We will have further details on all of the following later this evening, including some firsthand accounts of the crazy day today on Capitol Hill in and out of loads of Senate offices…
For the moment, however, three quick hits…
The AP article is right here.
The report itself, with executive summary, is right here [PDF].
The letter is right here.
He also mentions an interesting twist that we hadn’t thought of before concerning the fact that a quorum may not be present tomorrow to debate such a challenge should at least one House Member and one Senate Member sign on to the challenge.
That thought, actually, puts another in our head: While it’s assumed that any such challenge would ultimately be rejected by the House and Senate after debate, that assumption is based on the fact that Democrats are outnumbered in both houses. However, that “conventional wisdom” could be turned on its head if a quorum does exist to allow both debate and vote on any such challenge, but if Democratic members outnumber Republicans at tomorrow’s session…well…there could be a few surprises waiting…
Olbermann’s report is right here.
MORE LATER THIS EVENING…
… the plot thickeneth … 😉
The Repulicans don’t wanna play fair? Get outta here!
Can anyone point me to a site where I can hear or see live streaming of the Senate/Congress meeting tomorrow?
Thanks,
*J*
I’m calling in sick tomorrow so I can keep calling, faxing and emailing. Lets keep the pressure on ’em.
Maybe it’s time to ask the foreign medias across the pond for election fraud coverage..?
What went wrong in Ohio? Good one Brad! I believe your efforts and those of many others may pay off with all sorts of twists tomorrow. Should make for some great political theatre. Of course, when I was a kid we threw spit balls and milk cartons if the movie sucked! LOL (Yes, milk cartons! We were more wholesome back then!)
But just a left-turn side note if I may. While we’ve been consumed with elections and Tsunami’s, we almost forgot another important question.
WHAT WENT WRONG IN IRAQ?
I had to read articles from ONLINETIMES in London and a Turkish Newspaper to discover the somber, or maybe sobering news, that the Iraqi insurgency has now surpassed the entire Coalition Force, with over 200,000 Iraqi’s now believed to be fighting and supporting members. While in another report, the Iraqi insurgency may soon be equipped and organized enough to begin large scale offensive military operations that find hundreds of fighters attacking at a single time in strategic guerilla formations.
If I remember my history correctly, it took a similar amount of time or longer for the Viet Cong to regroup and organize in order to engulf America into a full-fledged guerilla war in Vietnam. Many people forget that was actually a Civil War too!
There have been consistent bombings and fighting that are beginning to take its toll. The DUMBYA White House is now back peddling on elections for Januray 30th, Baghdad’s Governor has been assasinated, and there are daily suicide bombings. Now I hear the Pentagon is going to come calling for another $100 Billion! That’s Billion with a "B"!
Not million, like 350 measley millions for Tsunami relief. Where are all these billions going? Take your pick of Bush/Cheney contributors! Sorry, no Bush/Cheney contributors to make a killing in Tsunami land, just photo ops for brotherly love and Colin Powell too!
So I thought I’d give you all this infomercial distraction from all that politiking everyone is doing. Sort of a sidenote to why Bush needs to be redefeated…a third time!
Thanks for the updates, Brad. With my dialup connection, "streaming" anything is out of the question. I think C-Span will show the House and Senate shenanigans live tomorrow, beginning at 1 PM EST.
Didn’t Chris Jansing on Countdown tonite look foolish when she suggested that the Electoral Vote challenge tomorrow is not important enough to command congressional attention.
What is up with the media?, I just don’t get it.
I have guardedly high hopes for tomorrow. And Brad, after tomorrow, we will need you to keep us informed on the prosecution of Kenneth Blackwell and others who may be arrested. I am seriously looking forward to that. Thanks so much.
I’m on p. 32 of the House Judiciary Committe Report and if it’s not blistering against Blackwell then I don’t know what is. I don’t see how Blackwell can make it out alive. This report is GOOOOOOD!!
Oh and, somewhere around p. 9 the report describes Blackwell ignoring Conyer’s letter of questions (remember?). I ask you, if any Congressman reads this and has pride in his job, how can s/he accept that kind of dis from anyone? The whole structure falls through doesn’t it?
I’m loving this report!!
