Home > Kerry Won. Here are the Facts.

Kerry Won. Here are the Facts.

by Open-Publishing - Friday 5 November 2004
84 comments

Elections-Elected USA

Kerry Won. Here are the Facts.

Thursday, November 4, 2004

Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided-known as “spoilage” in election jargon-because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Drawing on what happened in Florida and studies of elections past, Palast argues that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots. So far there’s no indication that Palast’s hypothesis will be tested because only the provisional ballots are being counted.

Kerry won. Here’s the facts.

I know you don’t want to hear it. You can’t face one more hung chad. But I don’t have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it’s my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN’s exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio’s male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what’s going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don’t ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don’t know.

Here’s why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

 http://www.tompaine.com/articles/an_election_...

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I’m sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.

The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don’t you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.

Whose Votes Are Discarded?

And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts. (To learn more, click here.)

 http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/...

We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn’t match the official count. That’s because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn’t punched through completely-leaving a ’hanging chad,’-or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks. (To read the report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, click here.)

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2004/ready/ready04.pdf

And here’s the key: Florida is terribly typical. The majority of ballots thrown out (there will be nearly 2 million tossed out from Tuesday’s election) will have been cast by African American and other minority citizens.

So here we go again. Or, here we don’t go again. Because unlike last time, Democrats aren’t even asking Ohio to count these cards with the not-quite-punched holes (called "undervotes" in the voting biz). Nor are they demanding we look at the "overvotes" where voter intent may be discerned.

Ohio is one of the last states in America to still use the vote-spoiling punch-card machines. And the Secretary of State of Ohio, J. Kenneth Blackwell, wrote before the election, “the possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state’s primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity.”

But this week, Blackwell, a rabidly partisan Republican, has warmed up to the result of sticking with machines that have a habit of eating Democratic votes. When asked if he feared being this year’s Katherine Harris, Blackwell noted that Ms. Fix-it’s efforts landed her a seat in Congress.

Exactly how many votes were lost to spoilage this time? Blackwell’s office, notably, won’t say, though the law requires it be reported. Hmm. But we know that last time, the total of Ohio votes discarded reached a democracy-damaging 1.96 percent. The machines produced their typical loss-that’s 110,000 votes-overwhelmingly Democratic.

The Impact Of Challenges

First and foremost, Kerry was had by chads. But the Democrat wasn’t punched out by punch cards alone. There were also the ’challenges.’ That’s a polite word for the Republican Party of Ohio’s use of an old Ku Klux Klan technique: the attempt to block thousands of voters of color at the polls. In Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, the GOP laid plans for poll workers to ambush citizens under arcane laws-almost never used-allowing party-designated poll watchers to finger individual voters and demand they be denied a ballot. The Ohio courts were horrified and federal law prohibits targeting of voters where race is a factor in the challenge. But our Supreme Court was prepared to let Republicans stand in the voting booth door.

In the end, the challenges were not overwhelming, but they were there. Many apparently resulted in voters getting these funky "provisional" ballots-a kind of voting placebo-which may or may not be counted. Blackwell estimates there were 175,000; Democrats say 250,000. Pick your number. But as challenges were aimed at minorities, no one doubts these are, again, overwhelmingly Democratic. Count them up, add in the spoiled punch cards (easy to tally with the human eye in a recount), and the totals begin to match the exit polls; and, golly, you’ve got yourself a new president. Remember, Bush won by 136,483 votes in Ohio.

Enchanted State’s Enchanted Vote

Now, on to New Mexico, where a Kerry plurality-if all votes are counted-is more obvious still. Before the election, in TomPaine.com, I wrote, "John Kerry is down by several thousand votes in New Mexico, though not one ballot has yet been counted."

How did that happen? It’s the spoilage, stupid; and the provisional ballots.

CNN said George Bush took New Mexico by 11,620 votes. Again, the network total added up to that miraculous, and non-existent, ’100 percent’ of ballots cast.

New Mexico reported in the last race a spoilage rate of 2.68 percent, votes lost almost entirely in Hispanic, Native American and poor precincts-Democratic turf. From Tuesday’s vote, assuming the same ballot-loss rate, we can expect to see 18,000 ballots in the spoilage bin.

Spoilage has a very Democratic look in New Mexico. Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry, are five times as likely to have their vote spoil as a white voter. Counting these uncounted votes would easily overtake the Bush ’plurality.’

Already, the election-bending effects of spoilage are popping up in the election stats, exactly where we’d expect them: in heavily Hispanic areas controlled by Republican elections officials. Chaves County, in the "Little Texas" area of New Mexico, has a 44 percent Hispanic population, plus African Americans and Native Americans, yet George Bush "won" there 68 percent to 31 percent.

I spoke with Chaves’ Republican county clerk before the election, and he told me that this huge spoilage rate among Hispanics simply indicated that such people simply can’t make up their minds on the choice of candidate for president. Oddly, these brown people drive across the desert to register their indecision in a voting booth.

Now, let’s add in the effect on the New Mexico tally of provisional ballots.

"They were handing them out like candy," Albuquerque journalist Renee Blake reported of provisional ballots. About 20,000 were given out. Who got them?

Santiago Juarez who ran the "Faithful Citizenship" program for the Catholic Archdiocese in New Mexico, told me that "his" voters, poor Hispanics, whom he identified as solid Kerry supporters, were handed the iffy provisional ballots. Hispanics were given provisional ballots, rather than the countable kind "almost religiously," he said, at polling stations when there was the least question about a voter’s identification. Some voters, Santiago said, were simply turned away.

Your Kerry Victory Party

So we can call Ohio and New Mexico for John Kerry-if we count all the votes.

But that won’t happen. Despite the Democratic Party’s pledge, the leadership this time gave in to racial disenfranchisement once again. Why? No doubt, the Democrats know darn well that counting all the spoiled and provisional ballots will require the cooperation of Ohio’s Secretary of State, Blackwell. He will ultimately decide which spoiled and provisional ballots get tallied. Blackwell, hankering to step into Kate Harris’ political pumps, is unlikely to permit anything close to a full count. Also, Democratic leadership knows darn well the media would punish the party for demanding a full count.

What now? Kerry won, so hold your victory party. But make sure the shades are down: it may be become illegal to demand a full vote count under PATRIOT Act III.

