Wonderful news. This is indeed the way to go. My hat is off to RFK, Jr. I have my Bobby Kennedy for President coffee mug in a prominent place on my bookcase. Maybe, just maybe, I can use it again.

Kennedy, meanwhile, is preparing to up the ante on those he believes abetted the GOP's electoral theft.

This hints at a deeper corruption of the GOP. That elements of the GOP were fully aware of the choices they were making. I'm sensing that certain players in the GOP are sinister players.

Fingers crossed.

Good job Brad.

#2 Max,
"...I'm sensing that certain players in the GOP are sinister players..."
You have a gift for understatement, my dear.

When they file this lawsuit, I hope they drive it in the fast lane.

Please, God, don't make us use those friggin' machines in November.

-- Chris Hooten
On second thought we better make sure of that ourselves!

I'm not so confident that this lawsuit, even if successful, will hit thes companies in the pocketbook. The Repuglycans will find a way to funnel compensations back to them (or at least back to the execs. who make the decisions), and they will still be sitting pretty on a pile of dirty cash.

Don't you feel that since voting machine insecurity is beginning to garner some attention at last, 'the wizard behind the curtain' will, like water filling any available space, simply direct his attention to the many other nefarious means at his disposal to muck up the works?
I hate to be a spoilsport, but with fingers in every pie & the NSA sucking up terabytes of info in every corner...

It drives me crazy everytime I hear a pundit say in regards to the Bush monkey, "Well the American people elected him twice," or "The Democrats just can't seem to get a message that will take them to the whitehouse."

The donkey can't win races with his two hind legs bound together.

And . . . this elephant hole goes alot deeper my friends.

Right you are, Edward #7

Even the usually very wise Robert Parry has written about Why Busby Lost and the truth is we don't even know Whether Busby Lost!

I trust we are keeping the names of the two companies quiet until the filing for good reason. I'm dying to know which two. And is there anything anyone can do to help catch the third one (and the fourth one)?

This could be the biggest story since ... well, I donno - since in a long time I guess. And for once, it looks like the good guys might even win!

I think ES&S and DIEBOLD would be a good guess.

-- Chris Hooten

Brad is going to be on Ring of Fire,.. Saturday,..
July 8,.. 4PM?,.. good news,.. good news.

Why doesn't Bobby or Mike ever mention you and/or
Bradblog on the program ? Democrats should learn to network and refer an audience to other sources if
that audience is captured by a specific issue. Why dead-end your audience,.. hand them a road-map to
continue further down the road towards their destination. Election fraud,.. a person of your caliper
who has researched the issue to the extent you have,..
certainly has earned/deserved a mention as the control
central patriot for the cause. If Democrats band together the message disseminated could be broadcast
much more effectively.

________________

qui tam,...

qui tam pro domino rege quam pro seipe

"He who sues for the king (GWB?)as well as himself."

Fraud was perpetrated against the (crown) government,..
you are witness to this fraud,.. if you bring this to their/judiciary attention,.. any damages/recoveries awarded by the court are shared with the witness who reported it.

Qui tam cases require that an attorney draw up the court action paperwork,.. submit it to the court,.. the action is held under seal by the court,.. the details of the case and the name of the defendant are not to be divulged. The government has an opportunity
to review the case and possibly join the court action
as a plaintiff. Once this process is completed,.. the
case is unsealed,.. then proceeds thru the court.

This court action could well be the earthquake this political landscape requires to return democracy to the status we all hope and expect.

Qui Tam Link

Qui Tam info link

False Claims Act

I think that many people lose sight of the fact that the most dangerous of all hackers are never found, caught, or even detected. There *is* such a thing as the perfect hack, leaving no evidence whatsoever. When the election hacking has risen to such a level, we are f*ck*d no matter what, if we use machines. Thankfully, the ones doing it currently are arrogant, stupid, incompetent f*ckheads, and will get caught.

-- Chris Hooten
"The thing I am most intolerant of is intolerance itself." --- ME

2004 Stolen Election

Video Link

Edward Rynearson #7

You said:
"It drives me crazy everytime I hear a pundit say in regards to the Bush monkey, "Well the American people elected him twice," or "The Democrats just can't seem to get a message that will take them to the whitehouse."

There's nothing that makes me more angry then those statements, and sometimes they come from Democrats (Marco Molitsas)! My neighbors must wonder why I keep calling out "NO THEY DIDN'T!"

Larry and Edward

I think you guys just put succinctly what it is that irks me about DailyKos, and about this disorienting meme about the Democratic Party's inability to win elections. I'm plenty chuffed about how many Democrats have been comporting themselves, but we DID win both of the last Presidential Elections, and who knows how many Congressional seats went to the losers? It's starting to look as if it has been quite a few.

For Larry Bergan and Edward Rynearson: The New York Times (that liberal monolith that supposedly committed treason by publishing information the 9/11 terrorists knew about well before 9/11) was the exemplar of the phenomenon you're talking about. No mention of the 57,000 claims of fraud in the first 48 hours, no mention of the 102-page Conyers report, but analysis after analysis of how Bush won Ohio "on the ground." It was sickening to read.

This qui tam suit by R.F.K., Jr.'s law firm sure changes the landscape, doesn't it? If the New York Times ignores the case, it will become a laughingstock. If it covers it, the allegations will be news in and of themselves. We'll get the truth about the 2004 election through the "back door" (literally). No claims that can be debunked as "conspiracy theory," no talk of "sore losers," simple allegations of deliberately false statements by company officials, one of whom (O'Dell) has already been forced to resign by his own company.

The burden now shifts to Diebold and E.S.& S. at this point (assuming they're the two)....not the burden of proof, but of deciding whether to defend the suit or not. If they defend it vigorously, they'll lose even if they win, I suspect, because the revelations will be public and will create a loss of confidence in their machines. If they settle the suit, I'm sure the plaintiffs will demand an admission of culpability as part of the settlement. The companies are in a terrible position here.

Sadbuttrue suggests in #5 that the G.O.P. will funnel money back to the executives to compensate for any losses from the suit. There are separate laws to cover this sort of thing. Watch Diebold's stock going forward; it had a bounce to around 46 after that ninconpoop on MSNBC who jumps around and waves his arms recommended it, but now it's back down around 40. Stockholders won't be worried about whether the bosses will lose money, they'll be worried about the companies' ability to sell products going forward. RFK, Jr. is absolutely right when he says the suit will hit the companies in the only place they'll feel it...the pocketbook. If Diebold stock goes to 20, there wouldn't be enough G.O.P. cash in the till to make up for that, believe me.

I just looked at the local Spanish fox channel, and they have the Con ahead by 1% point 37.1 to 36.1 %, declaring him the winner of the Mexican election, lets see... Fox goes dark about the elections, the two main polling outfits down there won't show their exit polls... they shut down strategic voting locations, claiming riots would ensue in some of the poorest areas where the Lib candidate was sure to win...
the IRI is down there working its magic, hmmm...
I wonder how many election cycles its going to take before some people see the true root of the problem ?

Oh yeah, I wonder who started that 'boycott the vote' group down there, hmmk?

What if the Cons think they need a 10% boycott bloc to swing the '08 election here, I'll guarantee that a "Boycott the Vote" group (voters that normally vote, but won't this time because they're protesting the electronic voting machines) forms here sometime before the next go round
They've got this down to a science

I remember that Bev Harris and Jim March brought a qui tam lawsuit against Diebold in California, and won. Diebold has since violated the injunction entered in that case.

Perhaps some of the facts, at least as they relate to some of the machines, will already have been determined against Diebold under the concept of res judicata in the Harris/March case.

At any rate this is good news and Lou Dobbs should be notified so he at least will feel like something positive is going on and frustration is not the only emotion available.

Harris, March, and Cliff Curtis would be a great help in the Kennedy lawsuit.

At least now the issue can be looked deeply into.

But do not think for a moment the psycho neoCons or those who have constructed the republican dictatorship are going to have a clearing of their minds. Once a mind is lost it is lost.

So focus on moderates and the left for sanity these daze. The right has gone over the edge and have completely lost it.

Does RFK Jr. know that the Republican controlled Florida legislature declared that hand recounts of paper ballots are no longer considered valid? Even if RFK Jr. manages to sue and win, even if new voting systems are put in place, recounting paper ballots in the state of Florida will be invalid. Seems that the Republicans are, again, one step ahead. They kept everyone busy with electronic voting machines which could be hacked and fixed without a paper trail, which gave them enough time to pass laws to invalidate the paper trail itself.

When sane people regain control of our country, every Florida state legislator who voted in favor of invalidating the paper trail will have a private cell at Gitmo. Long may they rot! ITMFA!

For Dixiecrat: RFK, Jr.'s goal here isn't to influence Florida's election officials. He's smart enough to understand that Jeb's crowd is like the Mafia that murdered his own uncle...they play for keeps, and the rules of polite society don't apply to them. What RFK, Jr. is doing is just what he says, i.e., hitting the companies where it hurts, in the pocketbook.

Put yourself in the shoes of the Diebold C.E.O. who replaced O'Dell. How would you respond to this qui tam suit?

Would you fight it in court? If you do, you're swimming against the tide, because of all the recent tests that proved election machines were hackable, and because in the same week the Hursti/Soncho test was taken in Florida, your predecessor resigned under fire. The discovery process will be public news; do you want to face inquiries about the relationship of O'Dell to the White House, or of Diebold to Blackwell?

But you can't really settle the suit, either, without admitting to electoral wrongdoing. RFK, Jr. is placing Diebold on the defensive. Whether Florida changes its rules or not isn't his concern at the moment, as I read what he said. The best Diebold can hope for at this point is that the media avoid the story and the legal process is delayed until after the 2006 election.

With all the legal action going on right now, wouldn't it be a good time for someone to build a new voting machine. I've been thinking, vote counting software is easy. A student in their first semester of Java programming could write a program that took your vote and added them up. It's about one page of code. Incidentally, this is why I get so mad when I hear about "glitches" on these machines. To me, that is the most damning lie.

