Home > An Open Letter to Senator John Kerry on Irregularities, Fraud, and Conspiracies

An Open Letter to Senator John Kerry on Irregularities, Fraud, and Conspiracies

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 29 December 2004
42 comments

Elections-Elected USA

An Open Letter to Senator John Kerry on Irregularities, Fraud, and Conspiracies

Dear Senator Kerry,

I was proud to support you in every way possible this year, including casting an enthusiastic vote for you in New York.

Since the polls closed on November 2, I have carefully monitored the counting and recounting of votes in Ohio, and the independent investigations of possible fraud.

Monday afternoon, your attorney Don McTigue joined John Bonifaz in two important motions to preserve and augment evidence of such fraud in the November election, stemming from Triad’s actions in Hocking County.

But Monday night, your attorney Dan Hoffheimer told Keith Olbermann your investigation is over:

"There are many conspiracy theorists opining these days. There are many allegations of fraud. But this presidential election is over. The Bush-Cheney ticket has won. The Kerry-Edwards campaign has found no conspiracy and no fraud in Ohio, though there have been many irregularities that cry out to be fixed for future elections. Senator Kerry and we in Ohio intend to fix them. When all of the problems in Ohio are added together, however bad they are, they do not add up to a victory for Kerry-Edwards. Senator Kerry’s fully-informed and extremely careful assessment the day after the election and before he conceded remains accurate today, notwithstanding all the details we have since learned."

I could rant at length about this evident contradiction and seeming betrayal.

But let me instead zero in on the crux of the matter:

1) When do "many irregularities" (Hoffheimer’s own phrase) rise to the level of "fraud" and ultimately "conspiracy"?

2) How much fraud would it take to "add up to a victory for Kerry-Edwards"?

1) When do "many irregularities" (Hoffheimer’s own phrase) rise to the level of "fraud" and ultimately "conspiracy"?

The answer to this question basically falls between two poles.

The "easy" pole is when a key co-conspirator steps forward and admits to "fraud" and "conspiracy" - and presents videotapes, pictures, and documents to prove it.

Unfortunately, few important crimes are solved this way.

The "hard" pole is when detectives painstakingly examine evidence and interview witnesses. In fits and starts, key discoveries are made, and key questions are highlighted. Gradually the detectives find a pattern, and create a narrative to explain the pattern.

If the detectives are lucky, they find incontrovertible evidence - a "smoking gun" - and confront the perpetrator(s). If they are really lucky, the perpetrator(s) confess, the guilty go to jail, and Justice Is Done.

If the detectives are unlucky, they end up somewhere between Scott Peterson, O.J. Simpson, and Lee Harvey Oswald - a theory and a bit of evidence, but a perpetrator who refuses to confess anything, mucks up the evidence, or gets murdered. In these cases, Justice remains murky, and crucial questions persist - sometimes for decades.

Let’s go from murder to stolen elections.

There is no doubt that George Bush stole Florida in 2000. In the midst of the 2000 recount - Dec. 4, 2000, to be exact - Greg Palast discovered that the "felon purge" list used by Katherine Harris disenfranchised thousands of non-felons, mostly Democrats who would have cast far more than the 537 votes (actually only 154 following Florida Supreme Court’s key ruling on Dec. 8) needed to make Al Gore the winner.

Did Palast discover an "irregularity" - or "fraud" and "conspiracy"? Palast’s initial discovery was "fraud" - the eligible voters were wrongly purged in clear violation of the law.

But eventually Palast found a "smoking gun" - the e-mails from the database vendor specifically warning Harris’ staff that her deliberately inexact "match" criteria would disenfranchise many votes. Harris’ staff told them to do it anyway - making it a "conspiracy." The only reason Harris - and her patron Jeb Bush - are not in jail is because Attorney General John Ashcroft engineered a coverup, the Republican majority in Congress refused to investigate, and the mainstream media ignored Palast’s documented work and instead marched in lockstep behind the Republican Party.

Now what about Ohio in 2004?

A large group of detectives are painstakingly examining evidence and interviewing witnesses. In fits and starts, key discoveries are being made, and key questions are being highlighted. I have documented all of the key discoveries on one concise page: http://democrats.com/ohio

Have we found the telltale pattern? Not yet. Have we created the narrative to explain the pattern? Not yet. Have we found the "smoking gun"? Not yet.

Why not? Because this is hard work and it takes time!

Still, we have made many important discoveries. We have gone beyond "many irregularities" to outright "fraud." And we are close to uncovering a "conspiracy."

The Republican effort to steal Ohio’s electors began long before Election Day, and continues to this very moment.

On August 14, 2003, the CEO of the nation’s largest electronic voting machine vendor - Diebold’s Wally O’Dell - sent a fundraising letter promising to "deliver Ohio’s Electoral votes" to Bush. There is growing evidence that Ohio’s touchscreen voting machines and electronic tabulators were tampered with. On October 16, 2004, ES&S employee Joe McGinnis got unauthorized access to Auglaize County’s computers, leading to the resignation of Deputy Director Ken Nuss. On Election Day, many touchscreen machines "flipped" Kerry votes to Bush votes - possibly by design. (Computer programmer Clint Curtis recently testified under oath in Ohio that he wrote a program in 2000 to "flip" votes at the request of Florida’s then-House Speaker Tom Feeney.) When the polls closed, some Youngstown touchscreens registered -25 million votes, while a Franklin County machine gave Bush 3,893 extra votes. Dozens of similar electronic voting problems were reported across the country.

The largest vendor of tabulating systems in Ohio is Triad, whose founder is a major Republican donor. During the December recount, a Triad employee swapped Hocking County’s computer’s hard disk, "patched" the software, and instructed officials to post a "cheat sheet" with the original results to override any recount discrepancy. We recently learned that Triad had "dialup" access to election computers in several counties, which means the opportunity for fraud was unlimited. Rep. John Conyers recently sent a letter to Triad’s CEO seeking a detailed explanation of Triad’s activities.

In September 2004, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell - whose impartiality was obliterated by his service as Bush’s Ohio campaign chairman, just like Katherine Harris in 2000 - declared thousands of voter registrations on newsprint (using a form printed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer) were invalid. Blackwell reversed his ruling after a massive public protest, but an unknown number of forms were thrown out before his reversal. In October, Blackwell drastically changed Ohio’s rules for counting provisional ballots, outlawing provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct. As a result of these two decisions, rejected provisionals increased from under 10% in 2000 and 2002 to 23% in 2004.

