I think Democrats need to be on guard against Republican paid

[hector459]

illegal voters. I mean those illegal and unqualified or ineligible voters who have been paid to act as voting Democrats just so they can be identified later in order to charge Democrats with voter fraud. The Republicans use all kinds of deceptions including posing as Democrats, paying the homeless, felons, and illegals to vote. Nothing like planting the evidence and then exposing it as was done with the CBS documents on Bush's AWOL issue. Rather than jumping on the very first thing that appears to be critical of Bush, Democrats need to have all their facts and proof in line when taking on the propaganda machine of this evil regime. Deception is the name of their game and they are damn good at it.

[bemis12]

1. Those Republican bastards

Good thing we're above any of that.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/may01/smokes04050301a.asp

[thanatonautos]

3. Oh boy ... that's real serious election fraud right there: 10 whole votes.

Or at least, maybe ...

A New York philanthropist and major Democratic donor will
pay a $5,000 forfeiture and not contest a civil complaint
filed Thursday by prosecutors probing allegations that she
gave packages of cigarettes to homeless men in Milwaukee
while drumming for votes in the fall presidential election.

Connie Milstein was charged in a small claims complaint
alleging 10 violations of a state election law that says
it is illegal to spend more than $1 on something that is
disbursed as a voting promotional item.

The prosecutor was so sure of the evidence that he
declined to file felony charges, which the case in
principle merited:

"There are evidentiary difficulties in proving anything more
than what we've alleged," said Assistant District Attorney
Kurt Benkley.

First, according to Benkley, "the witnesses were guests in
homeless shelters who had alcohol problems that have affected
their ability to recall what happened."

"Also, there were considerable contradictions among the
witnesses we were able to identify and contact as to just
what happened," Benkley said.

But, on the other hand there was a possible defense:

Stephen M. Glynn, the attorney for Milstein, said his
firm conducted its own investigation of the matter, and it
showed that the men who received cigarettes got them after
voting and after asking Milstein and her associates for
them.

Glynn said that Milstein, along with friends and relatives
from New York, came to Wisconsin "on their own power and
paid their own way" in an effort to get out the vote "for
people who were otherwise disenfranchised."

"Some of these people, after they had voted, noticed that
she was a smoker and asked her for cigarettes," Glynn said.
"She told them that, sure, they could have some and asked
if anyone else wanted some.

"They went to a store and bought some and gave them to those
who asked for them."

Of course, she just agreed to plead guilty and pay a
huge fine: we all know that it's always as easy as 1-2-3
to contest a potentially criminal case in the US:
and it's especially so when you're from out of town.

Glynn said he believed there was room to contest the
case, but Milstein has decided not to do so, and he felt
that was best, considering the circumstances.

"If she were a local resident and if the penalties
associated with contesting these kinds of things weren't as
severe as they could be, depending on how prosecutors proceed,
it might be worth contesting," Glynn said. "But on this one,
it just is a sensible way to resolve it."

Glynn said he expects that the $5,000 will be in his firm's
trust account by then, and it can be handed over that day,
finally ending the matter.

$501 per vote is definitely a hell of a price to pay for 10
votes, when it's so much easier to do with computers and a
few important State officials on your side!

Let's face it the Republicans are much better at this
than we are, at least these days :)

[itzamirakul]

2. IMO, there are paid DINOs at the top of

our party, also. It ought to be obvious by the way ABSOLUTELY none of them has come out strongly against ANY of the Repubs' coming agenda or any of the news articles that have appeared lately. (Well, maybe Ted Kennedy...but that's ALL!)

1. Social Security - leave it the fuck alone!

2. The WMD lie that took us to an illegal war!

3. The "no accountability" declaration by Bush.

4. Chertoff LIED under oath. And he had the nerve to investigate BC.

5. The "payola" scandal that surely reaches high among news pundits.

That's just three.....How many more do YOU think our policitians's should be VEHEMENT about?

[brindis_desala]

5. Absolutely correct. We need a reforming grassroots movement

and more clear thinkers

[Wilms]

7. Dianne Fienstein supports Condi Rice...

Oh! What's this? DiFi's hubby has a $650MM contract in Afghanistan.

