Robert Koehler of Tribune Media Services, one of just a handful of MSM’ers willing to continue the fight for democracy in America, gets it right all over again in tomorrow’s column when he refers to November 2nd, as a “shiv to the gut of democracy.”
Koehler had previously made quite a bit of noise with his now-classic initial column on the matter — the first that we know of in the Mainstream Media, to charge that Election 2004 was “stolen” — and his subsequent columns here, here and here. That last one was spiked by the higher ups at TMS, as we reported some weeks ago, and was never syndicated to TMS member newspapers. (Our radio interview with Koehler on The BRAD SHOW is archived as an MP3 here.)
In his latest column, Koehler recounts the story of a man from Franklin County, Ohio, who had voted at the same precint for 50 years, only to show up last November to find that he was no longer on the voter rolls. “I guess my vote don’t matter anymore,” he was quoted as saying at a hearing before the Franklin County Board of Elections.
Koehler also vows to continue his still-too-lonely fight to correct the greatest domestic threat to democracy this country has seen in…well, perhaps ever.
Here’s an advance look at a couple of key grafs from tomorrow’s piece, penned after returning from the recent Election Reform Conference in Cleveland, most of which will be picked up by very few newspapers most likely, as none of them contain the words “Michael Jackson”:
And this won’t happen until the country’s small-d democrats, who constitute, I am positive, a large if disorganized and overly trusting majority, demand it. Right now they’re in a fog that’s one part denial and 99 parts ignorance.
As Jonathon Alter posits in his must-read NEWSWEEK column this week (really, go read it!) about what would have happened had Watergate occured in today’s Media/Political climate, the current strategy for the apologists on the Right — and a very successful one so far, we might add — is to make enough noise with unsupported claims that eventually “the American people figure both sides [are] just spinning, and a tie always goes to the incumbent.”
If you have any doubt about that strategy, just ask yourself who eventually won the PR battle last year between Bush and Kerry concerning their respective military service during Vietnam.
Echoing that sentiment, Koehler recounts his personal investigation of one such attempt by an emailer from the Right to neutralize the issue of Election Fraud with bogus claims to a level playing field:
This is a comforting stopgap assertion that may preserve complacency, but not only does it fall apart upon examination, it actually reveals what might be the underlying hysteria – Republican fear of riffraff, you might say – that made vote suppression not only widely tolerated but a participatory sport in 2004.
We’ll leave the results of his investigation for him to tell when his column publishes shortly. The entire column will soon be available here.
Thanks for your continued work on behalf of this country, Bob. Glad to see that you’ve vowed to remain on the job! We’ll be right there with you keeping up a fight that is more than worth continuing, no matter how many charlatans are on the beat trying cynically to suppress it.
God bless America by blessing the likes of Bob Koehler!
And along with that bless all the blogosphere dedicated to preserving patriotic journalism (when the government lies expose it, when the government cheats expose it, when the government is corrupt or even possibly could be corrupt expose it) … one blog item at a time.
Go, go, go, Robert Koehler.
We just have to keep hammering away. What choice do we have–give up, and let the maniacs win?
Robert, stay on the attack. We’ll keep agitating here in the trenches. I just bought a copy of the new Fitrakis book on the stolen ’04 election to send to Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, who e-mailed me that he believes the Dems were simply "outworked on the ground in Ohio."
I’ll send him Koehler’s column, too…
This is a very, very important observation, Brad.
Part of winning a rhetorical battle is understanding the unspoken assumptions behind an opponent’s argument. As Koehler found, Republicans believe that Democrats cheat and that they are therefore justified in cheating in return. In tearing apart that argument, one has to understand the following:
(1) There is fraud by voters. People who vote twice, felons who vote in states where that’s banned, and so on. Both side do engage in that. It’s rare. It’s a crime. It’s not the same as tampering with the ballots of others.
(2) There used to be "machine-voting" (highly organized political efforts) that would be called fraud nowadays. The Republicans created a myth around the 1960 election in which they tell themselves that Richard Nixon didn’t lose, that Daley’s Chicago machine cheated. Of course, they forget that Kennedy would have won without Illinois and that investigations of Illinois did not turn up organized or extensive fraud.
(3) Republicans have repeatedly made allegations of fraud. NOT ONE HAS HELD UP UNDER CLOSE SCRUTINY. Nixon-Kennedy, allegations of fraud in Milwaukee in 2000, the Gregoire case in Washington, etc. On the other hand, Democrats have made allegations of widespread fraud only in 2000 and 2004. They have been denied investigations. To the extent allegations have been investigated, they have generally been supported (e.g. Conyers).