In October 2004, South Dakota TV reporters exposed a Republican conspiracy to fraudulently "witness" absentee ballot requests. After an investigation, SD Republicans fired six campaign workers - but three of them (Executive Director Larry Russell, Nathan Mertz and Todd Schlekeway) were immediately hired by Ohio Republicans to work in Cuyahoga County!

On October 13, thieves broke into Democratic headquarters in Toledo and stole computers with crucial data - while ignoring office cash. In 1972, a similar campaign break-in at the DNC headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington DC - which President Richard Nixon brushed off as a "third rate burglary" - ultimately led his resignation when the conspiracy behind the break-in - and the conspiracy to cover it up - were fully exposed after a year of bi-partisan hearings.

In late October, Republicans publicly announced their plans to challenge Democratic voters across Ohio. In several counties, they sent "challenge lists" to election officials. In at least one county, election officials summoned dozens of challenged voters to public hearings to prove their eligibilility to vote. In the middle of the night before the polls opened, Republican lawyers won the right to challenge voters inside polling places themselves.

In the week before Election Day, Democrats received flyers telling them to vote on Wednesday. Cleveland Democrats were visited by canvassers who illegally offered to collect and deliver completed absentee ballots to the election office, and got phone calls incorrectly informing them that their polling place had changed. Lake County voters received a memo on bogus Board of Elections letterhead informing voters who registered through Democratic and NACCP drives that they could not vote. A Republican-backed "Texas Strike Force" in Columbus threatened ex-convicts not to vote.

On Election Day, voters in heavily-Democratic precints in Columbus and several Ohio colleges were forced to wait for 3-10 hours because too few voting machines were delivered, even though a heavy turnout was widely expected. This shortage alone is estimated to have cost Kerry 15,000 - 95,000 votes.

In Cleveland, some Spanish-speaking voters were unable to vote because of a lack of Spanish-speaking poll workers. This was the only 2000 problem addressed by Attorney General John Ashcroft. Other administrative problems caused Kerry votes to be registered for far-right candidates. Altogether, these problems may have cost Kerry 6,000 votes in Cleveland.

As polls closed on Election Day, the National Election Pool’s exit poll showed Kerry winning Ohio by 3.2%. Two polling experts, Steven Freeman and Ron Baiman, independently concluded the chances of the exit poll being so different from the "official" results are "impossible." Those polling experts - and Rep. John Conyers - asked the NEP to release the raw data, but they have adamantly refused.

On Election Night, officials in Warren County - which alone produced 35% of Bush’s margin of "victory" - cited a bogus "homeland security" warning to prevent the media and the public from observing the vote count.

In Miami County, officials mysteriously added 19,000 votes to their original tally. Several precincts reported nearly 100% turnout; a recent canvass by the Free Press found many voters did not actually vote.

A comparison of the Presidential race with the Ohio Supreme Court race found C. Ellen Connally, a black woman from northeastern Ohio, did far better than John Kerry in southwestern Ohio suburbs. This unlikely result is a key element of the Green/Libertarian contest - and possible evidence of "vote-flipping" software in the voting machines or tabulating systems.

Rep. John Conyers and other dedicated Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have held several hearings in Washington DC and in Ohio. They have examined dozens of fraud allegations and sought explanations from Ken Blackwell. Blackwell replied with utter contempt. This lack of transparency and accountability alone is sufficient to justify a challenge to Ohio’s electors on January 6.

The presidential candidates of the Green and Libertarian parties raised enough money from grassroots activists to pay for a state-wide recount. By law, each county is required to chose precincts (totaling 3% of the vote) at random for the recount. But in 86 of 88 counties, officials chose the precincts in advance, giving tabulating vendors the opportunity to rig the recount.

Recount observers were prohibited from examining the 92,672 "spoiled" ballots (undervotes and overvotes) that were rejected by vote-counting machines. As the Florida recount proved, many of these "spoiled" ballots were in fact "valid" ballots cast on defective machines in poor precincts, and the failure to count them most likely hurt John Kerry, as Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips has documented.

Recount observers were mostly prohibited from inspecting sign-in books to compare the number of votes cast with the number counted (see Miami County above). On November 15, in violation of Ohio’s open public records laws, Blackwell ordered all 88 Boards of Election to prohibit any public inspection of poll books until after certification. When the ban was lifted in Trumbull County, Dr. Werner Lange found 580 absentee votes for which there were no absentee voters identified in the poll books - a major fraud. If extrapolated state-wide, there could be 62,513 fraudulent absentees. In Perry County, the number of voters exceeded the number of people who signed the books in at least 11 of 46 precincts.

The Green and Libertarian Presidential candidates are in court contesting Bush’s "official" victory, citing evidence of widespread fraud. Ohio’s Chief Justice - Republican Thomas Moyer, whose own election in 2004 is under scrutiny - has repeatedly delayed and even obstructed this contest by failing to serve valid subpoenas to George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove. Ken Blackwell, who was served with a subpoena, refused to appear at a scheduled deposition and is seeking a court order to avoid testifying. If Ken Blackwell conducted a fair and honesty election - as he claims - he would have no reason to avoid testifying. What fraud is Blackwell hiding?

This brief summary represents just the tip of the iceberg of the "many irregularities" documented at http://democrats.com/ohio. Many more have been documented by VoteProtect.org, Ray Beckerman and the lawyers in Moss v. Bush.

A few of these "many irregularities" are finally being documented by reporters from the Washington Post and the NY Times, although they are way behind the lawyers and investigators on the ground. In the coming days and weeks, some of the "many irregularities" are likely to be revealed as outright fraud. And as the fraud investigations are traced to their sources, one or more "conspiracies" may indeed be found.

Thus, Dan Hoffheimer is profoundly wrong to declare America’s Presidential election "over" before these investigations are finished.

2) How much fraud would it take to "add up to a victory for Kerry-Edwards"?

Dan Hoffheimer implies that the fraud we document must add up to 118,458 votes - one more than Bush’s "official" margin - before John Kerry would challenge Bush’s "victory."

But this is a ludicrous standard. The effect of certain kinds of fraud can be roughly estimated by academics and statisticians - such as the estimated 15,000 - 95,000 votes lost to Kerry due to the shortage of voting machines in Columbus. More broadly, the total impact of the various frauds can be estimated by Kerry’s 3.2% victory according to the networks’ exit poll.

But Bush’s lawyers and Republican judges all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court would never accept any statistical estimates, no matter how scientific. In 2000, they wouldn’t even allow 175,000 uncounted ballots to be counted!

In an honest political system, widespread fraud is grounds for nullifying an election and holding another one, regardless of the precise quantification of that fraud.

