Wise up: nothing else matters if this isn't dealt with

[Gabi Hayes]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20051204/cm_huffpost/011483;_ylt=AhebmFhri8eLNYaGLPESIJQDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.

The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of 2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from the Government Accountability Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream media coverage.

The government's lead investigative agency is known for its general incorruptibility and its thorough, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence with assertions widely dismissed as "conspiracy theories" adds crucial new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate business being in the White House.

Nearly a year ago, senior Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers (D-MI) asked the GAO to investigate electronic voting machines as they were used during the November 2, 2004 presidential election. The request came amidst widespread complaints in Ohio and elsewhere that often shocking irregularities defined their performance.

this is from yahoo, top 5 stories, thx to catwoman, and deserves its own thread. I heard Wasserman on thisishell.com yesterday, and the tale is bleaker when heard than when read, just as the video of that computer expert testifying before Conyers/etal last year was infinitely more compelling than when merely reading about it

it's later than you think

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05956.pdf

Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, available via

http://freepress.org and http://harveywasserman.com.

''What Happened in Ohio?,'' with Steve Rosenfeld, will be published in Spring, 2006, by New Press.

[Gabi Hayes]

1. 'course this isn't news here, but yahoo running it so predominantly IS

could be it's starting to catch on, and the FIFTY SEVEN THOUSAND election complaints cited by GAO most certainly should be news to the corporate media, and the likes of Rich, Dowd, Al Franken, etal

[blm]

7. The leftleaning media can't be depended on to further these truths. They

have none of the power that the RW machine has, so they pass up important stories like election fraud out of real fear.

If there was a REAL objective media machine in place, journos wouldn't be so chickenshit of election fraud, but they know they'll get beat down just as any lawmaker would.

[Gabi Hayes]

9. here's Palast's groundbreaking video, which, IIRC was SUPPOSED

to play here on ABC, but they chickened out on it.


remember?

HERE lies DEMOCRACY: RIP

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/newsnight/palast.ram

starts out with that Roberts guy calling the police on him

[Touchdown]

13. How do you play a Go Live show?

Go Live popped up for me for the first time since buying cs2, but I've got no experience with it. Where's the play button?

[Gabi Hayes]

14. that's the realplayer link....try this; click the play button

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsnight/1174115.stm

[Touchdown]

15. Then why is it a Go Live icon?

Why did Go Live autostart? Properties didn't say anything about Real, QT, WM, nothing.:shrug:

[MH1]

42. Check your file associations

You need the .ram extension associated with Real Player.

It opened fine for me. Probably when you installed cs2 it changed your file associations. I hate when software does that!

[Neil Lisst]

36. I believe this story will not come out unless we win the HOUSE

in 2006.

I have no doubt the election was stolen, and formed that opinion by reading everything available in the months following it.

If we still had media who did true investigative reporting, this would be a huge story. But, we have lackeys who repeat what they heard and little else, calling the verbal ping pong match and little more.

[marmar]

2. As we've always suspected...

Yes. We've got to scream and shout this one out loud. A reaffirmation that we've had a completely illegitimate government for the last 5 years.

:grr: :grr: :argh: :dem:

[Cleita]

3. This needs more eyes.

Nominated.

[sturod84]

5. agreed

they just didnt count on the dumbing down aspect of america to back fire in their face and spread a flurishment of diligence and integrety amongst the american populace. i can see the cards tumbling, down , down they go...

[NanceGreggs]

4. You are SO RIGHT!

It's time to start notifying Dems who are looking at election or re-election in '06 that we see no point contributing to their campaigns if they are not going to take steps to ensure that our votes are properly counted.

I, like a lot of us, don't have a lot of money, but I am willing to make a contribution (such as it is) to a candidate I believe in.
HOWEVER -- if that candidate's election is in the hands of Diebold, I don't see the point in contributing a dime.

I'll probably take some flack for my position, but a billion dollars to back a savvy, well executed campaign is money down the drain unless the voting process itself is secure.

[Gabi Hayes]

8. GREAT point....that should be THE qualifier in deciding which candidate

gets your/my/our backing, cause you KNOW if they're up on this, they're going to be most likely seeing eye to eye on most other important factors

contacting them with the carrot/money approach is most excellent, btw

it sickens me beyond end that the rest of the democratic achordate party reFUSES to stand behind Conyers and the others who/ve put themselves in the vanguard of TRYING TO RESTORE what remains of democracy in our poor, benighted land

[cantstandbush]

6. I agree. And we should give the Congress and media no rest on this! n/t

[Gregorian]

10. No Diebold in the next election.

We have several months to either prepare, or stop the electronic machine madness.
We are right where we were in the primaries- trying to work against the electric machines. And we all know how that went.

Like Walt Starr said- SHUT IT DOWN. NOW.

If they can steal it, they will. I say we go back to where we were ten years ago. After all, the population isn't much greater. There is no excuse to use these machines until we can trust them. And we can't.

So what do we do now?