Republicans live with a world view of upper middle class civilization being overwhelmed by "the lesser sorts." They assume that the Central American waiters and the African American maids they cheat will want to steal from and cheat them. It’s very difficult to persuade them otherwise, because they *know* they are guilty.
And so they make little old ladies who don’t have driver’s licenses jump through hoops if they want to vote. In the Deep South, they make felons who have served their time and are trying to become responsible members of society cringe and beg for rights that the law grants them.
On and on, they whittle a vote here and a vote there until only their own remain.
I thank you for putting this info out to your readers – I will be making phone calls, sending emails, and following up on this. The truth cannot be suppressed forever, and what happened in Ohio last November will eventually become known.
But it will take folks like yourself to stay on the trail. I think that the key to Ohio is Blackwell, and the Toledo Blade is doing a helluva job looking into the countless smelly ops that went on, and are still going on, in that state. Follow the money.
Good job. Keep up the good work, as I know you will.
Saying there was fraud on both sides doesn’t mean the fraud evened out. But we should be willing to allow for the likelihood that Democrat fraud did exist, if only to remove the issue from partisanship.
The exit poll discrepancies prove the case that the fraud didn’t even out, and that Kerry won the election.
The Jonathon Alter article you link to Brad is just too much. Spot on!
Fraud on both sides? Okay, show your evidence. We’ve got the Conyers report, what do the Repubs have?
Investigate all claims! Oh, and reveal the exit poll information.
(remember the t.v. show, The Prisoner, from the 60s?)
"I’m a man, not a number." — #6 of 6 or 7
The Atler article almost brought tears to my eyes. Not because I haven’t read things similar on the internet, but because it is is Newsweek. And well written.
Also, I think Bushco is scared shitless. Evidence: The Blair/Bush press conference, and–all in in the same week–whistleblower info Bushco altering scientific reports on global warming. Yayyyy!!!
To Colleen: the Bushies, scared shitless? I wish you were right, but I would say "mildly annoyed and ready to breathe hellfire on all who would dare smite them" is more accurate.
Remember, they control the media. They control the House. They control the Senate. They control the judiciary. They control the vote counting. The only thing they do not currently control is the internet. This, too, will change.
They have nothing to be scared of. Really, we can bitch and moan all we want; we’re ants. Come ’06 they will further trample us into submission.
There will be no congressional inquiry into Downing Street Minutes, and even if there was, the conclusion is foregone. There will be no special investigator. Those are gone, too. The appointment of Janice Rogers-Brown to the DC circuit court today further sealed the Republican lock on power, since it is this court that would appoint any special investigators into Bush misdoings. With Rogers-Brown’s appointment the Republicans now have a 5-4 majority on that court. The fix was in all along, folks.
And the Dems still don’t get it. But they’re going to…
I’m moving.
Kerry! Ohio! ’04.
Never surrender! Never surrender! Never surrender!
What if we contacted our Representatives and Senators and said we would NOT vote in the next election. Why bother if the votes are not counted accurately. Tell them that until all voters are assured of an accurate vote, we will not donate or support them in any way. Would that sway any congresspeople to apply energy to fixing the problems?
jIM cIRILE #2 Wonderful idea … sending Alter the Fitrakis book.
Hey, we all have blind spots and we can do friendly gestures as you have done … and be open to friendly gestures from others. Friendly gestures beats "friendly fire"!
Great stuff Brad! Here’s a link to an article on Optical Scan hacking. No matter what you think of Bev Harris, this is astounding.
http://www.opednews.com/cardina...g_machines.htm
Optical Scan is what we used in Wisconsin. I know it’s not college kids slashing tire’s, but I think it’s newsworthy! Frankly speaking
In a post in another thread on this blog (link here) I point out that serious crimes have been public knowledge but congress has failed to act upon that knowledge.
I mentioned lynchings of the ’50’s being similar … in terms of dealing with that phenomenon … to impeachment process today. Impeachable offences are being ignored.
It is the 50th anniversary of one of the famous lynchings. Some prosecutors dug up an old body and have just now reburied it (link here).
These were flagrant wrongs done decades after the civil war.
Congress is on notice that the impeacheable offences that it is now ignoring will come back to haunt it. The article says:
"the U.S. Senate readies a formal apology for the decades when it failed to act against the crimes."
Like it is failing to act now about a president lying to it and the american people, a vice president doing the same, a secretary of defense doing the same, and a national security official doing the same.
