Monday 2/21 Election Fraud, Reform, & Updates Thread

[MelissaB]

In order to organize and document I thought it would be a good idea to have a daily thread to place items related to reform, fraud, protests, and other items. This also make it easier to "catch up" when we are away from the computer for a while.

Please help us. If you see something that isn't here post it with a link to the thread and a thanks to the author. Thanks to everyone who is helping with this project.


Link to the thread from yesterday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x330803#331078

[dzika]

1. Poll: Single women voting more

Monday, February 21, 2005

Poll: Single women voting more

By Michael Kunzelman / News Staff Writer


BOSTON -- Move over, soccer moms. Make room for unmarried women.

A new poll found that unmarried women represent one of the fastest growing voting blocs in the U.S., voting in larger numbers and increasing their share of the electorate last year.

Roughly 7 million more unmarried women voted in 2004 than in 2000, and their share of the nation's overall electorate grew from 19 percent to 22.4 percent over the same period, according to the poll, which the nonpartisan Women's Voices Women Vote project released last week at a press briefing in Boston.

Unmarried women also voted overwhelmingly for U.S. Sen. John Kerry for president, by a margin of 62 percent to 37 percent, while married women voted for President Bush by a margin of 55 percent to 44 percent.

That "marriage gap" would have been the story of the election if Kerry had unseated Bush, said Page Gardner, director of Women's Voices Women Vote.


more: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=91253

[dzika]

2. New Wall Street Journal polls find public, even GOP, want Dem opposition

2/20/2005

New Wall Street Journal polls find public, even GOP, want Democratic opposition

Some excerpts from a new (paid-restricted) Wall Street Journal series of polls.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll shows 53% of Americans see Iraqi elections as evidence Bush’s policy is working. Yet 60% say the administration should set a public or private timetable for reducing U.S. troops.

Fully 60%, including one-fourth of Republicans, say Democrats in Congress should make sure Bush and his party “don’t go too far.” Just 34% want Democrats to “work in a bipartisan way” to help pass the president’s priorities.

Like Bush, new Democratic Chairman Dean polarizes opinion. By 45% to 5%, Democrats say he will project a positive image rather than a negative one; Republicans say the opposite by 37% to 19%. Independents divide more evenly.

By 51% to 43%, adults under 35 continue to favor private accounts over leaving the system’s current structure intact. Those age 35 to 49 now split evenly after slightly favoring Bush’s idea in January. Opposition among those age 50 to 64 has swelled to 57% from 49%.

While 44% of those over 65 support delaying benefit eligibility, just 29% of those 50 to 64 do.

By 50%

to 27%, Americans say Bush and Congress should focus on domestic issues rather than terrorism and foreign policy. Top priorities, embraced by at least 60%, are expanding health care, reducing the deficit and improving public high schools.

source: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=109

[dzika]

3. Federal officials will watch Democratic East St. Louis polls Tuesday

Sun, Feb. 20, 2005

Federal officials will watch Democratic East St. Louis polls Tuesday

Personnel to monitor during primary voting

BY BETH HUNDSDORFER


Federal prosecutors and agents are ready to be watch the East St. Louis polls during the primary on Tuesday.

U.S. Attorney Ronald Tenpas announced Friday he would provide personnel to monitor the East St. Louis polls and take information related to any allegations of vote fraud in the primary.

Tenpas sent a letter to James Lewis, executive director of the East St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners, advising him that he would send monitors "in the event that specific facts are brought to our attention on election day that would warrant such a step."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith spearheaded the government's probe into election fraud in East St. Louis.


more: http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/10947812.htm

[dzika]

4. Congressman Says Rove Planted CBS Memos

From Little Green Footballs:
2/20/2005

Congressman Says Rove Planted CBS Memos

Yesterday Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) hosted a community forum in Ithaca, New York, on The Future Of Social Security.

An LGF reader was present in the audience and happened to be recording as Rep. Hinchey launched into a barking moonbat conspiracy rant worthy of Democratic Underground, telling the audience he believed the fake CBS memos were planted by Karl Rove to discredit Dan Rather, and divert attention from President Bush’s “draft dodging.”

When our reader asked Hinchey if he had evidence for these charges, he first said, “Yes, I do,” but when asked a second time he admitted he did not.

Our reader pressed the issue, “Don’t you think it’s irresponsible to make charges like that?” Hinchey replied, “No, I don’t, I think it’s very important to make charges like that ... I think it’s very important to combat this kind of activity in every way that you can, and I’m willing, as most people are not, to step forward in situations like this and take risks.”

And the crowd burst into applause and cheering.

Here’s the audio. (MP3, 2.7 MB.)

