Greg Palast knows who stole 2000 and 2004, and how they’ll take 2008, too

[kpete]

News
It’s Baker, not Rove
By Elaine Wolff
05/24/20

Greg Palast knows who stole 2000 and 2004, and how they’ll take 2008, too

(excerpts)

I was thinking about the fact that even with the revelation about AT&T releasing phone records to the NSA, the disapproval rating for that was only in the 50s.

Well, people don’t understand the whole game here. So who cares, someone sees phone bills if they get the bad guys? But they aren’t getting the bad guys. First of all, the bad guys weren’t American. This is all building databases so that they can work the next election. They haven’t figured out who we voted for yet.

You think they’re trying to figure out exactly who voted for who

No, what they’re doing , databases are the key to manipulation of elections, and we saw it in the 2000 election when the company ChoicePoint used its databases to scrub out thousands of black voters — the story I broke. In 2004, you had something called caging lists, hundreds of thousands of names the Republican Party put together of black voters to challenge on the basis of their addresses.

In ’08, the story is eliminating the Hispanic vote, because despite George Bush and his pseudo-attempts to get the Hispanic vote, he ain’t winning the Hispanic vote. You know that in Texas very well. It’s still a solid Democratic demographic especially lower-income Hispanics.

Who is the architect, as Bush might say, of these plans?

We love to have a Professor Moriarty deep in a tunnel pulling the switches. That’s why people were so entranced by the idea of stealing the vote by computer, when it’s done by dumber stuff than that. You don’t need a Mr. Big to come up with this stuff. First of all, the Mr. Big in this administration who does come up with most of the evil plans isn’t Karl Rove. Karl Rove is just a soft-handed little schmuck. There are much bigger Texans than that. Jim Baker is behind this stuff. I really should write a book called “Jim Baker Knows Where You Live.” Baker is very much behind so-called “election reform.” And you can’t separate his push for so-called election reform — which means taking away brown people’s votes and black people’s votes, and he represented the Republican Party in Bush v. Gore — he’s pushing for the ID requirement big-time.

more at:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16682683&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=484045&rfi=6

[MADem]

1. Baker wasn't in FL in 00 for the sunshine

The only good thing about him is that he is getting OLD AND SLOW.

[dogday]

3. Baker was involved with the Bush

organization during the recount... He came out and made many statements and I think his law firm as well was involved... He still has the connections, do not be deceived by his age....

[MADem]

5. He's 76 years old, he's starting to slow down

He's a vicious bastard, but he peaked during Reagan. I wonder if he's up to another run....

[dogday]

6. If he can pick up a phone

he can be involved....

[MADem]

8. He CAN, but will he?

I wouldn't want to rely on him if I were an evildoer. He'll be going on 78 when the going gets rough. I don't count him out, I just aver that he's not a fresh faced young man; no longer the troika horse he was during RayGun.

[dogday]

9. Neither is Poppy

but he gets the job done.....

[MADem]

12. Poppy and Monkey aren't friendly anymore

Poppy's best pal Brent Scowcroft trashed some of young one's ideas and try to get him back on track. Some aver Brent did it at Poppy's specific request. It didn't work, and it didn't deter the Monkey. It is a lengthy article, WELL worth reading: http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/051031fa_fact2

A principal reason that the Bush Administration gave no thought to unseating Saddam was that Brent Scowcroft gave no thought to it. An American occupation of Iraq would be politically and militarily untenable, Scowcroft told Bush....It would have been no problem for America’s military to reach Baghdad, he said. The problems would have arisen when the Army entered the Iraqi capital. “At the minimum, we’d be an occupier in a hostile land,” he said. “Our forces would be sniped at by guerrillas, and, once we were there, how would we get out? What would be the rationale for leaving? I don’t like the term ‘exit strategy’—but what do you do with Iraq once you own it?”

Scowcroft stopped for a moment. We were sitting in the offices of the Scowcroft Group, a consulting firm he heads, in downtown Washington. He appeared to be weighing the consequences of speaking his mind. His speech is generally calibrated not to give offense, especially to the senior Bush and the Bush family. He is eighty and, by most accounts, has been content to cede visibility to the larger personalities with whom he has worked. James Baker told me that he and Scowcroft got along well in part because Scowcroft let Baker speak for the Administration. I learned from people who know Scowcroft that he finds it painful to be seen as critical of his best friend’s son, but in the course of several interviews prudence several times gave way to impatience. “This is exactly where we are now,” he said of Iraq, with no apparent satisfaction. “We own it. And we can’t let go. We’re getting sniped at. Now, will we win? I think there’s a fair chance we’ll win. But look at the cost.”