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure-a second time-to count all the votes, that won’t be necessary. My country has left me.

Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper’s magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television’s Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, is out on DVD .

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php

Forum posts

  • This entire article is unsupported speculation and fabrication. It is further evidence that Democrats and so-called progressives are in a deep state of denial bordering on the delusional.

    The entire premise rests on the nutty idea that discarded ballots should be counted. Discarded ballots have NEVER been counted in any election. Why should they be in this one? To make Greg Palast happy?

    As a former "progressive" who has had the scales lifted from my eyes, I have to say that the present course of the left in America is leading straight toward utter alienation, rejection, and failure.

    There are bound to be a lot of tears shed once reality sets in among my former friends.

    • The only people dumber than Bush, are those that voted for him...

    • someone has to decide what ballots to discard, dude. I think that is the issue. And since you are so certain from your "ex-progressive" viewpoint of no voting irregularities that do not not track within the long line of america’s tadition of vote tampering and outright theft - you recall Jim Crow, yes? - then how do you explain how more votes were cast in precincts with a smaller number of voters? 4,000 extra unregistered voters inone Franklin County precinct in Ohio, you know where the Sec of State is an rabid right winger funded by the CEO of Diebold.

      http://www.franklincountyohio.gov/boe/04UnofficialResults/Unofficial%20Abstract%20of%20Votes%20General%202004.pdf

      We don’t have a smoking gun but we are very suspicious. And by the looks of it, we would need to have two smoking guns to please the likes of you.

    • Democraps are such sore losers. Bwaaaaaa Haaaaaaa Haaaaaaaaaa

    • Cry baby sissy.
      Exit polls aren’t acurate.
      Exit pollsters showed a higher female demographic base.
      Exit polls are biased and liberally controlled.
      Popular vote for Bush was 3.5 million more than for Kerry. How do you account for that?
      286 electoral votes to how few for Kerry?
      Maybe you should move to France like all of the Hollywood Stars said they would after the election in 2000 if Bush won then...like the Baldwin brothers. Hey, come to think of it. The Baldwin brothers are doing so well under Bush’s Presidency that they now have a financial company...Lime Financial. Go figure. Go Bush!

    • You’re calling someone dumb when you likely did not attend college, certainly not Yale. Calling someone dumb who has reached the levels that George Bush has is beyond stupid. You’re the dumb one here.

    • IF IF IF. IF pigs had wings they could fly. I feel sorry for the delusional Democracts. Bush won without Ohio. Quit bellyaching and crying like babies.

    • You don’t need to attend Yale to be smart...look at George Bush..how many businesses has he ruined, how many partnerships has he dissolved...I went to UC Irvine...I’ll be attending law school next year...I consider myself intelligent...you want to argue that the majority of red states have college educated versus the west and east coast states...you think the population of Indiana or Alabama has more college educated or even high school educated students than New York, Vermont or California....why would you make an assumption of who is educated and who is not based on someone’s disagreement with you...I won’t call you dumb, just ignorant, and yes, there is a difference. You make the assumption that the quality of education is less important than the institution...perhaps you did not attend college, or perhaps one does not have to attend college to have an honest, open, intelligent conversation. You give me the reasons Bush is not wrong for this country, make me believe it, make a 10 year old believe it, and I’ll give you the benefit, however misguided you may be. Cheating in elections does not equate to not being dumb or being intelligent, it just means Karl Rove will do anything to get his party in power, it means Karl Rove is a master of deception, it means the Republican Party is better organized, it doesn’t mean Bush is not dumb or that he is intelligent...we need only to look at his IQ, which I believe is lower than his father’s, no surprise. But let’s look further, and study his life’s accomplishments, his connections and his booze party days, not to mention all the cocaine that killed his brain cells. I dare you to hold a 5 minute conversation with me, and define "dumb."

    • Wow, just what the world needs. Another elitist, pompous, long-winded, bias, myopic lawyer.

      Cheating? What are you talking about! Are you using Palast’s facts to discerne the cheating accusation? Wow (again), all the best to you and your misguided "lawyering".

      PS. YOU may not be dumb, but you certainly are dense.

    • I SWEAR TO GOD ALMIGTY, I am SO SICK of the WHINEY REPUBLICANS using the same, tired "Democats are SORE LOSERS" schtick.

    • But it’s true! (At least the ones that I know.)

    • you’re still a dumbass

    • Dear west coast doesn’t have a clue,

      The democrats will likely never win another presidential election. Wait until you run Hilliary.
      The whole country willbe red except of course Calif. which the rest of the country would be willing to cast off in the the pacific.

    • That is true Bush really is smart. So maybe you can explain why he got turned down from Texas? The only reason he got into Yale was his father, and I think everyone knows that. Actually, I think it is safe to say the only reason he has had any success is his father.

    • But it’s not. Now sore winners, on the other hand...are like elephants on parade..

    • California (and the rest of the Blue states) would welcome leaving the RED MIDDLE states that voted (or rigged the electronic vote machines) for Bush. Southern Republicans are direct descendants of southern Democrats and Dixie-crats, the last remaining member being Zell Miller. These are the same folks who wouldn’t let Condoleezza Rice’s father register to vote. They should change their name to the White Nationalist Party of the United State. Lincoln’s big mistake was in fighting the War Between the States. If he had let them secede, Bush could be head plantation master of the Confederacy, Condoleezza would be his concubine, and the United States of America would be a better place to live. As is, the Blue states get back only 75 cents of every dollar we send to the Federal Government in order to subsidize the rest of red state slackers!

    • Oh, I didn’t know you knew my friends. Who’s the sore loser/winner?

    • Do you have a job???

    • "Exit polls are biased and liberally controlled. "

      Where do you get information to make a rediculous statement like that?