I have the plan for the perfect voting machine. Once you have voted on it, it will have two receipt rolls. Your votes will be recorded on both with a randomly generated number that will not be repeated. You will get a copy off one roll, the other roll will be for election officials. Later, results will be posted with candidates at the top of columns with all the random generated numbers that voted for them under them. You would be able to check online to make sure the number on your receipt was under the right candidate. If their is any way someone could commit fraud this way, i'd like to hear it.

I could write code for this, but I'd need some help with the hardware...any takers?

There will never be sanity in Florida. You have no idea. Nothing will come of this.

Jeremy Trudell #24

Diebold also produces ATM machines, which are far more complex than are EVM's (Electronic Voting Machines).

So the issue is not difficulty of task, the issue instead is difficulty of being honest.

They obviously could have made the EVM's with the same quality as the ATM's, and the fact that they did not is a prima facia case giving rise to valid suspicion.

What all of the EVM makers should do is join you in a pledge of honesty, because the need for skill is way down on the list of things required to have open, honest, and competent elections in the United States.

Honesty and integrity are at the top of the list.

There will never be sanity in Florida. You have no idea.

You may be right, Dixiecrat, but I refuse to give up hope.

Maybe in some eyes that makes me "remarkably naive", but on the other hand, if we lose hope we stand no chance.

To Robert Lockwood Mills. You are only considering what is happening in the "here and now" and are not thinking beyond this case which is why the Republicans are already two steps ahead of everyone. Sure, this is a good start to restoring Democracy, but I suspect the good intentions will lead to "so what? A couple of business got caught." This lawsuit didn't catch anyone by surprise; they expected it, planned for it years ago and will roll out their counter action in bits and pieces every step of the way. The voting machine manufacturers will probably get the brunt of this and while we're diverting our attention, the next phase will catch us by suprise instead.

Hope is just an abstact concept.

Kennedy has picked a good time to bring the lawsuit. The public more and more is saying they would pick a democrat over a republican:

Asked whether they would be more likely to vote for the Republican or Democratic candidate in the district where they live if the election were held today, 47% said Democrat and 35% said Republican, a two-point improvement for Democrats.

(link here, bold added). Which is just another way of saying they trust democrats over republicans when it comes to honesty.

The polls going into this election and the exit polls at election time may be the spark of revolution in the United States if the election war lords do not allow the people to express their will thru their vote.

Then my description republican dictatorship will not seem to be too far fetched any longer. And those who have been blinded into fostering a modern American dictatorship will begin to open their eyes and will thereafter put a stop to it.

The Supreme Court majority in Hamdan v Rumsfeld is the embryonic beginning of the fall of the republican dictatorship.

That decision contains the bedrock DNA of a revolution that will nip off the buds on the thorny fascist bush of this regime.

According to Palaste, there has been an exit poll discrepancy in favor of the Bush backed candidate in the Mexico election too.

Is this where the sh8t hits the fan?

I am thinking of fitzgerald and how they got to him..Something has to break ..A thousand little cuts and when it all comes down it wont be pretty..

DREDD, You are full of hope.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting. Tom Stoppard (1937 - )
The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all. John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

COMMENT #31 [Permalink]
... epppie said on 7/3/2006 @ 7:43 am PT...

It depends if the Mexican people are as ill informed as we are in the US, they might have an Orange Revolution
down there, but who knows
I think they have the same type of Right wing media talking points as we do here

Dixiecrat: The problem is, and always was, the elites think the way that you mention above, and feel they DESERVE to rule without a democratic vote (kings, etc...)...hence, the Republican party (for the elites) and vote stealing via e-vote machines. They think they should rule, without a vote. Fraud, disenfranchisement, etc... It goes back a long way... The Guilded Age, the few with almost all the $$ ALWAYS think government should work for THEM, and it's their RIGHT, too.

...NOT for the benefit of the many, for the benefit of the FEW who have most of the $$$.

For Dixiecrat: In a courtroom there are no Democrats and Republicans. There are charges, and defenses against charges. There's also a discovery process that precedes the actual trial. It isn't a defense for Diebold, in court, to say, "Democrats commit fraud, too. This is all political." That's irrelevant to the case at hand, which is simply, "Did these voting-machine companies mislead the public regarding their equipment?" Nothing more than that. A whistle-blower need not explain why he's blowing the whistle, or identify himself by political party.

What RFK, Jr. is doing is converting a political process (partisans arguing about the 2004 election, which shouldn't be political but is) into a legal process. Whatever Diebold does here, as the case moves along the publicity should intensify, and unless I'm misreading things, the stock will drop. A lot. This will put pressure on Diebold's management to turn things around (stockholders get very angry when they lose big bucks, especially when it's on account of somebody playing games). What will they do?

If they sell off the election-machine division, the prospectus governing the transaction must include statements concerning that division's business. Those statements must be truthful under penalty of law, and there's no way on God's green earth Diebold would lie in a prospectus at this point. If they try to stay in the election-machine business, stockholders are going to raise hell at the annual meeting. "Why are you sticking with a crooked operation? You're killing us." The same people who voted for Bush (most stockholders are Republicans) just might be angry enough to join with us politically at that point. By then, the media should have all become Lou Dobbs.

The point is, the companies will be on the defensive. RFK, Jr. understands this in his bones, and by preceding legal action with an article in a popular magazine, he created a two-step exposure process.

To Big Dan: I agree with you, but the Constitution doesn't say that only the wealthy get to vote. You just described a Republic which would therefore describe the people who believe in a Republican form of government. The United States is a Democratic Republic and since the elites, the well funded or extremely cunning/intelligent are usually the ones who are democratically elected to represent the people in this country, we will always have that problem.
I'm looking beyond our current situation and will sum up my position by saying that: Republican strategies are far beyond those of the Democratic Party; Democrats should concentrate on the future and not get tied-down with playing catch-up in correcting the past; the American people need to take responsibility for THEIR government (if the elites are taking over, it's because we let them by not electing representatives who will represent them honestly and fairly).

Palast article from today about the Mexican elections Link

Churchill's quote has no followup: He is saying the average voter shouldn't elect our leaders. But then, who should??? He leaves us hanging, or we can imply that he thinks "those that know better" should rule without a vote. But...that leads to corruption. It's a good "theory"...like the PNAC's "good theory" of invading Iraq...

Get ready for a Karl Rove attack ... similar to Dan Rather's false docs .. rawstory and Karl's legal problems.

1) Karl and friends will "leak" a whopper of an election fraud story
2) The people who are trying to report the voting fraud issues will latch on.
3) Credibility will be lost when Karl and friends show that the "leak" is a lie

Karl has been doing this for years.

We need to be careful.

Robert Lockwood Mills: I get it- the companies go out of business - yea! What happens next? What form of voting device will be developed to replace the EVM? Don't you think the powers that be are already working on that while we're occupied with the Diebold mess? They already proved it in Florida by making recounts of paper ballots invalid and that was a couple of years ago after the 2000 election. By now they are way beyond the EVM fiasco. They think outside the box in ways you can't imagine and they have the funding. Plans for the 2000 election were probably in the works the day Clinton took office.
This is a new day and we need to think ahead.

Go RFKJ et. al.!

Speaking of misrepresenting the accuracy and especially reliability of the vote machines, the following must have come up in the testing phase of building these monsters...

Many (all?) voting machine vote surfaces are at a downward slope like an old desk. If the candidates' buttons are one atop the other: When your finger hits the button, make sure the finger comes in at a 90 degree angle to the plane that is the voting surface.
If the alternative candidate is above your selection, err on the side of decreasing the angle (as measured from a point at the high end of the surface). If the alternative candidate is below your choice, err on the side of increasing that angle at impact.

I've always had the feeling that the physical sensors have a bit of gray-area around them. When my vote flipped, the Bush button was above the Kerry button and the angle at which my finger hit the Kerry button was well greater than 90 degrees. My impression was that I "pushed" the vote upward toward Bush when my finger slid somewhat upward upon impact - which was much greater than 90 degress. I don't know what happens under those electronic panels but it may be an areas to research. Perhaps place opposing candidate buttons side by side with plenty of room in between.

This is another manner in which a vote can be flipped without any one person on the ground having to be "in" on the deal. The outcome depends on who is on the top, most of us would push the button at a greater angle than 90 degrees.

#25 DIXIECRAT and #27 Winter Patriot
I recall words by Scott Ritter back in 2005. They are depressing but, unfortunately, probably the truth. (I couldn't find the original article on Rawstory)

3/25/2005
Scott Ritter: Neocons as Parasites
By Larisa Alexandrovna-Rawstory
http://www.truthout.org/...n/exec/view.cgi/38/10057
Larisa: We talked about this current social crisis as a closed loop during the second installment. Have you ever seen a loop like this throughout the history of the US? What does this mean?

Ritter: The American experiment is much too complex to be destroyed by the neocons. In the end, the neocons will lose. It may take ten to twelve more years, and the costs will be horrific, but America will survive. There will be one hell of a mess to clean up, though, after the fall of the neocons.

Larisa: Where do you see America, should things continue as is, five years from now?

Ritter: At war, bankrupt morally and fiscally, and in great pain ... and only half-way through the nightmare. Ten to twelve years is what we will have to get through, but we will get through it.

Dixiecrat #38

You stated:

if the elites are taking over, it's because we let them by not electing representatives who will represent them honestly and fairly

(bold added). Your post seems to show that you, like many, are conflicted. It can't be both ways.

You do not know whether to believe the 00 and 04 elections were NO CONFIDENCE elections ("stolen by courts and shenanigans"), or whether it is our fault for not electing Gore or Kerry. If "we let them" by the way we voted, then the republicans did not steal it.

A NO CONFIDENCE election is no election at all. It is a faith based mandate that we accept what the election war lords say on faith.

