I read the news today about how the AG for Ohio, a Republican partisan, while refusing to release any information regarding the Ohio recount filings which were upheld by the Courts of Ohio, is now filing against the attorneys who demanded a recount legally.  It is American patriotism that lends one to ask 'have all the votes been counted'.  It is patriotism that drives one to ask questions about the second election in 4 years where the Republican Party chairperson for the Bush Cheney campaign is also the person responsible for counting all the votes in a particular state.  If you count Florida, it has happened thrice in 4 years now, twice in the sunshine State with 2 different Secretaries of State.  Simply put, the mere existence of one person functioning in both capacities is a conflict of interest.  Yet now the Ohio AG is filing suit for censor and fines calling the requested recount frivolous.  Petro, the AG and Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State are the ones who should be censured.  They not only prevented any recount from happening by refusing to obey court orders to provide a recount but blatantly withheld any and all evidence of the actual vote on November 2nd. 

COLUMBUS -- In a stunning legal attack, Ohio's Republican Attorney General has moved for sanctions against the four attorneys who sued George W. Bush et. al. in an attempt to investigate the Buckeye State's bitterly contested November 2 election.

Robert Fitrakis, Susan Truitt, Cliff Arnebeck and Peter Peckarsky were named by Attorney General James Petro in a filing with the Ohio Supreme Court. Petro charges the November Moss v Bush and Moss v. Moyer filings by the Election Protection legal team were "frivolous." Petro is demanding court sanctions and fines.

"Instead of evidence, contesters offered only theory, conjecture, hypothesis and invective," the Attorney General's January 18th memo about the suit said. "A contest proceeding is not a toy for idle hands. It is not to be used to make a political point, or to be used as a discovery tool, or be used to inconvenience or harass public officials, or to be used as a publicity gimmick."

Imagine a country where during a major national election the voting machines counted backwards, counted more votes than people who showed up to vote, switched the votes so that they "hopped" from one candidate to the opponent, had no paper trail verification by design, and the voting machines were allowed to be either altered or kept from inspection after the election. Imagine if the people responsible for all this just refused to show up at a proper judicially noticed court proceeding to discuss any facts of this. Imagine if everyone in power were in on the game- or at least the majority of those in power- so no real investigations with any kind of force of subpoena power would ever take place. No one would ever know. Imagine it. Then get yourself a cup of coffee and wake up, because that is exactly what happened in the US Presidential election of 2004.

In three days George Bush and Richard Cheney, will be sworn in- baring Act of God- as President and the Vice President of the United States- again. Don't you believe it.

When reading the crime and punishment section of my local newspaper (the business pages), I’m continually reminded of the gross inequities inherent in our criminal justice system.

Virtually every day there are reports of CEOs and directors of major corporations who are charged with malfeasance, misappropriation of funds and grand larceny -- on a grand scale.

More often than not, those charged with such offenses end up making a settlement or plea agreement. Usually, those agreements result in fines and/or monetary settlement of lawsuits that don’t even begin to compensate victims of their crimes. Moreover, having agreed to huge multi-million-dollar settlements, there is usually a denial that there was any wrongdoing. To add further insult to injury, few are ever incarcerated.