[Gabi Hayes]

11. ''So what do we do now?''

that's the eight trillion dollar question

as somebody pointed out, apparently all of Mississippi is Diebold

now's the time for activism. I'm going to spend as much of my 2 week Xmas vac trying to figure out what to do, as well as bugging my reps, senators....are you listening, Durbin, Obama. forget my rep, the intel weasel shmuck Mark Kirk.

guess I could call his office and say I'd send him money, contingent on him looking into vote fraud, seeing as how our state is so widely reputed to be a bastion of dem fraud

[annabanana]

12. rated, and kick!. . . . . n/t

[Peace Patriot]

16. There are at least three other threads on this matter at DU today:

About the recent GAO report

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2289992

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x177412

And, regarding a petition to Calif Sec of State against Diebold in Calif--prepared by State Senator Debra Bowen (who is running for Sec of State--GO DEBRA!). Sign the petition!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5513129&mesg_id=5513129

---------------------

Strategy for '06 and '08:

1. Strong pressure on the Dem Party to commit resources to INDEPENDENT EXIT POLLS, "parallel elections," and other verification tools--to be able to challenge suspicious election results and gather evidence for the election reform movement. Do this on our own if necessary. See: www.UScountvotes.org, for a project for statistical monitoring in '06 and '08.

(INDEPENDENT EXIT POLLS are necessary because the corporate news monopolies are tweaking their exit polls to fit the results of non-transparent, Bushite-controlled electronic voting systems. They did this on 11/2/04! --gave us false numbers, to hide strong evidence of a Kerry win.)


2. Widespread education of the public--by word of mouth and any means possible--to, a) alert them to EXPECT losses to the Republican-controlled voting machines, and not to be discouraged; 2) to inform them that we need MASSIVE turnouts to overcome the fraud.

(A disheartened, disempowered, demoralized population, which doesn't know WHY they are not represented in Wash DC, is not desirable. That's what we have now. What we want is an alive, empowered, energetic, purposeful population who knows exactly where things stand, and determines to do something about it. Our message should be: Never give up your right to vote! NEVER! Fight back! OUTVOTE THE MACHINES! The machines can't manufacture an election--they can only tweak it here and there--and they WILL BE CAUGHT with a massive voter turnout.)


3. All-out grass roots effort for max voter turnout, and strong support of good candidates. Don't back off now, when max voter turnout is so essential, and good candidates are risking everything to run (based on their principles--such as an antiwar stance--and also on the bad numbers for the Bushites). NOW IS THE TIME for grass roots groups to DO IT--go all out--now that we KNOW what's going on! We can't let anyone sit on their hands. MOBILIZE YOUR GET-OUT-THE-VOTE GROUP! Or form a new one! We must overwhelm the fraud!


4. Strong pressure on state/local election officials, to demand TRANSPARENCY, and to let them know that we are aware of the corruption in the electronic voting scene--the lavish lobbying, the "revolving door" employment, the arrogance and fiefdomism--and the reformers are coming to get them--we are out to clean house, so they had better steer clear of any taint! Other points:

--electronic voting was not ready for prime time (to say the least); distribute "MythBreakers" (www.votersunite.org), an easy to read pamphlet on the perils of electronic voting which, among other things, points out that HAVA (Congress) did NOT mandate electronic voting (it just created a $4 billion boondoggle for the Bushite-controlled electronic voting companies, and corruptible election officials); PAPER BALLOTS are still an option, and should be a first line of attack demand.

--electronic voting is VERY expensive as well as insecure and hackable; it involves long term servicing and upgrades, and private company personnel access to voting data; it was a mistake; it should be abandoned, not "patched up," until these systems have rock solid security; take this strong position--PAPER BALLOTS NOW--to get them busy on increased transparency and security (as much as we can get). (They'll be motivated to do it to save their corrupt little asses.)


5. Pressure on legislators, and legal and public pressure to get "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code banned in as many elections as possible, prior to the elections. Shout it far and wide! Don't be afraid!


6. And somebody for godssakes get this matter to Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. That's where young people get their news these days (and some oldsters, too)! A comic piece on election fraud and the need for MASSIVE TURNOUT (the people need to win by at least a 10% margin in order to...win) will do wonders.

In Ohio, Diebold just flipped the vote on four ELECTION REFORM initiatives, which were winning by 60/40 in pre-election polls, but "somehow" LOST by 60/40 (!) on election day--the most audacious machine flipover we've seen yet. THERE'S A GOOD COMIC SKIT IN THERE SOMEWHERE. The MACHINES (and their masters) refusing to let us reform our election system and its MACHINES!

See Bob Koehler's column on the Ohio initiatives:
http://www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?custid=67&catid=1824

[Peace Patriot]

19. P.S. I'll make some long term strategy suggestions later.

I think it's a long term problem--not easily solved--and we need to realize that and commit to total election reform, in a lengthy, difficult campaign to save our democracy.

For now, we can't let this vague unease that Americans feel remain vague. We have to TELL them what's wrong. They have a right to know, and we can't do anything about this fraudulent election system without them.