Traditionally we demand seperation of church and state. In church we practice faith, but the state must practice open, honest, verifiable, and no faith elections.

We must know and know that we know that elections are conducted with the veracity of ATM machines ... at a minimum.

Beyond that we must have election officials that are above reproach, meaning above even the appearance of conflicts of interest.

Until that happens criticizing someone who "lost" on political grounds ("you did this ... you didn't do that") is contradictory.

If the election results are in doubt, then a doubtless argument is misplaced.

So which is it? The RFK, Jr. lawsuit will attempt to make that more clear, and then we can criticize without being conflicted.

If the elections are no longer in doubt, then and only then can political criticism of the "you forgot this", "you said the wrong thing here", "you were too far right", "you were too far left", and those types of argument will be well placed.

But if it ends up that the elections were stolen, that type of criticism will prove to be nothing more than unfair abuse.

As one who spent 28 years with Wall Street firms, Dixiecrat, I can tell you that if a Fortune-500 company like Diebold goes out of business, or even if it encounters big legal problems, it's big news...in the papers, in financial magazines like Money, Business Week and Forbes, on TV and in corporate boardrooms everywhere. The same Republicans who voted for Bush and sneered at claims of election fraud (or paid no attention to them) will sit up and take notice if Diebold's stock goes to 20 because of ongoing publicity about RFK, Jr.'s lawsuit. Trust me on that.

What caused Wall Street and the S.E.C. to look twice at stock options? Was it a collective sense of guilt that they were being abused? No, it was the bursting of the dot-com bubble; people lost money, and got mad.
If Wall Street gets mad about election machines (and it will if Diebold's stock tanks), I predict the same thing will happen. O'Dell's forced resignation will have been the first sign of things to come.

Will Karl Rove stop trying to rig elections? No, but if angry people on both sides of the political aisle team up to fight it, things will change. Recently, corporate contributions to Democrats surpassed those to Republicans. I'm just more optimistic than you are about the impact of future money inflows; they're the fuel that keeps a corrupt engine going, and Karl Rove can't do it without corporate support.

Great discussion here! For Dixiecrat: hope is NOT an abstract concept...it is the essence of life itself.

Check out truthout.org's interview with Chavez by Greg Palast. It relates to this discussion because it shows that big oil runs this country. It also shows that good govt. helps it's people. I summed it up briefly on FDL and they wouldn't print it. So, I'll add that so called progressive website to the likes of Kos, which is not progressive at all. Just ranting. If we want good govt. we have to see what it is. Young people have no idea. Chavez is using oil revenues for infrastructure, health care, education and loans to farmers. While our govt. is doing the exact opposite. They've been doing away with family farms since Carter's administration. It isn't a party issue.

One Gregory F. Withrow said:

I really enoyed the headline for this article. The word DIEB in German translates literally as THIEF.

What do you think about that?

I can't do a normal link, cause the software rejects it, so:

https://bradblog.com/?p=3022#comment-84873

I replied to him:

Well, does that mean that DIEBold means an "old thief"?

I don't know German so I do not know if he was correct or not.

Miss P #43

The same thing happens to me with ATM machines. Being rather tall I am looking down at the screen and when I touch a button I often hit the one above it. I find it necessary to croutch down to view the screen straight on to hit the proper button. This is because the screen with the display is a distance behind the touch screen.

A seemingly un-noticed event in the Bilbray/Busby fiasco: Election Certified Thursday Night before 4 day holiday - leaves only 1 day to respond.

BB2 #51: The article you linked here quotes a certain Brad Friedman ... I can't place the name but it does seem vaguely familiar somehow

#51
Thank you for posting the link to that VERY IMPORTANT ARTICLE, Bluebear!
Honestly, it makes me weep to read it. I continue to hope that Brad & all those working so hard to bring out the truth will prevail, but Jesus God, the power of the forces against that are truly monolithic.
What a sad & shameful time this is for America.
God bless you, Brad! God bless all of them working against this evil bunch of criminals!!

Somebody said what would you do if you were the head of Diebold.
I'd call my Bush contact & tell them to start working up a 'special' judge for the trial, so I could get a dismissal.
Or at least, force them to hold the entire trial under silence with no mention of who is suing who, like the Bush Adm. has been doing with certain federal trials for many months (against U.S. law of course)--because it's..it's..it's a NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE--yea, that's the ticket..
Problem solved.

#24 Jeremy Trudell

Now, THAT'S a smart idea! Good for you.
There's lots of computer professionals here at BradBlog to help you.

Well, Charlene, I think RFK, Jr.'s name recognition is what separates this lawsuit from others that have attracted little attention in the press (they haven't been heard yet, of course). If the White House, at Diebold's request, ever intervened to get the new case thrown out by a judge chosen for that purpose, it would be like a billboard advertisement of Diebold's guilt.

Pray God that it happens! Nothing would unite the Democrats more perfectly than White House tampering with a court case that threatened to call its own legitimacy into question. Wow!

Hey BB2, That's one thing Dixiecrats got right, they're lightyears ahead of us in how they scam elections
Could it be IRI solutions or a similar organization that's coaching them in Ca ?
We know they've used choicepoint down in the Mexican elections, Ca is probably next
Link

Floridiot - (C) # 39

Nice link,.. Palast,.. Mexico Election funny business.

_________________

Your the "chair" of the Bradblog -
IRI Research Fellowship Department,.. correct?

Did you notice the Palast reference to the
INTERNATIONAL REPUBLICAN INSTITUTE - IRI,.. and the other shadow group Choicepoint ?

Specific references from the Palast article below,..
then link to the specific post where these references can be found.

_______________

IRI - intercedes in VENEZUELA - Palast

In Venezuela, leading up to the August 2004 vote on whether to re-call President Chavez, I saw his opposition pouring over the voter rolls in laptops, claiming the right to challenge voters as Jeb’s crew did to voters in Florida. It turns out this operation was partly funded by the International Republican Institute of Washington, an arm of the GOP. Where did they get the voter info from?

________________

IRI - intercedes in MEXICO - Palast

Whether the US “War on Terror” lists will find a use in Sunday’s election, we cannot know. But the use of American government resources to interfere in south-of-the-border campaigns is an open secret. The GOP’s International Republican Institute has run training sessions for the (Mexico's) PAN youth wing, funded by US taxpayers through the “National Endowment for Democracy.”

_______________

IRI/CHOICEPOINT intercedes in Venezuela/Mexico

Foreign — that is, American — interference in political campaigns is a crime. That didn’t stop Team Bush. However, when the theft of its citizen files was discovered, Argentina threatened to arrest ChoicePoint contractors until the company returned the tapes — and Mexico’s attorney general did in fact arrest the ChoicePoint data thieves to avoid his party from looking too much the stooge of its Washington patron. Whether George Bush gave back his copy, no one will say.

Link to Palast post for IRI/Choicepoint info

Floridiot - THX for sharing that link.

These guys hold the blueprints for the War on Democracy - via tampering and fraudulent
election practices.

First of all...Peg, HOPE IS an abstract concept. WATER is the essence of life.

2. Robert Lockwood Mills...One or two companies going out of business is a blip. Not even Enron Mattered that much. How many people do you think own stock in Diebold?

3. Has anyone heard of HUMAN ENGINEERING? When devices are designed for humans to use, extensive research goes into all aspects of it's use and psychological effect right down to the color of it to make it visually pleasing. The EVM's WERE tested many times to perform just as they were intended to perform - to guarantee a specific result!

4. DREDD...I am not conflicted. I ahve no idea what you were writing about-please stay on topic.

Lets just look at this whole thing as our car breaks down, lets say in some shady neighborhood
Somebody previously, when we were in the store, loosened the distributor cap (the evms), while we are under the hood looking at that problem, someone else is stealing the back tires off our ride (the IRI), only we don't notice it because their is a guy up under the hood, distracting us (the MSM)
Oh well

oldturk said on 7/3/2006 @ 12:43 pm PT...

Your the "chair" of the Bradblog -
IRI Research Fellowship Department,.. correct?

Heh No, I'm just going insane about this group as we are LITERALLY letting them get away with murder
Kinda reminds me of that Twilight Zone with Shattner and the gremlin beating on the engine of the airplane he was on

Thx for all those links (keep on drilling and maybe we will get it some day)

Floridiot gets it! Thanks for "breaking it down" for us to understand.

By the way,Robert Lockwood Mills, only the very palatable tip of the iceberg gets reported in newspapers.

I hope you ARE right, Robert, for Democracy's sake.

We'll see what happens...

Well, obviously Jann Wenner is on our side, and I can't help but think he's got some kind of major connections in the publishing world. He also has some kind of major connections in the rock star/movie star axis. If this isn't getting enough traction, he, and all the rest of us might be able to raise SUCH a noise that there will be no ignoring it, and no sweeping it under the rug. Plus, guess who is Al Gore's internet tv partner.... It is possible to overcome the media befogglement of this issue if every famous person on the planet starts bellowing loudly enough. It's getting to the point where I don't think many of them are going to be too afraid for their reputations anymore. Dixie Chicks are selling like hotcakes, etc.

I don't know if anyone noticed or not, but that IRI solutions was incorporated in 1979, a year before Reagan was installed

Get the call for impeachment placed on the ballot.
Here's how:
http://www.impeachbush.tv/impeach/ballot.html

Berkeley, CA was successful. Pass it along to all your friends. We need action!!!

While you're at it, research Tom Feeney and the Florida elections of the 1990's/earlier 2000's. He is linked to the original commission of Yang(person or Industries) (perhaps part of NASA) to come up with a ghost program for EVM's and if it was possible to fix an election. His reason - just to find out how it was done so they could recognize it just in case the Democrats decide to do it first. My memory is foggy on this, but the issue was never pursued by media or government- I think Yang or the whistleblower who helped develop this ghost program "committed suicide". If anyone knows the details/history, please help me in explaining this connection - maybe Floridiot remember this hitting the news about 3-4 years ago?

Impeach Bush? For President Cheney?

