"The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery."
~ Thomas Paine
The struggle has been going on for decades but the first overt blow was delivered by the Supreme Court in 2000 when they stopped the vote recount in Florida. No true democracy has anything to fear from a recount - that is as true here as it is in Mexico. Unfortunately true democracy seems to have gone the way of the dodo. When SCOTUS issued their decree stopping the Florida recount they told the world that democracy doesn't matter any more. It was an admission that power is no longer allowed to be wielded by the people, but is the sole purview of the ruling elite.
(more below the fold...)
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
~ Stalin
Joseph Stalin, arguably history's most despicable authoritarian dictator, was right in this instance. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Alex Pelosi's new film "Diary of a Political Tourist" catches a tipsy Congressman Peter King making a comment at a White House function before the election had been finished that, "It's already over. The Election's over. We Won."
When Pelosi asks, "How do you know that?" King replies, "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting." Watch the video
The mountain of evidence has become so undeniable that even the mildest-mannered Democrats are coming out and calling FRAUD!
Jimmy Carter: Gore beat Bush in 2000
Says 'no doubt' Al won, 'country failed abysmally' in election process
By Joe Kovacs
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Five years after the controversial 2000 presidential election, ex-President Jimmy Carter now says he's certain Al Gore defeated George W. Bush.
"Well I would say that in the year 2000, the country failed abysmally in the presidential election process," Carter told a panel Monday at American University in Washington, D.C. "There's no doubt in my mind that Al Gore was elected president." Source
There is increasing evidence that since 2000 our votes have been meaningless. The following is a brief and partial list of luminaries who agree with the assertion that the 2004 election was stolen:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Bill Clinton
Senator Barbara Boxer
Jesse Jackson
Michael Moore
Even John Kerry has come around
New York University Professor Mark Crispin Miller, author of Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)
Professor Steven F. Freeman, author of Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?
Author Gore Vidal
Polling expert John Zogby
Prominent group of statistical researchers at the University of California
Representative John Conyers
Author Thom Hartmann
The House Judiciary Committee (.pdf)
BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast author of ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, The Scheme to Steal 'O8, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.
So much irrefutable evidence has accumulated that we've reached a tipping point on this issue. The burden of proof is now on those who deny the massive and criminal election fraud in 2000, 20004, and that which is planned for all of our elections from now on. You no longer need a tinfoil hat to see the abominable crime that has been perpetrated on the American people by George Bush, Karl Rove, and the entire Republican Party. They should be sanctioned and banned from American politics for what they have done!
Articles about the stolen elections have been printed by the following respected entities:
David Corn in The Nation, who has adjusted his earlier position that the evidence was lacking.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Rolling Stone
Harpers Magazine
The Free Press
The Government Accounting Office (.pdf)
Newsweek
and last but not least, kossack Steven D in his excellent diary, Why I Woke Up to the Reality Of Stolen Elections
It's pretty clear that the American people want free and fair elections. The recent Zogby poll is illuminating.
New Zogby Poll: It's Nearly Unanimous
Voters Insist On Right To Observe Vote Counting
Plus Other Findings From This Unique Poll
By Michael Collins
"Scoop" Independent Media
Part I of a II part series.
Washington, DC
A recent Zogby poll documents ground-breaking information on the attitudes of American voters toward electronic voting. They are quite clear in the belief that the outcome of an entire election can be changed due to flaws in computerized voting machines. At a stunning rate of 92%, Americans insist on the right to watch their votes being counted. And, at an overwhelming 80%, they strongly object to the use of secret computer software to tabulate votes without citizen access to that software. Source
Perhaps the most troubling issue is that of electronic voting machines.
Shocking election-theft testimony
Posted by Evan Derkacz at 3:16 PM on August 23, 2006.
Vote-rigging software written for Republican...
Computer programmer Clinton Eugene Curtis testifies under oath before the U.S. House Judiciary Members in Ohio (back in 2004) -- video to the right (partial transcript below). Stephen Pizzo writes:
If you can watch this entire video, and still use an electronic voting machine, you deserve the government you get. If your state or district has decided to use electronic voting machines this November demand an absentee ballot today. Watch this video. Then join those of us who have decided that since paper was good enough for our constitution, it's good enough for our vote too.
Oh, and when you're done watching the whole video... pass it along. November is only a a few weeks off and the last thing Republicans want to see is either house returned to Democrat control. Because if that happens, hearings happen. And if hearings happen... well, who knows - someone(s) could go to jail. So, demand a paper ballot or an absentee ballot in Nov. and leave the cheaters with a pocket full of worthless Diebold electrons. Alternet article
Demand a paper ballot or an absentee ballot in November! You will not be able to know if your vote counted otherwise.
Recently out in California we saw more evidence that democracy will no longer be allowed.
Election Nullification II: Speaker of House had Special Source for Election "Certification
"
California Assistant Secretary of State for Elections Tells House Clerk, it's all good!
By Michael Collins
"Scoop" Independent Media
Washington, DC
What would you think if you heard that a Member of Congress was sworn in prior to the official certification of his hotly contested and controversial election?
Would it matter to which political party the Member of Congress belonged?
On August 25, 2006, "Scoop" revealed that there was something very wrong with Brian Bilbray's swearing in as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Republican Bilbray allegedly defeated Francine Busby in a close and controversial special election in California's 50th Congressional District. There were immediate cries of foul and demands for both an investigation and a recount. The problems were well publicized before the swearing in.