Election fraud drives a dagger directly into the heart of democracy. If the citizens of a democracy do not believe the election was fair, then the government chosen by that election has no legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens or the world.

Election fraud by the ruling party is especially poisonous, because the ruling party controls the investigative bodies that alone have the power to determine how widespread the fraud was, and how high up the chain of command it went. That is why volunteers are conducting the investigation in Ohio - because Attorney General John Ashcroft is a partisan hack.

This past weekend, Ukraine held a second presidential election because of widespread fraud by the ruling party in the first election, and the belief that Ukraine’s ruling party could not investigate its own crimes. Both Republicans and Democrats - as well as the mainstream media - supported popular demands for a revote in Ukraine.

As in Ukraine, millions of Americans believe our own Presidential election was stolen. A post-election poll by Harris (Nov. 9-14) found 16% of Americans thought our election was not conducted fairly. In December, those who believe our election was stolen grew to 19%.

Why does fraud in Ukraine warrant a revote, but not fraud in Ohio? Is the Ukrainian Presidency more important than the American Presidency? Is Ukrainian Democracy more important than American Democracy?

As I write, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and their staffs are scrutinizing all of the reports of fraud. At least one Representative - Maxine Waters - will challenge Ohio’s illegitimate Electors on January 6, just as she challenged Florida’s illegitimate Electors in 2001. Many of your most dedicated supporters are lobbying their Representatives and Senators urging them to "contest the vote." Thousands are taking to the streets in protests around the country, including a major rally in Columbus on January 3 and a "Save our Votes" March from Baltimore to DC, culminating in a "Patriotic Outrage" rally outside the Senate on January 6.

Senator Kerry, I urge you to fulfill your repeated campaign promise to "count every vote" by standing up now for the 59 million Americans who placed their ultimate trust in your hands.

Specifically, I urge you to:

* acknowledge - and support publicly - the ongoing investigations into possible fraud in Ohio.
* condemn systematic Republican efforts to obstruct those investigations.
* insist publicly that no election - overseas or at home - is "over" while valid claims of fraud remain unresolved.
* join your House colleagues in supporting the challenge to Ohio’s Electors on January 6.

Sincerely,

Bob Fertik

p.s. Please share your own thoughts with Senator Kerry by calling 202-224-2742 or visiting http://www.kerry.senate.gov/bandwidth/contact/email.html

http://blog.democrats.com/kerry-letter#comment

Forum posts

  • Ohio is the focal point of this moment in history. Bob Fertig has done an incalculable service to help us focus our energy.

    Late in the evening of November 2, that beast which Yeats described, slouching towards Bethlehem, passed through the city gates and began looking for your home and mine. The time to stop it in its tracks is now.

    There has been little help from major news sources. Every day for weeks there has been Ohio recount news, but the pages of the NY Times, Washington Post, and LA Times have been blank. There has been no sign of fraud in the Washington governor’s race, but the past few days these same papers have carried stories taking seriously a Republican attack on the outcome. Evidently it takes courage these days simply to print the news. That is a news story worth telling in its own right.

    A few weeks ago I replied to a thank-you note from the Democratic National Committee, asking the Party to throw itself into the Ohio vote scandal. I asked for a real answer — neither silence nor a form letter. After a long wait I received a reply that said nothing about the substance of my request. In short, first silence, then a form letter.

    The Democratic Party received an unprecedent level of financial support and labor this year. It lost the presidency and congress. It has nothing left to lose. Since freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, the Party is free to do what’s right. All it takes is courage.

    It is absolutely true that if John Kerry or the Democratic Party will lead this investigation it will add a great deal to its perceived moral authority. I hope that they do.

    If they decide not to, let us not dissipate our energy in recriminations but do what we can ourselves. It begins with each person’s decision. We can’t know, now, what value our individual effort will have, but we can be clear about what it means to be a person who takes a stand.

    Thank you, Bob.

    Read the letter, John.

    Let’s get to work.

    Stephen Voss

    • Every day for weeks there has been Ohio recount news, but the pages of the NY Times, Washington Post, and LA Times have been blank. There has been no sign of fraud in the Washington governor’s race, but the past few days these same papers have carried stories taking seriously a Republican attack on the outcome. Evidently it takes courage these days simply to print the news.

      I cannot believe you just wrote that. Why don’t you just come out and say "when the Democrats challenge an election, I will believe and support it. But if the Republicans challenge an election, I will condemn it and say it has no basis"

      Nice unbiased opinion.

      PlutosDad

    • What can and must we democrat voters do??? We can and must refuse to vote in rigged elections, when no democrats receive any votes and there is only one party (even thou there are millions of registered democrats who do not show up at the polls or we show up with signs saying we will not participate in rigged elections) the whole concept of "democracy" will be gone in the US. This is the only voice we democrats have left since our democrat representatives have choosen to join the republican party anyway as they rubber stamp all of Bushco’s programs. The democrats need to be shown that without their voters, they will be history. They do not deserve our support, they do not support us and we need to send them a clear message...Fuck you and Fuck the horse you rode in on... you need us more than we need you, nothing in our lives will change while in your life you will be out of a job. Our first opportunity is less than 2 years away, and I look forward to the two years of telling the democrats, hey you lost my vote go look for another job. And I look forward to the rest of the world laughing at the US while it pretends to be a democracy of 1/4 of the eligible voters voting for one party.....then the game will be over.

  • Good God, what a load of crap this letter is. Three fourths of the "claims" are just downright misrepresentations of the facts and the balance are a waste of space. The French better learn from this experience that the Democrats TRIED to steal the election in 2000 and got caught, now they are trying to steal the 2004 election and got caught again. All this baloney about "we don’t care who won, we just want all the votes counted" may convince a few left wing wackos in America and France that this is about counting the votes, but the vast majority of America knows this is all about trying to steal the election for Kerry.

    This American hating writer does a real disservice to America by printing this garbage in a foreign bashing news source; the only source that would print it.

    I find it curiously strange that France has seen fit to only contribute about $136,000 for the Tsunami victims. I guess the cost of wine in France is eating up the French budgets.

    • Which 3/4s of the assertions are misrepresentations? Don’t just make allegations - back them up. We are far too familiar with the use of the Big Lie by members and supporters of the current administration to believe anything they say without proof. And not trusting the Bush administration does not make us anti-Americans - this administration has spent 4 years destroying American political institutions, American financial security, and American moral influence in the world. True patriots resist such anti-American behavior.