Impeach the whole lot of them!

ITMFA!

... DIXIECRAT said on 7/3/2006 @ 2:23 pm PT...Brads got all that here on his site Link

Impeach * AND Cheney, and by the time it's a done deal, we oughta be looking at President Pelosi. Don't anyone DARE suggest that could be worse for a living soul than President Hastert. Just DO NOT go there.

re #66 Dixiecrat you're in the right place! LOL!!

CLICK HERE!!

Floridiot:

You are faster on the draw than I am!

That's the story! Thanks Floridiot. Doesn't this pretty much prove they had the technology?

WP,
You beat me to the punch re #66! I couldn't believe anyone on THIS blog, of all places, would have to ask "...If anyone knows the details/history..."!
Oh, I see Floridiot did, too.
Sorry, Dixiecrat...I don't mean to sound like an insufferable snot! Someone who's new here obviously might not know all the water that's gone under the bridge.

Re #67
One hopes that if articles of impeachment are ever REALLY allowed to see the light of day & the process goes forward as it should, they will bring enough handcuffs for the lot of them.

Winter #52

I thought that name might ring a huge bell!

Floridiot #56

Yup another Friday sneak it through the news cycle ploy.

Gee where does that sound familliar? McPherson?

ITMFA!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think so Dixiecrat
Those stories make Feeney look like a fumblef#*k, (which he is), but I think it's another distraction now as they are way further into election rigging than those stories
(we've grown a lot since then)

# 74 Joan, Dixie is very busy and just happened to stumble on this site for the first time today cuz it's a holiday and I'm treating myself to some good old fashioned intellectual talk which is almost nonexistent in Florida - Floridiot may be able to back that up. Thanks for being patient, everyone!

Apologies for going ot, but things are getting ugly:
"Unclaimed Territory" - by Glenn Greenwald

Greenwald quotes from a recent piece by David Horowitz:

"...Make no mistake about it, there is a war going on in this country. The aggressors in this war are Democrats, liberals and leftists who began a scorched earth campaign against President Bush before the initiation of hostilities in Iraq.

The initiators of this war were Al Gore and Jimmy Carter who attacked the president's attempt to rally the world against Saddam's defiance of international law..."

It gets worse...

link to Greenwald article

Dixiecrat,
I know what you mean...I'm in Florida, too.

BB2, every time I see ITMFA, the "I" in my mind stands for intubate (with cyanide) the MFers already, for the conservatives out there it would be way more cost effective

Dixiecrat, human engineering - actually called "human factors" research. Military wouldn't survive without it. I'd like to see the Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S User's Guides. Not joking. There should be one for each given upon purchase. And guarantee and return policies? Even more, I'd love to see the raw results and the reliablitiy scores. Guaranteed it's not 1.00. Oh yeah, SHOW ME THE DATA. What, no data? Either way...

Wow, Floridiot! I have a friend who would love any movie you directed. He's an immovable peacenik, but boy does he love that stuff in movies.

I'm looking around today, and it seems just about everyone is faster on the draw than I am. Thank goodness. I'm having one of those walking and chewing gum days, I guess.

Dixiecrat: Thanks for joining us.

DIXICRAT - Welcome aboard !

We can use your intellectual input to help solve this riddle. Visit,.. come back often,.. tell people/friends Bradblog is here.

_______________

Be aware,.. lots of new traffic will wander in attempting to negotiate the terrain. It behooves us to graciously acclimate and welcome them to the premises,.. showing them around. Good karma is building at this site,.. working in unison will permit us to slay this monster of fascism. Any contribution to that cause will bring expediency to attaining that goal.

Lost my E

DIXIECRAT

PS - Tell Jeb and Katherine Harris,.. we send our best.

NOT !

Enron did make a difference. A huge difference, in fact. Look at the publicity the trial and verdict attracted. Lay and Skilling are symbols of everything that's wrong with Corporate America in the 21st century.

Now, imagine a company like Diebold in the same legal bind. It's a bigger story, because while Enron's problems had significance for its own employees and California's energy crisis, Diebold's fraud extends to every state. And unless they've got an answer for the charges RFK, Jr.'s firm will be bringing, I think they're in an even worse position than Enron was at the same stage of proceedings.

... Agent99 said on 7/3/2006 @ 3:38 pm PT...

Yeah, we are living that movie right now
"The Fascist takeover of America and the world" I think I'll call it

DIXIECRAT

May I also extend a welcome. Pull up a chair, browse around and I think you'll find much to your liking.

Old Turk #83

Isn't it great to see new faces around here? Even if we don't actualy see their faces!

Floridiot #86

That title is too wordy - it needs to ring.

How about "1984"? Oh dang - that's already taken!

No! The first movie will be called Fascist Poisoning and it will be plenty suspense-filled because we won't know if the fascists end up poisoning the world to death, or the world poisons the fascists to death.

We can trot-out both endings for test audiences... see which one they like the best.

* will wish he had paid attention to public opinion THEN!!!

# 19 Floridiot - I think it's already starting - or, I should say, they are testing the water. I don't have hard evidence but some strong feelings based on strange "boycott the vote" activity that came out of nowhere a few weeks ago in my area.

Hi Arry, find the man in charge of it, maybe a couple of layers away from him and we will find our culprits
"Expose the Beast, and you will kill it"

Dixiecrat #58

Welcome to the BLOG ... resistance is futile!

Ok, since you say you are not conflicted, which was it:

1) the election in 00 and 04 were stolen

2) then dems Gore and Kerry did not campaign properly and that is why they lost the elections

Which is it?

Dredd, he came on pretty strong... isn't that called spoofing?

Wait! Let me get my tinfoil hat on....

(Just kidding...I even think that the NYT tells the truth on occasion just so they can still be credible as a real newspaper & people can't say they're NOTHING but a political ad.)

So we gots ta scream, "VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! MAKE 'EM HAVE TO STEAL THEM ALL!" I know they're well-defended against "Hollywood Types", but if Brangelina put their adoption gig on hold long enough to do some public service announcements, or at least wear the t-shirts, it would have a huge impact! Expose the vampires to daylight, and expose the deeds through all the national obsessions plastered across the covers of every checkout stand line in America. Get an illiterate to write a book about it so Oprah will turn her minions on to the problem. Let's think outside the box, and turn their tactics against them... election fraud aikido!

FloridaIdiot: Don't forget, these crooks are always thinking a step ahead. If e-vote machines are going down, any ideas on what they've moved onto next??? It is what they do 24hrs/day. It is ALL they do, they're onto the next thing. Which may be more challenges & longer lines at Dem precincts & photo id & voter registration purges. If e-vote machines are going down, everything else is going up!

Dredd and Floridiot

Mightn't you just be reacting to the screen name more than what he says?

I know everyone's paranoid from all the NSA spying, etc., and the endless intrusions by trolls, but, heck, if we get our hackles up just behind a screen name, aren't we ruining our own lives? He could simply mean he is a Democrat in Dixie... people have different associations with that term, and his might not be the same as yours.

#96 Dan, we can tell by whats going on around us, be a Native American, put your ear to the tracks (use your intuition), you will know, be skeptical

#97 99, Only time will tell

Or. He could be a Dixiecrat who doesn't hold with this election fraud shit, no matter WHO is doing it. Isn't that okay by you?

RLM #85

Yes, Dixiecrat seems to be one of those nothing matters folks who are afraid to believe in anything or anyone anymore because to do so means some emotional hurt down the road. They have a good case, but I resist them from time to time.

I try to take things on a case by case basis, and in this case I agree that Enron was and is a big deal.

The movers and shakers in that company had temp offices and beds in the white house. They damaged California severly, and cost then gov Davis his office. They did big hurt but still don't get it.

And the hurt that Enron did really showed that Nader has a valid point, even tho he can't get it across to the American body politic (unless he was the winner in 00 and 04 but it was stolen from him ).

And so I agree that the RFK Jr., Brad, VR, and BBV's EVM efforts are worthy of hope as well.

People can be so psy oped these daze. I have been reading Hamdan v Rumsfeld and noticed something we have not discussed in detail.

The Supreme Court mentioned 9/11 and then stated "Congress responded by adopting a Joint Resolution authorizing the President" to:

“use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks . . . in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

(Hamdan, citing 115 Stat. 224, bold added).

Notice that the word "military" does not appear in the law, yet it is called the "Authorization to Use Military Force" by the MSM et. al. ... and it has a direct nexus or link back to the attacks on 9/11.

So where is the argument that Iraq "planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks" and that doing what is being done in Iraq will "prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons"?

Yet the debate rages on about a fictitious subject matter (hitting Iraq for doing 9/11 to us and stopping them from doing it again), much like "what the dems did wrong" to loose the 00 and 04 election ... when actually it was stolen from them. Never mind that it would not matter what they had said or done if it was stolen.

Just like Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and therefore we can never do enough, or do anything, to Iraq to insure that they not do a 9/11 to us again.

Not even democracy will prevent Iraq from doing it again, because, they had nothing to do with it in the first instance.

And there is nothing more a party can do to win an election once they have won it, and that win is stolen.

RFK must do what Murtha has done, which is to ask people "what are you talking about"?

#99 99, Sure

OT

While we're in here, freaking, this is out of the box:

http://news.nationaljour...com/articles/0703nj1.htm

* tells Vice-Fuhrer Darth Fudd to dis Joe Wilson to bits.

Agent99 #97

Your reference to "he" tells me you know more about "him" than I know ... could be a "she" as far as I know.

Further, I have no clue what you are talking about unless and until you furnish a post number.

I can't remember "reacting" to a name or a gender ... so you will have to update me on that.

Then I will construct an appropriate response.

Dredd, I was talking about comment #92 and a certain tone prior to that. I'm assuming Dixiecrat is a "he", both because it sounds like a he, and because we used to dispense with all the PC wording malarkey by referring to humans unknown, or as a whole, as "he", "him".... It was easier, and not sexist.