    • Alright, so you seem to know what is a fact and what is not.... The fact is not that discarded ballots were counted or not...the fact is that provisional ballots were given to people that were already registered at that location and did not merit a provisional ballot. Then when the provisional ballots were supposed to be checked for whether or not the voter was registered-they were thrown out. Look it up, dont just discredit this cite. Go online, to an objective cite, to a non-partisan cite. Look at all the allegations having to do with ballots, Bush being a lier, and just the whole election in its entirety. Then come back and call everyone a lier again! that will just solve everything.
      And because you have had the "scales lifted from your eyes" means that you are better off as a conservative or what. You say that the left in America is leading to alienation, rejection and failure...?
      ok, except the fact that it is the right wing-facists that are in control in this country, leading our economy down the sewer, forcing their morals onto the entire country(FREE COUNTRY?), and causing all the death and destruction that is currently happening. Alienation, rejection and failure. So the republicans that alienated against democrats for their morals, rejected their vote, and failed to let every American have his/her vote count are not the ones creating the problem in the first place.
      Please explain how the left in America is doing what you say it is doing. Cause i am moderate, see many conservatives views and morals in my own eyes, and also see many liberal views too. And the way it looks no one is headed towards anything at all. It is the lying, the badgering, and the conflict between the right and the left that is causing this country to fall apart. I blame it on democrats and republicans. Everyone is so caught up in their own well-being and their own morals, that they think that is what is right for the rest on the country.

    • I just got back from:
      http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos//results/11-02-04.htm
      It shows the vote totals for the State of Ohio. Franklin county had 845,720 Registered Voters of these 515,472 voted and another 14,446 Provisional Ballots where issued.

      I do not see where there is a problem.

      Red island in a sea of Claifornia Blue. sigh

    • We will see just how smart Bush is in the coming months. He has a terriable crises to face and his place in history will depend on just how he handles these crises. He has a terriable tract record.. The deficiate is 3 billion and rising daily. Our Health care system just don’t work. Our Social Security is being used to fight Bush’s war Right now, Japan and China own us We are loosing our young men in an unjustified war.. It is costing more and more to educate our young people, while we build schools and healthcare for a nation, after destroying thiers. (They were better educated before Bush invaded them and set them "FREE’). I believe in the same God as Bush. I pray to him daily. He has failed to reveal he has chosen Bush even if Bush claims to be God’s chosen.

      To All of you gloating in the aftermath of the election. Be careful of what you ask for and get.
      It may come bak to bit you in the butt.

    • How far past the sscond grade did you get. The word is track record. the 3 billion deficit is not spelled deficiate. Maybe you meant defecate. Hard to take you very seriously given your level of intelligence. Also it is losing not loosing. I guess we didn’t spend enough educating you.

    • Of course the Democrats will never win another election, the Republican vote counters will make sure of that. My advice to the Democrats is just say no to voting....let the 25% Christian right have the government, they already do....you can’t beat them so why not just go with it and help get "Separation of Church and State" removed from the constitution so that we can officially be a theocracy in title as well as in reality...let us go for honesty and stop being a closet Christian nation....rather than wasting time contesting the election results to your "representatives", tell them you want them to sponsor a bill to remove "Separation of Church and State" officially from the constitution and relieve us from the phony voting process.....

    • Here in Blue state of Massachusetts, the anger over another rigged election is growing. The Confederacy is resurgent in National politics, and Washington is under Red control as it has been for the last three and a half years. The party of racist, war mongering, homophobes has a strangle hold on the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, the White House. Our media is no better. Since Reagen got rid of the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting, our media landscape has come to be dominated by Rupert Murdoch and other " Pioneers" of radical right thought. There is no liberal media in the U.S. Our so-called loyal opposition, the Democrats, have folded like a wet paper bag. Kerry tells us all in his concession speech to unify and support the same Simian who he crititicized and derided for months on the Campaign trial.
      Feckless and empty, Kerry, the Establishment Skull and Bones candidate, did as he was told for the benefit of the system. Spineless, and not wishing to truly count all the votes ( as his running mate John Edwards promised ), Kerry took down his blog, not wishing to support any voices questioning the confidence in accuracy of voting methods.
      This Blue Stater will not listen to Kerry. I did not , do not and will not support Gov. Bush. To the extent Kerry and other centrist/moderate Democrats support Bush and his meglomaniacal, religiously inspired mass murder, I also deride them. Their support of Bush foreign policy was the kiss of death for their campaign. Computerized voting and Catholic Bishops did the rest. A pox on all their houses. Terry McCauliffe of the Democratic National Committee, are you listening???? Probably not. That is why you derailed Howard Dean, right ?
      Secession now in the Disunited States!!!!!

      — -Edison Carter

      somagcc@blogharbor.com

    • Its great isn’t it.

    • FACT: Bush won the popular vote.

      FACT: Bush won the electoral vote.

      FACT: Republicans picked up seats in the Senate and House.

      FACT: Liberals are whining, snivelling, crybaby losers whose heroes are Dan Rather, Lawrence (LIAR!!!!) O’Donnell, Peter Jennings, Bill (oh, that feels so good Monica!!) Clinton, Maureen (even though I am stupid, don’t I look pretty?) Dowd, and Yaser Arafat. Your candidates have lost - get some better candidates with some better ideas for your country’s future, and you might win an election sometime. Until then, try to learn how to lose with some semblance of dignity instead of wailing into the night like that liberal mama’s boy panty-waist who never got himself a real job, Lawrence O’Donnell. You ALL sound so pathetic.

  • The loony left has definitely become deranged.

    Even if the spoiled discarded votes and provisional votes were counted, what makes you think that the majority of those votes would be for Kerry? Bush still has a lead of 140,000 votes to add on top of his share of these discarded/provisional votes. The actual count of provisional votes were less than Bush’s lead.

    Those exit polls are meaningless and their totally wrong conclusions have made the media and polltakers a laughingstock. They must only have polled in heavily democratic areas nor do they take into account that republicans vote later in the day as a family event.

    As for new mexico, I find it laughable that hispanics have a spoilage rate of two to one. What makes you think hispanics are twice as stupid? Where’s the proof? Even if that were true, you can’t blame the republicans for their stupidity.

    I am not surprised that this guy wrote for the Guardian, it reeks of moronic delusion.

    • It’s quite simple. The most defective methods of voting (punch cards, very old machines, etc.) wind up in precincts and districts that are overwhelmingly Democratic. It has nothing to do with the ability of the voters.

    • What you said is all hearsay. Where’s the proof?

    • Palast seems understand the definition of "facts" the same as Michael Moore. His "facts" are blatant assumptions at best.