    • You’re talking a load of crap -all the evidence points to a rigged election in favour of the baby killing corporate puppet chimp.

    • The incredible Voter Suppression, Fraud, Intimidation is well documented on many sites including the infamous fundraising letter by Wallace O’Dell, the CEO of Diebold promising bush the election esp. Ohio months before the US Presidential "election". I am beginning to think Mr. Anybody But Bush Kerry was a Skull and Bones decoy which would further indicate, if any more evidence is needed that the 2004 elections were tainted if the Democratic challenger did not do much to challenge during the election, conceded before even 6 million votes cast on Nov. 2, 2004 were counted much less the unknown number of provisionals and absentee ballots when he conceded and took down his Blog even before he conceded and anything that was critical of bush because people were beginning to notice that Kerry didn’t even seem to be trying. So 2 months before "Election" day, kerry began some criticism of the very vulnerable never-elected Mr. bush.

      I am sending various versions of the following letter to a number of members of Congress and to the media:

      The Chairman of the House Administration Committee, Bob Ney (R-OH), stated publicly that he’ll hold bi-partisan hearings on the 2004 Election early next year.

      We, the People, need the hearings NOW, BEFORE the vote is certified in January.
      ACTION NEEDED!!!

      Please do not certify the Electors illegal ratification of the US 2004 Presidential Elections. There was so much Voter Suppression, Fraud, Intimidation, Voting Machine "errors" and innumerable websites of outraged citizens doing the investigative work that should have been done by our supposedly free press.

      Please read the Green Party’s Recount page to see the continuing obstruction of the recount/audit of the vote by supposed Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell (also the Co-Chair to elect bush) who, instead of fulfilling his sworn duty to make sure that the voting was honest instead did everything he could to suppress the vote of Democrats and is refusing to answer the House Judiciary’s 15 page letter sent on Dec. 2, 2004 with 36 very pertinent questions about the massive voter suppression in Ohio and Mr. Blackwell’s direct involvement in much of the voter suppression.

      The Board of Electors should not have cast their votes ratifying this second stolen election in a row until the GAO investigation into voter fraud and suppression and the House Judiciary’s Letter was answered by Mr. Blackwell and the recount/audit was honestly done. Mr. Blackwell has not allowed random site auditing as required by law and has snatched the publicly owned voting records from the hands of the Federal Court’s appointed auditors.

      Mr. Blackwell stonewalled certifying an election he said went smoothly for 37 days so that the auditors would not have time to do a recount before the usual day the Electors meet and now is trying to delay the recount until after the Board of Electors envelope is read by Congress on January 6, 2005. Mr. Blackwell should be forced to recuse himself due to conflict of interest and proven illegal interference with the ability of the people of Ohio to cast their votes and now to tamper with the machines and other illegal activities to suppress the timely AUDIT/RECOUNT of a very suspect election.

      The US press refuses to carry the most important news that is printed and broadcast by the still free media in England and Europe had many articles about the murder of Dr. David Kelly, British WMD Investigator, just after he testified that Tony Blair had lied about their report to get the United Kingdom into the never-elected Bush’s War and 2 months before the US Elections to intimidate anyone else who might come forward with information about the truth of Bush’s never-ending lies. And now the murder of Gary Webb who wrote a book on Iran-Contra scandal. The Washington Post in an op-ed piece before the "Election" spoke of Bush’s genteel thugs, he could have left out the word genteel.

      Bush has stolen a second election and it must not be certified by Congress. Bush has destroyed our economy, our environment, our young people who are being forced to use SS torture tactics on innocent people and the fact that there were two Skull and Bones candidates not only in this election but the past four and this treasonous organization needs to be investigated as do the Crimes Against Humanity by Bush and his illegal regime.

      I support the recent German Prosecutor’s indictment of Rumsfeld, who is a poor excuse for a Defense Secretary - what was he doing on 911 after the planes hit - read the victim’s site counter to the very partisan Kean’s whitewash Warren Commission-type report. I also support the German War Crimes Court in their indictment of Generals Miller - the torture king, and Sanchez along with other TOP LEVEL BRASS.

      Despite the Pentagon’s statements in the press and Bush’s outrageous lie that he refuses to join THE INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL to protect ordinary soldiers when it is the actions of bush including the torture memos and the document by Gonzales, who should in no way be ratified, illegally counseling bush that a President has the power to order torture and the Washington Post went point-by-point with real legal experts.

      I know it takes courage to stand up to the bush mafia-like Skull and Bones tactics and their murders but you know what our soldiers are up against in the Blood for Oil war in Iraq and I think you are also aware that bush, senior spent the money for POWs and MIAs on drug smuggling for the money and to destabilize society and that the Afghan production of opium has increased four-fold since bush signed off on the tragedy of 911.

      The recently murdered Gary Webb who supposedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the head TWO TIMES, wrote a book on Iran-Contra and it is very suspicious that neither the media or Sen. Kerry throughout the showpiece “Presidential Campaign” (where is Kerry?? As Rev. Jackson said, Kerry should be as involved with the recount as he was during the campaign in which he promised to “NEVER SURRENDER” and that “EVERY VOTE WOULD COUNT AND EVERY VOTE WOULD BE COUNTED” mentioned that he had chaired the Iran-Contra Hearings and that bush, senior pardoned the convicted felons from that Congressional Hearing including Drug Lord Noriega.

      Our troops are facing incredible dangers and so many have been maimed in horrible ways and died horrible deaths, because of this war to take over Iraqis’ oil resources and I believe they want Egypt’s gas reserves - the Washington Post reported a briefing at the White House in 2003 "IRAQ IS THE TACTICAL PIVOT, SAUDI ARABIA IS THE STRATEGIC PIVOT AND EGYPT IS THE PRIZE." This is going to be a NEVER-ENDING WAR if bush is not removed from the office of Presidency that he never received the majority vote of the American people to occupy.

      16 year olds are required to sign up for the draft when they go to get their drivers license and I think you know what the Bush Skull and Bones World Dominion Plan is and the amount of blood of our young people it will cost to make the super-wealthy even wealthier. Please stand up for the principles of America and do your sworn duty to protect the American people and the Constitution from enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC and refuse to ratify this outrageously fraudulent election.

      Thank you and God help us all. Refuse to ratify this outrageously fraudulent election.

      God is not deaf, Nor doth He sleep, The wrong shall fail, The right prevail, For Peace on Earth, Good Will to MenWelcome, Guest. Please Login or Register.
      Dec 29th, 2004, 6:20am

      News: "There is one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government."

