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RE: Ohio hearings show massive GOP vote manipulation, but where the hell are the Democrats & John Kerry?

Go all the way back to Howard Dean being the undisputed front-runner prior to the primaries - with Kerry lagging far behind. Suddenly, Dean's out and Kerry's in. What?!? I found it disturbingly odd. Not that Dean was "pulled" from the race (I suspect those wanting to preserve the status quo were terrified he'd actually win the Dem nomination), but that Kerry of all people should "ace it".

After promising he'd ensure every vote got counted in the Nov 2 election, he rolls over immediately and we don't hear a thing from him during this vote fraud meltdown - why can't everyone admit that both he and the Democrats THREW THE ELECTION ON PURPOSE.

Even if Bush was effectively ousted due to an obvious Kerry win, I wouldn't want Kerry as President if you paid me a BILLION dollars. I don't trust him, the Dems, the Repugs, nor our electoral process at all!

The last 2 presidential elections and the 2002 election were all SCAMS. We have got to accept this so that whatever steps we (the PATRIOTIC American populace) need to take, we do so with a clear understanding of what we face.

We have lost our sovereignty...
free.

Thank you for being there

I have a degree in history and what I see happening to America is very distressing. In my opinion, it is too late. I fear the republic is destroyed. The election of 2000 was a bloodless coup; this last one was a cynical and methodical rip-off of those foolish enough (myself included) to hope we could regain our nation through the use of a ballot box. Diebold resolved that to corporate satisfaction.

The mindless puppet who has catapulted us into WW III has free reign to continue the madness for another four years. I predict Iran is the next target. In the meantime our young people will die, the national debt will continue to climb and our way of life is being destroyed forever. We now have a one party system; the checks and balances are gone.

At this point, I am looking to emigrate to Canada.

I appreciate what you are doing more than I can express in words. I HOPE the requests for Ohio recounts will make a difference, but I feel they will not. The courts will push them around for years.

Regards,
Marilyn Gjerdrum

Totalitarian State

Harper's Magazine latest issue contains an editorial by Lewis Lapham describing emerging totalitarian governments. These include Israel and Russia and insuates the USA. Lack of a truly free press, Homeland Security incursions of rights of individuals, and the 2004 stolen election indicates that we are moving in the direction of a totalitarian government.

Patriotism means occasionally having to say you’re sorry

So what’s so wrong about saying you’re sorry?

Apparently, quite a lot, if the response to a popular new web site called Sorry Everybody (sorryeverybody.com) is any indication. Created to let those who are dismayed by the re-election of George W. Bush let the world know how they feel, the site features page after page of photos of voters, presumably liberals, progressives and Democrats, holding handmade signs apologizing to the rest of the world for their inability to vote their nemesis out of office.

I'm jaw-dropped, you've-got-to-be-kidding mad

AUSTIN, Texas -- Dan Green of New York City says of the election results, "You can't be depressed now, the worst is yet to come." Following that good advice, I intended to keep my indignation dry and save the outrage for when it is really needed, kind of like saving room for the pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner. If we're going to get through the next four years, we have to pace ourselves, I concluded.

But here it is, not even three weeks into the new Bush regime, and already I'm jaw-dropped, you've-got-to-be-kidding mad. Here's the record so far:

Let them drink sand

The United States is bringing "democracy" to Iraq on the same terms that Russia imposed its federal mandate on Chechnya, a region that has Iraq's future written in its rubble. The advocates of intervention in Iraq and the epigones of Paul Wolfowitz should take a walk through Grozny and measure against its ruins the fate of their proclaimed ambition to bring democracy to Fallujah and other cities in Iraq.

In the waning weeks of the U.S. election campaign, the antiwar movement here in the United States was largely corralled into the Kerry campaign and strangled by the bizarre contradiction of supporting a candidate whose "peace plank" was continuing war. Will it now turn out that for many Kerry supporters their interest in the U.S. war on Iraq was in fact mostly its utility as a rationale for attacking Bush? Now that the race is over, will they forget the war along with Kerry's disastrous campaign?