...Scowcroft’s colleagues told me that he would have preferred to deliver his analysis privately to the White House. But Scowcroft, the apotheosis of a Washington insider, was by then definitively on the outside, and there was no one in the White House who would listen to him. On the face of it, this is remarkable: Scowcroft’s best friend’s son is the President; his friend Dick Cheney is the Vice-President; Condoleezza Rice, who was the national-security adviser, and is now the Secretary of State, was once a Scowcroft protégée; and the current national-security adviser, Stephen Hadley, is another protégé and a former principal at the Scowcroft Group.

...The distancing of Brent Scowcroft dates nearly to the beginning of the second Bush Administration. Scowcroft was appointed chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in the first term, but he was not consulted on plans for Iraq. “He’s not the only person to be frozen out,” one colleague of Scowcroft’s from the first Bush Administration told me—a clear reference to James Baker and a number of other officials. “The only thing that is unusual is that Scowcroft was treated like everyone else.” His appointment to the advisory board was not renewed at the end of 2004....Even today, Scowcroft, who lives in Bethesda, Maryland, spends many weekends at a condominium he keeps in Kennebunkport, near the Bush family compound. According to friends of the elder Bush, the estrangement of his son and his best friend has been an abiding source of unhappiness, not only for Bush but for Barbara Bush as well. George Bush, the forty-first President, has tried several times to arrange meetings between his son, “Forty-three,” and his former national-security adviser—to no avail, according to people with knowledge of these intertwined relationships....

That's why they didn't go to Kennebunkport last Xmas, but instead, went to the ranch and hung out with Laura's ma. The Monkey doesn't like to hear that he was wrong.

[lyonn]

11. You are forgetting Rumsfeld, how old is

that evil bast-ard? They are never too old.

[MADem]

14. Rummy is in better shape than Baker

He doesn't sit at work, he stands at an architect's table, and wears hiking boots.

He's also still "on the team" in terms of worldview.

Read the article I posted upthread about Scowcroft. It mentions Baker, and how he's been treated by BushCo lately. I tend to think his motivation may not be as great as it once was.

[rainy]

29. I thought he was representing the Saudi's against WTC families?

[MADem]

31. It's his firm, Baker Botts, but I doubt he's massaging it regularly

He subsequently went on to be point man in restructuring Iraq's debt, http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/05/sprj.nilaw.baker.appointment/ so he wasn't on "the team" for the Saudis, just lending his name.

Haven't heard much about that lately, that was a few years back:

THE OPENING DEFENSE SALVO in what promises to be a bruising legal battle was fired last week when a trio of lawyers from Baker Botts, a prestigious Houston-based law firm, filed a motion on behalf of Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi defense minister. The motion attacked the 9-11 lawsuit as a “broadside indictment of Saudi government, religion and culture.” It also argued that, as the third-ranking official of a foreign government, their client is immune from any U.S. legal action and that he should therefore be dismissed from the case altogether.

But in laying out their arguments, Sultan’s U.S. lawyers also presented highly detailed new evidence of the Saudi government’s role in funneling millions of dollars to a web of Islamic charities that are widely suspected by U.S. officials of covertly financing the operations of Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups.

Backed up by stacks of court affidavits and copies of cancelled checks, the Baker Botts team openly acknowledge in their brief that Sultan has for the past 16 years approved regular payments of about $266,000 a year to the International Islamic Relief Organization—a large Saudi charity whose U.S. offices were last year raided by federal agents. Sultan also authorized two additional grants totaling $52,000 to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, another Saudi-based group that has drawn the scrutiny of U.S. antiterrorism investigators.

...Baker Botts, Sultan’s law firm, for example, still boasts former secretary of State James Baker as one of its senior partners. Its recent alumni include Robert Jordan, the former personal lawyer for President Bush who is now U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3067906/

[quiet.american]

36. He was all up in it. Bush kept repeating, "...ask Jim, ask Jim."

You're so right. The image of the Lurker 'n Smirker shrunken down behind the coat jacket of James Baker during the '00 election purgatory is one I'll never forget. As reporters lobbed questions at Bush, all he could say was, "...I'm not qualified to speak on that... ask Jim," (Baker that is.)

[kerry-is-my-prez]

35. He appeared several times......

[TayTay]

2. I think Palast is dead-on

I think that Baker and others are trying to figure out ways to decrease the Democratic vote and make those ways legal and permanent.

I'll pick up his book as soon as I can.

[Quixote1818]

4. Kick and recommended. nt

[Penndems]

7. This wouldn't surprise me one iota

Anybody who's ever had any dealings with Baker will tell that he's the most underhanded, conniving, devious SOB they've ever encountered. There's nothing decent or honorable about him. He is just one evil bastard.

That's why the Bush family loves Jim-Bob so much - his blind devotion, and that he makes sure their dirty laundry doesn't see the light of day.

[lyonn]

10. Baker isn't dead yet? Sheesh, I keep forgetting

about this guy who has been BIG behind the repub. dirty dealings for nearly a millennium and somehow keeps out of trouble (jail). Thanks for the reminder.

Thanks for the Palast posting, the guy has my attention.