      — Thomas Jefferson

      ATTN: If you have planned protests coming up, don’t forget to send the details to me so I can put them on the State Actions/Contacts webpage. Also, please use this email address for the time being, ff5000@isp.com. The other address is bouncing right now.
      Laura/volunteer/51capitalmarch.com - a good site for January 6, 2005 protest to request that Congress nullify this second stolen election in a row.

    • People like you will destroy the United States. You’ve blinded yourself if you believe the Democrats tried to steal the 2000 election. You have refused to look at the facts - that is blindness. And In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. The one-eyed man is George Bush. Good luck. Oh yea, and I’m not French. I’m American.

    • You’ve blinded yourself if you believe the Democrats tried to steal the 2000 election.

      Of course! Because all accusations of stealing when it is Republicans are true! And all accusations of stealing when it is Democrats is false!

      How could I have not seen that? How blind I and all other conservatives are!

      Maybe we should eliminate voting all together, since it cannot ever be done without errors, and have you just appoint leaders for us? That way you can make sure our rights are protected.

    • I just checked to make sure. France has so far pledged 20.5 million. I am not sure where you get your figures from. But that’s a pretty large amount for a small country. I will not even bother to respond to the rest of your reply to this detailed, fine letter from Bob Fertik. You obviously are one of the "dumb" 59 million Americans.

    • President is not elected by the people anyway. That is why we have Electoral college, because the Founding Fathers (particularly Federalists like Hamilton and Madison and Jay) believed true Democracy was doomed to failure because of an ignorant electorate prone to Despotism. That is how a candidate like Al Gore or Richard Nixon can have the majority of the votes, yet they’re opponent can claim to have a mandate by the people to run the country. Read judge Scalia’s views on Democracy and the Popular vote in his majority opinion regarding the 2000 election - not very in line with what most of us were taught in school, but much closer to the true nature of this nation’s foundation.

  • Hmmm, I don’t know who you are but, thanks to Google, I found your excellent summary looking for an update on the Ohio election fraud. My blood boils at how the GOP managed to keep their illegitimate son in power. We have a long and tedious, painstaking struggle to prove the case and I, sitting here on the bright blue west coast, can only write letters and send donations. Thanks for your good work I know the truth will be told. As we are in fact reliving the Vietnam War, so are we in the early stages of the Watergate expose. As we use our voices and keyboards to support the struggle, the tide will turn and we may see another presidential resignation.

    Julia
    Seattle

    • Some harsh things are being said about John Kerry and I believe he has been misjudged. He has a profound understanding of what is coming and EVERYTHING depends upon how many people show up in the streets of Washington, D.C. on January 6th.

      If The People show up, the Ohio electoral votes will be contested which will precipitate a Constitutional Crisis. Kerry will come forward and take the Blow Back Blast From Hell the Republican leadership, their corporate owned media and their misguided supporters are going to fire at him. It’ll make the "swift boat liars" look like his best friends. Remember, a solid core of Bush supporters actually believe God appointed Bush.....what do you think that will make Kerry and his supporters look like to them? John Kerry cannot do this alone. He knows he must have the support of the majority of Americans, we have to stand together against the most vicious administration we have ever experienced. If we fail, the Republic is lost.

    • Unfortunately, a presidential resignation would in this case be disastrous,
      as it would simply put Dick Cheney into the Presidency, rather than Kerry.

      Helen

    • John Kerry cannot do this alone. He knows he must have the support of the majority of Americans

      The majority of Americans voterd for George Bush by a 3.5 million margin...just a detail...

    • Another Detail: There is ABSOLUTELY NO proof that W. got 3.5 million more votes then John Kerry and lots of proof of election fraud/irregularities!

    • You can’t prove those votes. There is absolutely no way to audit the paperless touchscreen machines - no way. There is no single accounting establishment on the face of this earth that would even briefly consider buying such a machine to keep up with records. Not a one.

  • Let’s start with the facts. Fertik writes, "But Monday night, your attorney Dan Hoffheimer told Keith Olbermann your investigation is over."

    However, in the quotation immediately following, Hoffheimer says: "But this presidential election is over."

    "Election" and "investigation" are NOT, repeat, NOT the same thing. So even accepting that Hoffheimer is speaking for Kerry, the construction Fertik puts on his words is dishonest.

    I give Kerry credit for stepping in where no Democrat has gone before — initiating legal procedings to accuse the President of the United States and his agents of election fraud.

  • The sad part about this letter, is there are idiots out there who will probably believe it. Please people, get over it. Everyone is tired of hearing about all this BS.

    • "The sad part about this letter, is there are idiots out there who will probably believe it." Facts are acknowledged. Faith is believed. Here the facts have been laid out. They can be verified. Belief isn’t really the point. "Please people, get over it." You haven’t gotten over it, or you wouldn’t have written this. "Everyone is tired of hearing about all this BS." Apparently, what you BELIEVE is that YOU are EVERYONE. Guess what - not true! I’m not the least bit tired of hearing about it. In fact, I think there hasn’t been half enough news about this.

    • This isn’t about the 2004 vote, and it’s not a partisan issue. The enemies of these United States could hardly have struck a deadlier blow against us than we’ve done to ourselves by giving this delinquent a hall pass for four more years. Patriots on both sides of the aisle will not — and must not — get over this. The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped. (Humphrey) Our standards have slipped in the past four years, and may fall farther in the next four. Slightly more than half of our voters are so easily swayed, so misguided, so foolish, or so evil that they believe things ought to be this way. Not so, and the victory in November, even if it was fair, will not change reality.

    • You are absolutely right.. we can’t afford to get over it!! We, the people should hold this Administration accountable. They cheated 4 years ago, 2 years ago, and in Nov., they will NEVER stop until they are BROUGHT OUT!!
      I totally agree with you that our young, college age, elderly, poor, and middle class citizens have been neglected and actually brought down these past 4 years. But thank goodness we are spending 128 million a day in Iraq!

    • You simply do not know the role of our U.S. Government. Please take a moment and read, to start, the Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution (please focus on Article I, section 8). When people put the words "moral" and "government" in the same sentence it worries me, and should worry every other person who values freedom. Whose "morality" do we judge as that which is just? Hmmm? Define some of your terms sir, for example, who is "needy," who are "handicapped." By what level of "need" or "challenge" do we set the bar in order for some to get help, and others not? You dream of a socialist utopia is just that, a dream. I would suggest that for fun, try reading "Utopia" by St. Thomas Moore, you will find what it holds to be quite interesting and it may even get you to think.