Really. Don't bother responding to me if you're just going to be venting your irk. I can tell you're irked. I was hoping you'd relax with us a little. Wouldn't make you lose your edge.

OT? Maybe not!

If we ITMFA then maybe we can stop stuff like this from happening.

Many thanks to Chris Floyd ... as always!

Agent99 #104

Well if you say so, I guess Dixiecrat is a "he" and I am "irked".

My post #92 simply asks Dixiecrat to take a position. Either the elections were stolen or they were not.

I has become fashionable to diss the dems in the same breath as saying they lost the election ... whether I am irked or not or whether Dixiecrat is a "he" or not.

"No reason to get excited
the DIEB he kindly spoke
there are many here among us
who think words are but a joke

but you and I we been thru that
and this is not our fate
so let us not talk falsely now
the hour is getting late"

Agent86 #??
Taste a little power and you will demand more, no matter what your press secretary is wont to say.

So, does this mean that you think Floridiot and I have violated the sacred realm by point out this link or this link? At least until I post another #100 ... like in the Lemme thread many posts ago?

Whoa, Winter Patriot, my skin is crawling with how TRUE that depiction in our link at #105 is. Attitude! That all-American attitude.

Can't we just say to the administration, and to the troops, "Out Now!"? I want the kids home, and their bosses at The Hague. Period.

Dredd #106

Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, my husband who half lives with me, isn't here.

You sometimes make sublime sense, and other times, well, not so much. I can't figure out what you're driving at here, but I can feel a foul mood, or something really negative, and not in a good way, waffling off some of your posts, lacing through others, and absent in still others.

I brought it up, just in case you give a damn about making people on your side uncomfortable needlessly. (Yep, sometimes there's a need, but I don't see it here.) I like how you try to bring us to the crux of the stolen elections problem. It does mean we can't blame the Democratic candidates, or, really the party. Dirt simple as that seems, it clearly isn't apparent to many.

I don't think you and Floridiot have violated squat, except maybe some people's sensitivities. Oh, I don't know what you're saying up there. You're giving me a headache. Whose press secretary? Wha?

RFK is sitting in a saddle that is worn with time. Dixiecrat thinks it is too worn to be of use anymore.

It was worn when Dugger said this and when Saltman said this.

It is ok to we worn or even warned, but how do we tell when we are worn out (link here)?

Attacking the messenger? Attacking 6 of 7? If you can't keep up keep down!

Heh

I
T
M
F
A
!

Dredd

Your last sentence, in #109, I can't keep up with your line of reasoning here, and I don't think it's up to us poor mind readers to keep down. Or, did you mean that if you can't keep up with the answers to questions posed, or clarify when someone says they can't understand you, that you should ignore them?

Your grasp of Borg lore and the nuances of saddlery are dazzling.

And, burning oil... barons...

Well Agent99, my friggin batteries are down, and I must recharge ...

live long and prosper ...

burn the midnite oil barons ...

take very good care of 86 ...

and keep on truckin in the free world ...

and if 86 turns on you and takes you to prison ... like my 86 did ...

forgive ...

now I lay me down to sleep ... to rise and wear the saddle again with the sun ... rise ...

Happy 4th to all ... independence ... it is not just for Americans any more ...

Sleep tight, Dredd.

Floridiot and Agent99 --- Yes, vote vote vote. Even if the elections are 100% crooked any "boycott the vote" will throw a monkey wrench into precise analysis (evisceration?) of election fraud (or make the analysis more difficult.) How convenient.

BTW, on a related subject,...a case in point. In a local Green group, a very enthusiastic character has joined who advocates boycotting the election. That is his big issue. Now, this guy started posting on the list --- cartoonishly laughable radical stuff --- "raised fists of the people", "capitalist swine", that kind of thing. (He didn't do his homework on Greens.) I pegged him as a plant right away. (His subsequent behavior confirms my suspicion.) I think the Dems planted a "boycott the elections" guy. And no tin-foil hats. It happens.

You know I think of the Greens as an enzyme in the body politic (as a practical matter at this time) and want the Republicans and their minions out. (Not all Greens are alike.) Just thought I'd muck up the water a bit.

Arry!

You think the Dems want to boycott the election? WHAT!?!

It sound as if the guy is a plant, wherever he came from, and I think you should confide his stats to one of the people who are trying to investigate this stuff. The only ones who win from a boycott are the incumbents.

Every Green I know is a Democrat until these fiends are tossed. THEN they go back to their thing... which is everyone's thing.

Agent99 --- Well, I was thinking some (possibly ignorant) Dems want Greens to boycott the election. Greens do have a slate of candidates in California. I have discovered that the person mentioned has very deep roots in the Democratic Party (never mentioned by said person).

Heck, I'm campaigning for Debra Bowen and some other Dem candidates and am not entirely happy with some of the Green candidates. I'm probably not totally untypical. Some Dems (like some anybody, I guess) don't think things through.

BTW, I should mention for the record that the Green candidate for Secretary of State, Forrest Hill, is a perfectly good person very interested in election reform. But it simply doesn't make sense to vote for him over Debra Bowen.

Wow, Arry, that's appalling. I really think that ANYBODY, of any political affiliation, would do ANYTHING they could to be sure the Democratic Party, at least, got back Congress, and, well, the Presidency too. That's the only feasible way, short of armed insurrection, to turn back the tide of fascism, turn us back toward the real America.

I'm not saying they are the whole answer, but they have to be in place to keep the place our place to improve. There just isn't any other viable alternative. I'd think the damn skinheads would even agree with this. I actually think almost everyone DOES agree with this, in some form. The big question is if the cheating fiends at the helm will let that play out without a monster conflagration.

Heh, "Forrest Hill" is the Green Party candidate. That is so cute. I'd like to marry somebody with that name. 99 Hill.

Having lived (worked?) in Auburn, you've probably been up to Foresthill. That's what I always think of when I hear his name.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned the bit about the plant. It kinda takes the focus off the very interesting suit that Kennedy and Popantonio will be filing and our basic solidarity here. Just thought it was an interesting bit to throw into the mix as it is a real case that has come to my attention recently.

Thank goodness his name isn't Forrest Lawn, or Forrest Parks, or Forrest Green! He just squeaks past with "Hill". I mean, he would have to --- it's probably in the bylaws somewhere --- pick a different party if his name was Forrest Green, don't you think? I better go to bed now.

This is a GREAT thread!

123 comments and no trolls, just interesting points!

Dixiecrat and Charlene obviously have every reason to be skeptical of anything happening with this lawsuit. We all know the media is going to do everything they can to deflect it, but RLM's stock market angle is eye-opening to say the least! Possible implosion of Diebold without any court win, WOW!

This could be the perfect storm we've been waiting for!

It has a financial angle for the followers of business, which is boring for most of the American public, but it also has an extremely theatric angle!

Already famous protagonists - Robert Kennedy Jr., Rush Holt ect...

Already famous antagonists - Bob Ney, Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay ect...

Ingenious investigative Detectives - Greg palast, Beverly Harris, Brad Freidman John Gideon ect...

Unsuspecting victims - The American public.

Let's hope for a happy ending when these modern day confederates are "Gone With The Wind!"

For Larry Bergan: Everyone should read RFK, Jr.'s comments a second time, carefully.

He described his lawsuit as (my paraphrasing) a unique way of addressing the problem of election fraud and said he'd be hitting the voting machine companies in the only place it hurts, the pocketbook. He knows exactly what he's doing. He understands how Corporate America and Wall Street work in the 21st century.

We sometimes lump Corporate America and the Bush administration together. Not without reason...Bush wouldn't have gotten anywhere without his business connections, and he was the overwhelming choice of most people on Wall Street. Not because anyone down there really believed he was the best qualified man to be president; they just like presidents who believe in laissez-faire economics. "Leave us alone to do our thing" is Wall Street's mantra.

The most similar administrations in history to Bush's are Grant's (1869-1877) and Harding's (1921-1923), both of which were dominated by scandals. Harding's eventual downfall was Teapot Dome, and Bush's should eventually be Iraq/Halliburton. Both involved shady government involvement with energy companies.

But in each case, there was no great public outcry at the time. Even the New York Times called the Senators investigating Teapot Dome "assassins of character." There has been no great sturm und drang over Halliburton...yet. Point being, during a Gilded Age scandals don't get the attention they deserve, essentially because people are making money and want to let the good times roll. Oil stocks went up even after Teapot Dome, and Halliburton went sky-high even after people learned about its links to Iraq.

The Diebold case is entirely different. They're trying to sell election machinery to local governments. That machinery enables election fraud. RFK, Jr.'s lawsuit, if it's allowed to go forward, will create enormous negative publicity for Diebold. Unlike the 1870s and 1920s, most Fortune-500 companies are owned by large institutions (pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies, banks, etc.). People running these funds might have preferred Bush over Gore and Kerry, but they care more about making money in stocks and thus keeping their jobs. If Diebold's stock starts to implode, look for them to dump it in large blocks. This will drive it down further.

The weakness in Diebold's stock will be news in and of itself. Taken together with coverage of the trial, the 2004 election will smell like yesterday's mackerel to millions of people who still don't get it. Diebold's board of directors knows this (believe me, that's why O'Dell is gone), and I promise you they're sweating bullets from the no-win position RFK, Jr. has put them in.

Great commentary, Mr. Mills. I believe you are correct. RFK is really smart. He's a great guy, wish he would run for president. He has the optimistic ideals of his father. Whenever you watch him speak, he makes you feel good.

Can someone post exactly what is a "challenge" at the election polls? I read there were 3 million challenges by Republicans in the last election.

