927 former prisoners regained their civil
rights last year, less than one-half of 1 percent of the former prisoners
who had finished their sentences and parole. State Senator Meek, who has a
large number of blacks in his constituency, says that of 175 former
prisoners whom he has helped apply for clemency in the past decade, only
nine have been approved.
According to the Washington-based Sentencing Project, a nonprofit
organization specializing in corrections issues, and Human Rights Watch,
Florida is currently home to more disfranchised voters than any other state.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement admits that 187,455 former
prisoners in Florida have been disfranchised because of felony convictions
on their records. The state confirms that 17 percent of Florida's black
voting-age males have been disfranchised. In addition, according to the
Justice Department, Florida leads the nation in the rate at which juveniles
are charged with felonies, meaning those youths lose the right to vote
before they are ever able to exercise it.
"And every year the Florida legislature is trying to make more crimes
felonies," says State Senator Daryl Jones of Miami. "Why? So they can
eliminate more people from the voter rolls." In 2000, according to Jones, a
bill was proposed by a GOP legislator that would have increased from 365 to
366 days the jail sentence for individuals who take two welfare checks after
becoming employed. The bill was eventually defeated. "What does one more
day
accomplish?" asks Jones. "It makes it a felony, and you take one more
person
off the voter rolls. That's what. It's been going on in Tallahassee for
years."
By April 1998 the laws and political will were in place to perform a
definitive purge of voter rolls to remove people who had died, had been
judged mentally unstable, had moved and were registered in more than one
county or state--and, most significantly, had ever been convicted of a
felony but had not had their rights restored by Florida's partisan Cabinet
members.
The first list was produced by a Tallahassee firm, Professional Analytical
Services and Systems, using state databases. The results proved to be full
of errors. For one thing, the Florida Office of Executive Clemency had no
database, so former prisoners who had won their rights back were often
included on the list of felons barred from voting. On August 18, 1998,
then-director of the Division of Elections Ethel Baxter, citing
confidentiality concerns, ordered county elections supervisors not to
release that list to the press, which almost certainly would have discovered
the gross number of errors long before Election Day, and especially the
impact on the black vote.
In November of that year, the state contracted with Database Technologies
(DBT) of Boca Raton, which has since merged with ChoicePoint of Atlanta. DBT
eventually produced two lists--one in 1999 and the second in 2000--that
included a total of 174,583 alleged felons. Later, when lists of individuals
who had received clemency were produced, that number was reduced, although
only by a small percentage. The majority of the people on those lists were
African-Americans. DBT employees didn't always appreciate the seriousness of
their task. One e-mail between two such employees referred to the former
prisoners they were enumerating as the "dirtbags of the nation." When
DBT
started to receive complaints, sometimes directly from voters who unjustly
had had their right to vote challenged, product manager Marlene Thorogood
seemed surprised. "There are just some people that feel when you mess with
their 'right to vote' your [sic] messing with their life," she said in an
e-mail.
And complaints did come in. More than a year before Election Day 2000, it
was clear the lists contained thousands of names of Florida citizens who had
never been convicted of felonies--or of any crime, for that matter. In some
instances, the concentration of errors was absurd: Only seven people work in
the Monroe County elections supervisors' office in Key West. One of those
employees, along with the husband of another employee and the father of
Supervisor Harry Sawyer, were all erroneously listed as having felony
convictions. "And my father is a retired Sheriff's Department
captain," said
Sawyer. The lists were also absurdly sloppy: Some conviction dates were in
the future. Angry voters by the thousands eventually complained to county
supervisors of elections, who in turn complained to Tallahassee.
The point man for the state in compiling those lists was Emmett "Bucky"
Mitchell IV, an assistant general counsel to the Florida Division of
Elections, who within a week of the November 2000 election was given a
senior attorney's job in the state Department of Education. In an interview
with The Nation, Mitchell claimed he had exercised restraint in producing
the purge lists. "The division always had the policy to err on the side of
caution," he insisted. But reports from county supervisors, correspondence
between state officials and DBT employees, and testimony before the Civil
Rights Commission tell a completely different story.
By March 1999, four months after contracts had been signed, DBT officials
already had doubts about the state's ground rules. According to testimony by
ChoicePoint/DBT vice president George Bruder, a person could be included on
the list if his or her name, date of birth and/or Social Security number
closely approximated that of a known felon. In other words, in a state with
16 million people, where many individuals share approximate names and also
dates of birth, exact matches were not necessary.
In March of 1999, Thorogood expressed her doubts about those guidelines in
an e-mail to Mitchell: "Unfortunately, programming in this fashion may
supply you with false positives," she said, referring to names of people
who
did not belong on the felons list. "This seems to be the approach you would
prefer to choose, rather than miss any positive true matches." Mitchell
made
the state's position clear in his answer to Thorogood on March 23:
"Obviously, we want to capture more names that possibly aren't matches and
let the supervisors [of elections] make a final determination rather than
exclude certain matches altogether," Mitchell wrote. In other words, the
lists were designed to include people who were not felons, some of whom
eventually fell through the cracks and were unfairly purged.
When supervisors began to complain about errors, Bruder said his company
told the Divison of Elections that they were caused by the loose parameters
set by the search, but Mitchell ordered no substantial change in the
parameters despite recommendations by DBT. "After submitting them they were
not acted on by the state," said James Lee, a spokesman for ChoicePoint/DBT.
In fact, the next year, as the presidential election approached, the state
asked that the parameters be loosened, according to Lee. Instead of 90
percent of the letters in the name of a person on the purge list having to
match with those of someone on the voting rolls, the standard was loosened
to 80 percent. Although such matches were often eliminated when Social
Security numbers or other data were also checked, such information was not
always available, and more innocent individuals were included on the felons
list.
The state officials were not content to include only former Florida
prisoners. They also asked DBT to use its national databases to provide the
names of felons from other states who might have moved to Florida and
registered. But some of those came from the thirty-six states that have
automatic restoration of civil rights, including the right to vote. More
than 2,000 such individuals were included on the state's purge lists.
Following press and public attention to the situation after the election,
the state quietly changed its policy [see Gregory Palast, "Florida's
'Disappeared Voters,'" February 5].
In May 2000 the process went totally awry. Some 8,000 names, mostly those of
former Texas prisoners who were included on a DBT list, turned out never to
have been convicted of more than a misdemeanor. The new elections director,
Clay Roberts, later claimed the error had been caught in time and that none
of those individuals lost their rights. But Mitchell admitted that other
lists of alleged felons supplied to DBT by the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement also contained errors, among them the inclusion of many people
convicted only of misdemeanors.
In time, an appeals process was instituted, but in some cases it required
ordinary citizens to be fingerprinted in order to prove they weren't the
felons they were accused of being. In the end, out of 4,847 people who
appealed, 2,430 were judged not to be convicted felons. As Civil Rights
Commission attorney Bernard Quarterman put it during testimony in Miami on
February 16, "They were guilty until proven innocent."
Elections supervisors in the counties, who had never been consulted about
how to assemble the purge lists, battled with the mandate from Tallahassee.
"Our experience with the lists is that they are frequently erroneous,"
Leon
County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho testified before the Civil Rights
Commission in Tallahassee. Sancho said he was sent one list with 690 names
on it but after detailed checking by his office only thirty-three people
were sent letters asking them to prove their eligibility to vote.
In its assurances to the state before contracts were signed, DBT promised,
on August 14, 1998, that the lists would be checked, including "telephonic
verification of random records." But this procedure was later omitted from
contracts, and the state never insisted that it be done. In fact, during one
meeting between Mitchell and county supervisors in 1999, Mitchell
specifically told supervisors not to try to contact listed individuals by
phone, but only by the legally required route of the mails. Many would-be
voters later said they had never received notification. "Mr. Mitchell said
we shouldn't call people on the phone, we should send letters," said Linda
Howell, supervisor for Madison County in north Florida. "The best and
fastest way to check these matters was by phone, personal contact, but he
didn't want that." She added, "We shouldn't have had to do any of
this.
Elections supervisors are not investigators, and we don't have
investigators. It wasn't our responsibility at all."
In his interview with The Nation, Mitchell offered this rationale for the
loose standards used in assembling the purge lists: "Just as some people
might have been removed from the list who shouldn't have been, some voted
who shouldn't have." In other words, because an ineligible person may have
voted somewhere else, it was acceptable to deny a legitimate voter the right
to vote. Mitchell said the loose parameters employed to create the purge
list were approved by former head of the Division of Elections Ethel Baxter,
after consultation with Katherine Harris. Neither Baxter nor Harris returned
phone calls requesting comment.
The lists targeted black voters in extremely disproportionate numbers. In
Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa, where only 15 percent of voters
are black, 54 percent of the names on the purge list were African-Americans.
In Miami-Dade, where blacks make up 20 percent of the population, a list of
5,762 people contained the names of 3,794 blacks, or 66 percent. In Leon
County, which includes Tallahassee, the state capital, 29 percent of the
people are black, but 55 percent of the purge list names were
African-Americans.
In one Leon County case, the Rev. Willie David Whiting, a black pastor from
Tallahassee, arrived at his polling place to find himself listed as a
convicted felon; he was refused the right to vote despite never having spent
a day in jail. He says he had never received notification of his
disfranchisement. It turned out that he had been confused with a Willie J.
Whiting, whose birthdate was two days away from his own, and was considered
a match due to a "derived" or approximate name and birthdate. "I
felt like I
was slingshotted back into slavery," Whiting testified to the civil rights
panel. He said he was forced to consider possible motives. "Does someone
have a formula for stealing this election?" he says he asked himself.
The Division of Elections and DBT were also sharing their information, some
of it false, with law enforcement agencies. Whiting said he was relieved he
had not been stopped "by the wrong policeman" during the time he was
incorrectly listed as a convicted felon. "Who knows what would have
happened?" A Jacksonville resident, Richard Haywood, whose one felony
marijuana conviction in 1972 had been expunged from his record, suddenly
found himself not only on a purge list but also with the record of his
conviction released by the state to a school to which he had applied for
student aid. "I complied with the law and my record was expunged,"
said
Haywood. "What they did was violate the law by releasing that information,
and they messed with my life." Madison County Supervisor Howell agreed.