      Intellectual honesty will not go down the road you point, sir, if you were to step back and become a bit more educated, you would see your "utopia" is not possible by any scheme of government process; it simply cannot be.

      Your friendly Constitutional Juris Doctorate, mfw, esq.

    • Kerry won. Get over it.

  • Bob thanks for your great work. If the democratic party, not John Kerry- do not let the people of America know that voting irregulareties must be treated properly-REVOTE-the republican party will always have the upper-hand. Ukraine, an emerging democracy, knows that wrong is wrong and must be made right.
    John Kerry represented the party. We the party members (John Kerry and all others)MUST know what happened.
    Please keep ME informed.
    Thanks
    Mo Lahai

  • Since all of you are SO CONCERNED about fraud in elections, why not take a look up here in Washington State?

    Dino Rossi, the Republican, ran a great campaign and won the election by 261 votes. Then he won the mandatory machine recount by 42 votes, after King County (the Seattle Democratic stronghold) manually enhanced ballots by ’divining voter intent’. I’m not kidding - they took ballots with stray marks, decided how they thought the voter meant to vote, and permanently disfigured the ballots by changing them with ink and ’white-out’.

    Then the Democrats called for a hand-recount, which was financed in part by yours truly, John Kerry! That $15 million of campaign funds that he kept in the bank (could he have spent that on TV ads in Ohio?) - wonder how he spent that? He kicked in a quarter million dollars for Christine Gregoire, the Democratic candidate.

    At that point King County changed their canvassing rules, waited for the rest of the counties in the state to report, and Viola! Gregoire was up by 10 votes. Then King County ’found’ 723 ballots in an unsecured location in a warehouse, and was able to get these canvassed as well. After the ’found’ ballots Gregoire came out on top by 119 votes among 3 million votes cast.

    Since then, massive voter irregularities have been uncovered, including a precinct in downtown Seattle where 500 people are registered to vote at the King County Elections Commission!!! Gregoire would not win without this precinct. Some 300 of these people list BOTH their mailing address and their voter registration address as the KCEC office, which is against the law. Furthermore, King County was admittedly late in mailing out absentee ballots to the military, which may be a violation of federal law.

    Your dogged pursuit of voter fraud is exemplary. I hope you can find the time to broadcast the irregularities, incompetence, and possible fraud in King County - in this Gubernatorial election that was decided by 261, or 42, or 10, or 119, or however many, votes.

    • One can only hope that the best and the brightest of the next generation are so disgusted by the cesspool that the self-indulgent baby-boomers of all political stripes have dipped this planet into that they can find the moral fiber to yank us all out before it’s too late.

    • Hey Fuck you you moron, The baby boomers are the only generation that forced the government to stop murdering people in a disgusting immoral war, the baby boomers are the only generation that got rid of a corrupt president (tricky Dick the father of the republican dirty tricks party)...so tell us dumb shit, which generation you think has done more for the country??? You being the stupid bastard you are, you obviously will probably say the "Greatest Generation" that now almost gone (thank God) bunch of self agrandizing "We won the war" and now "we own the planet" selfish greedy bunch of wife beaters, and child abusing, drunks, and greedy to the max retired .... "you pay my share and fuck you if there is nothing left" old farts that are almost history...huh, these are the fuckers that you admire most after all they sure got one over on us all...Ronnie "trickle down on you" Reagan, et.al....

  • Wow, what an idiot rant.

    And, btw, you might sound a little more believable if you actually provide, you know, support for your claims.

    Like when you say there is no doubt that Bush stole 2000, hey how about a fucking link. Its the blogosphre you frickin idiot.

    Anyway, here is the no spin truth. if there was any good evidence that bush stole the election you think the NYT would be sitting on its hands? Or even the boston globe. Or how about CBS news, which so badly wanted Bush out of office it rushed a story to air without having authenticated its documents?

    So barring really, really powerful evidence to the contrary, i am going to assume this whole post is unproven bullshit.

  • When Michael Moore even agrees that Bush got more votes and won the election, you know you are on the outer fringes of craziness. Give it up Bob before you start talking to yourself on the streets and drooling on yourself. Kerry got beat. No question about it. He was the wrong candidate, at the wrong time, for the wrong country.

  • You always see what you want to see.........................think about that for a moment.

  • It’s time to MOVEON People. It’s over, you lost. BELIEVE IT !

    • The sad part about Bob’s letter is the fact that he most likely believes these conspirational theories. What’s even sadder is the fact that the Democrats are quite likely to continue losing presidential elections as long as this once great party continues to be in this current state of "self-denial". Face it, the current leftist/liberal/progressist message doesn’t cut it; instead, think of another approach that’s more in tune with us, working people and our value system.

    • We’ve ALL lost if our votes are meaningless!!

    • Yeah, the democrats need to get in tune with the American values, murdering innocent people for oil, having the corporate war profiteers for the leaders, and not caring for a moment about the truth as long as we can jamb our rediculous religions down your throat. These are America’s values. We want to be a third world country living in the dark ages shitting ourselves along with our propaganda that serves as media, and marching along behind the facists in power who threw us a bone and let us believe in fairytails about Jesus who we don’t even know what his teaching were much less care as long as we can practice nuclear diplomacy and continue to teach creationism in place of facts....the democrats better get it right this is America the home of the dumb shits.

    • If you’re saying you’ll only vote for a racist hick with a Southern accent who feeds you lies about the Bible and abortion, stick with the Republicans while they steal you blind, you don’t deserve help.

  • As a former Democrat who saw the light about 20 years ago you guys need to grow up and get a life. The Democrats had a bad message, a bad candidate going against a sitting president who while having some baggage did have a clear message. History, and not too far in the future will show Bush did a lot of things right, and a few wrong such as not retaining the Iraq Army, but the overall mission should prove a success. On the other hand the UN, headed by a crook and father of a crook hates Bush. Start monitoring http://acepilots.com/unscam/ and see who is who and up to what. John Kerry likes the UN-Bush did not. The UN is a bad deal for Americans and the people the UN is supposed to help. It would appear that private donations from the US will rank second only to the US official help to the victims in Asia. The right man is in the White House-it is a done deal now lets look to the UN.

  • This commentary was inspired partly by the open letter to Senator Kerry. It’s addressed in part to Mr. Kerry, but is also for those of us who are suffering from the entrenched corruption and apathy that is killing our Democracy.

    It’s time for Senator Kerry to step forward and publicly do something about our eroded Democracy — now.