Hey Dan 127#, you have another one
Load up the complaint department with bogus challenges, so that the legitimate challenges get shoved to the back burner
Make us a list, I've noticed you've got at least a dozen ways they screw with the process already

Dan, they probably have a hundred ways to screw with the process, they just mix and match them to suit their needs
and not to get caught using the same ones over and over to produce any pattern
But we are catching on

RLM, Bush's claim to fame should be, his brother, through Choicepoint stealing the 2000 election in Florida
and Blackwell through IRI tactics stealing the 2004 election in Ohio
Oh, and in 2002, stealing a few of seats of congress with EVMS in Georgia and Texas

1. Y'all are the GREATEST - each and every one of you! I love this place and the warm welcome!

2. BIG DAN IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK REGARDING COMMENT #96 [Permalink]
... big dan said on 7/3/2006 @ 5:28 pm PT...

FloridaIdiot: Don't forget, these crooks are always thinking a step ahead. If e-vote machines are going down, any ideas on what they've moved onto next??? It is what they do 24hrs/day. It is ALL they do, they're onto the next thing. Which may be more challenges & longer lines at Dem precincts & photo id & voter registration purges. If e-vote machines are going down, everything else is going up!

3. Hey Old Turk...Katherine loved your greeting and she said that at this point in her campaign, she appreciates every little acknowlegement she can get.

4. Robert...ENRON didn't really resonate in Kansas.

5 Dredd...Kindly, I think you misunderstood what I wrote and I'm not understanding your perspective on this - no need to explain, though. You're a psychologist? Why are you spending so much time analyzing me? You couldn't be more off base so refrain from interpreting my comments for the others and inferencing my character. Of course the 2000 and the 2004 elections were stolen. The plan was in the works from the early 90's. They didn't expect to get caught in 2000, but they did consider it (and had a plan B,C,etc.) and when it happend, we were treated to a very good show courtesy of the Supreme Court.
6. DIXIE=Southern, CRAT=short for Democrat.

Agent99 --- At least it's not Forrest Gump.

Maybe that "plant" was a Republican posing as a Democrat posing as a Green. Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit!

BTW, what's funny about the "capitalist swine" remark is that the first time I heard it came from the mouth of someone you know well - Maxwell Smart. He had been captured by Maoists (or something), tortured, brainwashed; but he escaped and said the ordeal didn't effect him at all, not a bit, nada. (I'm sure you can picture him saying it.) So, the guy talking to him says cynically, "What if I were to say I don't believe you?" Maxwell shoots back, "Then I'd call you a filthy capitalist swine!"

Happy 4th.

Never forget this article from RAW Dan, it is the rosetta stone,
with the IRI and The Leadership Institute as the foundation to subverting Democracy here and abroad
Link

And as Bill Clinton mentioned before in a previous post speech, he knows all about this
"Expose the Beast, and you kill it"

For Dixiecrat: It's interesting you should choose that name. As I'm sure you know, Strom Thurmond ran for president in 1948 on the Dixiecrat ticket (though its official name was The States' Rights Party). That was long before Thurmond gave up the pretense of being a Democrat (in any 20th century sense of the word) and joined the Republicans in their extreme right wing.

Just out of curiosity...are you a Thurmondesque Dixiecrat, or a moderate/liberal Democrat who happens to live in Dixie and wants to reform the image of Southern Democrats?

I found that old post, Larry Bergan put it up
Quote from Bill Clinton, "what was clear is that the Secretary of State, now their candidate for governor, was a world class expert in voter suppression and that he was doing everything he could to keep voters that he thought were Democrats from voting, in every way that he could."
And do not forget, Blackwell was an executive on the board of the IRI
Link

RLM is making some good points. A lot of people know something about the Harding scandals, but fewer probably realize that the major legal actions occurred years later.

I completely agree that the current administration is very similar in kind to the Grant and Harding administrations in terms of corruption. But I think no one has ever, with so little substance, taken on such imperial, unconstitutional "authority" --- really limitless. It sets the Busheviks dangerously apart from other corrupt regimes, as do the facts of 9/11 - there is no denying it.

I agree that the suit has the potential of being very effective mainly because of the way politics, money, and power are related in this day and age.

Dixie=below the Mason-Dixon Line. Crat=Democrat. Nothing more nothing less. I'm redefing the term by living by example. It means tolerance, freedom and support for the American ideals on which this country was founded. There is a tendancy, on this blog to think in terms of labels, inside the box and in black and white. When one is able to take on the perspective of one's enemies instead of one's own, true understanding can be achieved and therefore victory can be had.

#137 Dixiecrat said, When one is able to take on the perspective of one's enemies instead of one's own, true understanding can be achieved and therefore victory can be had. Now that sounds like truth to me!
The only thing is its hard for me to think like a criminal! Because I'm not one. Its a pretty sad commentary on our society. In order for us to save our country we have to put ourselves into criminal mode. Thank God for Bobby and Mike I hope, wish, and pray they are successful on behalf of all Americans in this quest no matter how we get there. I just gotta say ITMFA! Hey by the way with all the polls out there its awful funny there has been none done on impeachment lately. I'm sure their scared about the results. Oh thats right they don't govern by the polls, HAH!

Happy 4th everyone! Have a great day and enjoy your loved ones!

Larry Bergan #124:

This is a GREAT thread!

123 comments and no trolls, just interesting points!

I agree, Larry. And you make a good point about the trolls.

I don't think we'll see any trolls until at least 8 eastern time (5 pacific) on Wednesday morning. After all, they are professionals and they take their long weekends seriously.

I certainly agree, Dixiecrat, that we should think as our enemies think in order to gain true understanding. The question follows, "How do we translate that understanding into the victory you say will follow?"

A perfect example of this conundrum is the so-called war on terrorism (a real war can only be fought against a proper noun, not a lower-case noun). Bush is fond of saying, "Terrorists hate us for our freedom."
That's pure bunkum. They hate us for trying to run the world according to our own designs, including a global free-enterprise system. To Bush, "freedom" and "free enterprise" are interchangeable. To our enemies in the Middle East, true freedom includes the right to opt out of economic globalization. That's really liberty, but Bush doesn't understand the difference.

Bush and the neo-cons also told us our invasion of Iraq would be welcomed as a liberation. If Bush truly believed that, he's a fool. If he didn't but invaded anyway, he's a criminal. Point being, in terms of terrorism and the invasion of Iraq, Bush has presumed to do as you suggest we do; he's placed himself in the enemy's shoes. But he's gotten it all wrong. So how do we take on the enemy's perspective, and get it right?

My take on this RLM is the reason he got it wrong was exactly for the reasons you said
Instead of putting the Neo Con, free market, every man for himself view into Iraq, and instead kept all the unions, government, trade workers and the Iraqii guard in place and let them go at the rebuilding, instead of laying off all the workers, bringing in Halliburton, cheap labor, private security contractors, and only our military to pull back and watch, instead of throwing in a quasi Fascist system,
our enemies would probaly been our friends IMO

I disagree with you, RLM on part of your comment #141. I don't think Bush has ever made a serious effort to understand what our enemies think. I think he's only interested in slinging enough bullshit to keep the few remaining real reporters scribbling until he can slip away for another jolt of bourbon. That's what I think. MHO as always of course.

The line "they hate us for our freedom" may be only a prelude to "so that's why we're taking away your freedom, so they won't hate us anymore" ...

And as for the either/or choice you posed: there's no doubt that he's a criminal and it's quite clear that he's a fool, so I claim "false dilemma" on that one.

If you think like your enemy (and all the complicated aspects of that imply, cuz this ain't easy) you can calculate their possible next moves and counter/nullify them ahead of time, be prepared when they make a move or at the very least, you won't be taken by surprise. The Dems had four years to prepare after the 2000 election to get fool-proof EVM's in place for 2004 (ask Jimmy Carter) and they were, once again, caught in the headlights.
1. Don't dwell in the past ad-nauseum. Pick yourself up, ask what lesson is to be learned and calculate some plans for the future. Going back to right the past wrongs will keep you in a position of weakness, on the defensive and constantly playing catch-up - the BURDEN of proof is on JFK Jr. not the admin. 2. Hope or wishing NEVER makes it so. 3. If you have the enemy's perspective, then think of what their next move is and counter it -surprise is always a good old stand-by strategy that works most of the time

I guess I worded my last post poorly. Let me try again.

How do we tell the difference between a president who pretends to view things through the enemy's prism, and one who actually does?

If Muslims hate us because we built an army base on sacred land in Saudi Arabia (they do), but Bush says they hate us for "our freedom," he's only pretending to think like a Muslim. If Iraqis want to be left alone to run their own affairs, but Bush says they crave what he calls freedom (even 2-1/2 years after Saddam Hussein's arrest), he's only pretending to think like an Iraqi.

But Bush wouldn't pretend unless he saw a reason to. Someone sold him on the idea of appearing empathetic to the Muslim world. He hasn't a clue about how to do it, but the point is valid that it needs to be done.

Knowing what you stand for always helps, too. Unfortunately, the Democrats are a huge mess of a party with neocons-types, liars, beltway elite, progressive grassroots types, idealists, environmentalists, corporatists...you name it. (The only view not well-represented is that of true conservatism.) It's kind of a grab bag - which is not the most effective political entity.

Much of the effort of progressives in Brad Blog and other places (not always spoken) is to bring in some focus - if it is possible. And much of the frustration is because it seems so damn hard to do it.

My #146 was meant for #144 and related posts. Robert got one in there above mine.

Arry #132 ... LOL! Yep, really good thing it ain't Gump. And, I wouldn't even put past them that your mole was a neocon in deep cover.

And, Max has imprinted our whole generation with his jargon, with his transcendent wisdom.

DIXIECRAT #144 ... Sound advice, but I wish you would use the word "we" in these posts. It will make a few touchy-on-the-subject people feel better. WE, even including Republicans, are losing so much, and WE, even including Republicans, need to beat this election fraud business, yesterday. WE have to pull together to get our country back.

Regarding the Grant/Harding comparisons: From all my reading, it seems Grant, most excellent General, was eaten alive by the ratfinks in DC. He was so innocent of all the dirty tricks, that his administration was so awful. I can forgive him for it because he was a country boy with lots of sense, tactical and practical, a great leader, a man with a huge heart, but no understanding of the depths of snaketude that would soon bite him till he was bleeding to death, so to speak.