UPDATE at 2/20/05 4:48:20 pm:

Courtesy of LGF operative zombie (who is not the operative who recorded Rep. Hinchey’s rant), here is a full transcript of the recording:

Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY): Well, you know, they are manipulating the media, they did it in the very beginning through intimidation. They would intimidate the people in the, uh, in the press conference. And ... they would ask — they would allow questions to be asked only of people that they knew were going to ask the right kind of questions, from their point of view. And, you know, that has its effect, had, had its effect on people. People have been — people in the media have been intimidated. The media has changed in the last four years. People have changed in the last four years. They’ve had a very very direct, aggressive attack on the, on the media, and the way it’s handled. Probably the most flagrant example of that is the way they set up Dan Rather. Now, I mean, I have my own beliefs about how that happened: it originated with Karl Rove, in my belief, in the White House. They set that up with those false papers. Why did they do it? They knew that Bush was a draft dodger. They knew that he had run away from his responsibilties in the Air National Guard in Texas, gone out of the state intentionally for a long period of time. They knew that he had no defense for that period in his life. And so what they did was, expecting that that was going to come up, they accentuated it: they produced papers that made it look even worse. And they — and they distributed those out to elements of the media. And it was only — what, like was it CBS? Or whatever, whatever which one Rather works for. They — the people there — they finally bought into it, and they, and they aired it. And when they did, they had ’em. They didn’t care who did it! All they had to do is to get some element of the media to advance that issue. Based upon the false papers that they produced.

Audience Member: Do you have any evidence for that?

Congressman Hinchey: Yes I do. Once they did that —

Audience: (Murmuring)

Congressman Hinchey: ...once they did that, then it undermined everything else about Bush’s draft dodging. Once they were able to say, ‘This is false! These papers are not accurate, they’re, they’re, they’re false, they’ve been falsified.’ That had the effect of taking the whole issue away.

Audience Member: So you have evidence that the papers came from the Bush administration?

Congressman Hinchey: No. I — that’s my belief.

Audience Member: OK.

Congressman Hinchey: And I said that. In the very beginning. I said, ‘It’s my belief that those papers, and that setup, originated with Karl Rove and the White House.’

Audience Member: Don’t you think it’s irresponsible to make charges like that?

Congressman Hinchey: No I don’t. I think it’s very important to make charges like that. I think it’s very important to combat this kind of activity in every way that you can. And I’m willing — and most people are not — to step forward in situations like this and take risks.

Audience: (Clapping and cheering.)

Congressman Hinchey: I consider that to be part of my job, and I’m gonna continue to do it.

source: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=14781_Congressman_Says_Rove_Planted_CBS_Memos&only=yes

[dzika]

5. Should Congress investigate press conference integrity?

Should Congress investigate press conference integrity?

From an email:

How is it that someone with no journalistic credentials was elevated to a position of asking propaganda questions at White House press conferences? The issue is not whether Mr. Guckert (Jeff Gannon) may have moonlighted as a prostitute. The real question is whether the press itself, in the exercise of its professionalism, should have more control over the process. Is time for Congress to get involved to make sure the tough questions are asked? What do you we should do?

Here is an easy one-click form you can use make your voice heard. It automatically looks up your senators and house representative and sends them your personal message all at the same time:

http://www.usalone.com/press.htm

Do you want our representatives in Washington to stand up for you more often? We must back them up with our vocal support if we expect them to fight for us on this or any issue. The People's Email Network encourages you to speak out and keep speaking out, regardless of your political position, until our representatives truly hear you.

And now you can have your own custom Issue Action Center featuring any issue of interest to you for you for no charge. It's an amazingly small block of HTML code you can drop into any web page anywhere for an instant dynamic action menu effect. And we will set up a corresponding issue action page on The People's Email Network for you too. Pursue your own policy initiative! See the code in action at

http://www.usalone.com/action_center.html

Please forward this message and post these links everywhere you can to everyone you know.

[dzika]

6. Jackson speaks at Clemson about voter rights

From Independaent-Mail:
February 20, 2005

Jackson speaks at Clemson about voter rights

By SAMANTHA EPPS


The Rev. Jesse Jackson challenged students and faculty members of Clemson University and members of the community Sunday evening not to think that the minorities’ rights to vote will necessarily last forever.

Mr. Jackson, who spoke to the crowd at Tillman Hall on the Clemson campus, addressed the anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which the college is commemorating this year.
...
In contrast, the new constitution for Iraq includes federal mandates that women and minorities be included in the government.