    There’s ample evidence of systematic corruption of the voting process. Thousands of reports document suspected fraud. Reported problems have a disturbing pattern —virtually all of them stacked the vote in favor of George W. Bush. Thousands of such incidents are documented and easy to find via web links such as those found on page one at http://www.verifiedvoting.org — an excellent, non-partisan website originated by computer science professor David Dill of Stanford University.

    Mr. Kerry — it’s still possible for you to be a war hero... because this is a war to save our Democracy. Very few people could successfully spearhead a movement to do this. Maybe you could start the process by calling a press conference and challenging the accuracy of this presidential election, based not only on reported incidents, but also on the blatant sleazy practices used to control the voting process in Ohio.

    The only way anything will change towards making our Democracy work in our lifetime, is to do something now. If the exit polls have been used for decades to successfully verify voting outcomes — why ignore it now? According to exit polls, George W. Bush lost Ohio.

    We have to ask you Mr. Kerry — what took the Democratic Party so long to recognize the serious problems taking root in our voting system? Many of us did our best to warn you. We told you that beginning in 1996 there began the use of unverifiable computer technology and software to cast the vote. We hoped you would see something wrong with the fact that right wing Republicans, defense industry interests, and even the Saudis, were investing in voting technology that incrementally created the perfect way to steal the elections without leaving a trace!

    First there was Nebraska, then Georgia and then Florida. Georgians were stunned by the difference between the exit polls and the actual outcome. Didn’t you hear about that? And it’s not just computers that are suspect — it’s the tabulation software —nearly 80% of which is made and controlled by two companies, Diebold and Election Systems and Software. These two companies control software that counts every type of vote cast — including optical scan and even absentee ballots. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Urosevich and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

    Now we see that the SCALE of possible vote theft is huge compared to when it was years ago when fraud was committed in little patches here and there — that amateur old timey stuff is kid’s play by today’s standards. Now it’s possible to rip off millions of votes without leaving fingerprints.

    But thank God we have the Ohio elections which are still pretty messy. The ability to steal the vote without fingerprints is not perfected. This despite almost complete control of the voting process by entrenched Republican political hacks. But they’re out there in the light— at least part of the time... unlike those mysterious and unverifiable voting machines.

    You can’t sit back any longer and wait for other shoes to drop — you have to do something now while some of the fingerprints in Ohio are still fresh.

    It might be a good idea to start with a news conference that says that you have completely lost faith in the way our voting is done in this country and that the election system is broken. You will have to it now because if you don’t — this moment will be lost and we will never, ever in our lifetimes — get those who were elected by this corrupt system to change it to one that is accountable. You can only move forward if you stand up tall now and show a willingness to fight. You won’t have to wait for long as we line up behind you.

    Real election reform won’t easily come through the Congress of the United States — not currently, at least not through normal means. This lesson was learned most recently by the resistance of Republicans who for the past year and a half refused to sign onto bills which would have gone go a long way towards creating a verifiable Democracy.

    Democratic Congressman Rush Holt tried unsuccessfully to pass a a bill calling for a mandatory paper trail to be kept by elections officials as hard evidence — a way to verify the vote. Then — when that bill didn’t go anywhere it was copied and pasted by Democratic Senator Bob Graham who tried to get it voted on in the Senate. Both bills were crushed by Republicans that wouldn’t allow the bills to even get to the floor for a vote!

    Even some Republicans know in their hearts that systematically creating a voting system that makes stealing the vote easy — means that our Democracy is based on a lie. Surely that must be spiritually sickening to even the most hardened person! It’s not possible that all Republicans are "ends justifies the means" Bushites. We need to all ask ourselves, ALL of ourselves — Republicans, Democrats, Republicans, Independents whether we’re going to sit back and let neocon, fanatic Republicans steal the foundation upon what we would live and die for!

    This may be the last time that we ask you and our Democratic representatives to fight for what is right. We need to ask you once more — where is your outrage and passion as our Democracy slips away? The evidence is all around you that clearly show a pattern that amounts to fraud. Please fight!

    And if we don’t see you out there in the front of the lines fighting during the next few days — then We, the People, need to admit that we can no longer trust the Democratic Party to fight for the main principles upon which this country was founded.

    In that case we need to consider this apathy — this corrupted spirit — to be both final evidence of a dying spirit — and also an opportunity for rebirth and change.

    We the People would then need to make up our collective minds to move completely away from dependence on this party — or any other, and direct our energy for real change by creating a new party that stands firmly and unequivocally on Democratic principles.

    If that ends up being our choice — then may I please suggest to my friends that the new party be created from existing coalitions of energetic groups such as MoveOn and others that have proven themselves trustworthy by working tirelessly to preserve our Democracy? They have also proven that they have the leadership skills to motivate millions of people. They (we) have proven that it is possible to raise millions of dollars with small donations from individuals.

    May I suggest that if this movement comes to pass that we never again give one thin dime to the Democratic or Republican parties? Because so many of us found real conservatives who joined us in our fight — don’t you think we can find each other again?

    The next step might be to call for a convention of representatives from these disparate groups such as MoveOn, for the purpose of linking together to form a whole... perhaps it can be called the Coalition Network Party — or similar idea. (Keep it to two words to make the name legal in all states).

    We need a party with energy, moral courage and guts, that absolutely refuses under any circumstances to take any money whatsoever from corporate interests. Period.

    To create the new party as coalition would mean it could tap the energy from all these groups who truly represent the United States in all of its diversity. But in line with the original principles that this country was founded on — a country dedicated to the creation of policy intended for the public good, and not for the wealthy few.

    We need leaders that inspire us to become the best we can become — not an entrenched group that is corrupted by special interests and lies. And as a coalition — instead of a single organization — it has a better chance of staying fresh, with young, honest and energetic ideas —and not be continually in danger of becoming monolithic, and corruptible from within.

    Even before a new party is formed we need to push hard for all paper, hand counted ballots —just like is currently done in the regional elections in Canada (unfortunately Canada’s cities are corrupted by computerized voting machines). In their regional elections however, paper ballots are hand counted by citizens from all parties, not political hacks!

    Wisely, hand counting of ballots is limited to no more than between 500 and 600 of the votes — thus limiting the potential for corruption. Despite Canada’s size, the votes are most often counted by midnight! No computers and no software! Paper ballots are possible here too in the U.S., even with multiple issues and many candidates. Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s too complicated here in the U.S. for paper ballots. It’s not.

    It’s not only doable but it’s cheap. No need for expensive computers, technicians — and no need to worry about how proprietary software is secretly written —protected from public scrutiny by trade secret laws! No modems to worry about, no hacking, and no breakdowns in the voting process because a bunch of machines don’t work. No long lines where people have to wait up to ten hours. Imagine long rows of voting cubicles ----very cheap to make. It’s even possible to make privacy dividers from heavy cardboard for heaven’s sake!