* doesn't have one dram as much to recommend him as did Grant.

Harding, used to be the worst ever, but * (and Darth Fudd, et al.) have left him in the dust.

JFK, I'm just convinced, would have gone down as the best President in history, for real, and some of my friends argue that RFK would have raised that bar. Which is WHY they are dead.

Let's not forget that these guys don't mind whacking the opposition if everything else fails. I'll go see if I can find a link to Gore's MLK Day speech and some other pertinent stuff, because, far from inciting us to cover our asses, with this, I MEAN this means, no matter what we have to lose, we cannot let that stop us. History buffs? Take a gander at what the founders had to lose! Oh. My. God.

Well, and, Lincoln lost us a few hundred thousand men, sifting through the brass at the War Department... bunch of pencil pushing, politically astute, wastes of good uniforms. And, the Civil War was NOT about freeing the slaves; it was about "preserving the union". The slave part was just to make it sound more virtuous. (The Albanians never refer to the United States by our name; preferring to call us The Revisionists, and everybody knows what they're talking about when they use the term.)

Grant actually had a plan to fully-integrate the South, met with huge resistance, of course, and was trying to buy Cuba so the blacks would have their own state, if all else failed.

It blows my mind, the scale of the differences these men can make on the future! That was 150 years ago! No Cuban Missile Crisis... etc. So, my point is: WE HAVE TO REMEMBER TO BEAR THIS IN MIND WHEN WE VOTE. One issue voters, be they Wall Street Fatties, or Fundamentalist Nazis, can ruin the world.

For instance: I'm rabidly against gun control, scared of them as I am, but I want Gore for President pretty badly anyway.

Here's a link that seems to give you a bunch of choices for watching, hearing, reading Gore's MLK Day speech at Constitution Hall.

http://www.toddalbert.com/node/212

Good to remind ourselves of this stuff, especially on our birthday.

Yes, Grant was a true friend to the ex-slave. It is obvious from his remarks that it was not malarky.

Gore Vidal says Grant's "Memoirs" show him to be a truly great man and they are one of the best such works in history. But, as a president, I'm afraid he was naive and over his head.

It was particularly the Hayes debacle in 1876 that instituted "Jim Crow" for decades.

Anyway, my flag is flying today. They can dump oceans of propaganda on me, they can terrorize Americans with "terror", they can call the Constitution a "piece of paper", they can even throw me into a "detention center"; but I'll still be the American and they will still be those the founders warned against and took such pains to neutralize.

I'm for a two letter Culture in "08" and it's . . . . . " AL ". . .

Big Dan #127 and Floridiot #128

"...what is a "challenge" at the election polls?"

Could this refer to the "Poll Watchers" the repugs dispersed to disenfranchise voters by challenging their right to vote?

DIXIECRAT #137

People sure have been trying to disect your name. LOL
I got it the first time - no need to read all kinds of symbolism into it.

ARRY #132

You have revield yet another facet of Max's personality.
Agent 99 you should have warned me, I will be extra gentle with him when he wakes.
Piggy Bank

"revealed" sheesh!

It's Time to say in its Full Fledged Nudity, on this Day . . . . . FUCK BUSH 4-EVER ! ! !

Agent BB2

Yep. Max rocks. How else could we put up with him? The snoring, the bizarre forays into clandestine meetings with dead agents of HMSS. Do NOT mention Bond to him when he finally drags his ass out of the yurt at your camp, or he will go off on a string of epithets that would scorch Satan himself. "Consarn shape-shifting effete attention hog vainglorious gadget-dependent show-off..." It goes downhill from there.

JoJ

I can SEE you up there in your robe, with your gavel, bellowing, "FUCK BUSH 4-EVER ! ! !"

P.S. Is Joan doing a Betsy Ross with her ITMFA flag today? Will she be the history book heroine of the 22nd century? Could happen!

P.P.S. Have I mentioned yet, in all my confusion, that I think Bobby Kennedy, Jr. is a HERO? I've been thinking that for a long time, and this latest is just another in a long string of heroic works.

Agent99 - Cheers ! & I will Be Bicyling to see the Fire Works in Boston . . . . . "From a Distance" . . .

#148 if you are a white registered Republican with a strong Christian faith, you are in the majority and on the winning side right now. Who among them will want to change the status quo when they are in charge and perhaps like it that way? Who among them would trade in leadership and superiority to help minorities, other religions, aliens in the US, non-english speaking and anyone different than they are? In the near future, white people of Western European descent who now are in the majority and in control of the government will become the minority. Be very afraid of this fact as WE near this day because as the white men and women of Western European descent who are in the majority and in charge of the government become the minority, they will attempt to maintian their dominance at all costs. They already know that a democracy is run by the majority and soon that will change. It will take the new majority (old minority)a few years to realize that they can take over the government simply by casting more votes for their candidates, but it will eventually happen. Keep this in mind when you question when the current and future administrations reduce your rights, diminish the power of the people and restrict the democracy.

#145 Robert...ignore what Bush says. This is not about him. Understanding the people of other countries is another matter. I don't want to discuss the Iraq invasion and what went/is going right or wrong as that would acknowledge that we had a right to invade it in the first place. Acknowledging this validates a made-up invalid invasion. As it stood, Bush probably would not have been reappointed if 9/11 and subsequent Iraq invaion did not take place. Sitting Presidents during war-time get re-elected. However, I was specifically talking about winning elections and the Democrats becoming the party in power. If WE want to beat the Republicans, WE have to think like them and outsmart them. WE do not have to be like them - just learn to think like them. Being like them would defeat the whole purpose. People who are drawn to the Democratic Party tend to think differntly from people who are drawn to the Republican Party.

DIXIECRAT: Probably from Dixie it seems so anyway, but Democrats outnumber Republicans, and, yes, the Republicans are the "winners" right now, but we have established that they "won" illegally... not the majority, already the minority. The actual winners, at least in the last two presidential elections, and probably a great many congressional races, have been Democrats. The White Fat Cat Republicans, male or female, who fear minorities becoming the majority are SO ill-advised to mistreat them this badly right now. It's going to backfire in ways they are most definitely going to hate to itty bits, and hotly. If it didn't cost so many lives, I'd love to hang around to watch them burn of it.

Instead, I want to stop them now, before it gets any worse. It's already so much worse than I ever thought it was possible to get in the United States. Again, I'm glad you showed up.

That's the point, Agent 99. Republicans are NOT in the majority. They stole two elections, but that doesn't make them the majority. Democrats acquiesced in the two thefts without obtaining a deal, which they obtained in 1876 in allowing Hayes to be inaugurated in exchange for his promise to pull Union troops out of the South.

Human beings survived because the human brain evolved and developed the keen ability to discriminate friend from foe. Back in the early days of human evolution, everyone looked almost exactly alike. In order for individuals and tribes to survive, humans had to make instant distinctions between members of their own tribe and hostile outsiders. Modern man retains this ability which is where discrimination and prejudging originates. When you walk into a room full of strangers, you will instantly notice (discriminate) the differences of others and be able to determine if they are friendly or hostile (prejudging) which we may call first impressions. Whether one prejudges a negative or positive �vibe� from another person depends on so many environmental and internal factors that are practically unpredictable. The point is, no one can fight or change human nature. The default setting for humans just happens be set at �different=bad� in order to continue to survive. The strong (intelligent, good looking, wealthy or physically superior) will dominate. Government is a way to level the field and create civilizations where all can thrive, but never underestimate the basic nature of humans as government consists of humans and is not a permanent entity. That�s what makes the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights so utterly amazing; it elevates humans from their animalistic selves to the highest possible form where freedom, tolerance, acceptance and equality are valued and protected for the benefit of the entire society.

RLM

Well, I'm bugged Gore, with a very good excuse, and Kerry, with no excuse, gave up so easily, but I'm not sure anyone could trust * and the rest of this gang to keep their side of any bargain. It's really a grave new world out there!

JOJ #157

FB4E!

Joan - ITMFA!

DIXIECRAT #165

How true.

Miss P

What you pointed out in message #43 might possibly be what happened in your case but it clearly is not what happened in general. Such errors would be just as likely to happen in any other race as the presidential race. They were not!

With the position rotations on the Ohio ballot the errors would be just as likely favor Kerry as Bush. They were not!

The errors could have been the results of calibration errors on some machines. Those errors would be just as likely to favor Kerry as Bush. They were not!

The errors were not random and thus did not happen by chance. They happened by design. Design errors happening is precinct after precinct, in county after county, in state after state and machine company after machine company are the result of fraud. The laws of probability tell us there is no other option.

The odds of n straight errors favoring one candidate over his opponent should be about one in two raised to the power of N. N does not have to get very large before the laws of probability tell us the system is fixed.

At N=10 the odds already reach 1 in 1024.

At N=20 the odds reach 1024 squared to one which is over a million to 1.

At N=40 the odds exceed a trillion to one.

At N =80 the odds exceed a trillion squared to one.

All of the above cases are long shots. Way too much of the data from the 2004 elections fits into the above cases for anyone, who has a good grasp of the laws of probability, to conclude anything other than fraud on the behalf of the Republicans is widespread across this nation.

For Bob Young: The G.O.P. has finally recognized that what you say is true. They hoped people would ignore the laws of mathematics, and that a 5-1/2% discrepancy between exit polls and tabulated vote in the 2004 election was a practical impossibility.

So now they've devised a conspiracy theory of their own, which makes the Loch Ness monster look like a squirrel in your backyard. Here's the deal: Democrats wanted to discourage Republicans from voting late on Election Day, so they rigged the exit polls to make it appear Kerry was going to win easily, thus Bush votes wouldn't matter.

This could have been accomplished in only two ways.

1) A vast army of exit pollsters would, individually, have to have conspired to choose only Kerry voters to interview, meaning all of them would necessarily have been telepathic and corrupt.