Nevertheless, this sequence emerged:
June 6 - unofficial results announced with Bilbray over Busby by a few thousand votes, followed by immediate public protests;
June 13 - Speaker Hastert swears in Republican Bilbray on the House floor and Bilbray becomes a Member of Congress; and,
June 30, 2006 - 17 days after Bilbray was sworn in as a member of the House, Mikel Haas, Registrar of San Diego County, officially completed the audit of election results required for certification, and officially certifies the election of Bilbray over Busby based on 163,931 total votes.
The problem with the sequence is simple to spot. The swearing in of Bilbray occurred a full 17 days before the election became official as a result of the San Diego Registrar's certification of results. Source
The following is a revealing story published in Harper's Magazine which points out how unified the Dems were and how divided the Repubs were, and how the results did not reflect those realities.
None Dare Call It Stolen
Harper's Magazine
Ohio, the election, and America's servile press
Whichever candidate you voted for (or think you voted for), or even if you did not vote (or could not vote), you must admit that last year's presidential race was--if nothing else--pretty interesting. True, the press has dropped the subject, and the Democrats, with very few exceptions, have "moved on." Yet this contest may have been the most unusual in U.S. history; it was certainly among those with the strangest outcomes. You may remember being surprised yourself.
(SNIP)
Yet this ever-less-beloved president, this president who had united liberals and conservatives and nearly all the world against himself--this president somehow bested his opponent by 3,000,176 votes. Harpers Magazine
The electronic voting machines are what we have to fear most. REMEMBER: Demand a paper ballot or an absentee ballot in November! You will not be able to know if your vote counted otherwise.
The Triumph of the Bush Machines
But there is one overriding fact that has been left out most of the ridiculous post-election punditry that renders all other analyses completely irrelevant. It is also the reason why the smiles on the faces of Bush crime family members are so bright, as they watched the returns on election night.
Air America Radio's Mike Malloy gave the most succinct and passionate explanation in his Wednesday, November 3, 2004 , program [my links included-LC]:
"The American vote count is controlled by three major corporate players, Diebold , ESS , Sequoia , and a fourth, SAIC , Science Applications International. All four are hard-wired into the Bush power structure, the Bush crime family.
They have been given millions of dollars by the Bush regime to complete a sweeping computerization of voting machines that were just used in the 2004 election. The technology involved had a trial run during the 2002 mid-term elections. Georgia had Diebold machines in every precinct. As a result, a popular Democratic governor and senator were both unseated in what the media called an "amazing" 16 percent swing.
Diebold's Walden O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser, publicly committed himself to delivering his home state Ohio's votes to Bush. At Diebold, the election division is run by Bob Urosevich. Bob's brother, Todd, is a top executive at "rival" ES&S. The brothers were originally staked by Howard Ahmanson, a member of the Council For National Policy , a right-wing steering group stacked with Bush true believers. Ahmanson is also one of the bagmen behind the extremist Christian Reconstruction Movement , which advocates the theocratic takeover of American democracy. Source
For a massive collection of links on the election fraud issue, go here.
Here's a link to an interesting slide show on election fraud 2004
We cannot afford to take any more of this lying down. It's time to fight them like never before!
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
~ Frederick Douglass
We cannot let them get away with this. We are going to have to fight them with everything we've got. If we don't, the great American experiment in democracy is over.
"The integrity of our democracy is at stake."
~ Jesse Jackson
The truth is out there boys and girls. There is no more point in denying that our democracy is being stolen. The rightwingers in Mexico are stealing power with the expert assistance and guidance of our own rightwingers who have already stolen power so effectively and so completely right here in the good old U.S.A.
For the latest news on how events are going against democracy in Mexico, read el cid's latest: Mexico News Roundup 8/29/06: Court Throws Out Fraud Claims; Democracy Convention Still On. My fear is that if Mexican democracy goes down the tubes, ours may soon follow.
Respectfully I say to you, my fellow kossacks, if you still don't believe the Republicans have stolen power in this country, you are either sadly mistaken, in denial, or have an agenda or additional information that is not immediately apparent to me. If I'm wrong, please correct me - but somehow I doubt you can.
I will soon turn 55. In my lifetime I have seen this country go from bad to worse. There never really were much in the way of good old days in America except by comparison to the days that followed. They just look good in retrospect. When I was born in 1951 the country was entrenched in institutional racism. Under the assault of the Civil Rights movement in the 50s and 60s, the conservatives slowly and grudgingly retreated, but what racism was relinquished was replaced by even greater classism. Classism and the gap between rich and poor are becoming so great in this country that we are in many ways beginning to resemble a third-world nation. They keep passing laws against us and for the ruling elite and their corporate masters. They are driving down our wages and exporting our jobs to keep us too miserable, distracted, and struggling to resist the hostile takeover of America by corporate fascists spearheaded by the Bush Administration. Our supposedly inalienable rights continue to be squeezed, diminished, and stripped away - and now our most important right of all, the right to vote in free and fair elections, is in the process of being rendered moot.
We at dkos - all the others out there like us, and the truth we represent - are the last great hope for the survival of American democracy.
REMEMBER: Demand a paper ballot or an absentee ballot in November! You will not be able to know if your vote counted otherwise.
Brothers and sisters, let it not be said that we lost the Battle for Democracy. Let's resist them and fight them with everything we've got. Amen.
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
~ Emiliano Zapata