"They were not taking their job seriously," she said, referring to
state
officials. "That could destroy a person's life."
It is impossible to know how many voters were unfairly kept away from the
voting booth because of the purge. Votes not cast are not tallied. Some
former prisoners who were notified they were on the purge lists expressed
interest in applying for clemency and voting, but they were often faced with
daunting amounts of paperwork. For example, if they had been convicted in a
different county, they had to write away for certified copies of court
records, some of them decades old, and then apply to Tallahassee. "Some of
them had convictions in the 1940s and 1950s and had been voting for years,"
said Larry Roxby, deputy elections supervisor in Bay County.
Meanwhile, according to Roxby, the Office of Executive Clemency in
Tallahassee had a backlog of six months to a year. "I'd say I had about
sixty such people come to me over the past three years, and only about three
of them ever got their clemency," said Roxby. "Seven or eight out of
ten
were blacks." Other supervisors reported similar instances of former
prisoners who had been active voters for years but who were discouraged by
the suddenly enforced clemency process. State law enforcement officials
later said that based on past voting records, only about 10 percent of
former prisoners might be expected to vote. In a highly contested election
such as the one in 2000, that could be expected to increase. But even if one
uses the state's own figures, out of 187,000 former prisoners who had
completed parole but had not received clemency, close to 20,000 might have
voted if they'd been permitted. State statisticians say, based on race and
economic factors, that group could be expected to vote Democratic 75 percent
of the time.
But if purging was the most egregious form of disfranchisement--and possibly
the one deliberate attempt to reduce the Democratic vote--it wasn't the only
cause of the reduced vote total. An underfunded elections system resulted in
poor equipment being used in many counties, and ill-trained and sometimes
ill-informed poll workers also kept voters from casting their ballots.
For months leading up to November 7, county supervisors had been sending
lists of newly registered voters to Tallahassee, and it was clear that a
large turnout could be expected, especially in the black community. But
Secretary of State Harris and Division of Elections chief Clay Roberts
testified that they never discussed that fact and the problems that might
arise. The result was chaos at many polling places. Many eligible voters
were turned away. Testimony by poll workers before the Civil Rights
Commission, before an NAACP hearing in Miami on November 11 and interviews
by The Nation make it clear that such incidents occurred in every corner of
the state.
Some poll workers said dozens of people were not allowed to vote at their
polling places, while others remembered only a few. But with some 6,000
polling places in the state, the numbers are significant. The NAACP suit
cites voters who registered in plenty of time for the November 7 election,
but whose names were never placed on the rolls and who were not allowed to
vote. Some names of residents who took advantage of motor-voter legislation
and registered at the same time that they obtained licenses from the
Department of Motor Vehicles were not on voter rolls. Attempts to reach the
offices of supervisors to clarify voters' eligibility were foiled by clogged
phone lines in many of Florida's sixty-seven counties. Supervisors in some
counties, obviously suspecting that such problems might occur, provided
laptop computers with which poll workers could check central voter rolls.
But only a small percentage of precincts received the laptops, and almost
none were used in precincts that were majority black. In Miami-Dade, for
example, out of eighteen laptops, only one was used in a black precinct.
Some poll workers, faced with an unprecedented tide of complaints, did their
best to help. Others acted arbitrarily. The NAACP received complaints of
voters who were in line at polling places by the 7 pm closing time but were
turned away without being allowed to vote, which violates state guidelines.
One Miami-Dade voter, Margarita Green, 75, testified before the Civil Rights
Commission that she went to vote at her regular precinct but was not on the
rolls. A poll worker informed Green that she had been removed from the rolls
after she herself had called and requested it. "I never made such a phone
call," said Green. "And how could they ever know it was really me who
called? It makes no sense."
Some widows, who in decades past had shared the same Social Security numbers
as their now-deceased husbands, showed up on lists of dead voters to be
purged and therefore were informed they couldn't vote. The law allows people
not listed on the rolls to vote by affidavit and then prove their
eligibility later, but many poll workers knew nothing of that law and turned
voters away. Similarly, a voter making an error on a ballot is entitled to
hand the ballot in and obtain a replacement, but those requests were
sometimes denied. Leaders of organizations for the disabled also testified
that some polling places were ill equipped to allow them to vote.
An attorney for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund testified
to twenty-six specific incidents in the Orlando area where Latino voters
were either denied the right to vote or were forced to argue with poll
workers before they cast their ballots. PRLDEF cited polling places that
could not provide bilingual ballots and had no bilingual poll workers to
offer assistance, as required by the Voting Rights Act in precincts with
large minority populations. The PRLDEF report said the problem may have
disfranchised up to several thousand Latino voters around the state. Marlene
Bastien, a Haitian leader from Miami, testified to similar problems in
Haitian neighborhoods, which she said may have left hundreds of voters
unable to cast ballots.
Black residents of southern Leon County complained of a Florida Highway
Patrol checkpoint on a road leading to a polling place and said it amounted
to harassment of black voters. Police authorities later testified that the
stops involved routine vehicle inspections and pledged that no such
checkpoints would be used on election days in the future.
Of the 179,855 votes that were cast but later discarded--either because they
contained more than one vote for President or no detectable vote--again it
is impossible to know exactly how many were cast by blacks, but statistics
make it clear that African-Americans' votes were lost at much higher rates
than those of other ethnic groups, involving tens of thousands of votes in
total. Those statistics are directly tied to the now infamous and
error-prone punch-card voting system.
In four of the counties in the state with the largest black
populations--Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Duval--punch-card systems
are used. Some 100,000 votes were discarded in those counties, more than
half the discards in the state. According to a study by the Miami Herald,
eighteen out of the nineteen precincts in the state with the highest rate of
discards were majority-black precincts, all of which used punch-card
systems. Seventy percent of Florida blacks were forced to use the punch-card
system, a percentage higher than other ethnic groups. Subsequently the NAACP
sued state officials to end the use of the punch-card system, which they say
is used disproportionately in black communities and amounts to
disfranchisement of tens of thousands of black voters.
During testimony before the Civil Rights Commission on January 11, Jeb Bush
swore that he had no knowledge of or involvement in the staging of elections
in Florida. Bush passed the buck to Katherine Harris, who also denied direct
involvement in the polling process. What is known is that $100,000 requested
by county elections supervisors for voter education--which would have helped
voters use the punch-card system and decipher confusing ballots--was deleted
from the Division of Elections budget.
Conservative Florida Democrats didn't do much better at overseeing the
electoral process. Bob Crawford, state agriculture secretary and a member of
the state Elections Canvassing Committee, testified on January 12 that he
had heard nothing about disfranchisement of minorities on Election Day--this
despite the fact that the NAACP had made headlines with a daylong hearing in
Miami on November 11 about such irregularities.
The Florida Elections Commission, a state body charged with investigating
voting irregularities, reported to the Civil Rights Commission in January
that it had done no investigating because no formal complaint had been
received, despite the public clamor by blacks.
On November 16, in the midst of the outcry over the butterfly ballot, the
Palm Beach Post quoted Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney, a Republican, as
saying, "Voter confusion is not a reason for whining or crying or having a
revote. It may be a reason to require literacy tests." Literacy tests for
the purpose of screening voters are, of course, unconstitutional.
Although they deny they did anything wrong themselves, these Florida leaders
have said they will fix what is wrong with the Florida electoral system. The
NAACP, however, is not convinced. Its suit demands that federal examiners
oversee elections in specific counties in Florida for the next ten years,
including the next two presidential contests, so that another election isn't
hijacked.
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com
Saturday, January 20, 2001
ARTISTpres
Bush Inaugural Special: 100 Links to Bush info
The following are links to information about the Bush family,
the Bush cabinet appointees and the corporations, think tanks
and foundations that are behind the GW Bush administration.
My including these links to materials other than the articles I
wrote is not to be considered an endorsement of any statement
they contain. These links connect to sites run by the left, the
religious right, conservative think tanks, political independents
and the mainstream media. Some are pro-Bush and are
included for cross reference value. All links were good as of
this writing so if you get a message to the contrary keep
trying-they are busy sites. When you cut and paste the web
adresses or type them in there must be no added spaces or
characters or else you will not be able to access the sites.
Within each of these sites you can do a word search on Bush or
any other word or name that interests you. These materials,
which are only a tiny fraction of what's out there, will help you
to see through the blitzkrieg of false information we are all
being subject to about GW Bush and his cabinet. Please
forward these links to your friends, the media, elected officials
and anyone else with an interest in knowing the real story
behind the 43rd President of the United States.
This list was compiled by
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics)
ARTISTpres@aol.com (718) 743-3722
Lederman articles on the Bush connection to Nazis, eugenics
and drug companies. Also articles on West Nile Virus,
Giuliani, the Manhattan Institute - more than 50 articles filled
with references.
http://Baltech.org/lederman/spray/
An exceptional article on the relationship between American
conservatives, GW Bush, so-called compassionate
conservatism, eugenics and the Nazis: Nazis In America by
Myrna Estep Ph. D
http://www.feminista.com/v3n10/estep.html
Bush financial misconduct
http://www.campaignwatch.org
Bush family background
http://www.geocities.com/alanjpakula/triplecrown.html
http://www.shorejournal.com/elkhorn/
http://www.prorev.com/bush.htm
http://www.copvcia.com/witness_list.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~Evademic/naznwo/naznwo10.txt
http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/bushboys.html
http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm
http://www.tylwythteg.com/enemies/Bush/bush17.html
http://www.gwbush.com/
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/commentary.html
http://www.bushfiles.com/bushfiles/midland.html
http://afrocubaweb.com/bushes.htm
http://www.davidicke.com/icke/articles/bush.html
http://www.infomanage.com/secrets/bios/bushes.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3750/bush.htm
http://www.kmf.org/williams/bushbook.html
http://www.hli.org/issues/pp/bcreview/index.html
http://www.joinhugs.org/mainpage/bushrecord.html
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/morgue.html
CIA, Nazis & the Republican Party
http://www.bartcop.com/nazigop.htm
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/OldNazis_NewRig
ht.html
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/ratline.html
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/mblinks.htm
http://www.watch.pair.com/jbs-cnp.html
Philadelphia Enquirer 9/10/98 David Lee Preston, "Fired Bush
backer one of several with possible Nazi links," September 10,
1988.