      And by the way, although it is evident in my words, I didn’t tell the exit pollster who I voted for, that’s my business.

      OK, by the way again, punch card machines are effective and reliable if properly used. With all the buzz in 2000, there is no excuse for "undervotes", c’mon now.

    • i dont think it matters if the uncounted and thrown out votes would have made Kerry win. The fact is that Bush cheated. It does not matter if the difference is not enough to make Kerry win, it does not matter if you think democrats are sore losers. Democrats are not sore losers...were talking about the election of the highest authority American to stand for us all. It is not being a sore loser for democrats to get mad at Bush cheating and democratic votes being thrown out. This is the most important vote we have that we are talking about, and i hardly see democrats as sore losers, especially after Bush cheated in 2000, and there are now current invstigations into republican tampering of votes, voter intimidation, provisional ballots being wrongly administered to those who were registered correctly for a regular ballot, absentee ballots being thrown out, and racial descriminatioin of voters. If Kerry won, and there were investigations going on the republicans would do the same thing and they would have every right to. Hello FREE COUNTRY! stop calling the kettle black and admit that our president cheated 2 times now, and that is just unacceptable. I cheated once to become class president in 6th grade...you know what they did, they suspended me and did not let me be president. Now we are talking about the president of the United States...a lot more important. How immature and stupid is Bush if he is going to cheat to get into power? Clearly the republicans are scared of being the sore losers, so they have to put all the blame and name calling on the democrats and call them the sore losers.

  • CNN’s exist poll Ohio shows that Bush won the male vote 52% to 47% and a tie in the women’s vote.

    http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/OH/P/00/index.html

  • You are wrong in your "facts" sir. Since those are shown to be wrong just by checking CNN’s own website, the rest of your article based on "facts" is laughable...

    http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/OH/P/00/epolls.0.html

    VOTE BY GENDER (Ohio Exit Poll)
                 BUSH KERRY 
    Male (47%)   52% 47% 
    Female (53%) 50% 50% 
    • Bush twisted the facts, lied and cheated to win senate votes for war. When caught red handed he simply changed his reason for doing it as gods will. What on Earth makes any of you think he wouldn’t have his satanic born again freaks tweak the cheat states? How can u justify throwing out any votes because of a hanging chad unless your part of some sick evil? Or allow this electronic vote with out back up designed by repbulicans that can be hacked and was for 3 hours on voting night. Gee i wonder who gave them the incryption codes to hack in?
      Bush’s antics have not only destroyed the US but the world connection as well.
      Well done America.
      Revolution time ya think???ahh ya...

    • Wow, you are really obsessed with your conspiracy theories. Someone needs to realize how great our country is and no one is out to "get you". We live in a greatly rational, well-balanced and kind society (no matter Rep or Dem) that experiences the overstated fringe waves of delusion, as laid out in your original comment. So please just calm down.

    • you lefties will grasp at anything to say you won, face it, your the minority all across the country. YOU LOST BIG, now go crawl back under those rocks you been hiding under.

      you say bush twisted the facts, lied and cheated for senate votes for war, they all had the same intelligence and thats what they voted on, your liberal candidate even said he would have voted for invasion with or without WMD’s, that sure did piss off the Dem’s after Mr Flip Flop was saying wrong war, wrong time, big mistake, no armor, and it’s all bush’s fault, but his own words and senate votes said otherwise.

      Democrats dead in the political arena:
      Gore
      Kerry
      Edwards
      who will be the next dem to fall ??

    • What are you on. Try your spell check next time, also

    • you ever notice how democrats are rational in what they say to republicans and are going off facts, reasoning and logic that points to Bush being a complete idiot and having stolen the election.
      Republicans all act like if Bush lost they would not be complaining right now. Yeah right!!! If Bush lost so many people would be freaking out, and as usual blaming it on the democrats. So no matter what it is the democrats fault. now i admit that some democrats are ignorant and stupid...but the fact is Bush did cheat in 2000, and he most likely cheated in ’04 too. So what is wrong with democrats raising their hand and asking if our president really did win? Huh? seriously...it is a free country, and when democrats already know he cheated, he lied about Iraq, hell he lied about almost everything...and they try to tell republicans he lied. Then they call democrats whiners that make stuff up and go off of suspicion as if the democrats are out to get the republicans and get a dirty democrat in the office. Democrats are trying to tell republicans that there is a bad president if office now, and it is ok for them to vote him out-you dont have to be devoted to him, it is not a hurt on your ego for us to call him a lier. just realize the truth, use your logic and make sense of what has happened.

    • umm...yeah...how great our country is. So our country is great when we are killing 1000’s of innocent Iraqis because our president cheated his way into office? what an amazing country! ha!
      i am tired of over-patriotic people that try to make America out as so great, the land of the free and brave. Well what happened to that freedom when democratic votes were being thrown out...and no i am not going off of Palast, or whatever you guys call him, i have not really checked out this cite...i am going off of facts. Go to a database!yes a database. One that is based on data, and facts. #s and words that tell us who lied, who cheated, and etc.
      This is not a rational society...how is it rational when there are investigations on the votes being thrown out in Ohio? A senator just announced over the radio( that is where i heard it, i am not sure where else it was) that there was ballot tampering and provisional ballots being thrown out...and guess what-the ballots where democrat. so no one is being a whiney cry baby, no one is being a sore loser. People are just expressing their FREEDOMS in this oh so great country, and double checking that their vote counted. Espsecially when they have reasonable suspicion and know that the 2000 election was stolen by Bush already.

    • I’m willing to buy you a one way ticket out of here if you promise never to come back

    • CNN is soooo trustworthy arent they.HAHAHAHAHAHA

    • Nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing left to loose.
      Nope, I reject your offer to "buy you a one way ticket out of here if you promise never to come back". I don’t owe you a thing. I’ll just bide my time IN YOUR FACE and we’ll see how far you prevail. You do not have the majority at your back. Sore Winner!

    • Whoa, the boat is rocking in those waves of delusion again!

      So this country isn’t great?? Why because we chose to topple a maniacal dictator that invaded countries and tested nerve gas on his own people??? Would you rather live under a society laden with that type of fear? Fear that you could be the next to be tortured or gassed for no apparent reason, other than ethnicity. Please, I dare you to move into such a situation.