2) The numbers were flipped after the fact, from showing Bush ahead by 2-1/2% to showing Kerry ahead by 3%. That's at least plausible, but it flies in the face of Mitosky's own statements, that more Kerry voters were willing to talk to exit pollsters.

More Kerry voters did in fact talk to exit pollsters, because there were more Kerry voters out there. 3% more, in fact.

(...speaking of "thinking ahead" of how the GOP will try to disenfranchize voters besides e-vote machines...)

Voting Rights Act Nailed
To Burning Cross
Behind The 'Delay' In Renewing The Law Is A Scheme
For The Theft Of '08. White Sheets
Changed for Spreadsheets
By Greg Palast
For The Guardian - UK
6-23-6

NEW YORK --- Don't kid yourself. The Republican Party's decision yesterday to "delay" the renewal of the Voting Rights Act has not a darn thing to do with objections of the Republican's White Sheets Caucus.

Complaints by a couple of Good Ol' Boys to legislation has never stopped the GOP leadership from rolling over dissenters.

This is a strategic stall - meant to de-criminalize the Republican Party's new game of challenging voters of color by the hundreds of thousands.

In the 2004 Presidential race, the GOP ran a massive multi-state, multi-million-dollar operation to challenge the legitimacy of Black, Hispanic and Native-American voters. The methods used broke the law --- the Voting Rights Act. And while the Bush Administration's Civil Rights Division grinned and looked the other way, civil rights lawyers are circling, preparing to sue to stop the violations of the Act before the 2008 race.

Therefore, Republicans have promised to no longer break the law --- not by going legit but by eliminating the law.

The Act was passed in 1965 after the Ku Klux Klan and other upright citizens found they could use procedural tricks --- "literacy tests," poll taxes and more --- to block citizens of color from casting ballots.

De-criminalizing the "caging" lists

Here's what happened in '04 --- and what's in store for '08.

In the 2004 election, over THREE MILLION voters were challenged at the polls. No one had seen anything like it since the era of Jim Crow and burning crosses. In 2004, voters were told their registrations had been purged or that their addresses were "suspect."

Denied the right to the regular voting booths, these challenged voters were given "provisional" ballots. Over a million of these provisional ballots (1,090,729 of them) were tossed in the electoral dumpster uncounted.

Funny thing about those ballots. About 88% were cast by minority voters.

This isn't a number dropped on me from a black helicopter. They come from the raw data of the US Election Assistance Commission in Washington, DC.

At the heart of the GOP's mass challenge of voters were what the party's top brass called, "caging lists" --- secret files of hundreds of thousands of voters, almost every one from a Black-majority voting precinct.

When our investigations team, working for BBC TV, got our hands on these confidential files in October 2004, the Republicans told us the voters listed were their potential "donors." Really? The sheets included pages of men from homeless shelters in Florida.

Donor lists, my ass. Every expert told us, these were "challenge lists," meant to stop these Black voters from casting ballots.

When these "caged" voters arrived at the polls in November 2004, they found their registrations missing, their right to vote blocked or their absentee ballots rejected because their addresses were supposedly "fraudulent."

Why didn't the GOP honchos 'fess up to challenging these allegedly illegal voters? Because targeting voters of color is AGAINST THE LAW. The law in question is the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Act says you can't go after groups of voters if you choose your targets based on race. Given that almost all the voters on the GOP hit list are Black, the illegal racial profiling is beyond even Karl Rove's ability to come up with an alibi.

The Republicans target Black folk not because they don't like the color of their skin. They don't like the color of their vote: Democrat. For that reason, the GOP included on its hit list Jewish retirement homes in Florida. Apparently, the GOP was also gunning for the Elderly of Zion.

These so-called "fraudulent" voters, in fact, were not fraudulent at all. Page after page, as we've previously reported, are Black soldiers sent overseas. The Bush campaign used their absence from their US homes to accuse them of voting from false addresses.

Now that the GOP has been caught breaking the Voting Rights law, they have found a way to keep using their expensively obtained "caging" lists: let the law expire next year. If the Voting Rights Act dies in 2007, the 2008 race will be open season on dark-skinned voters. Only the renewal of the Voting Rights Act can prevent the planned racial wrecking of democracy.

"Pre-clearance" and the Great Blackout of 2000

Before the 2000 presidential balloting, then Jeb Bush's Secretary of State purged thousands of Black citizens' registrations on the grounds that they were "felons" not entitled to vote. Our review of the files determined that the crimes of most on the list was nothing more than VWB --- Voting While Black.

That "felon scrub," as the state called it, had to be "pre-cleared" under the Voting Rights Act. That is, "scrubs" and other changes in procedures must first be approved by the US Justice Department.

The Florida felon scrub slipped through this "pre-clearance" provision because Katherine Harris' assistant assured the government the scrub was just a clerical matter. Civil rights lawyers are now on the alert for such mendacity.

The Burning Cross Caucus of the Republican Party is bitching that "pre-clearance" of voting changes applies only to Southern states. I have to agree that singling out the Old Confederacy is a bit unfair. But the solution is not to smother the Voting Rights law but to spread its safeguards to all fifty of these United States.

White Sheets to Spread Sheets

Republicans argue that the racial voting games and the threats of the white-hooded Klansmen that kept African-Americans from the ballot box before the 1965 passage of the Voting Rights Act no longer threaten Black voters.

That's true. When I look over the "caging lists" and the "scrub sheets," it's clear to me that the GOP has traded in white sheets for spreadsheets.

Excellent work BIG DAN! Your latest post (#171) is exactly on target. Now we're getting into the important issues for understanding what happened and even more importantly, where we are going. Everyone here has an impressive bank of knowledge regarding the facts. I'm glad to see we're moving toward analyzing that info and thinking about the next steps. It's always nice to know the complete details of what happened, but even better to be able to do something with that information. (just a tidbit regarding post #171: As much as they knew the profile of which voters to prevent from voting, they also knew in great detail the profile of the largest group of registered likely voters with the greatest characteristics in common (the majority of people who would determine the election by how they voted) and the electoral probabilities. With that info, they carefully made GWB to fit the image of the man that the greatest number of likely voters would elect as president. John Kerry didn't fit any of the ideal profile except for his military record and we all know what they did to John Kerry's military experience - swiftboated).

Dixiecrat said,
"everyone looked almost exactly alike. In order for individuals and tribes to survive, humans had to make instant distinctions"
Yeah, they just lifted up the Loincloth and smelled, everyone was a reeker back then

By the time you got that close you were already headless.

Kenneth Lay just died of a heart attack.

Hmm... he must of had something else to say

I'm still trying to find out exactly how a "challenge" works...

http://www.nytimes.com/2...=5088&partner=rssnyt

I think a representative from either party stands at the tables next to the poll workers as the voters file in and sign in to vote. For whatever reason, the "challenger" steps forward and says that they challenge the voter to verify their identity and valid voter registration. I do not know what the voter uses to verify that they are a valid registered voter, but the whole process brings the line of voters who want to sign in to a screeching halt. This then causes back-ups in the line and increases the time for everone to vote. Since people may be on their way to work etc., some people have to give up and leave. Most challenges are done to minorities in democratic precincts.

Seems to me, back at #24, there was a young person with an idea for how to make machines square with the need for a paper trail. It seems silly to go to all that trouble, when we don't really need machines at all, but since so many are insisting on machines... that was a good idea.

The Republican controlled Florida legislature declared that hand recounts of paper ballots are no longer considered valid.

... and Otis said ... " We Be Going Down Mister Lay " ...

What if the minority voter being challenged, "accidentally" punched the guy in the face? That would speed up the lines while he was taking care of his bloody nose! Earlier, and I doubt I'll find it again, I got a search down to only 4 hits, about vote challenges. And it was on the free republic site, someone was saying they needed instructions how to challenge Dem voters. And I clicked on the thread, and it said "thread has been removed."

I believe the following is an example of how a challenge could take place, and did...in Florida.

An African American presents his photo-ID to an election clerk. The name on the driver's license is "James Jackson." The photo matches the person. The election clerk says, "O.K."

Then someone steps forward and says, "I challenge Mr. Jackson. He's a convicted felon."

Mr. Jackson replies, "I've never committed a felony."

The challenger produces a list of felons, including the name "James Jackson." "Look here, he's on this list. There it is. He's ineligible to vote."

The fact that there might be 3,000 James Jacksons in the state of Florida doesn't matter. This might possibly be the same guy. So he's given a provisional ballot, which is later thrown out because it can't be determined which James Jackson is which.

On the same theme, Florida decided that any convicted felon who moved into the state was ineligible to vote, even after serving time in another state which subsequently reinstated his voting eligibility.

You committed a burglary 20 years ago in Kansas, served two years in prison, then went straight. You've been clean ever since. You retire to Florida, and as an ex-felon you're not allowed to vote, either for local offices or for federal offices.

Add to #181
http://www.otis.com/prod...PRT30_PST46_RES1,00.html

Groan!!! ANOTHER KENNEDY. Will my life ever extended beyond those descendants of a Depression-era bootlegger? And of all subjects for a Kennedy to address--voter fraud! The Kennedys would still be a south-Boston Irish Mafia gang if it had not been for the Daley Machine polling the graveyards of south Cook County and giving that first Kennedy the presidency in the final hours of election night. I shall not buy his book--if he is planning to write one, if he can write one-- {ED NOTE: Completely unacceptable suggestion deleted. --99}
God SAVE the United States--from the Bushes and from the Kennedys. Lord, deliver us! Amen.

re #186 Imagine the audacity to suggest that somebody should be assassinated, and then to close with a prayer.

God please save us all from vicious hypocrites and contemptible pricks like Wallace Liddell.

Winter Patriot

I was immediately going to say the same thing, but it took a while to bring myself to speak. So I used my time making sure I had a lock on where that came from. I might not know as much as God does, now, about #186, but he posts with his middle name, and his 6th cousin's nickname is "Jack".