Project Paperclip: the CIA Nazi recruitment program - many of
the think tanks and organizations behind Bush got their ideas
directly from these former Nazi officials.
http://www.dc.peachnet.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/ass
ignments/experiment/paperclip.html
Head of Florida holocaust Museum links Bush family to Nazis
"The Bush family fortune came from the Third Reich."
-John Loftus, former US Justice Dept. Nazi War Crimes
investigator and President of the Florida Holocaust Museum
quoted in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune 11/11/2000
http://www.newscoast.com/headlinesstory2.cfm?ID=35115
4/14/1990 New York Times quotes George Bush as stating,
"Lets forgive the Nazi war criminals."
US releases Nazi documents (AP)
http://www.apbnews.com/media/gfiles/1999/11/03/nazis1103_
01.html
Josef Goebbels on propaganda - Understand how the Big Lie
techniques used by the Bush campaign work
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goebmain.htm
Eugenics sites (the Bush family are among the world's top
advocates for eugenics)
http://www.notdeadyet.org/eughis.html
http://www.techreview.com/articles/as96/allen.html
http://www.hli.org/issues/pp/bcreview/index.html
http://users.erols.com/straymond/EUGENICS2.htm
http://home.att.net/~eugenics/
http://www.sightings.com/general3/eugene.htm
http://www.biol.tsukuba.ac.jp/~macer/SG.html
Fluoride info
(Alcoa, which plays a major role in the Bush administration, is
the world's leading producer of fluoride and was a leading ally
of Nazi Germany)
http://204.181.21.150/trufax/fluoride/flchrono.html
Gulf War Syndrome and how the George Bush administration
supplied Iraq with chemical and biological warfare materials,
allowed US servicemen and women to be exposed to them and
then covered up the entire scandal by Air Force Captain Joyce
Riley
http://www.all-natural.com/riley.html
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/gulf.htm
A very interesting chronology of world events related to the
Bush family and the new administration's goals
http://www.trufax.org/chrono/cre.html
Cheney links
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/cheney1.html
http://www.weeklywire.com/ww/08-28-00/austin_pols_feature
2.html
http://www.campaignwatch.org
http://www.weeklywire.com/ww/08-28-00/austin_pols_feature
2.html
http://www.l0pht.com/pub/blackcrwl/patriot/north_and_constit
ution.txt
http://www.findarticles.com/m1295/9_64/65014757/p1/article.j
html
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0008a/cheneydislike.html
http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/cheney.html
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/papers/micr/introduction.
html#Figure 1
http://www.l0pht.com/pub/blackcrwl/patriot/north_and_constit
ution.txt
http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/papers/micr/mission.htm
l
"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist
state to supplant our democratic government and is working
closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have
had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how
close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi
regime. . . Certain American industrialists had a great deal to
do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany
and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of
power, and they are helping to keep it there."-William E. Dodd,
U.S. Ambassador to Germany, 1937.
See: Shadow of the Swastika
http://www.capnasty.org/taf/issue7/elkhorn1.htm
AND
http://users.actweb.net/~eye/arms_industry_world_war_2.htm
Powell took hefty fee from Lebanese just before election
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0101/08/world/world3.html
Ashcroft and white supremacists
NY Observer January 11, 2001
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/conason.asp
The Heritage Foundation
http://www.corporations.org/coors/
http://alant.purespace.de/anti.html
http://www.watch.pair.com/heritage.html
The Bell Curve and the Pioneer Fund
(The Bell Curve is the socialogical text that is the source
behind many of the Bush's cabinet appointees ideas on African
Americans, welfare reform, affirmative action, school
vouchers, voting rights etc. It's author, Charles Murray, is
directly connected to more than half of Bush's cabinet
appointees and advisors)
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/049.html
http://www.fair.org/extra/9501/bell.html
http://www.marmoset.com/60minute/Webnav/eugen.html
THE NEW YORK TIMES - 12/11/97
Pioneer Fund Backs Controversial Study of "Racial
Betterment"
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/022.html
Bush Monsanto connection
http://www.notmilk.com/
Bush has controversial bio removed from stores
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/bushbook9
91022.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh
2000/stories/stmartins102799.htm
Masons and US Presidency connection [scroll down to Bush
section]
(GW Bush will be sworn in on a masonic bible)
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/daniken/443/uspresidentas
masonspt3.htm
Quotes by Bush, Kissinger etc. on the New World Order
http://www.wearenow.com/eighthground/free/quotes.shtml
http://www.vaix.net/~api/172115.htm
Bush, Hitler, Skull and Bones connection
http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1314.cfm
To access thousands of web sites with detailed information on
the Bush/Nazi connection go to a good search engine such as
http://www.google.com/ and type in
Bush AND Nazi.
Likewise if you type in Alcoa AND Nazi or Ford AND Nazi
etc. you'll get thousands of pages of information on these
connections.
Other excellent search engines to search for Bush links
http://www.excite.com/
http://www.google.com/
http://www.raging.com/
http://www.dejanews.com/[ST_cam=search.yahoo.none.slot]/
http://www.webcrawler.com/
http://www.mamma.com/
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/reference/cynavi.html?
Partner=AOL&RefId=l3eEFnnnn.n-
http://www.scrubtheweb.com/
Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T.
(Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics)
ARTISTpres@aol.com (718) 743-3722
Lederman articles on the Bush connection to Nazis, eugenics
and drug companies; West Nile Virus expose, Giuliani,
Manhattan Institute, Eugenics info - more than 50 articles
http://Baltech.org/lederman/spray/
PLEASE FORWARD AND POST WIDELY
God Bless America and Impeach GW Bush!
If you are interested in a free subscription to The
Konformist Newswire, please visit:
http://www.eGroups.com/list/konformist
He Still Dares Call It Treason
http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=4018
by Monica Friedlander
"What happened here is not the sunlight of democracy, but the dark and ominous shadows of totalitarianism." -- Vincent Bugliosi
What unfolded on August 2 under the elegant, gilded dome of the landmark historic Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, California was one of the harshest, no-holds-barred indictments of the U.S. Supreme Court ever made. Famed prosecutor and writer Vincent Bugliosi blasted the Bush v Gore ruling, calling it the "worst crime in U.S. history" - in effect, the "theft of the Presidency." The talk was part of promotional tour for his book, "The Betrayal of America," in which he charges that (in)Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, O'Connor, and Kennedy betrayed everything they ever believed in to take the election away from the American people and into their own hands based on an inapplicable constitutional principle. "I will stake my prosecutorial reputation on the fact that within the pages of this book I prove beyond reasonable doubt that these five Justices deliberately set out to hand the election to George Bush," Bugliosi says. "The evidence against them is absolutely overwhelming. Like typical criminals on the run, they left their dirty fingerprints everywhere." These formidable charges, involving a ruling that changed the course of history, made by a nationally respected prosecutor, and in front of a full and vociferous house, unfolded with virtually no media coverage. This "omission" is in keeping with the media's "move-on-the-election-is-over" mentality, which Bugliosi likened to "Nazi war criminals saying 'the war is over. Let's get on with our lives.'" Bugliosi announced during the talk that Congressman John Conyers of Michigan asked that "None Dare Call It Treason"the article on which Betrayal of America was based, be entered into the Congressional record, thus bringing the charges against "the felonious five," as Bugliosi calls them, into the permanent annals of Congress. Bugliosi praised those in the audience who by supporting his cause are finding themselves "in the front lines, in the trenches," fighting "a noble war" and added, "I salute you for it." He also asked the audience to help get his message out. He said that in his long and successful career he never had so much trouble getting invited to speak on the air as he does now, even though his book has been on the New York Times bestseller list for weeks. The stage for Bugliosi's talk was set by a few other speakers, who largely reinforced his message while adding their own take and call to action. Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange discussed her role as observer of the vote recount in Florida last December. She described shocking accounts of delaying tactics used by the Republicans to run out the clock on Al Gore, and cases of African American voters turned away from the polls because they could not produce two pieces of identification. Another powerful plea was made by Riva Enteen, vice president of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), which is considering using Bugliosi's book as a legal foundation for asking the House to initiate impeachment proceedings against the Supreme Court Justices. Enteen said that the NLG has been receiving some 100 responses a day since their call for support went out, including an inquiry from the AFL-CIO. "What has changed in the last couple of months is not whether there will be an impeachment campaign," she said. "There IS an impeachment campaigning going on. It is only the role that the National Lawyers Guild will play in it." She asked everyone to join her and the NLG in going after "these five despicable traitors." Bugliosi followed, and like the passionate, skilled and persuasive prosecutor that he is, laid out his convincing case: that the Bush v. Gore ruling was not based on the law, meaning that the court knowingly and deliberately nullified the votes of 51 million and stole the election for George Bush. He concluded "nothing could possibly be more serious in its enormous ramifications. It was the biggest and most serious crime in American history. And in a fair and just world, the five Justices responsible for that decision belong behind prison bars." Bugliosi made his case point by point as if his audience was a jury.
1. The Justices in effect confessed to the crime, he said, by stating in the decision that the ruling only pertains to Bush v. Gore, not to other cases. "This is the first time in the 210-year history of the court that the court limited its ruling to the case before it," Bugliosi said. "If that ruling was based on the law, there's no way under the moon why they would have said it does not apply to other cases." He quoted Scalia writing in 1996 that "the Supreme Court of the United States does not sit to announce unique dispositions. Its principal function is to establish legal precedent, to set forth principles of law that every court in America must follow." "But not apparently in Bush v. Gore," Bugliosi said, "the only exception in the 210 year history of the court."