      Cheated his way into office . . . what are you talking about? What proof is there of any cheating? Show me (or guide me) to the facts (mind you, not all databases are populated with facts) that you reference. If you are referring to voting irregularities, get real. Any system is not 100% perfect and bound to have problems, but when the sample size is as large as 100M, the problems are minuscule and do not effect the end result.

      This is a great country for many reasons, some including; the millions of aid and support we provide to the needy countries of the world; the freedoms each and every citizen (and even non-citizen) can enjoy to follow their dreams without much, if any, obstruction; the relentless pursuit of liberating people who don’t "live" out of fear on a daily basis; the ability to demonstrate and express your viewpoints in a peaceful manner without oppression. If these points do not enlighten you that this country is great, then I believe you are a lost cause, so bound by your inability to open your mind to the reality of the true Greatness of this country.

      I second the ticket to where ever you want to go (as long as you stay there for good) And if your not a US resident, please stay where ever you are.

    • Its lose, dumbass not loose. Loose is your wife’s morals

    • What do you mean we don’t have the majority at out back. We do and the gap will only widen as the democratic party goes the way of the Whig party.

    • ooo oh, one typo and you stab a sexist insult at my wife! No wonder Americans who disembark the cruise ship and actually travel abroad pose as Canadians for personal security, it’s too dangerous to be associated with the oafish, mongrel likes of you. We know Bushites desire W’s style, he is their celebrity. Com’ on, we know you want to be just exactly like him in every way, sit on those gold couches, own servents, jet around on a whim, play with the puppy, say whatever you want, no repercussions... except that part where people die... hey, that’s the price somebody pays ’cause you’re livin’ large, yo’ da PreSiDente.

      Lord, look at the time!
      Dereliction of duty Xians, get out there and Xmas shop, you have an economy to recover!

    • I mean Bushites are not the Majority. W is Pres, by whatever means necessary, hellfire and brimstone, fear, darkness, terror, lights out, color alerts, airline industry collapse, planes falling from the sky, Enron, Halliburton, lying, cheating, stealing, idiocy, ignorance, disease, pestilence, bribes, famine and war.
      The Majority abide within a system of full accountibility. Bush is not trustworthy. Bush is no friend of the Majority. Our nation is infighting. While dividing our country, alienating our allies, and playing monopoly games, el Presidente Bush has managed to unite the Arab world. What’s in it for you?

    • Where were you in the summer of ’91 when US survellience exposed Kurdish genocide by the defeated "maniacal dictator"? We, some of, the People petitioned, pleaded and protested our Executive Officer #41, President ’Daddy’ Bush to charge Saddam with war crimes or at very least step in with humanitarian relief. We had battleships in the region and fullon military readiness. For you youngin’s ref: OPERATION DESERT STORM 1/91 Daddy Bush was not moved. Were you paying attention? Or only now concerned because in a twisted way you think 13 years later that espisode somehow supports W’s cause? Next, Saddam won reelection by 100% Praise Allah, 100% of the poll, even by the Women whom vote in Iraq. How did he do that? wondered the Republicans ....

      PS. we did provide funeral expenses, UN morticians, mass burials.

  • "Hispanic voters in the Enchanted State, who voted more than two to one for Kerry"
    — Oops. WRONG AGAIN. Those pesky exit polls how otherwise.

    http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/NM/P/00/epolls.0.html

  • Not sure about Ohio, but in WI our ballots are pretty simple. You have a marker, and a check box.

    However, IF you fill in the party block vote: All dem, or all Rep, THEN go down and start voting for individuals your vote is spoiled. Even if all your individual votes match your ’block’ vote.
    Not counted.

    Honest to God, I know a lot of people who made this mistake. I can only imagine that there were others who made the same mistake.
    I almost filled the block vote out myself, not liking the ’empty’ check box.

  • So, I assume the same took place during the Bush and Clinton election. The only fare election is when a democrat wins, please!!!

    • Without Question! Clinton did it too, they ALL DID! Perhaps we all need a historic perspective:

      http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_2_35/ai_98829862

      Least we forget, we live in AMERIKKKA. While us poor regular saps fight amonst each other, the super wealthy (like both Bush and Kerry) laugh all the way to the bank. There is no way that you can read the reports from The Civil Rights Project and not smell something fishy.

      http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/electoral_reform/residual_ballot.php

      If there are votes that are not being counted, both democratric and republican, and the basis is race, sex, creed or orientation; then we ALL suffer; PERIOD! Don’t beleive the Hype! The greatest trick wealthy southern landowners ever played was convincing poor white sharecroppers that there is a difference between them and the newly freed slaves. OPEN YOUR EYES, PEOPLE!
      95% of us are fighting for 5% of the wealth in America. Its been that way since back then, and its that wau NOW.

      You’ve been fooled into thinking that you’re better b/c your kids goto Harard and you have a Summer house in the Vineyard. But, you’re NOT! The top 5% income earners in this country are not willing to share with YOU EITHER! We NEED to UNITE. Do your homework, don’t stop at CNN and take it for the gospel, think independently, before its too late. "Those who expect to be ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be."

  • D I S G U S T I N G.

    All this INSULTIVE, CHILDISH CRAP is for the birds. If you were old enough to vote, then you’re old enough to TALK LIKE A RATIONAL ADULT. If you can’t, maybe you need to go back to grade school and learn how to communicate.

    • Pardon me kind sir (is that better?) What do you expect, it’s an internet message board!

  • Why won’t the republicans not even consider that there was any cheating? If the shoe was on the other foot the conservatives would be raising the same questions. How do the conservatives explain the exit polls were correct in states without electronic voting and were off by 5-12% in states that did have electronic touch pads? I hear no explanations from conservatives. I only hear that liberals lost and they had better just live with it..

    Oean

    • I agree. I find that above all else extremely disturbing. Oh, and i did not graduate form Yale, i graduated from Berkeley.

      P.S. I decided to throw that in there since there was jockying for intelligence based what school has been attended.