    It’s also possible to have access for the disabled using a verifiable paper voting system. The disabled vote done on a computer on secret software — is just as vulnerable to corruption as it is for an fully abled person.

    I must warn you all to not listen to lawsuit threats from disability organizations such as the National Federation for the Blind. NFB has long failed to disclose that it received a million dollar "donation" from Diebold. Then, its members and sister organization, the American Association for People with Disabilities, which also received money, traveled around the country threatening to sue supervisors-of-elections officials unless they used "approved" computer voting technology — such as Diebold’s!

    Shame on AAPD and NFB for NEVER disclosing their financial relationship with Diebold. It took an angry blind woman with eight children from Virginia who got mad and pointed it out. The NFB and AAPD should have been royally sued under RICO for what they did.

    Now is the time to remember the beautifully crafted words of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and others who struggled with all their might to create and protect something precious. They warned us many times that Democracy is a fragile concept that would be hard to protect. We need to define for ourselves how it can be protected at this time in our history.

    If we start a new party it will be important to become far more organized than the Democratic Party could ever hope to be. Its reputation as being disorganized slackers is somewhat deserved. A new party should use powerful Organization Development tools for strategic planning, such as those developed by Kurt Lewin’s Force Field Analysis — a terrific tool for planning a real future for any movement and any organization that really wants to succeed. A description of Lewin’s "values based management system" can be found at:

    http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_lewin_force_field_analysis.html

    Another wise move would be to call up Richard Winger — editor for over twenty years of Ballot Access News. He would be the perfect consultant on how to set up a new party so its legal in every state. He is the single most knowledgeable person in the U.S. on how to do this and he doesn’t charge for his services. He only needs to know that we’re really serious about really doing it right.

    Let’s get started now!

    Ashley Hotz

    Monticello, FL

  • to those who suggest we move on, get over it etc.. would you just move on if you were robbed and the thief got away? would you recommend one to just get over being raped? possibly. however i shall attempt to examine the evidence and seek justice. the criminals must be apprehended. the theft of the election in ohio was done rather sloppily with the evidence scattered all across the floor. so look at these few facts and respond with more than a meaningless rant. fact1: one machine in gahanna ward 1b registered 4,258 votes for g.w. where only 638 people voted. in that county there were machine shortages and malfunctioning tabulators only in dem. precincts. matt damschroder, former head of rep. party in that county and board of elections director attested to these "anomalies",look it up. fact 2: 29 precincts in a single ohio county reported more votes than registered voters by 93,136, similar to what occurred in 6 florida counties where a cumulative 188,885 votes more than registered voters appeared: fact3: in miami county, ohio we saw a 98.6% turnout in concord sw precinct 520 for bush 157 for kerry, only 10 folk did not vote, yet a preliminary canvas found 25 that did not; fact4:not to be outdone largely republican brook park saw a record setting turnout 14,458 out of 14,491 or 99.4%; the list goes on and on and on. ask yourself am i being honest with myself?
    let us all be honest with ourselves and see the beast for what it is. this vampire called america is at its core a culture of death. all that is occuring be it the levelling of fallujah, fraudulent elections, torture and mass incarceration all over the world, 725 military bases all over the world and on and on and on flow naturally from the american culture of conquest. all which we are witnessing/enduring is consistent with americas (whose name for the land is violence) racist and genocidal history. be it sand creek massacre, clearcut inc., the dispensation of nuclear cocktails to pregnant women (see pulitzer prize winning journalist eileen wilsomes "the plutonium files"), or the cia overthrowing any government that dared to claim sovereignty all of these life destroying activities emanate from the core of the hyper-industrial-military mindset that is america. all of the life affirming views like "quit blowing up brown skinned children for lockheed martin and halliburton" are labelled un-american. and they are. americanism is the progeny of european habits of mind and is destroying life on earth. the cheney-kissinger-wolfowitz-baker-bolton-negroponte-rove cult wedded to the brzezinski-rockefeller-murdoch-soros gang are merely the latest techno industrialists who destroy so much so fast using the latest in the pentagons blood soaked bag of techno tools. these are clean cut savages, lord of the flies at hyper speed.
    as for foreign aid america ranks dead last as a percent of gdp at .15%. note the position of the decimal. highest per capita rate of incarceration. no health care except for wealthy. etc. etc. etc. and as for that 350 million for the tsunami victims well guess what? earmarked for long term reconstruction and development. can you spell IMF? ask the iraqis about reconstruction. it is long past time for us all to stop living the lie that is america. detumescent democrats are not capable of purging the world of rapacious republicans most are too deep in the game or cowardly. exceptions like conyers, waters, mckinney, prove the rule.
    now for all those who are devout coincidence theorists ignore the fact that every discrepancy,irregularity,oddity,whatever went bushes way; that your country is the worlds largest polluter by far and that your government is murdering women and children every day
    (is bombing a pregnant woman from the sky a military abortion pro-lifers?) in haiti, iraq, colombia, etc. the rest of the world does not envy mcameriwalmartika it wants you to stop the slaughter. so go. take your made in bangladesh flag and wave it in denial on your way out the door.
    as for me i remain insufficiently patriotic.

    • I think we are seeing the end days of the Democrats.

      Democrats are outnumbered by Republicans and outnumbered by independents.

      Yeah, I’ll go vote knowing that however I vote if the Democrat doesn’t win then Democrats will do whatever they can to disrupt the process and the results even if that threatens to destroy the concept of democratic elections in this country.

      The Democratic party is being marginalized (with your full ranting cooperation it seems) and will be left to the dustbin of history with the Whigs and Know Nothings. The Republic will survve the loss of parties that have gone irrelevant or insane.

    • The truth is that the democratic party is history, they joined the republican party while Clinton was in office and they are never going to be anything other than a branch or the Jr. varsity of the republican party.

      Democrat voters should wake up to reality, they were suckered and duped. Its time for them to join the 50% of the non voters, when added together that gives them 75%, enough to take over the government by revolution.

      Get smart join the revolution.

    • That’s right Democrats! Don’t vote! That will show ’em! Great idea!

      It’s Democrats that come up with ideas like this that make the party what it is today — a bunch of whining losers. Clinton never received even 50% of the vote, but to idiots like you, he had a mandate. You couldn’t see the conservative wave coming... now you are drowning in your cesspool of outdated ideas.

      Try something different — give the people something to vote FOR.