In less than 24 h we will KNOW which members of the 109th US Congress deserve any form of support and we will have unambiguous knowledge of exactly which members have joined the forces that Nov 2000 have been focused on systematic disenfranchisement our fellow citizens and, thereby, the destruction of American democracy.
I suggest we store energy tonight; make a bunch more calls before 1pm EST tomorrow and then be prepared for the launch of an historical struggle.
We have a long battle ahead.
Tomorrow we learn whom in Congress we have on our side and we will learn whether the Democratic party leadership in the House and Senate are either, ironically, a collaborator in the destruction of American democracy or if they have joined our team.
We’ve done an effective job of reminding each of them that they work for us and that we will not just hold them accountable, we will remove them from office if they fail to defend America, tomorrow.
Because, what some probably already realize, and more will in the days ahead, a network of citizens has emerged since 2 Nov 2004 who are going to make "We The People…" mean more than it has since those words were first inked.
Count on it.
We will in_DEED prevail.
Peace.
"Come, friend Watson, the curtain rings up for the last act."-Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of The Second Stain by Sir A.C. Doyle
becky & Miss P,
After reading along with you all and Blackwell’s letter, don’t you see the same arrogance as George DUMBYA Bush, flaunting how they can get away with everything and what are you gonna do about it…attitude?
since there isnt a comment opportunity under "curtis on colmes now," I will ask my question here.
Brad: Will you be posting a transcript from tonight’s interview with Colmes?
I hope so. ITS ABOUT TIME someone asked real questions on this guy’s story!
I suspect the Bushists will make sure they have enough people there to re-select Bush. It is very unlikely the Democrats will have adequate attendance, especially considering that John Kerry will not attend and has, in fact, told us all to shut up and take it. John Kerry, go to hell — but this isn’t about John Kerry. It’s about being citizens of the United States of America, and whether that’s going to be anything except an embarrassment.
I have to agree with Freebird and others about Blackwell’s arrogance. Don’t you suppose he may have been given a reason for arrogance, when the Bush campaign stopped in Ohio on election day. Maybe like "stick with us on this one and we will make you the next govenor of Ohio. Sounds reasonable to me, and I’m stickin’ with it.
Chemo,
Please recogitate your bitter stance. I posted this to the previous post (inadvertently in multiples). Please at least consider its validity.
"Oh, for heaven’s (or whatever’s) sake! STOP dumping on John Kerry! He’s doing that difficult tightrope-walk, "what needs to be done," to get this sick system fixed. I do believe subtlety is a thing of the past. No one can read beyond a headline. And absolutely no one trusts an opinion or a philosophical stance that can’t be expressed in ten words or less!
"The man has been an angels’ advocate for longer than most of us have been around (I exclude myself out of honesty). Please hold your firebreathing horses!
"This challenge would have been dead in the water had Kerry declared that he was behind it. Absolutely…dead…in…the…water. I’m ashamed that those of you who voted for him with such "conviction and sincerity" are so ready to turn on him when he is showing the prudence you admired him for. Come on, guys. Aren’t we more intelligent than this?????"
Peg C.,
You ask me to "recogitate [my] bitter stance." But I was often the only person in a place like this that the Falluja massacre was timed as a trap for Kerry. Yes, I understand that Kerry could not raise the challenge, but Kerry has now specifically told people on his e-mail list (which I am not) to shut up and sit down.
Realize what a betrayal that is. John Kerry can’t get put in the White House, so we should shut up, sit down, and accept that our votes don’t count? John Kerry isn’t that important. He isn’t more important than our right to vote and have our votes be counted. People in Ohio didn’t stand out in the cold and rain all day because they were such fans of John Kerry. They stood out there because they wanted a say.
John Kerry is insane if he thinks we should just take it, and help him push for "voting reform." One more "voting reform" and we’ll have the final nail in the coffin.
This is my opinion: John Kerry doesn’t have to sign the challenge, and he needn’t attend the counting, but to tell people that they should shut and sit down is a betrayal.
Paul Wellstone did the same thing to me on the same topic, when I was pushing some issue; I think it was impeaching the Felonious Five. It is not something I’ll easily forget.
First time posting here, been lurking a while.