      And by the way i am a true believer in pure govt. corruption, however, i think this election boiled down to hypocracy not moral values, as some would purport. In truth Bush did win. However he won because those of us who would believe literally anything they see on TV, and since most Americans rely on FOX news as their sole source of news, it is not surprising that Bush won. Look, the average american in most of these places are somewhat intelligent, but being smart doesnt make you any less ignorant. Most of the people i spoke with called Kerry names, and some of them just hated him, however, told me they were voting for Bush, mainly because they hated Kerry. When promted to explain their hatred, or even if they knew his position on issues most all of them were dumb founded. So in my opinion Bush probably did win fair and square most likely, and America has spoken, but that doesnt mean that Americans arent ignorant, because most of us are.

      An American who went to Berkeley, that also did not use spell check. I guess that makes me an idiot too.

    • Why is any credance given to exit polling? Why? There is no hard facts involved in exit polls. It is a statistical improbability that they are accurate even half the time. Why is so much faith given to them? I don’t understand it.

      And sure there would be the fanatical right that may call "foul", but they would be a small minority of conservatives, when in contrast it is the majority of liberals that are currently crying "foul".

    • Well spoken from a People’s Republic of Berkley grad.

    • no duh the majority of liberals are crying ’foul’ they just lost. Turn the election around and i could say the majority of conservatives are crying ’foul’ and that very few liberals are. Listen to yourself when you type and stop thinking that liberals are just cry babies. Conservatives would do the EXACT same thing in this situation. Whether you are Democrat or Republican does not decide whether you are a sore loser, or whether you will whine when there is a chance you were cheated. So many people in this message board are generalizing and stereotyping republicans and democrats into little groups as if they are all the same, and that they apply there liberal or conservative views to every part of life. Stop generalizing because a few annoying democrats are whining and realize the true capacity of a free country with billions in population

  • First of all, the Libs once again are playing tricks with numbers. "Spoiled" votes are spoiled by voters who are too ignorant to vote correctly. If they cannot get it right, their vote should not count. That includes provisional ballots, too. Voters had 4 years to find their polling place. If they still don’t know by Nov. 2, then their vote shouldn’t count, either.

    Second, Libs assume that every voided vote was a vote for Kerry, but that’s not so. Just like in Florida in 2000, searches for extra votes also turned up uncounted Bush votes, but the biased extremists love to hide that fact.

    Let’s assume that of 155,000 provisional ballots, 120,000 are counted (77%) (an unrealistically high number). Of these, 80% were for Kerry (+96,000) and 20% for Bush (+24,000). And we’ll drop 4,000 votes from Bush’s 2,796,000.

    OK, now we have 2,816,000 Bush, 2,755,000 Kerry. Add 2,000 Bush military ballots and 1,000 for Kerry, and we get 2,818,000 Bush, 2,756,000 Kerry. Bush still wins. As for spoiled votes, as said, less than 13,000 came from Cleveland.

    As for hanging chads, we see from Florida that this only adds a few thousand votes at most, and some of them would have been for Bush. You’re chasing a moving target, like being down in a basketball game. The other team still can score more points.

    And to top it off, the exit polls suggested a Bush victory. Simply place lies like "Kerry led Ohio in the exit polls" to obfuscate and confuse.

    And as for over-votes: Even without the 3,893 errant votes, Bush still won the precinct, 365 to 260. Anyone else notice that?

    Finally, anyone wonder why Ohio has two Republican senators (who won EASILY) and a Republican supervisor of elections? Could it be the Republicans were ELECTED to these positions, reflecting Ohio’s status as a REPUBLICAN state?

    And even if one fanagles Ohio from the Bush column, Kerry won Wisconsin by less than 12,000 votes. A simple Bush challenge there could give Bush 296 electoral votes, more than enough to offset a potential loss of Ohio. And Kerry won Pennsylvania by a smaller margin than Bush won Ohio. That there is even a controversy merely points to the liberal media Bias.

    • I was wondering when the liberals will start whining again. It was so quiet on November 3rd, even Michael Moore seemed to have been hiding. I suppose the so called progressives (who incidently built the industrialized cities in late 19th century, mind you) are starting to make up new conspiracy theories ie. lies ie. whining.

    • It is very ignorant of you to call it whinning, like you dont want anyone to say anything about election coruption because you’d rather have a dictatorship. It wasn’t some conspiracy theory that bush lost the 2000 election it was a FACT. I sugest you read some of the facts before you continue to say stupid shit. I dont know if kerry won this one, its little hard to beleive since bush won the popular vote by a couple million. What I dont understand is why 51 percent of voters voted for that idiot. I really want someone to give me a good reason why they voted for bush. that statistics showed that most people who voted for bush voted for him because of terrorism and morals. That doesn’t make sense to me because he only put 10,000 troops in afghanistan then he sent about 150,000 to iraq who had nothing to do with 9/11. The war also caused al qaida to expand. How is that fighting terrorism. More enemys dont help. Why do you think that the areas most likely to be hit by terrorism (NYC, Washington D.C., Los Angelos) all voted overwhelmingly against bush. And for the moral issues I dont care about the cocaine and drinking very much. What i do care about is that he was arrested for drinking and driving, he executed 9 innocent people in Texas, and over 100,000 civilians have been killed in iraq. I dont know about the religious right but I consider that immoral.

    • I really don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but I would like some kind of explanation for why the accuracy of exit polls, which have been unquestioned for the last 30+ years, suddenly take a dump during the last two Bush elections. European exit polls report inaccuracy of less than 0.5%. (We’re surely not going to admit that the Europeans are better at this than we are...we invented it.) In many countries with questionable election practices exit polls are used to verify the validity of an election. Exit polling from several states that Kerry won show accuracy several orders of magnitude better than states he lost. My data is incomplete, so the last observation may just be a statistical fluke.

      I don’t want to believe something was going on. But these "anomalies" need to be explained. I’m all ears...

