The war on democracy comes to Philly

[mrgorth]

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/7032599.htm

For those who don't know, Philly is a hardcore democratic city with repug suburbs. However, those same 'burbs have voted for dem presidents for a while. Bush has been stopping by like gangbusters to try and reverse that. Not content that this will work he has decided to drop the gloves. Philly is in the heat of a nasty mayoral election. The incumbent is dem John Street. Good guy but not likable and with some corruption accusations going on. Bottom line? Philly is a racially divided area and John Street makes no apologies for being a proud black man. About a week ago it turned up that thre was an FBI listening device in Street's office. Now the stuff in the article. The shrub has decided he's going to take Philly and thus the swing state of PA in '04 no matter what he has to do to accomplish it.

[birdman]

1. I wouldn't be too sure that Street isn't dirty

He has a rather checkered history and just this past year
was caught giving his brother a lucrative contract for
equipment maintenance at the airport (it was quickly pulled
when news of it hit the papers).

If the bug hadn't been found by the mayors people the investigation
wouldn't have become public knowledge so it's difficult to
accuse the Feds of trying to influence the election.

[Hubert Flottz]

2. What About Dick Cheney And Halliburton Contracts In Iraq?

They ALL do that shit!

[birdman]

5. Excuse me ?

Does that excuse Street ?

[tom_paine]

7. No, it doesn't excuse Street

But "selective investigation/prosecution" is one nearly-universal way that Totalitarian Societies (or like Imperial Amerika, thoise which are rapidly trending noward a Free-Market-Stalinist State) control their opposition, if, as it is here in Imperial Amerika, wanton murder, judicial murder, and Gulagging is not (yet) an acceptable method of control.

I don't think much of Street, either. But that does not cause me to discount what I know about "selective prosecution" from history going back thousands of years.

And that says, Street (and now the Democratic City Council of Baltimore), are just the first to be assaulted by Herr A$$cru$t's Ministry of "Justice".

It also tells me to be 100% CERTAIN that there will be NO INVESTIGATIONS of Republican State Officials (that weren't already in progress before Herr A$$cru$t'$ 9/11 purge and replacement with Bushevik Loyalists, who are mostlikely carrying out these political hits).

Whether or not Street is corrupt is actually secondary to the ongoing and evermore obvious subversion of the Old American Republic into a Footstool of the Bushevik Imperial Family.

"The struggle is a light one now as we are able to employ all the means of the state...Radio and press are at our disposal."
--Josef Goebbels, 1933

Wake up, birdman.

[mrgorth]

3. good point

Frankly, I don't think he's any more corrupt than most. Just a little preferential treatment here and there. Bottom line is that this may be the key for giving the shrub PA. Unless Street is kicking babies I'll take him until the shrub is gone.

[birdman]

6. Street's poll numbers have actually gone up in recent days

as he tries to portray himself as a victim. Philly
politics is very racially polarized and black voters
have rallied to him as he's implied that "the man" is
out to get him.

Personally I don't think this has anything at all to do
with the Bushies trying to swing the election. They would
have had to know that the bug would have been found by
the mayors security. Strangely enough, Streets corruption may
have just bailed him out.

[tom_paine]

8. Bull! See my post above, birdman

I worked in electronics in the USAF for years. While I never dealt with bugs, it would be a simple matter to send feedback through the bugs, which would create whines in the telephones or screw with the radio, otherwise tipping off the target that the bugs are there.

Not a problem at all.

Plus, look at what is also going on down in Baltimore to the Democratic City Council.

Pull the wool from your eyes. You are thinking of where we all live as the Old American Republic.

But the Amerikan Empire is closer now to Marcos' Phillipines (sans the brutal and direct violence to political opponnents) than it is to the Old American Republic.

Pull the wool from your eyes. The Pravda grows more ludicrous and Orwellian every day.

And I'm sure those post-9/11 investigations into Bushevik corruption and kickbacks is coming any day now.

:puke:

Pull the wool from your eyes.

[AndyTiedye]

4. Asscroft would pass it all on to the Repubs, of course