I received John Kerry’s email, too. But I didn’t see the part where it said "sit down and shut up." Instead, he asked that we use this "opportunity" to demand clean elections. Now, I can’t see what else he can mean but for us to keep making a lot of noise, and use this January 6th opportunity to make our votes count. Which is exactly what we’re going to do.
understandinglife:
Because, what some probably already realize, and more will in the days ahead, a network of citizens has emerged since 2 Nov 2004 who are going to make "We The People…" mean more than it has since those words were first inked.
Count on it.
We will in_DEED prevail.
>>
TOTAL DITTO to that.
When thugs and criminals are at the heart of counting the vote, it is time to shut down the freaking sauna baths where ho-hum "we’ll do something later" bull/rhetoric wafts across the gilded gold tiles to fall on the ears of dead heads.
These DEEDS we are doing, and WILL NEVER STOP doing, will kick some butt and get the truth past the Matrix and into the minds of the americans.
Why did Kerry go to Iraq? If we give him the benefit of the doubt regarding the election challenge, and say he’s playing it "close to the vest," then why add insult to those who have carried the fight since he conceded on Nov. 3?
The only excuse for going to Iraq NOW is the upcoming election there. But for God’s sake (yes, even the Christian right’s God), who cares about the integrity of the Iraq election if our own wasn’t even honest? It looks to me as if Kerry is already running in 2008…I’ll be writing in Ralph Nader.
On the one hand I can understand Kerry’s position as the establishment Democratic candidate. In 1978 I wrote a paper about what I called "The System of Two", where the power brokers of our society actually financed and influenced both the Democratic and Republican candidates. It was for one very good reason, no matter who won…they won!
While they keep us politically and socially polarized as a nation (DIVIDE & CONQUER), as Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives, Christians and Secularists, now Red States and Blue States, their banking, energy, multinational corporate, and military industrial agendas are quietly advanced in the inner sanctums of a bought and paid for Congress and White House. Who then appoint the judges to complete the triangle of control.
Every so often independent minded persons are elected and appointed, but they are a minority in a country that from its inception was controlled by powerful monied interests that fed us bones while they sat at the table to eat steak.
American history has witnessed great injustice and tragedy, and every now and then we’ve also enjoyed great resolve and victories as a people over power. Regardless of their flaws in creating our Constitution, the Founding Fathers knew that the enormous political power, once in the hands of Kings and Queens, and their religions, must never be trusted!
The creation of an independent executive, legislative, and judicial branch of government was expected to oversee and constrain that power. Today’s government exposes the weakness of the original concept when one political party or ideology can come to control all three branches and therefore negate the importance of a system of checks and balances.
But to infiltrate both political parties in a public charade of democratic opposition is to only make effective checks and balances meaningless, the law ineffective, and our rights permanently subject to the tyranny of those with wealth and power who keep us divided to maintain control, regardless of a political minority of well intentioned souls.
There is a better way! To suggest we must merely abide by fraudulent election results. Move on from a second stolen election in the hopes of a political reform long past due, is to continue to entrust our country and future in the "unclean" hands of those whose true loyalty lies elsewhere.
I am under no illusion. The task ahead is arduous and fraught with danger. But we cannot allow the election of November 2, 2004, to stand, even though the very people we entrust with enforcing our laws and protecting our rights seem willing to go on in their own fog and be both silent and complicit in its legitimization.
We must never be satisfied that our control by the law is governed by those who violate it. Nothing can violate our person and property more than our continued sufferage under their tyranny. The electors must not only be challenged, the election must be challenged! If that means challenging the existing government with the right and will of a sovereign independent people…then so be it!
Freebird 🙂
I just read Cameron Kerry’s little blurb about what tough fighters and champions of our Rights they all have been. "Next time" it’s going to ALL be different and ok, they PROMISE.
Codependently, we hear this watered down, fiery sounding, liberal rhetoric every four years. Every time we roll right over in the name of the "lesser of evils." Collectively, we’re like an abused spouse, more afraid of being alone, than the possibility of another beating, even if it means our life.
I’ve been hearing all the justifications since LBJ. I’m done…. and I am not alone. It’s supremely arrogant and self serving for Sen. Kerry to presume, that since no "overturn" of the election can be expected, a contest is a vain pursuit. I have a copy of the Constitution on my Desktop. Perhaps I should forward it to him. Oops, I forgot…. I’m just a citizen; silly me. I should trust all these powerful smart guys to handle the important stuff, eh?