    • For all of you who wonder: "How could they vote for Bush?" Our voting system...in fact most voting systems..leave doubts about their accuracy. But that being a bigger subject, here is a (reverse) color-coded map of the election by County:

      http://uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/pe2004USA_sm.html

      I can’t vouch for it’s accuracy. However if accurate, the map portrays at least a couple of useful impressions/questions to me:

      (1) Those counties that voted for Kerry really are quite isolated geographically. Literally, liberals
      are red spots drowning in a sea of blue. (The traditional party colors are reversed on this map.)
      (2) Western Washington (where I live) is just about as contiguous geographic collection of liberal counties as anywhere in the United States, though I don’t think the residents would say so. But then again, Maine has two Republican Senators (I think) and nearly every Maine county voted for Kerry.
      (3) In reality, if we counted the number of counties that voted for GW, they would *overwhelm* the number that voted for Kerry. This is interesting because it means that these separate individual vote counting organizations (e.g. County Governments) overwhelmingly voted for Bush.
      (4) Could someone from the South tell me why that part of the "Mississipi Valley" voted overwhelmingly for Kerry/Edwards? It’s easy to understand why dense urban areas all voted Democratic (e.g. LA, NY, CHI). I don’t understand the MISS Valley area and the swath of red through Mississipi and Alabama.
      (5) Why did so many of those Colorado counties vote for Kerry? NM and Arizona counties are probably heavily influenced by the Native American vote. I don’t understand all the red in Colorado. Usually, CO is portrayed as a conservative state.

      It would be nice to see other maps like this that overlaid the same information with

      population density and population centers,
      institutions of higher learning by size and ranking,
      geographic features (rivers, mountains, lakes)

    • umm....the media is conservatively biased, thankyou. check your facts, look it up, and pay attention to what you watch from the media. It is a repulican biased industry, not entirely but the majority. That is why in the 2000 election, when most News stations gave Florida to Gore, and then all of a sudden FOX gave it to Bush...he ended up winning. Maybe not because FOX did that, but my point is that the media is conservatively biased and has been for quite a while.

    • When I hear people saying that the liberals are whining I think back to our past. Back to a time when Bill Clinton was president. Conservative just whined and whined and whined and then they whined some more about Bill. If you bring it up to them they are actually still whining today. The way I look at it is this, whether Clintons misjudgements insulted you or they did not. His misjudgements never killed anyone. What conservative call whining I see as true concern for the people of our country and inocent people in Iraq and the direction that our country is going in. At least us liberal pick real issues that effect our government, our lives and the world to whine about. All this soreloser stuff seems hypocritical to me.

    • Ha Ha Ha That’s a good one! I won’t even waste my time refuting that one.

    • The Brain washing of the American people is nearly complete, As i asserted in a previous comment on this board, i said americans have succumbed to the Media, most americans get a great deal of their press from FOX news, and the rest that they trust comes from the likes of clear channel radio stations, who have talk shows hosted by the likes of Bill "I like phone sex" O’reilly, Sean "I’m the biggest republican exuse maker on the planet" Hanity, Rush "i really like a good rush" Limbaugh(oh and i dont hear very well either), and Micheal "If i say it enough and back it up with half facts it must be true" Savage. Now so you know all of the "Major American media" is owned by 7 companies in total, now granted that beats the one in Russia, But in 1950 there were over 400 Major media outlets, Now there are 7. Most of which 60% is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and another 20% by the CNN mogul Ted turner. The rest is whats left. And at this point it aint much, not to mention Michael Powell wants to make the rules for aquiring small market media easy for Major outlets like Rupert Murdoch. So in summation The official standing results of the election indicated that people with post graduate educations, voted unanimously in favor of Kerry. 55% to 44% Not like it matters though, it is over now, and the people who supported bush aren’t stupid, they are unwise, or foolish. You have to remember Republicans do what Republicans do, and it is regardless of their personal intellect, they have chose to forgo their intellect, and do what their party leaders tell them to do with blind faith. You see Republicans are all good Christians for the most part, so blind faith comes easy to them, unlike Democrats and Independent, who actually decide matters rationally. One example is the Knights of Columbus, a catholic subchapter for men only, the Pope sent a decree to the leader of that organization to encourage their voters to vote for Bush, thanks to his stand on abortion. The Knights of Columbus in turn voted for Bush 99% and Mr Peroutka of the constitution party 1%. Now many of the Knights of Columbus are very intelligent people, I know several of them, but if there is any one thing that can overcome intelligence, it is blind faith, and religious control(a sort of mind control). And they are really good at it. They have been using it for the 1500 years on Christians and practice makes perfect. Now With that said, if you are a Republican, or Christian, or whatever else, i encourage you to use this opportunity to start hearing other voices, to listen to the positions of those that directly challenge your own, try this just once, endorse an issue that Republicans are in direct opposition to, and argue it like you really believe in the cause, explaining all of the positive benefits of the positions, do that each time you face something political in this way. And then, and only then will you what it is like to be a Democrat or Independant.

      Now so you know, I do not promise accuracy in my statements, many of them are very general in their nature, and once again i did not use Spell check.

      The guy from the Peoples Republic of Berkeley.

    • Probably like the urban areas, most of the people in the Miss valley are on welfare. If you won’t work then you vote for the democrats. It is really quite simple. People who want the govt to do everything for them want someone else to work aand pay for it.

    • I’m surprised you can find the computer to type this. Where the hell have you been. Heard of Dan Rather and those guys. You think they’re conservative?

  • You freakin cry-baby

  • I just want to point out that the full exit polls show Kerry losing to Bush 47-52 among men and a 50-50 tie among women.

    • Those exit polls were reportedly "corrected" to account for the final vote. To my knowledge (and I’ve looked) the uncorrected final exit polls have not been made available.

    • oh my god. WHY DIDNT KERRY FIGHT FOR THE WIN THEN??????????? If he would have won by not fight for it???? Did they think the votes woudnt be chosen to count or what?

    • ’Exit’ Polls were later ’corrected’ when ’real’ official results started to be available, so later ’exit’ poll figures come partly from exit polling and partly from official results. The exit poll numbers thus changed over time, from accurate to distorted.

      Brian Cady

    • screenshots of CNN’s orig and fixed exit polls exposed by Democratic Underground poster

      http://tinyurl.com/5vnhe

  • Glad to see your medication has kicked in and hallucinations are kicking in.