[glitch]

17. Not dead, undead. nt

[kpete]

33. dead heart and mind...

[WiseButAngrySara]

13. K and R kpete...and could someone clue me in on his statement

regarding the '08 Hispanic vote? It sounds credible, but is this really the Pubs intent? How? By making them illegal immigrants, rather than immigrants with amnesty?

"In ’08, the story is eliminating the Hispanic vote..."

[faithnotgreed]

15. i think at least partially is the fact

that they want id requirement so right there you have a certain amount of people who are eliminated or very discouraged from voting (brown black etc) and then when they get there with some form of id there are precincts that will turn them away because of what they deem "improper" identification
they will make sure that some are turned away from voting based on id that is presented
its all a shell game with only one intent

another way to keep people from voting that they have used is to "scrub" voters names from the lists of those who can vote so that when they get to their precinct their name isnt on the list

it can be for any reason they want (florida) but clearly they target anyone who will have the hardest time fighting back - those who have similar names to those who were convicted, those in poorest communities who dont traditionally have the resources to fight and also those who dont want to stir up any "trouble" by challenging the precinct if they are turned away
and thats just a few of the obvious ways

there is not one single thing they would do that would surprise me - no matter the topic

[WiseButAngrySara]

21. Depressingly, I think you are right. Were it not the case! ....n/t

[kpete]

16. I understand it to mean that

the Hispanic vote must be - Diebolded

[robbedvoter]

18. Easy identifyable names for a choice-point like operation

They cast a very wide net in Florida (that we know of) in 2000 for the blacks.
Palast gave a roadmap of 2004 stealings DAYS before elections. He was right then too.

[WiseButAngrySara]

20. I agree! Diebold and Voter repression in the form of issuance of voter ID

cards, as suggested in post #15. That this type of discriminatory voter supression is still occuring in this day and age is so very discouraging and disheartening!

How is this for a campaign slogan of sorts?

"We need to be able to Die Boldly (or Boldly Die for) for our right to vote."
Catchy, no? :rofl:

[LSK]

22. i understood to be

Hispanic vote must be denied and diminished. It happened some in New Mexico in 2004 per the book "Fooled Again".

[WiseButAngrySara]

27. And remember how the M$M kept repeating the mantra of the new

demographic phenom of Republican Hispanics? I knew there was something wrong about that entire polling data.

[LSK]

19. and that plays a large part in denying them Amnesty by the GOP

The majority of illegals who would become citizens would be voting Democrat. I have thought of this before, but I dont dare post in those illegal flamefest posts.

[WiseButAngrySara]

24. I think this is true. I didn't post in the numerous threads for another

reason, and that is I'm still 'on the fence' about what is the best way to handle this. It is strange though, that of all issues confronting Congress, they would come up with this very devisive issue, right before the 2006 elections. I know I'm not in favor of deportation. That's about all I can say with absolute certainty. Oh, and I strongly support potent prohibitions on those hiring illegals.

Many Republicans support making them illegal immigrants and/or deporting them. This would make it impossible to vote in the elections, obviously. B* comes out in favor of amnesty, but we can assume, it's really because of his support of the businesses that hire the illegals.

[LSK]

25. i thought Bush favored the Guest Worker program

Guest workers dont vote right?

[WiseButAngrySara]

26. Thank you. That explains it! And no, I'm sure they don't vote. ....n/t

[mod mom]

23. Palast is an excellent investigator and writer. He is very witty. I have

an advanced copy of Armed Madhouse and I can't put it down. Chapter 4 deals with the stolen '04 election in Ohio and NEW MEXICO. The book is due for release on June 6. Note the date.

[WiseButAngrySara]

28. See post #19 and 22. Does Chapter 4 deal with these issues? ....n/t

[mod mom]

30. He talks about uncounted and undervotes. 3 MILLION votes were cast in '04

but never counted (the official # used by the EAC is 1,855,827) but the Census tabulation of voters differs from ballots tallied by the Clerk of the House of Representatives for the 2004 Presidential race by 3.4 million votes. He points out that people of color are MUCH more likely to have their votes rejected. In Ohio 14.4% of blacks while only 1.6% of whites were not counted. In New mexico, Hispanic precincts vote loss was 900% greater than predominately white. Anyway, he uncover so much more-and it's enough to make your blood boil!

[WiseButAngrySara]

34. My blood DOES boil over these issues. More reason for my

abomination of these current thuglicans. Thanks so much for your info. I will definitely check out Palast's books.

[JudyM]

32. So why did Jimmy Carter engage with Baker in that election reform effort?

Carter publicly expressed the view that it was an honest endeavor...


:shrug:

[midnight]

37. Why are we not listening to this man?

He was the first person that made me see something was wrong with our leaders story about 9-11. About Gore's defense team. The Saturday that his lawyer filed papers in court he was dead the next day. Very Curious.

[progressoid]

38. Love to read Greg, even if he bashes Dems