2. A couple of days before its infamous ruling, the court in effect handed the election to Bush when they stopped the manual recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court of some 60,000 undervotes. Bush's lead had shrunk to 154 votes when Justice Scalia intervened with an emergency order claiming that the count could cause "irreparable harm" to George Bush. Said Bugliosi, "So even though the election is not yet decided, the incredible Scalia presupposes Bush won the election, and indeed has a right to win it, and any recount that shows Gore had won threatens irreparable harm to George Bush! Now if this doesn't show these five Justices were deliberately trying to steal the election for George Bush, what in the world would?" And what empirical evidence, Bugliosi asked, could indicate that different counting standards in Florida would hurt Bush more than Gore? "The highest court in the land told 60,000 Americas "We're going to protect your right to vote by not counting any of your votes."
3. Bugliosi made the case that the equal protection clause, the basis for the court ruling, is inconsistent with the Justices' own judicial philosophy going back to 1945. The court, he said, has always held that there is no equal protection violation unless the discrimination is intentional, something no one claimed in this case. Bugliosi cited not only past cases, but also a case decided four months AFTER the election, in which "Scalia suddenly remembered after deliberate amnesia what the long-standing position of the court was in equal protection cases. And in the civil rights case of Alexander v. Sandoval there was no intentional discrimination and therefore no equal protection violation.
4. These five Justices, Bugliosi reminded the crowd, are all ardent Federalists who swear by the principle that state courts interpret state law, yet they intervened in this case.
5. These Justices believe in judicial restraint, he continued, constantly arguing against judicial activism. "What could possibly qualify as judicial activism more than telling the American people: "You're not going to pick the president, we are!" Bugliosi asked. "The fact that these five Justices have completely departed from what they would have almost reflectively and automatically done in 99 out of 100 cases is further evidence of their criminal state of mind."
6. The ruling stopping the vote count was issued in the form of a per curium opinion, which Bugliosi said, is almost always used in cases that are uncontroversial. Moreover, these opinions are unsigned and anonymously written. "It's remarkable that arguably the most consequential and far-reaching decision that the decision the Supreme Court has handed down since February 1, 1790 -- which will undoubtedly alter the course of American and therefore world history, was unsigned and anonymously written," Bugliosi said. All of these points, he concluded, prove that these five Justices have committed a judicial coup d'etat and "the unpardonable sin of being knowing surrogates for the Republican Party instead of being impartial arbiters of the law." For that, he wants history to remember them as criminals of the very highest order. "Most importantly," he said, "by exposing this terrible, terrible crime, I want to help insure that something like this will never, ever again happen in America." Bugliosi also endorsed all movements to impeach the Justices, even while admitting that such an outcome is politically unrealistic. But, he said, "any consideration given by Congress to the impeachment movement would have enormous sociological significance." Finally, he went on to arm those trying to impeach the "felonious five" with two critically important pieces of legal ammunition. First he discussed motives and conflicts of interest. For instance, he cited the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek as describing how upset Justice O'Connor was at the possibility of a Gore win because she planned to retire and did not want a Democrat appointing her successor. Clarence Thomas' wife works for the conservative Heritage Foundation, which assisted Bush in his transition to power. And two of Scalia's sons work for law firms heavily involved in the Bush campaign. Bugliosi then skillfully armed those fighting "the holy war" with arguments against the widespread claim that the Florida Supreme Court was trying to do for Al Gore what the U.S. Supreme Court did for George Bush. Not only was the Florida decision a standard interpretation of Florida statutory law, Bugliosi said, but also by virtue of their rulings, the Florida Supreme Court proved its impartiality. Two of the four rulings they handed in matters related to this election were anti-Gore. (In one, Gore asked the Florida Supreme Court to order that the vote count be resumed in Miami Dade after Republican mobs brought it to a halt; the court refused. In the other case, citizens asked for a revote because of the presumably illegal Butterfly Ballot, a petition the court denied.) Most importantly, Bugliosi argued, there's an enormous difference between the two courts. "The Florida Supreme Court said 'count all votes.' The U.S. Supreme Court said, "Don't count votes.'" Bugliosi concluded the night by asking that Americans not let the five InJustices get away with their action: "We already know the moral bankruptcy and deficiency of character of these five Justices. But if we Americans allow this [to happen] without demonstrating our absolute outrage, what does it say about our character?"
Freedom
Lovers & Lovers of Justice;
i spoke with Vincent Bugliosi this evening and he has asked for our
strong activist support in contacting every known media source asking
for their consideration in interviewing Mr. Bugliosi. From the
following comments in BUZZFLASH, you will note an air of frustration
forthcoming as a result of mainstream media's complicity and lack of
response in this obvious criminal conduct of bush et al and the Supreme
Criminal 5 - aka the "felonious five" as Mr. Bugliosi has aptly tagged
them. This mainstream media complicity and lack of response is what we
must overcome. We must get out there and convince every media source
that everything that Mr. Bugliosi, and we,
have to say is the pure truth and we must be heard.
Mr. Bugliosi will be on the Geraldo show Tuesday evening. If you watch
television, tune in.
i have also enclosed Mr. Bugliosi's article as it appeared in the Nation
magazine, "None Dare Call it Treason". It is below
the BUZZFLASH interview.
i would like to ask those who can, to please also forward this to as
many of the anti-bush discussion groups as you can.
Please send me an email and let me know who you have forwarded this to
so i not follow up to same email addresses. In this
case duplication is NOT all bad - but the main thing is to get the word
out about the need to contact media as Mr. Bugliosi has asked us to do.
i am in direct contact with Mr. Bugliosi, so anyone who has important
comments that you feel might help make this a more effective media
campaign to get Mr. Bugliosi
in the public eye, please reply to me via this email.
Please be courteous in all of your correspondence.
no peace without justice,
john vance, Coordinator
A First Amendment Center
Voter Rights March West Coast
www.freezepeach.cjb.net
www.voterwest.org
www.votermarch.org
(510) 287-9406
"I prosecuted Charles Manson. He was responsible for the
savage murders of innocent people. But this is worse. This is worse than
John Wayne Gacy. The magnitude of this crime is mind-boggling. These
five criminals, let's call them what they are, they belong in prison for
the rest of their lives."
===============================================================
BUZZFLASH REPORT Saturday June 2, 2001 at 7:07:53 PM
AN EXCLUSIVE BUZZFLASH
INTERVIEW WITH VINCENT BUGLIOSI
<http://www.buzzflash.com/BuzzScripts/Buzz.dll/Content>
On Tuesday, May 29, Buzzflash conducted a telephone interview with
Vincent
Bugliosi, author of "The Betrayal Of America: How The Supreme Court
Undermined Our Constitution And Chose Our President". Mr. Bugliosi's
book
provides the gruesome details of the High Court's theft of the 2000
presidential election. He offers a devastating legal point-by-point
rebuttal to the majority opinion that gave the election to George W.
Bush,
an opinion that is so embarrassingly convoluted that the author refused
to
sign it.
Significantly, in the foreword of the book, trial attorney Gerry Spence
cautions that it is "professional death" for a lawyer to challenge the
Supreme Court. The danger is apparently not limited to attorneys.
Mr. Bugliosi is a best selling author who has been a welcome guest on
the
mainstream media during all of his previous book tours. You can find his
article "None Dare Call It Treason"
at: <http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010205&c=1&s=bugliosi>.
"This time has been different," the author told BuzzFlash.com. "I
have
experienced rejections from shows that have always welcomed me in the
past,
including The Today Show, Good Morning America, Larry King, Charlie
Rose,
and Ted Koppel. I have pretty much been relegated to appearing on Court
TV
and, ironically enough, Fox. I've been interviewed by Greta Van
Susterin,
Bill O'Reilly, Hannity and Colmes, Judith Regan, and Diane Dimond. But
what
I call the moderate to liberal media, from National Public Radio to the
major network shows, they don't want any part of me this time."
WHY?
"They all give me the same mantra. 'Number one, the election is over.
Number two, Bush won anyway. No one cares anymore', they say. 'Get over
it'. It's twisted reasoning and totally illogical, but that's what they
say."
WHAT IS THE REAL
REASON?
"There are two reasons. Past experience has taught me that most of the
people in media are so conformist that they literally just stop thinking
for themselves. And they are extremely stupid. They just repeat what
they've heard, and they've heard that Bush won. Secondly, most
journalists
are spineless to the point that it's amazing that they can even sit up
on
TV. And they fear the fanatical right. They know that the right wing is
far
more mean spirited."
"The so called 'liberals' in the media are nauseating and disgusting.
They
just passively absorb all of it and refuse to fight. I'm a fighter."
Mr. Bugliosi mentioned that his previous paperback book on the Paula
Jones
fiasco was reviewed by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and
U.S.A.
Today.
"But not this one. They don't want to touch this. They're hoping that it
goes away. But I'm not going away. I will pursue it until those five
justices are ashamed to ever show their faces in public again."
WHY SO MUCH PASSION
ON YOUR PART? WHY NOT "GET OVER IT?"
"Because this is the greatest American crime since slavery! The Supreme
Court actually ruled that Americans don't have the right to have their
votes counted. Listen carefully, because this is easy to distort, but
this
is a crucial point. I prosecuted Charles Manson. He was responsible for
the
savage murders of innocent people. But this is worse. This is worse than
John Wayne Gacy. The magnitude of this crime is mind-boggling. These
five
criminals, let's call them what they are, they belong in prison for the
rest of their lives. They stole something that many Americans have
fought
and died for. They corrupted our most precious possession - our
democracy!"
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
"We can get the word out. We can fight this asinine notion that once the
crime has been committed, it's over.