  • The Brain washing of the American people is nearly complete, As I asserted in a previous comment on this board, I said Americans have succumbed to the Media, most Americans get a great deal of their press from FOX news, and the rest that they trust comes from the likes of clear channel radio stations, who have talk shows hosted by the likes of Bill "I like phone sex" O’reilly, Sean "I’m the biggest republican excuse maker on the planet" Hanity, Rush "I really like a good rush" Limbaugh(oh and I don’t hear very well either), and Michael "If I say it enough and back it up with half facts it must be true" Savage. Now so you know all of the "Major American media" is owned by 7 companies in total, now granted that beats the one in Russia, But in 1950 there were over 400 Major media outlets, Now there are 7. Most of which 60% is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and another 20% by the CNN mogul Ted turner. The rest is what’s left. And at this point it aint much, not to mention Michael Powell wants to make the rules for acquiring small market media easy for Major outlets like Rupert Murdoch. So in summation The official standing results of the election indicated that people with post graduate educations, voted unanimously in favor of Kerry. 55% to 44% Not like it matters though, it is over now, and the people who supported bush aren’t stupid, they are unwise, or foolish. You have to remember Republicans do what Republicans do, and it is regardless of their personal intellect, they have chose to forgo their intellect, and do what their party leaders tell them to do with blind faith. You see Republicans are all good Christians for the most part, so blind faith comes easy to them, unlike Democrats and Independent, who actually decide matters rationally. One example is the Knights of Columbus, a catholic subchapter for men only, the Pope sent a decree to the leader of that organization to encourage their voters to vote for Bush, thanks to his stand on abortion. The Knights of Columbus in turn voted for Bush 99% and Mr. Peroutka of the constitution party 1%. Now many of the Knights of Columbus are very intelligent people, I know several of them, but if there is any one thing that can overcome intelligence, it is blind faith, and religious control(a sort of mind control). And they are really good at it. They have been using it for the 1500 years on Christians and practice makes perfect. Now With that said, if you are a Republican, or Christian, or whatever else, I encourage you to use this opportunity to start hearing other voices, to listen to the positions of those that directly challenge your own, try this just once, endorse an issue that Republicans are in direct opposition to, and argue it like you really believe in the cause, explaining all of the positive benefits of the positions, do that each time you face something political in this way. And then, and only then will you what it is like to be a Democrat or Independent.

    Now so you know, I do not promise accuracy in my statements, many of them are very general in their nature, and once again I did not use Spell check.

  • Correct me if I’m wrong,but if only welfare cases voted for Kerry,that must mean half the US is on Welfare.

  • Kerry Won....and Nixon "won" and resigned 2 years later...

    By Holly Berkowitz
    ©2004 of, by, for public rights and public health

    Kerry won…..and Nixon "won" in a so-called "landslide" but resigned two years later.

    Did he also block access to voting and refuse to count the votes of Democrats, as Bush’s Republican SOS Blackwell of Ohio refused to count ballots of VADs, Voters Appearing to be Democrats in 2004? ......And Bush’s Blackwell still refuses to count probably 250,000 uncounted ballots that far outnumber Bush’s 137,000 that Blackwell claims to have “won” the state for Bush, even though he refused to count the 250,000……250,000 ballots uncounted (Palast, 2004). Outrageous. Where are the lawyers? Tied up? Where are the ballots that Blackwell refuses to count? In the landfill?.....About 250,000 uncounted ballots that would give John Kerry the Presidency.........such as absentee ballots that are marked clearly "Democrat" or "Republican".….or “spoiled” simply by anyone writing “spoiled” on them…...or the error-prone "hanging chad" ballots that Blackwell chose to use because they were error-prone.….or that he was concerned about a repeat of the 2000 Florida problems in Ohio, and Katherine Harris was rewarded for her efforts…....or "provisional voters" that are voters whose votes are "challenged" because they were wearing the wrong color of shirt that day.....or voters that simply have the wrong color of skin.....votes simply not counted. It’s that simple.

    Greg Palast: If our public representatives counted the votes of the public, then John Kerry won in Ohio and New Mexico, giving him the Presidency.

    CNN exit polls listed Kerry the winner in Ohio until early 11/3.....until someone changed the results....and someone told John Kerry that he could not possibly win Ohio. Who told him? Blackwell?

    Conflict-of-interest of, by, for Republicans. For power. For profit. For this CEO administration. The two largest voting machine companies are owned by Republicans, and most voting machines have no paper trails, making them very vulnerable to fraud, to tampering, to criminal interference.

    But where’s the outrage? Probably censored. Where are the Democrats? Tied up?

    GW Bush’s cash-driven propaganda machine controls US, his military-industrial-corporate-media-CEO complex that General Eisenhower warned US against.....that GW refuses to listen to.

    Has America forgotten how to ask questions? A nation that forgets conscience kills the future. Or did America ask the question, but was silenced? Hypnotized? I want out.

    GW Bush’s Supreme Court ordered Florida to stop counting the votes that would have given Al Gore the Presidency, even when thugs intimidated people counting the ballots. Where’s the outrage?

    If you think this Bush administration cares about balance of power that holds our democracy intact, you are wrong. GW Bush seized all three branches of the US Government in November 2002 in the paralyzing fear after 9/11…..that delivered the election of 2002 to GW Bush…..fear that kills our ability to question, fear that killed Senator Paul Wellstone and solidified the power of fear in 2004. Fear of, by, for total control…and “terror alerts” and martial law here and in Iraq…...to crush the political opposition.

    Have we forgotten to question? For instance: Why did Bush, Inc. escort about 100 Saudis, including the bin Laden family…. out of the US immediately after 9/11 without questioning when all other air carriers were grounded? Remember, GW Bush also removed about 20 pages out of the 9/11 report that talked about the Saudi role in 9/11.

    Questions……To question appointments such as Gonzales to US Attorney General that wrote the White House memo in 2002 that said that the United States did not need to obey international law.

    What? Outrageous. How can we lead the world when our White House lawyer Gonzales that GW has appointed to AG writes that we can abuse prisoners if we redefine the prisoners as “enemy combatants” and that makes it legal when it doesn’t……violating international law? International law of, by, for peace. Or does GW want war, instead? War for profit to pay back the war profiteers, oil barons and no-bid contractors that put GW Bush in to the White House in 2000 illegitimately? And we trust him in 2004?

    How can we lead the world to democracy if our own system reeks of conflict-of-interest? I could continue but space is short.

    If you don’t like the law, just ignore it or change it for power?

    Does GW Bush now have total or totalitarian control of US?

    Get used to it? No. Private profit does not justify all.

    Balance of power keeps our democracy alive...

    But it’s dying fast.

    Help.