Yep … these stories will be exhumed and will condemn the complicity as an utter lack of integrity.
And unlike the lynching days when the MSM was patriotic and exposed the crimes, these days they cover up the crimes. Their utter lack of integrity will be exposed in the future as well.
Like the Freeway Blogger says: "Somebody tell the media …" as Koeler is doing and has vowed to continue to do.
Glad Koehler’s still on it. If you don’t have time to read the Newseek article, Tom Tomorrow hilariously covers the same territory this week:
http://www.workingforchange.com...m?itemid=19157
Re: Election Fraud –
HEY! Have y’all seen this?
Kaptur alerts colleagues of unfolding scandal
Brown says illegalities put presidential election in question
Is it possible it’s finally getting attention???
I’m almost afraid to hope.
Sorry, hit return too early.
What I meant to highlight is the comment:
"I think the George Bush campaign raised a lot of illegal money in Ohio," Mr. Brown said. "That puts the election in some question. I know these people stop at nothing and I know their incompetence kept a significant number of people from getting to vote."
Is it possible that THIS will be the way to start the ball rolling to finally get election fraud in Ohio the attention it deserves?
It’s feally a lucky break, Kestrel. It just so happens that Ohio was fraud central in 2004, meanwhile an unrelated scandal regarding $50 million in gold coins that Noe sold to the Ohio Workmen’s Compensation Fund (and was then allowed to manage for the fund as a fiduciary) popped up. $13 million of the $50 million is "missing."
Noe is a big G.O.P. fundraiser. Bush was forced to return Noe’s contribution to Bush/Cheney ’04 in light of the growing scandal. Gov. Taft has been sounding holier-than-thou about how awful this all is, yet it turns out his office was informed about it IN OCTOBER, BEFORE THE ELECTION, and did nothing. Taft’s office now says he didn’t know the details.
Is this important? It might be. If it can be shown that the governor of Ohio suppressed news of a financial scandal involving a Bush fundraiser, weeks before the election, I’d say it’s more than enough for a class-action lawsuit (what’s your take, Dredd?), and might be grounds to impeach Taft.
At a minimum, if this had made the papers in Ohio in October, Kerry would have carried the state no matter how many votes the G.O.P. stole. Marcy Kaptur and Sherrod Brown are real fighters, in the Conyers/Barbara Boxer/Stephanie Tubbs Jones mold, so this won’t die a natural death like so many other stories have.
RLM #19 You asked what is my take.
I would say that this is the type of criminal activity where impeachment is not the process involved.
A direct criminal indictment is in order and is the best process. Both state and federal. An independent prosecutor is in order however that is not required to get the ball rolling.
The governor, and other state officials, would be forced to resign and defend in criminal court.
The whistleblowers would tell the story that he knew and made a conscious choice to go along with the transfer of funds and or coins into the hands of campaign organs. The presidential campaign headed up and commanded by Blackwell.
And if they would do that, which is traceable in the sense it is not "deniable", why the hell could anyone doubt they would do something "untraceable", such as rigging the voting machines that have no paper trail?
This is a story that can link the whole criminal enterprise into the one sewer it is in.
Come on bloggers … we gotta rock the world with this one!
Congratulations to STEVE EDER of the Toledo Blade for being someone to tell the media!
Kes #17-18
This quote from the article you linked, "Dan Allen, a spokesman for Mr. DeLay, responded yesterday: ‘The Democrats would like nothing more than to focus on these partisan attacks and ignore the fact that they have become the party of no ideas, no solutions, and no agenda.’"
The Republicans have become the party of Rotten ideas, Rotten solutions and Rotten agenda.
Hammer on that.
Assuming the missing $13 million in coins was diverted to the Bush/Cheney campaign (I think it’s equally possible it was simply purloined and laundered offshore by someone who is now retired and living in the Cayman Islands), the historical precedents are Teapot Dome (Harding, 1923) and the Whiskey Ring (Grant, 1875).
In both cases monies belonging to the public (Navy Department in 1923, general revenues from liquor taxes in 1875) was diverted to Republican party coffers by people who worked for the party itself while holding public servant positions. These two scandals are largely responsible for Grant and Harding being the two lowest-rated presidents in American history by most historians.
Move over, Ulysses and Warren. Here comes George. One warning, though…when these scandals first appeared, the public shot the messengers, who were derided as "assassins of character" and "scandalmongerers." It’s still going to take time. But every day, Coingate looks more and more like a possibly fatal one for Bush and Co.