Even if Bush would have won a legitimate count in Florida, which he
wouldn't have, that doesn't excuse the crime that the Supreme Court
committed. And, as an experienced trial lawyer, I choose my words
carefully. They committed a crime. They used phony arguments to reach a
predetermined conclusion. They lied. They knew exactly what they were
doing. Letting them off the hook just because some newspaper recounts
say
that Bush would have won anyway misses the point. If you take a gun and
shoot at someone, then you can't claim that you're innocent just because
you miss them. And when you stop a vote count solely in order to put
your
guy in the White House, and in my book I prove beyond any reasonable
doubt
that's exactly what these five criminals did, then you can't say that it
doesn't matter because your crime turned out to be unnecessary."
"But these are disreputable people. Just one example Rehnquist. This
bum
committed perjury during his own confirmation hearing before the Senate
Judiciary Committee. Senator Kennedy confronted him with a memo that
Rehnquist had written as a law clerk for Justice Jackson. It read, 'I
think
that we should argue in favor of Plessey v. Ferguson'. That's the
doctrine
of separate but equal. Rehnquist then lied under oath and told the
committee that he was transcribing something that Justice Jackson had
said.
But that was not Jackson's position. And Rehnquist could not produce any
other 'transcriptions'. Unfortunately, Jackson was dead. And the
Democrats
let Rehnquist off the hook."
SOUNDS LIKE ASHCROFT
AND OLSON...
"Exactly. It's really disgusting. Look, the Democrats are not going to
do
anything on their own, but we can't just put up with this corruption on
the
Supreme Court. I am going to meet with some people about starting a
movement to begin impeachment proceedings in the House Judiciary
Committee
to bring these five rascals to justice. We have to try. We can't just
let
them take our democracy away. We have to fight."
WHAT CAN WE DO?
"Contact the media. Let them know that you care. The producer at Good
Morning America, Shelley Roth, told me that she just doesn't believe
that
anyone cares anymore. It's the same old spiel 'Election's over Bush
won No one cares Get over it.' But here's the thing; if the
defendants
at
Nuremberg would have stood up and said, 'The war's over. Let's move on,'
that wouldn't have worked. It shouldn't work in America, either."
---------
You can contact the morning television programs to ask why they won't
interview Vincent Bugliosi by going to this URL:
http://www.mediawhoresonline.com/contactinfo.htm#Television
February 5, 2001 None Dare Call It Treason
by VINCENT BUGLIOSI* <"http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010205&s=bugliosi>
In the December 12 ruling by the US Supreme Court handing the election to George Bush, the Court committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law. If you doubt this, try to imagine Al Gore's and George Bush's roles being reversed and ask yourself if you can conceive of Justice Antonin Scalia and his four conservative brethren issuing an emergency order on December 9 stopping the counting of ballots (at a time when Gore's lead had shrunk to 154 votes) on the grounds that if it continued, Gore could suffer "irreparable harm," and then subsequently, on December 12, bequeathing the election to Gore on equal protection grounds. If you can, then I suppose you can also imagine seeing a man jumping away from his own shadow, Frenchmen no longer drinking wine. From the beginning, Bush desperately sought, as it were, to prevent the opening of the door, the looking into the box, unmistakable signs that he feared the truth. In a nation that prides itself on openness, instead of the Supreme Court doing everything within its power to find a legal way to open the door and box, they did the precise opposite in grasping, stretching and searching mightily for a way, any way at all, to aid their choice for President, Bush, in the suppression of the truth, finally settling, in their judicial coup d'état, on the untenable argument that there was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, the Court asserting that because of the various standards of determining the voter's intent in the Florida counties, voters were treated unequally, since a vote disqualified in one county (the so-called undervotes, which the voting machines did not pick up) may have been counted in another county, and vice versa. Accordingly, the Court reversed the Florida Supreme Court's order that the undervotes be counted, effectively delivering the presidency to Bush.
Now, in the equal protection cases I've seen, the aggrieved party, the one who is being harmed and discriminated against, almost invariably brings the action. But no Florida voter I'm aware of brought any action under the equal protection clause claiming he was disfranchised because of the different standards being employed. What happened here is that Bush leaped in and tried to profit from a hypothetical wrong inflicted on someone else. Even assuming Bush had this right, the very core of his petition to the Court was that he himself would be harmed by these different standards. But would he have? If we're to be governed by common sense, the answer is no. The reason is that just as with flipping a coin you end up in rather short order with as many heads as tails, there would be a "wash" here for both sides, i.e., there would be just as many Bush as Gore votes that would be counted in one county yet disqualified in the next. (Even if we were to assume, for the sake of argument, that the wash wouldn't end up exactly, 100 percent even, we'd still be dealing with the rule of de minimis non curat lex, the law does not concern itself with trifling matters.) So what harm to Bush was the Court so passionately trying to prevent by its ruling other than the real one: that he would be harmed by the truth as elicited from a full counting of the undervotes? And if the Court's five-member majority was concerned not about Bush but the voters themselves, as they fervently claimed to be, then under what conceivable theory would they, in effect, tell these voters, "We're so concerned that some of you undervoters may lose your vote under the different Florida county standards that we're going to solve the problem by making sure that none of you undervoters have your votes counted"? Isn't this exactly what the Court did? Gore's lawyer, David Boies, never argued either of the above points to the Court. Also, since Boies already knew (from language in the December 9 emergency order of the Court) that Justice Scalia, the Court's right-wing ideologue; his Pavlovian puppet, Clarence Thomas, who doesn't even try to create the impression that he's thinking; and three other conservatives on the Court (William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy) intended to deodorize their foul intent by hanging their hat on the anemic equal protection argument, wouldn't you think that he and his people would have come up with at least three or four strong arguments to expose it for what it was, a legal gimmick that the brazen, shameless majority intended to invoke to perpetrate a judicial hijacking in broad daylight? And made sure that he got into the record of his oral argument all of these points? Yet, remarkably, Boies only managed to make one good equal protection argument, and that one near the very end of his presentation, and then only because Justice Rehnquist (not at Boies's request, I might add) granted him an extra two minutes. If Rehnquist hadn't given him the additional two minutes, Boies would have sat down without getting even one good equal protection argument into the record. This was Boies's belated argument: "Any differences as to how this standard [to determine voter intent] is interpreted have a lot less significance in terms of what votes are counted or not counted than simply the differences in machines that exist throughout the counties of Florida."
A more powerful way to make Boies's argument would have been to point out to the Court the reductio ad absurdum of the equal protection argument. If none of the undervotes were counted because of the various standards to count them, then to be completely consistent the Court would have had no choice but to invalidate the entire Florida election, since there is no question that votes lost in some counties because of the method of voting would have been recorded in others utilizing a different method.1 [Footnotes on page 7] How would the conservative majority have gotten around that argument without buckling on the counting of the undervotes? Of course, advice after a mistake is like medicine after death. And as we shall see, no matter what Boies argued, the five conservative Justices had already made up their minds. But it would have been delightful to see how these Justices, forced to stare into the noonday sun, would have attempted to avoid a confrontation with the truth. The Court majority, after knowingly transforming the votes of 50 million Americans into nothing and throwing out all of the Florida undervotes (around 60,000), actually wrote that their ruling was intended to preserve "the fundamental right" to vote. This elevates audacity to symphonic and operatic levels. The Court went on to say, after stealing the election from the American people, "None are more conscious of the vital limits on its judicial authority than are the members of this Court, and none stand more in admiration of the Constitution's design to leave the selection of the President to the people." Can you imagine that? As they say, "It's enough to drive you to drink." What makes the Court's decision even more offensive is that it warmly embraced, of all the bitter ironies, the equal protection clause, a constitutional provision tailor-made for blacks that these five conservative Justices have shown no hospitality to when invoked in lawsuits by black people, the very segment of the population most likely to be hurt by a Bush administration. As University of Southern California law professor Erwin Chemerinsky noted: "The Rehnquist Court almost never uses equal protection jurisprudence except in striking down affirmative action programs [designed to help blacks and minorities]. I can't think of a single instance where Scalia or Thomas has found discrimination against a racial minority, or women, or the aged, or the disabled, to be unconstitutional." Varying methods to cast and count votes have been going on in every state of the union for the past two centuries, and the Supreme Court has been as silent as a church mouse on the matter, never even hinting that there might be a right under the equal protection clause that was being violated. Georgetown University law professor David Cole said, "[The Court] created a new right out of whole cloth and made sure it ultimately protected only one person, George Bush." The simple fact is that the five conservative Justices did not have a judicial leg to stand on in their blatantly partisan decision. In a feeble, desperate effort to support their decision, the Court cited four of its previous cases as legal precedent, but not one of them bears even the slightest resemblance to Bush v. Gore. In one (Gray v. Sanders), the state of Georgia had a system where the vote of each citizen counted for less and less as the population of his or her county increased. In another (Moore v. Ogilvie), the residents of smaller counties in Illinois were able to form a new party to elect candidates, something residents of larger counties could not do. Another (Reynolds v. Sims) was an apportionment case, and the fourth (Harper v. Virginia) involved the payment of a poll tax as a qualification for voting. If a first-year law student ever cited completely inapplicable authority like this, any thoughtful professor would encourage him not to waste two more years trying to become a lawyer. As Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar noted, the five conservative Justices "failed to cite a single case that, on its facts, comes close to supporting its analysis and result." If the Court majority had been truly concerned about the equal protection of all voters, the real equal protection violation, of course, took place when they cut off the counting of the undervotes. As indicated, that very act denied the 50 million Americans who voted for Gore the right to have their votes count at all. It misses the point to argue that the five Justices stole the election only if it turns out that Gore overcame Bush's lead in the undervote recount. We're talking about the moral and ethical culpability of these Justices, and when you do that, the bell was rung at the moment they engaged in their conduct. What happened thereafter cannot unring the bell and is therefore irrelevant. To judge these Justices by the final result rather than by their intentions at the time of their conduct would be like exonerating one who shoots to kill if the bullet misses the victim. With that type of extravagant reasoning, if the bullet goes on and accidentally strikes down a third party who is about to kill another, perhaps the gunman should ultimately be viewed as a hero. Other than the unprecedented and outrageous nature of what the Court did, nothing surprises me more than how it is being viewed by the legal scholars and pundits who have criticized the opinion. As far as I can determine, most have correctly assailed the Court for issuing a ruling that was clearly political.