A Voluntary Tic in Media Coverage of Iraq

When misleading buzzwords become part of the media landscape, they slant news coverage and skew public perceptions. That's the story with the phrase "Iraqi forces" -- now in routine use by U.S. media outlets, including the country's most influential newspapers.

The New York Times and the Washington Post have been leading the way in news stories that apply the indigenous "Iraqi forces" label to Iraqi fighters who are pro-U.S.-occupation ... but not to Iraqi fighters who are anti-U.S.-occupation.

Some recent examples:

* "And U.S. and Iraqi forces continue to fight in Samarra..." (Washington Post, Nov. 15)

* "Pitched battles erupted between insurgents and American and Iraqi forces on Sunday in the northern city of Mosul. ... It took five hours for the American and Iraqi forces to kill or chase away the insurgents." (New York Times, Nov. 15)

* "Eight days ago, U.S. and Iraqi forces barreled through a defensive mud wall" around Fallujah. (Washington Post, Nov. 16)

* "In Baquba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, insurgents kept up

Attorney jailed, released pending appeal on privilege issue

Ohio attorney and prisoner-rights activist Alice Lynd was held in contempt of court and sentenced to jail on November 19 until she agrees to testify before a grand jury about an inmate's purported confession to her that he killed an inmate during the bloody Lucasville prison riot in 1993.

 Lynd was released two hours later pending a decision by the Fourth Appellate Court on the issue.

In an emotional hearing before Scioto County Common Pleas Judge William T. Marshall in Portsmouth, Ohio, Lynd, 74, refused to testify about what an inmate she referred to only as "Mr. X" told her about the murder because it would violate attorney-client privilege.

Prosecutors argued that Lynd was not the inmate's attorney and that attorney-client privilege did not apply. Judge Marshall agreed, and sentenced Lynd to jail. He offered to stay the sentence while Lynd's attorney sought a stay from the appeals court if she agreed to testify if the appeals court upheld his ruling. Lynd said she could not, in good conscience, testify about what "Mr. X" told her without his permission under any circumstances.

Simply ask

I was a state legislator in Arizona for many years and I specialized in election law. I'm worried that all of the recount efforts will be wasted on activities that SUGGEST fraud, but don't really PROVE anything.

Why doesn't somebody select a very suspicious small precinct(s) in Ohio and just call (or go to see) everybody that voted, tell them you're testing the accuracy of the voting system, and ask them who they voted for? It's easy to do... I suspect that every registered voter was called (or visited) SEVERAL TIMES before the election.

You'll have the ultimate exit poll, and if the results varied from the official results, you'll have a list of people who would probably be willing to sign affidavits. These would be convincing proof that you could take to a courtroom. This method is really the only one that will work where there is no paper trail.

We're trying this in a couple of precincts in Tucson, AZ .... but we don't have any touch screens here and AZ wasn't a "battleground" state so I doubt if we'll find anything.

Flight Attendants, the Working Day and Labor Solidarity

A nationwide strike of 46,000 flight attendants has been authorized by the board of the Association of Flight Attendants. They are resisting airline employers making workers labor for longer hours at lower wages, and threatening to get rid of their pensions. A strike vote will be taken at four airlines——UAL Corp.'s United, US Airways Group Inc., ATA Holdings Inc.'s ATA Airlines and Hawaiian Holdings Inc.'s Hawaiian Airlines—with the votes set to be counted by the end of December.

Many U.S. air carriers are in financial distress and squeezing their work forces in an effort to return to profitability. The judicial branch of the state is a key player. For example, US Airways is trying to use federal bankruptcy court to void collective bargaining agreements for current and retired employees over hourly pay, pension plans and health care coverage.

Several factors are driving insolvency for US Airways. One is the rising price of jet fuel. This has increased the cost of energy for the carrier and the airline industry as a whole.

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