[Gabi Hayes]

27. thanks! especially for the previous post

I wish I could be more sanguine about this, but one of the things that makes me not feel so swell is that somebody on one of the bag shows (maybe even on radio) cited a stat that said this:

about two thirds of the US didn't even KNOW the hula boy was giving his speech last week!

the massive indifference to the American Frogboiling is what, I'm afraid, will do us all in

[BeFree]

30. It's not easily soved? Oh, yes it is

Congress can declare that all federal elections are held using paper ballots, and those ballots are to be counted by hand.

Too much trouble to count those races by hand? At most, there are only three federal races in any election: President, Senate, and Representatives.

The election of someone to a federal office has an effect on everyone in the country. Those elected to federal offices should all be elected the very same way across the entire nation. Comgress can make it happen, and if we are to remain a democracy, it must be made to happen.

[Gabi Hayes]

44. what makes you think Congress, much less a pug congress would EVER

do something like that?

look how difficult it is to get ANY dems to sign on

I just don't get it

[BeFree]

45. 'Cause, it's the right thing to do

Yeah, it would be a battle to get congress to do the right thing, duh. But it would end the chances that any federal election was stolen by e-voting.

The truth IS coming out about the last selection. As it does it will be like an earthquake rattling and shaking the crooked elections to the core. And that's when we need be ready to strike: paper ballots on federal elections are the only way to run a democracy. Let's do it.

[Gabi Hayes]

47. I hope you're right, cause if you aren't we are pretty much screwed.

BUT, it's been FIVE YEARS since Florida, and the obvious theft of that election, and the dems STILL have done nothing, the ill publicized exceptions to the contrary

I'd like to be sanguine about this, but I'm having a hard time

maybe a groundswell will form, but the media is SO reluctant to act on this.....

maybe a Nixonesque/Watergate turn is in the offing, cause that's what it took to get the media off its collective ass back then. they were VERY slow to get on the Woodstein bandwagon, current hagio revisionism to the contrary

and it's MUCH worse now than it was then

Still, I try to be optimistic, against my instincts

[BeFree]

49. Well,

Nothing else matters if we don't do something about stolen elections.

I must say, it warms me cockles to see so many people who are aware that it is the straw that will break the proverbial camel's back. But am I an optimist? I don't believe so.

Geting congress to mandate paper in federal elections would be like the camel finding an oasis, that's all.

[Al-CIAda]

17. rated, sent, kick, and rec'd. -nt

[Donna Zen]

18. A great site to add to your list:

Who's Counting?

Constantly updated...a labor of free speech.

[bonito]

22. Wow that is a really great site, thanks. n/t

[Sapphocrat]

20. "tightening legal noose"

Let me just savor that phrase for a moment.

Mmmmmm.

OK, all done. I'll go vote up the story now.

[bonito]

21. Kick and nominated!

[nicknameless]

23. The topic of election fraud is THE most important one facing the country.

That this story actually made it onto Yahoo is cause for some celebration.

K&R

[mod mom]

24. While you are correct that election reform is so important, I believe that

hacking away at the bush administration's crediability will allow the fraud/absurd voting system to be accepted by the American People. Since late summer the public confidence in * has been steadily falling. This erosion will hit the fan when Americans are rudely awakened by their heating bills. I believe it will be a major wake-up call to want to rid our country of the worse unelected pResidnet ever. While I think we need to keep pressuring MSM to cover this issue, the outrage will allow it to be accepted by more people.

[helderheid]

25. K, R, and voted it up!

[helderheid]

26. !!!

[omega minimo]

28. !!

:patriot:

:bounce:

[Gabi Hayes]

29. know wutta mean, vern?

[lildreamer316]

31. But does this really have LEGS?

Is it really going to go anywhere? That is all I want to know. Sorry to be so simplistic; but damn...if the DSM didn't go anywhere; sheesh!

[helderheid]

34. I sent it to SLC's county clerk

Can't hurt.

[Patsy Stone]

32. K&R

You are absolutely correct. 3.5 stars - 694 votes.

[helderheid]

33. huge kick

Hugh. This is series.

[northamericancitizen]

35. K & N

[Neil Lisst]

37. I agree. The election was stolen, and if we don't do something ...

they will do it again.

[AntiFascist]

38. Wow, is Yahoo News MSM ? nt

[Swamp Rat]

39. kick and recommended n/t

[Seansky]

40. nominated. we need to keep this one up...

[Kolesar]

41. One of those teaser subject lines ... eom

[Gabi Hayes]

43. I can kick!

[helderheid]

46. heeeeeeeee

[Gabi Hayes]

48. huh har...why is it, the older I get

the more I like that show?

[Generator]

50. Reading this stuff just breaks my heart

I don't have any other words for it. I try to avoid it because it makes it hard to live in America. If everything sacred-voting the essence of the democracy- is false, it's too much.

>Voters who pushed Kerry's name saw Bush's name light up, again and again, all day long.<

[Gabi Hayes]

51. fifty seven THOUSAND documented complaints

lord knows how many people were intimidated, misinformed by calculated pug tactics, kept in line for so long the didn't stick around, kept off the rolls, etc, and didn't even bother to complain

hundreds of thousands?

USA/RIP/12/12/2000

[Gabi Hayes]

52. more from Hopsicker

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5529716&mesg_id=5529716

like I said, can you say "Octopus?"