As the December 25 Time capsulized it, "A sizable number of critics, from law professors to some of the Court's own members, have attacked the ruling as...politically motivated." A sampling from a few law professors: Vanderbilt professor Suzanna Sherry said, "There is really very little way to reconcile this opinion other than that they wanted Bush to win." Yale's Amar lamented that "for Supreme Court watchers this case will be like BC and AD. For many of my colleagues, this was like the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Many of us [had] thought that courts do not act in an openly political fashion." Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy called the decision "outrageous." 2 The only problem I have with these critics is that they have merely lost respect for and confidence in the Court. "I have less respect for the Court than before," Amar wrote. The New York Times said the ruling appeared "openly political" and that it "eroded public confidence in the Court." Indeed, the always accommodating and obsequious (in all matters pertaining to the High Court, in front of which he regularly appears) Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, who was Gore's chief appellate lawyer, went even further in the weakness of his disenchantment with the Court. "Even if we disagree" with the Court's ruling, he said, Americans should "rally around the decision." Sometimes the body politic is lulled into thinking along unreasoned lines. The "conventional wisdom" emerging immediately after the Court's ruling seemed to be that the Court, by its political ruling, had only lost a lot of credibility and altitude in the minds of many people. But these critics of the ruling, even those who flat-out say the Court "stole" the election, apparently have not stopped to realize the inappropriateness of their tepid position vis-ŕ-vis what the Court did. You mean you can steal a presidential election and your only retribution is that some people don't have as much respect for you, as much confidence in you? That's all? If, indeed, the Court, as the critics say, made a politically motivated ruling (which it unquestionably did), this is tantamount to saying, and can only mean, that the Court did not base its ruling on the law. And if this is so (which again, it unquestionably is), this means that these five Justices deliberately and knowingly decided to nullify the votes of the 50 million Americans who voted for Al Gore and to steal the election for Bush. Of course, nothing could possibly be more serious in its enormous ramifications. The stark reality, and I say this with every fiber of my being, is that the institution Americans trust the most to protect its freedoms and principles committed one of the biggest and most serious crimes this nation has ever seen, pure and simple, the theft of the presidency. And by definition, the perpetrators of this crime have to be denominated criminals. Since the notion of five Supreme Court Justices being criminals is so alien to our sensibilities and previously held beliefs, and since, for the most part, people see and hear, as Thoreau said, what they expect to see and hear, most readers will find my characterization of these Justices to be intellectually incongruous. But make no mistake about it, I think my background in the criminal law is sufficient to inform you that Scalia, Thomas et al. are criminals in the very truest sense of the word. Essentially, there are two types of crimes: malum prohibitum (wrong because they are prohibited) crimes, more popularly called "civil offenses" or "quasi crimes," such as selling liquor after a specified time of day, hunting during the off-season, gambling, etc.; and malum in se (wrong in themselves) crimes. The latter, such as robbery, rape, murder and arson, are the only true crimes. Without exception, they all involve morally reprehensible conduct. Even if there were no law prohibiting such conduct, one would know (as opposed to a malum prohibitum crime) it is wrong, often evil. Although the victim of most true crimes is an individual (for example, a person robbed or raped), such crimes are considered to be "wrongs against society." This is why the plaintiff in all felony criminal prosecutions is either the state (People of the State of California v. _______) or the federal government (United States of America v. _______). No technical true crime was committed here by the five conservative Justices only because no Congress ever dreamed of enacting a statute making it a crime to steal a presidential election. It is so far-out and unbelievable that there was no law, then, for these five Justices to have violated by their theft of the election. But if what these Justices did was not "morally reprehensible" and a "wrong against society," what would be? In terms, then, of natural law and justice, the protoplasm of all eventual laws on the books, these five Justices are criminals in every true sense of the word, and in a fair and just world belong behind prison bars as much as any American white-collar criminal who ever lived. Of course, the right-wing extremists who have saluted the Court for its theft of the election are the same type of people who feel it is perfectly all right to have a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years in a federal penitentiary for some poor black in the ghetto who is in possession of just fifty grams of crack cocaine, even if he was not selling it. [§ 21 U.S.C. § 841 (b)(1)(A)(iii)] Though the five Justices clearly are criminals, no one is treating them this way. As I say, even those who were outraged by the Court's ruling have only lost respect for them. And for the most part the nation's press seems to have already forgotten and/or forgiven. Within days, the Court's ruling was no longer the subject of Op-Ed pieces. Indeed, just five days after its high crime, the caption of an article by Jean Guccione in the Los Angeles Times read, "The Supreme Court Should Weather This Storm." The following day an AP story noted that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, on vacation in Arizona, had fired a hole-in-one on the golf course. The lack of any valid legal basis for their decision and, most important, the fact that it is inconceivable they would have ruled the way they did for Gore, proves, on its face, that the five conservative Republican Justices were up to no good. Therefore, not one stitch of circumstantial evidence beyond this is really necessary to demonstrate their felonious conduct and state of mind. (The fact that O'Connor, per the Wall Street Journal, said before the election that she wanted to retire but did not want to do so if a Democrat would be selecting her successor, that Thomas's wife is working for the conservative Heritage Foundation to help handle the Bush transition and that Scalia's two sons work for law firms representing Bush is all unneeded trivia. We already know, without this, exactly what happened.) But for those who want more, let me point out that there is no surer way to find out what parties meant than to see what they have done. And like typical criminals, the felonious five left their incriminating fingerprints everywhere, showing an unmistakable consciousness of guilt on their part.
1. Under Florida statutory law, when the Florida Supreme Court finds that a challenge to the certified result of an election is justified, it has the power to "provide any relief appropriate under the circumstances" (§ 102.168(8) of the Florida Election Code). On Friday, December 8, the Florida court, so finding, ordered a manual recount (authorized under § 102.166(4)© of the Florida Election Code) of all disputed ballots (around 60,000) throughout the entire state. As a New York Times editorial reported, "The manual recount was progressing smoothly and swiftly Saturday...with new votes being recorded for both Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush... serving the core democratic principle that every legal vote should be counted" when, in mid-afternoon, the US Supreme Court "did a disservice to the nation's tradition of fair elections by calling a halt" to the recount. The stay (requested by Bush), the Times said, appeared "highly political."4 Under Supreme Court rules, a stay is supposed to be granted to an applicant (here, Bush) only if he makes a substantial showing that in the absence of a stay, there is a likelihood of "irreparable harm" to him. With the haste of a criminal, Justice Scalia, in trying to justify the Court's shutting down of the vote counting, wrote, unbelievably, that counting these votes would "threaten irreparable harm to petitioner [Bush]...by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election." [Emphasis added.] In other words, although the election had not yet been decided, the absolutely incredible Scalia was presupposing that Bush had won the election, indeed, had a right to win it, and any recount that showed Gore got more votes in Florida than Bush could "cloud" Bush's presidency. Only a criminal on the run, rushed for time and acting in desperation, could possibly write the embarrassing words Scalia did, language showing that he knew he had no legal basis for what he was doing, but that getting something down in writing, even as intellectually flabby and fatuous as it was, was better than nothing at all. (Rehnquist, Thomas, O'Connor and Kennedy, naturally, joined Scalia in the stay order.) The New York Times observed that the Court gave the appearance by the stay of "racing to beat the clock before an unwelcome truth would come out." Terrance Sandalow, former dean of the University of Michigan Law School and a judicial conservative who opposed Roe v. Wade and supported the nomination to the Court of right-wing icon Robert Bork, said that "the balance of harms so unmistakably were on the side of Gore" that the granting of the stay was "incomprehensible," going on to call the stay "an unmistakably partisan decision without any foundation in law." As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in opposing the stay, Bush "failed to carry the heavy burden" of showing a likelihood of irreparable harm if the recount continued. In other words, the Court never even had the legal right to grant the stay. "Counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm," Stevens said. "On the other hand, there is a danger that a stay may cause irreparable harm to the respondent [Gore] and, more importantly, the public at large because of the risk that the entry of the stay would be tantamount to a decision on the merits in favor of the applicant. Preventing the recount from being completed will inevitably cast a cloud on the legitimacy of the election." Stevens added what even the felonious five knew but decided to ignore: that it is a "basic principle inherent in our Constitution that every legal vote should be counted."
From the wrongful granting of the stay alone, the handwriting was on the wall. Gore was about as safe as a cow in a Chicago stockyard. In yet another piece of incriminating circumstantial evidence, Scalia, in granting Bush's application for the stay, wrote that "the issuance of the stay suggests that a majority of the Court, while not deciding the issues presented, believe that the petitioner [Bush] has a substantial probability of success." But Antonin, why would you believe this when neither side had submitted written briefs yet (they were due the following day, Sunday, by 4 pm), nor had there even been oral arguments (set for 11 am on Monday)? It wouldn't be because you had already made up your mind on what you were determined to do, come hell or high water, would it? Antonin, take it from an experienced prosecutor, you're as guilty as sin. In my prosecutorial days, I've had some worthy opponents. You wouldn't be one of them. Your guilt is so obvious that if I thought more of you I'd feel constrained to blush for you.
2. When prosecutors present their circumstantial case against a defendant, they put one speck of evidence upon another until ultimately there is a strong mosaic of guilt. One such small speck is that in its 5-to-4 decision handing the election to Bush, the Court's ruling was set forth in a thirteen-page "per curiam" (Latin for "by the court") opinion (followed by concurring and dissenting opinions). Students of the Supreme Court know that per curiam opinions are almost always issued for unanimous (9-to-0) opinions in relatively unimportant and uncontroversial cases, or where Justices wish to be very brief. But as USA Today pointed out, "Neither was the case here." Again, on the run and in a guilty state of mind, none of the five Justices, even the brazenly shameless Scalia, wanted to sign their name to a majority opinion of the Court reversing the Florida Supreme Court's order to recount the undervotes. A per curiam opinion, which is always unsigned, was the answer.
