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Fitrakis article

The recent thorough and fully expostulatory article by Bob Fitrakis on the Ohio voting scandal is another reminder that there may be a need for popular action to remove voting machines from the next electoral cycle. If all else fails this may require direct, non-violent destruction of the machines. This may sound extreme, but the Republic IS in danger. When machines count the votes, people's votes don't count. This statement could be used as a rallying cry, could be useful on billboards and even on televised spot ads. It is simple, direct and to the point. With the three proposed Ohio amendments together with removal of the machine vote, it is entirely possible that Ohio may, once again, enjoy democratic elections. I am a Minnesotan, an activist and a recovering journalist. I am politically independent and believe in the traditional principles of republican governance and democratic elections.

'WHEN MACHINES COUNT THE VOTES, PEOPLE'S VOTES DON'T COUNT". Think about it. You have my permission to use this slogan as you see fit.

C.L. Clausen
Clearbrook, Minnesota

Populist lagniappe

AUSTIN, Texas -- Being of the populist persuasion, I am a terminal fan of Thomas Frank, who has gone from "What's the Matter With Kansas?" to "What's the Matter With Liberals?" in the current issue of the New York Review of Books, which is a good spot for it.

Those of us in the beer-drinking, pick-up-truck-driving, country-music-listening school of liberals in the hinterlands particularly appreciate his keen dissection of how the Republicans use class resentment against "elitist liberals," while waging class warfare on people who work for a living.

The unholy combination of theocracy and plutocracy that now rules this country is, in fact, enabled by dumb liberals. Many a weary liberal on the Internet and elsewhere has been involved in the tedious study of the entrails from the last election, trying to figure out where Democrats went wrong. I don't have a dog in that fight, but I can guarantee you where they're going wrong for the next election: 73 Democratic House members and 18 Democratic senators voted for that hideous bankruptcy "reform" bill that absolutely screws regular people.

How Blackwell and Petro Saved Bush’s Brain: And the rise of the right wing juggernaut in Ohio

The hotly disputed results of the 2004 presidential election have become entangled in a fundamentalist crusade over who will control Ohio. Extremist right wing screachers such as Pastor Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church, Ann Coulter, Alan Keyes, Ohio gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell and followers of Jerry Falwell, have taken center pulpit in an escalated war over what really happened when George W. Bush was allegedly re-elected in November, 2004, and who will occupy the Buckeye Statehouse in 2006.

The bitterly contested 2004 election results in Ohio have taken a religious twist. As Pastor Parsley backed by his suburban Columbus mega-church, is now in the middle of a Silent No More book tour aimed in part at destroying the remnants of America’s independent judiciary, but primarily aimed at electing Blackwell governor.

Border Patrol

Ohioans Rally to Stop Social Security Privatization as Congress Begins to Write Privatization Plan

CLEVELAND--On the day that legislative action on Social Security privatization began in the U.S. Senate, concerned Ohioans joined with the Northeast Ohio-based Coalition To Protect Social Security for a public "Rally to Protect Social Security and Stop Privatization" to persuade Senators DeWine and Voinovich to pledge not to privatize Social Security. Citizens at the gathering, held outside Senator DeWine's Cleveland office, said they wanted Ohio's Senators to use their influence to shape the Social Security plan while it is being written in order to stop privatization from becoming a part of the law.

"DeWine and Voinovich should take Social Security privatization off the table. Now that Congress has begun the process of writing an actual plan, they need to declare their views and influence the way that Social Security law is put together, so it to stops privatization," said Betty Chaka, a Cleveland retiree.

Spiritual Hypocrisy:  Alive and Well in the U.S.A.

Spiritual hypocrisy is alive and well in the USA when Reverends give up on one of the fundamentals of Jesus teachings: peace!  Its also alive and well in the churches which needed to put their public stand for peace in the world to a congregational vote! Can you imagine?! Both of these things happened in Sonoma, CA and I imagine are happening elsewhere.  If the sheep are leading, who needs a pastor?!

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. so wisely said: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

I wonder how Jesus would feel about:

1. The sanctioning of killing of Gods creations.  (I guess instead of casting a stone, we replaced stones with mortar and land mines. War is not a John Wayne movie with actors . . . but involves real people!)

2.  Its okay to kill if you make up good enough reasons to suit your worldly agenda.

What sad times for faith in action! How tragic it is that certain churches will not use the pulpit to preach peace, and have given up on peace . . . one of Jesus fundamental teachings.  Remember, turn the other cheek, love your neighbor as yourself, etc.?

Intervention spin cycle

FORTY YEARS AGO, on the morning of April 26, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson spoke with a top State Department official about fast-moving events in the Dominican Republic. A popular rebellion was on the verge of toppling a military junta and restoring the country's democratically elected president, Juan Bosch, to power.

"This Bosch is no good," Mr. Johnson said. "He's no good at all," replied Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Mann, who added: "If we don't get a decent government in there, Mr. President, we get another Bosch. It's just going to be another sinkhole."

Two days after that phone conversation, thousands of U.S. Marines landed on the beaches of Santo Domingo. By then, the White House spin machinery was in high gear. When the president went on television to declare that the military action was necessary to rescue U.S. citizens, he didn't mention that nearly all of them had already been evacuated before the Marines arrived.

Mr. Johnson maintained that "99 percent of our reason for going in there was to try to provide protection for these American lives and the lives

The new Mack Daddys: Pimpin’ the poor

The political consequences from Ohio’s stolen 2005 presidential election have been made manifest. The two loudest and most unprincipled men in the state, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and the World Harvest Church’s Pastor Rod Parsley, have formed a disingenuous ebony and ivory right-wing political alliance.

Their goals are clear: to be the new Mack Daddys of the Ohio Republican Party and to pimp and play the economically desperate Ohioans.

Since the presidential election, the stats are now familiar: during the first four years of the Bush administration, Ohio lost more jobs than any state except Michigan; in the year prior to the 2004 election 330,000 manufacturing jobs disappeared from the Buckeye landscape, the most in the nation; and Ohio leads the U.S. in outsourcing well-educated young adults between the ages of 18-44.

The nuclear option and judicial activists

AUSTIN, Texas -- I was all set to write a column about the nuclear option -- the proposal to change the rules of the Senate in order to get President Bush's most questionable judicial appointments through -- when, lo, word came that there is no nuclear option anymore. It is now called "the constitutional option."

Who changed it? Why, the Republican Party, of course. Having found that "nuclear option" does not poll well, the Republicans simply decreed the rules change can no longer be described by that name. Further, the Republican Party sent media operatives around to major news organizations to inform them that anyone who fails to obey the new diktat on usage will be demonstrating the dread "liberal bias."

Since this particularly fateful rules change was first christened "the nuclear option" by Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi in 2003, and has been called "the nuclear option" ever since -- by Republicans, along with everybody else -- I have to say this is a distinctly Orwellian development.

Urge Senator Voinovich to oppose Bolton

Contact Senator Voinovich and urge him to OPPOSE the Bolton nomination.

Please also copy your letter to his Senate webform: voinovich.senate.gov/

  Put something in subject line like "Please OPPOSE Bolton" (use your own words) to insure that your message is clear to staffers.

To contact your elected representatives:  http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

League of Women Voters Media email database:  http://www.capwiz.com/lwv/dbq/media/

TV news addresses:  http://digbig.com/4bqmq

Addresses for major U.S. daily publications/wire services/weekly publications: http://digbig.com/4cqge

Major publication addresses by state:  http://digbig.com/4bwxw

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