Is there a name for Socially Liberal/Fiscally Corrupt?

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/27/BA284459.DTL>

[Peace Patriot]

9. 6. No air cover for our nation's capitol on 9/11.

7. BushCons owning the secret, proprietary source codes that tabulates all our votes.

[Hugin]

4. Good point...

I've noticed a M.O. for the current crowd...

We-the-people get the scent of some scandal or another...

It begins to appear, when suddenly.

A mysterious, yet, tangentially related story storms the
MSM.

Examples:
Ken Lay *pop* Martha Stuart.
Armstrong Williams *pop* Dan Rather
Voter Suppression *pop* Mary Poppins at the ballot box.
The Coward-In-Chief's Military Record *pop* Swift Boat BS.

... and on and on and on and on and on... To the point I don't
even watch the MSM any more.

It's ALWAYS some huge offense on the other side paired with some
relatively trivial event on this side.

I agree... We must be careful. Also, though, when this type
of suppression occurs it must be called as the Horse Apples
it is.

[itzamirakul]

8. Excellent analogies...

I hadn't thought of that set of convenient situations to distract attention from the REAL current problem under the spotlight.

[Hugin]

6. Kick

[Peace Patriot]

10. hector 459...

"Rather than jumping on the very first thing that appears to be critical of Bush, Democrats need to have all their facts and proof in line when taking on the propaganda machine of this evil regime. Deception is the name of their game and they are damn good at it."

"Democrats need to have all their facts and proof in line..."

I don't know about this. For instance, on election fraud, I'm convinced that a hundred "smoking guns" wouldn't make any difference at all. (People--especially freepers and the faint of heart--are always talking about needing a "smoking gun," when the "gun" of a fraudulent election system...secret source code owned by BushCons, for chrissake...has just blown our heads off...).

I'm a paralegal on environmental lawsuits. We always have our "facts and proof in line" to the nth degree. Doesn't make a bit of difference.

He who donates the most to the politicians who appoint the judges always wins. Facts don't matter. The resource being absolutely blown away doesn't matter.

I think we need to look at this--"the propaganda machine of this evil regime"--from the perspective of POLITICS and POWER, and not from the perspective of what we would ordinarily consider "facts" and "proof."

You want facts and proof? Bush is a war criminal. Over 100,000 innocent Iraqis have been slaughtered. They did nothing to us. Nothing! And what is the justification for this, in international law? And where is the Constitutional power to do this in our name? And how is this moral and ethical and "Christian"?

So...WHY are these facts and this proof (the orders have his signature on them) not on everybody's lips? Why are they not the biggest deal in the history of American politics? Why is this man being crowned King of America, and not in jail?

Why is it that BushCons never need facts and proof, and we always do?

Part of the reason is that we RESPECT facts and proof, and they don't. So we put that restriction on ourselves, and we allow it to be used to restrict us. Remember all the controversy about that commercial in the MoveOn contest that compared Bush to Hitler? We--what might be called the "mainstream Left" ALWAYS back down on items like this--on just going apeshit on them, and speaking from our gut--speaking the overarching Truth, as opposed to legally provable "facts." They never hesitate to go apeshit, and to speak what THEY think is The Truth, despite all facts. But what WE say always has to be reasonable, and not exaggerated, and not emotional, and always "fact-based," and always containing "absolute proof" of every goddamned word that we say.

Let me back up a bit. I'm NOT saying give up the pursuit of truth, or stop being reasonable and fact-based. I'm just trying to describe the corners we get ourselves into in dealing with the blatant liars of a fascist coup, who have enormous power to propagandize the populace and to create a nation-wise DELUSION of democracy.

Power is the key--not trying to get a word in edgewise in a wholly corrupt war profiteering press--but rather establishing and developing bases of power from which to speak, recovering those that have been taken from us, like the right to vote, and targeting their power base for destruction (for instance, with focused divestiture and boycotts of media corporations).

I would put the right to vote first. We MUST get it back. And we need to so this locally, state by state. (Congress is NOT going to give us back our right to vote!)

Our facts and proof won't matter until we have established and re-developed a platform to speak them from.

[Hugin]

11. Please read down to #10... Great point.

Excellent Peace Patriot.