It is not even known who wrote the per curiam opinion, though it is believed to be O'Connor and/or Kennedy, neither of whose names is mentioned anywhere in the Court's sixty-two-page document. After they did their dirty work by casting their two votes on the case for their favorite, two votes that overruled and rendered worthless the votes of 50 million Americans in fifty states, O'Connor and Kennedy wanted to stay away from their decision the way the devil stays away from holy water. Indeed, by their per curiam opinion, it was almost as if the felonious five felt that since their names would not be on the legally sacrilegious opinion, maybe, just maybe, the guilt they knew they bore would be mitigated, at least somewhat, in posterity.
3. The proof that the Court itself knew its equal protection argument had no merit whatsoever is that when Bush first asked the Court, on November 22, to consider three objections of his to the earlier, more limited Florida recount then taking place, the Court only denied review on his third objection, yeah, you guessed it, that the lack of a uniform standard to determine the voter's intent violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Since the Court, on November 22, felt that this objection was so devoid of merit that it was unworthy of even being considered by it, what did these learned Justices subsequently learn about the equal protection clause they apparently did not know in November that caused them just three weeks later, on December 12, to embrace and endorse it so enthusiastically? The election was finally on the line on December 12 and they knew they had to come up with something, anything, to save the day for their man. The bottom line is that nothing is more important in a democracy than the right to vote. Without it there cannot be a democracy. And implicit in the right to vote, obviously, is that the vote be counted. Yet with the election hanging in the balance, the highest court in the land ordered that the valid votes of thousands of Americans not be counted. That decision gave the election to Bush. When Justice Thomas was asked by a skeptical high school student the day after the Court's ruling whether the Court's decision had anything to do with politics, he answered, "Zero." And when a reporter thereafter asked Rehnquist whether he agreed with Thomas, he said, "Absolutely, absolutely." Well, at least we know they can lie as well as they can steal.
4. The Court anchored its knowingly fraudulent decision on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But wait. Since the electors in the fifty states weren't scheduled to meet and vote until December 18, and the Court's ruling was on December 12, if the Court was really serious about its decision that the various standards in the counties to determine the voter's intent violated the equal protection clause, why not, as Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer each noted in separate dissents, simply remand the case back to the Florida Supreme Court with instructions to establish a uniform, statewide standard and continue the recount until December 18? The shameless and shameful felonious five had an answer, which, in a sense, went to the heart of their decision even more than the bogus equal protection argument. The unsigned and anonymously written per curiam opinion noted that under Title 3 of the United States Code, Section 5 (3 USC § 5), any controversy or contest to determine the selection of electors should be resolved "six days prior to the meeting of the Electoral College," that is, December 12, and inasmuch as the Court issued its ruling at 10 pm on December 12, with just two hours remaining in the day, the Court said, "That date [December 12] is upon us," and hence there obviously was no time left to set uniform standards and continue the recount. But there are a multiplicity of problems with the Court's oh-so-convenient escape hatch. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, University of Utah law professor Michael McConnell, a legal conservative, pointed out that the December 12 "deadline" is only a deadline "for receiving 'safe harbor' protection for the state's electors" (i.e., if a state certifies its electors by that date, Congress can't question them), not a federal deadline that must be met. New York University law professor Larry Kramer observed that if a state does not make that deadline, "nothing happens. The counting could continue." Justice Stevens observed in his dissent that 3 USC § 5 "merely provides rules ...for Congress to follow when selecting among conflicting slates of electors. They do not prohibit a state from counting ...legal votes until a bonafide winner is determined. Indeed, in 1960, Hawaii appointed two slates of electors and Congress chose to count the one appointed on January 4, 1961, well after the Title 3 deadlines" of December 12 and 18. Thus, Stevens went on to say, even if an equal protection violation is assumed for the sake of argument, "nothing prevents the majority...from ordering relief appropriate to remedy that violation without depriving Florida voters of their right to have their votes counted." But even if December 12 were some kind of actual deadline, nothing was sillier during this whole election debate than the talking heads on television, many of whom were lawyers who should have known better, treating the date as if it were sacrosanct and set in stone (exactly what the Supreme Court majority, on the run and trying to defend their indefensible position, said). In the real world, mandatory dates always have an elliptical clause attached to them, "unless there is just cause for extending the date." I cannot be accused of hyperbole when I say that perhaps no less than thousands of times a day in courthouses throughout the country, mandatory ("shall") dates to do this or that (file a brief, a motion, commence a trial, etc.) are waived by the court on the representation of one party alone that he needs more time. If extending the December 12 (or the December 18 date, for that matter) deadline for a few days for the counting of votes to determine who the rightful winner of a presidential election is does not constitute a sufficient cause for a short extension of time, then what in the world does? No one has said it better than columnist Thomas Friedman: "The five conservative Justices essentially ruled that the sanctity of dates, even meaningless ones, mattered more than the sanctity of votes, even meaningful ones. The Rehnquist Court now has its legacy: In calendars we trust." In other words, to Scalia and his friends, speed was more important than justice. More important than accuracy. Being the strong-armed enforcer of deadlines, even inconsequential ones, was more important to these five Justices than being the nation's protector and guardian of the right to vote. What could be more infuriating than Chief Justice Rehnquist, who knew he was setting up a straw man as counterfeit as the decision he supported, writing that the recount "could not possibly be completed" in the two hours remaining on December 12? The Supreme Court improperly stops the recounting of the votes from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday, December 12, at 10 pm, then has the barefaced audacity to say that Gore ran out of time? This type of maddening sophistry is enough, as the expression goes, to piss off a saint. How dare these five pompous asses do what they did? It should be noted that the recount that commenced on Saturday morning, December 9, was scheduled to conclude by 2 pm that Sunday, and the vote counters were making excellent progress. For example, as reported in the December 10 New York Times, for the 9,000 Miami-Dade County ballots being counted, eight county court judges counting 1,000 ballots an hour, had, by midday Saturday, "gone through more than a third of the ballots [when Scalia stepped in], and expected to finish by nightfall." So the Court's extending the deadline to December 18 would have provided ample time for the Florida Supreme Court to promulgate a uniform standard, finish the vote-counting in a day or so, and even allow for judicial review. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed concerning this last point, "Notably, the Florida Supreme Court has produced two substantial decisions within twenty-nine hours of oral argument." Justice Breyer wrote that the alleged equal protection "deficiency...could easily be remedied." But that's assuming the felonious five wanted a remedy. They did not. All of the above are further indicia of their guilty state of mind.
5. If there are two sacred canons of the right-wing in America and ultraconservative Justices like Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist, it's their ardent federalism, i.e., promotion of states' rights (Rehnquist, in fact, wrote in his concurring opinion about wanting, wherever possible, to "defer to the decisions of state courts on issues of state law"), and their antipathy for Warren Court activist judges. So if it weren't for their decision to find a way, any way imaginable, to appoint Bush President, their automatic predilection would have been to stay the hell out of Florida's business. The fact that they completely departed from what they would almost reflexively do in ninety-nine out of a hundred other cases is again persuasive circumstantial evidence of their criminal state of mind. 6. Perhaps nothing Scalia et al. did revealed their consciousness of guilt more than the total lack of legal stature they reposed in their decision. Appellate court decisions, particularly those of the highest court in the land, all enunciate and stand for legal principles. Not just litigants but the courts themselves cite prior holdings as support for a legal proposition they are espousing. But the Court knew that its ruling (that differing standards for counting votes violate the equal protection clause) could not possibly be a constitutional principle cited in the future by themselves, other courts or litigants. Since different methods of counting votes exist throughout the fifty states (e.g., Texas counts dimpled chads, California does not), forty-four out of the fifty states do not have uniform voting methods, and voting equipment and mechanisms in all states necessarily vary in design, upkeep and performance, to apply the equal protection ruling of Bush v. Gore would necessarily invalidate virtually all elections throughout the country. This, obviously, was an extremely serious problem for the felonious five to deal with. What to do? Not to worry. Are you ready for this one? By that I mean, are you sitting down, since if you're standing, this is the type of thing that could affect your physical equilibrium. Unbelievably, the Court wrote that its ruling was " limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities." (That's pure, unadulterated moonshine. The ruling sets forth a very simple, noncomplex proposition, that if there are varying standards to count votes, this violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.) In other words, the Court, in effect, was saying its ruling "only applied to those future cases captioned Bush v. Gore. In all other equal protection voting cases, litigants should refer to prior decisions of this court." Of the thousands of potential equal protection voting cases, the Court was only interested in, and eager to grant relief to, one person and one person only, George W. Bush.
6. Is there any limit to the effrontery and shamelessness of these five right-wing Justices? Answer: No. This point number six here, all alone and by itself, clearly and unequivocally shows that the Court knew its decision was not based on the merits or the law, and was solely a decision to appoint George Bush President. Conservatives, the very ones who wanted to impeach Earl Warren, have now predictably taken to arguing that one shouldn't attack the Supreme Court as I am because it can only harm the image of the Court, which we have to respect as the national repository for, and protector of, the rule of law, the latter being a sine qua non to a structured, nonanarchistic society. This is just so much drivel. Under what convoluted theory do we honor the rule of law by ignoring the violation of it (here, the sacred, inalienable right to vote of all Americans) by the Supreme Court? With this unquestioning subservience-to-authority theory, I suppose the laws of the Third Reich, such as requiring Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing, should have been respected and followed by the Jews. Blacks should have respected Jim Crow laws in the first half of the twentieth century. Naturally, these conservative exponents of not harming the Supreme Court, even though the Court stole a federal election disfranchising 50 million American citizens, are the same people who felt no similar hesitancy savaging the President of the United States not just day after day, but week after week, month after month, yes, even year after year for having a private and consensual sexual affair and then lying about it. And this was so even though the vitriolic and never-ending attacks crippled the executive branch of government for months on end, causing incalculable damage to the office of the presidency and to this nation, both internally and in the eyes of the world. Indeed, many of them are delighted to hound and go after the President even after he leaves office.
