The Agonist - USA: Campaign 2004

American Complicity

Tue, 27 May 2008 14:20:39 -0700

The majority of the people in America today have basically said yes to corporate ownership of the government. The majority of Americans seem to have decided to let the corporate media do their thinking for them. Welcome to the information age in overdrive. You may not get the correct information… but you will get lots of it. The task is to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The blame cannot be shifted solely onto the shoulders of our political leaders. The American people cannot claim that they were “misled” by their leaders and don’t know the truth. While they were indeed misled, the truth wasn’t long behind the lies. Whether it its the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, the food crisis, the loss of our civil liberties or the sinking of our economy, the American people have been informed and apprised of everything. We know who the people behind the curtain are. We know how they did the things that they did. There are no great secrets that the American people don’t have access to. Everything is in plain sight.

Stealing Ohio - the Case Heats Up

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:11:36 -0800

Ohio citizen sending a message right after 2004 election Image

"Letters from the Edge" Part 2

Michael Collins
"Scoop" Independent News
Washington, DC (Part 1)

April, 2007. Columbus, Ohio. 56 of 88 Ohio counties defied a federal court order and failed to return some or all of the 2004 presidential ballots that they were ordered to retain indefinitely. Over 1.5 million ballots were destroyed or lost, key evidence for major federal law suit charging election fraud and voter suppression in the 2004 presidential contest. For example: "fraudulent votes … cast for George W. Bush; inflating of vote tabulations in areas that tended to vote for George Bush."

Destruction of Evidence - Ohio's 2004 Presidential Ballots

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:56:52 -0700

Letter from an Ohio Board of Elections (Holmes County) on missing 2004 ballots.

“Letters from the Edge” - Part 1

Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election Records Are Destroyed

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:19:23 -0700

Steven Rosenfeld, | July 30

AlterNet - In 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, ballots and election records from 2004 have been "accidentally" destroyed, despite a federal order to preserve them -- it was crucial evidence which would have revealed whether the election was stolen.

Two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, according to letters from county election officials to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner.

The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.

'Vote caging' allegations arise in probe of U.S. attorney firings

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:19:46 -0700

Greg Gordon | June 25

McClatchy - Critics say top Justice official's '04 letter to Ohio judge was a partisan maneuver.

Four days before the 2004 election, the Justice Department's civil rights chief sent an unusual letter to a federal judge in Ohio who was weighing whether to let Republicans challenge the credentials of 23,000 mostly African American voters.

The case was triggered by allegations that Republicans had sent a mass mailing to mostly Democratic-leaning minorities and used undeliverable letters to compile a list of voters potentially vulnerable to eligibility challenges.

In his letter to U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott of Cincinnati, Assistant Attorney General Alex Acosta argued that it would undermine the enforcement of state and federal election laws if citizens could not challenge voters' credentials.

h/t Think Progress

Just goes to show . . .

Wed, 23 May 2007 18:53:39 -0700

. . . how incestuous DC really is, like a holiday weekend in Arkansas or something it's so bad.

Denver 3 name Bush staffers

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:51:41 -0800

Bruce Finley | Denver | March 2

Denver Post - White House staffers directed two men serving as bouncers at a 2005 Denver appearance by President Bush to eject three activists from the public event, the bouncers said under oath today.

It was the first time in the long-running controversy over the barring of the so-called "Denver Three" from the Bush event that specific White House officials have been named as having been involved in the ejection.

The paid White House staff members were identified in sworn depositions as Jamie O'Keefe, who was lead advance staffer for the appearance, and Steve Atkiss, White House trip director, attorneys said after the depositions today in federal court in Denver.

2 election workers convicted of rigging '04 presidential recount

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:36:34 -0800

M.R. KROPKO | Cleveland | January 24

AP - Two election workers in the state's most populous county were convicted Wednesday of illegally rigging the 2004 presidential election recount so they could avoid a more thorough review of the votes.

A third employee who had been charged was acquitted on all counts.

Jacqueline Maiden, the elections' coordinator who was the board's third-highest ranking employee when she was indicted last March, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee.

Maiden and Dreamer also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty. Both were acquitted of five other charges.

Phone-Jamming Records Point to White House

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:16:34 -0700

Washington | April 10

Associated Press - Key figures in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002 had regular contact with the White House and Republican Party as the plan was unfolding, phone records introduced in criminal court show.

The records show that Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002 — as the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down.

A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic

Sat, 08 Apr 2006 18:48:36 -0700

Barton Gellman & Daffna Linser | April 9

WP - As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.

Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign. Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C.

Rise in Online Fundraising Changed Face of Campaign Donors

Sun, 05 Mar 2006 22:01:33 -0800

Thomas B. Edsall | March 6

Washington Post - The surging number of campaign contributors in 2004, especially the small donors who gave online, changed the character of one of the most important constituencies in U.S. politics, the people who finance presidential elections. This key group has become more reflective of the middle class, has a higher percentage of women and is far more willing to contribute without being directly solicited.

The new small donors, who played a much bigger role in 2004 than in the past, are polarized on ideological, cultural and economic issues in much the same way that large givers are, according to a survey by the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet at George Washington University of all donors, both those using the Internet and those who did not.

None Dare Call It Stolen: Ohio, the election, and America's servile press

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 01:47:50 -0700

Mark Crispin Miller | July 24

Harper's Magazine via FreePress.org - (summarized by Mary Anne Saucier). While commentators, prompted by Republicans, claimed Bush won the 2004 election through the votes of a silent majority concerned with "family values," Mark Crispin Miller writes that when voters were asked to state, "in their own words the most important factor in their vote,"only 14 percent named "moral values." He details how the press (except for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC) ignored "the strange details of the election--except, that is, to ridicule all efforts to discuss them...It was as if they were reporting from inside a forest fire without acknowledging the fire, except to keep insisting that there was no fire."

Embassies For Sale

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 06:35:07 -0700

Georg Mascolo | June 27 | Berlin

Der Spiegel - Want to become a US ambassador? It's not as hard as you may think. Just donate a couple of hundred thousand to President George W. Bush's campaign coffers and pick your city. The president's new cadre of diplomats tend to be generous campaign donors, including the wealthy Ohio ball-bearing manufacture who is expected to run the US Embassy in Berlin.

Washington State GOP Pays $15,000 to Democrats for Governor Election Challenge Court Costs

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 06:17:20 -0700

Seattle | June 28

AP - The Washington state Republican Party paid Democrats $15,000 to cover court costs in the GOP's unsuccessful challenge to the election of Gov. Christine O. Gregoire.

Officials said the check was cut Friday as Chelan County Superior Court Judge E. Bridges signed a final order to dismiss the Republican challenge, affirming a ruling he issued June 6 that upheld the election results.

Cutting that check might have stung a little, you think?

Washington Governor's Race STILL not over??

Thu, 26 May 2005 20:03:36 -0700

Eric Boehlert | Seattle | May 25

Salon.com - Republican efforts in Washington state to sue their way into the governor's mansion took a legal hit Tuesday when a judge ruled Republicans would have to find another allegation besides voter fraud if they wanted the 2004 election results overturned.