These five Justices, by their conduct, have forfeited the right to be respected, and only by treating them the way they deserve to be treated can we demonstrate our respect for the rule of law they defiled, and insure that their successors will not engage in similarly criminal conduct. Why, one may ask, have I written this article? I'll tell you why. I'd like to think, like most people, that I have a sense of justice. In my mind's eye, these five Justices have gotten away with murder, and I want to do whatever I can to make sure that they pay dearly for their crime. Though they can't be prosecuted, I want them to know that there's at least one American out there (and hopefully many more because of this article) who knows (not thinks, but knows) precisely who they are. I want these five Justices to know that because of this article, which I intend to send to each one of them by registered mail, there's the exponential possibility that when many Americans look at them in the future, they'll be saying, "Why are these people in robes seated above me? They all belong behind bars." I want these five Justices to know that this is America, not a banana republic, and in the United States of America, you simply cannot get away with things like this. At a minimum, I believe that the Court's inexcusable ruling will severely stain its reputation for years to come, perhaps decades. This is very unfortunate. As Justice Stevens wrote in his dissent: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in [this Court] as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Considering the criminal intention behind the decision, legal scholars and historians should place this ruling above the Dred Scott case (Scott v. Sandford) and Plessy v. Ferguson in egregious sins of the Court. The right of every American citizen to have his or her vote counted, and for Americans (not five unelected Justices) to choose their President was callously and I say criminally jettisoned by the Court's majority to further its own political ideology. If there is such a thing as a judicial hell, these five Justices won't have to worry about heating bills in their future. Scalia and Thomas in particular are not only a disgrace to the judiciary but to the legal profession, for years being nothing more than transparent shills for the right wing of the Republican Party.
If the softest pillow is a clear conscience, these five Justices are in for some hard nights. But if they aren't troubled by what they did, then we're dealing with judicial sociopaths, people even more frightening than they already appear to be. The Republican Party had a good candidate for President, John McCain. Instead, it nominated perhaps the most unqualified person ever to become President, and with the muscular, thuggish help of the Court, forced Bush down the throats of more than half the nation's voters. As Linda Greenhouse wrote in the New York Times, when Rehnquist administers the presidential oath of office to Bush on January 20, for the first time in our nation's history the Chief Justice will not just be a prop in the majestic ceremony but a player. Rehnquist will be swearing in someone he made sure would be President. Obscenity has its place in a free and open society, but it's in the seedy, neon-light part of town, not on the steps of the nation's Capitol being viewed by millions of Americans on television screens throughout the land. That an election for an American President can be stolen by the highest court in the land under the deliberate pretext of an inapplicable constitutional provision has got to be one of the most frightening and dangerous events ever to have occurred in this country. Until this act, which is treasonous, though again not technically, in its sweeping implications, is somehow rectified (and I do not know how this can be done), can we be serene about continuing to place the adjective "great" before the name of this country?
FOOTNOTES
1. A total of 3,718,305 votes were cast in the Florida election under the Votomatic punch-card system, and 2,353,811 votes were cast under the optical-scan system. The percentage of votes not picked up using the punch-card system was 3.92 percent, the rate under the more modern optical-scan system being only 1.43 percent. Put in other terms, for every 10,000 votes cast, the punch-card system resulted in 250 more nonvotes than the optical-scan system. Siegel v. LePore, No. 00-15981. See also Ford Fessenden, "No-Vote Rates Higher in Punch-Card Counts," New York Times, December 1.
2. The ruling was so bad that it was very difficult to find even conservative legal scholars who supported it, and when the few who attempted to do so stepped up to the plate, their observations were simply pathetic. University of California, Berkeley, law professor John Yoo, a former law clerk for Thomas, wrote that "we should balance the short-term hit to the court's legitimacy with whether...it was in the best interest of the country to end the electoral crisis." Translation: If an election is close, it's better for the Supreme Court to pick the President, whether or not he won the election, than to have the dispute resolved in the manner prescribed by law. Pepperdine Law School's Douglas Kmiec unbelievably wrote that "the ruling of the US Supreme Court was not along partisan or ideological lines," and that its ruling "protected our cherished democratic tradition with a soundly reasoned, per curiam voice of restraint." I won't dignify this with a translation.
3. Actually, not a recount since the Votomatic machines, for whatever reason, never did detect the votes on these particular ballots. The manual count would be examining these ballots for the first time to see if, as provided for under § 101.5614(5) of the Florida Election Code, there was a "clear indication of the intent of the voter." One example: The stylus punches a clear hole in the paper ballot, but the chad is still attached (hanging) by one or more of its four sides. In that situation the Votomatic machine frequently does not detect the vote, though the intent of the voter could not be any clearer. 4. Earlier in the day, the conservative-leaning US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta voted 8 to 4 to deny Bush's companion attempt to have that court stop the recount.
5. In fact, L. Kinvin Wroth, dean of the Vermont Law School and an expert on the Electoral College, said that "a recount could have gone on right up to the last day of Congress' joint session" on January 6, when the votes of the College were counted in Congress. 6. And this, mind you, in an election in which Bush was leading in Florida by only a few hundred votes while losing the popular vote nationwide to Gore by, at last count, 539,000 votes.
*Vincent Bugliosi successfully prosecuted 105 out of 106 felony jury trials as a Los Angeles deputy district attorney, including twenty-one murder convictions without a single loss. His prosecution of Charles Manson was the basis for his true-crime bestseller, Helter Skelter (Bantam).
He is also the author of Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder (Island). Copyright © Vincent Bugliosi, January 3, 2001.
Jim Condit Jr., Director, Citizens for a Fair Vote Count
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The "Ruling Elite", through their five Big TV Networks, AP wire service, and two major papers, the New York Times and Washington Post, are making peaceful change impossible at the ballot box, -- via Vote Fraud, Media Censorship, and Opinion Poll Fraud, and the flood of illegal aliens who are becoming registered voters . . . President Kennedy talked about this: "If you make peaceful change impossible..... you make violent revolution inevitable." President John F Kennedy. Go to www.votefraud.org to hear (or read the text) of the Radio Ads which aired in the month before the 2000 election over WLW Radio (which reaches into 38 states at night)and several other midwest stations -- exposing the easily rigged computerized elections which "elect" public officials in the USA, and also exposed the coordinated news and censorship of the 5 Big TV Networks. Thanks to Ken Lowndes for Congress, the radio stations MUST air these ads. They're tough. They're "outrageous" -- and you've never heard anyting like it on TV or Radio.
The three prongs of Big Media election manipulation are: Massive coverage of favored Candidates, and Censorship of all other candidates -- including warped Public Opinion Polls for months before the election; phony exit polls done by joint effort of the Big TV Networks on Election Day through Voter News Service, and easily rigged computerized vote counting on election day -- which make the polls and exit polls come true. (On election day, the people are barred from touching or counting their ballots, the election officials are barred from knowing what is in the software program that instructs the computers how to count the votes.)
You can go to www.votefraud.org -- and punch in your email near the topica logo -- to subscribe to this e-wire list. www.votefraud.org for a report about the recent Citizens for a Fair Vote Count Convention which took place Aug 25-27, 2000 and Action Steps. The Citizens for a Fair Vote Count Convention was a great success in launching the beginning of a nationwide network to restore honest elections. See special report at updated and improved website.
Go to: www.votefraud.org go to votefraud.org to read archived messages from this Network America e- wire in the "news" section under "news by month"Read "Best of" Archives at www.lewisnews.com at "Citizens for a Fair Vote Count" section accessed in left hand column of home page. (RADIO SHOW ON LINE ALL THE TIME. Listen anytime to the 'Votefraud vs Honest Elections' crash course radio show over the internet at www.rense.com in the archives, April 3rd, 2000 show, Jeff Rense host, Jim Condit Jr. guest; there is also an hour interview on the aftermath of the 2000 Presidential election in the www.rense.org archives for the night of December 6, 2000.) To contact us, reply to this message or send e-mail to: jconditjr@networkamerica.org Asthma? Sinus? Prone to colds? Sore Neck? Back goes out and needs adjustment? You may find help in "Electric C" "VIta Matrix" and other products formulated by scientist David Elliott -- Go to: http//newlife.electriclife.net -- for a new view of health and nutrtion. Let fellow citizens, opinion molders, pastors, public officials, and the newsmedia know -- that we do not accept "Election results" until paper ballots with citizen checks and balances are restored to the process at the local precinct level. Our mailing address: Citizens for a Fair Vote Count, PO Box 11339, Cincinnati, Ohio 45211To read all our archived messages for the Network America e-wire list since January 10, 2000 -- go to votefraud.org, red hot news, and then, under the current month -- you will find all the past archived months. When you click on a month, you can see the titles of each e-wire in that month, and you can choose from those. All messages are also archived at www.topica.com in the Network America section.We have another list for those who wish to help fund 50 or more organizers around the US to rescue America, or fund their own work. This list is the Network America Funding Team list (NAFT) and you can subscribe to it by emailing to NAfundingteam-subscribe@topica.com
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Please visit this great web site with it's wonderful article "Brainwashing America"
Click
book to read on line.
Who owns the US Government?
Below are "Contributions From Selected
Industries to Federal Candidates
and Parties, 1990-2000" in the U.S.
$117,711,747 - Oil and Gas
$ 58,426,889 - Automotive
$ 51,070,027 - Electric Utilities
$ 35,242,032 - Chemical and Related Manufacturing
$ 24,756,971 - Forestry and Forestry Products
$ 17,945,784 - Mining
$ 6,950,843 - Total Environmental Contributions
Source: Center for Responsive Politics
as printed in Sierra Club Magazine, March/April 2001 issue, page 19.
Founded by Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General