"Why are we fighting for a democracy in Iraq that we do not have here in America?" Mr. Jackson said.
...
Mr. Jackson said the same mentalities that drove legislators to so vehemently oppose the black race’s voting rights led to the irregularities that caused many votes to be discounted during the 2000 election and voting problems that people experienced in the recent 2004 elections.


more: http://www.independentmail.com/and/news/article/0,1886,AND_8203_3563506,00.html

[dzika]

7. With election done, advocates stay on job

Monday, February 21, 2005

With election done, advocates stay on job

Groups refocus - and keep on ticking

Joe Guillen
Plain Dealer Reporter

Washington- The day after the presidential election, Eli Pariser figured he was in line for some rest after a yearlong campaign to oust President Bush from office.
...
Almost without blinking, groups on both the left and the right jumped from the election to the Bush agenda, which right now means Social Security but is bound to segue into other issues that require phone banks, e-mail, fund raising and organizing, both nationally and locally.

"It does feel like the campaign never stopped," said David Keating, executive director of the Club for Growth, which supports a conservative economic agenda - and which in early February began running ads in Michigan, New York and Rhode Island advocating private investment accounts for Social Security.
...
"He's campaigning for his proposals full steam ahead," said Candice Nelson, an associate professor of government at American University. "So I don't think it's surprising to see groups that oppose it showing equal amounts of advocacy."


http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1108982004120080.xml

[dzika]

8. Leave Jeff Gannon Alone! - He Gives Ne'erdowells Hope

February 21, 2005

Leave Jeff Gannon Alone!
He Gives Ne'erdowells Hope

by Steve Young


HOLLYWOOD (apj.us) -- I am so sick and tired of the battering of Jeff Gannon, or whatever his name is.

The people on the left who just can't get over losing the last... well, the last everything, have jumped on this poor guy like a starving liberal lioness who spots an inexperienced, so-called journalist with a sordid background who gets White House access where he gets called on by President Bush in secured press conferences antelope that's been separated from the herd.

They say "AKA Gannon" has no journalistic credentials and worked for nothing more than a front for a political activism Web site run by Republican Party activists who also lack any journalistic experience.

Gee-elite-media-whillikers. You might as well say that infotainers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who have no real news experience or academic background to dissect complicated issues accurately, can't tell millions of fans the import of news and issues and how they should think about them! Tens of millions of believers will tell you that to silence those who tell them what to think would not only be immeasurably thoughtless, but it would leave them... thoughtless.

What is being drowned out in this screaming for Gannon's head -- and pen -- and escort Web sites -- is something special he has given all of us incompetent ne'erdowells, something we may have never known if not for Jeff's nerve in breaking up the old-skilled, news-professional boys' club. He has given rise to a realm of possibilities where only hopelessness lived. No longer will inexperience or egregious bias keep us from becoming an important cog in the dissemination of government issued information.


more: http://www.americanpolitics.com/20050221Young.html

[dzika]

9. The Great Disenfranchiser?

From foleyma:
Monday, February 21, 2005

The Great Disenfranchiser?

Republicans in Urbana are up in arms over the legal fight for voters in the upcoming Mayoral primary. The self-proclaimed Moral Compasses of our community are now encouraging Republican voters to commit election fraud on February 22, by voting in the Democrat's primary. This is acceptable if the voter in question has not committed themselves to the Republican party, but is technically against the law if they are registered Republican.

What's next for our conservative brothers and sisters? Advocating civil disobedience to re-instate the death penalty? Staging sit-ins and bus boycotts in favor of the guards over at the Champaign County Jail? We're through the looking glass here, people!

What's interesting here is the conservative portrayal of the Democrats who are trying to enforce the election laws as Great Disenfranchisers. You know the story, we want poor people to vote, etc. but we don't want Republicans voting in Democratic primaries, therefore we are showing our true colors - those of Hate and Discrimination against the ever-oppressed Illinois Republah, blah, blah.

Well, as the old saying goes, everything that comes around goes around. Lest we forget:

The Farce in Florida - circa 2000.

The Army for Arnold - circa 2003.

The Omissions in Ohio - circa 2004.

And, of course, the Scandal in Seattle - circa now.


source: http://foleyma.blogspot.com/2005/02/great-disenfranchiser.html

[dzika]

10. Illinois Mayoral primary will be last election with old equipment

From Olney Daily Mail:
Monday February 21, 2005

Illinois Mayoral primary will be last election with old equipment

By Kevin Ryden


The punch-card ballot system will be used for the primary.

Buss said the new optical scan paper ballot machines will be used during the consolidated election in April.
...
"This machine is the best of both worlds," he said.

Using a paper ballot, voters will mark their choice for candidate using a black felt pen.

After voting, the ballot is placed in a sleeve and placed in a ballot box by the voter.

A machine reads the results and writes them on disks at the clerk's office at the Richland County Courthouse. The disk is fed into a machine at the office, where the results can be printed instantaneously, Buss said.

The paper ballots will be stored at the clerk's office in case of a recount.


source: http://www.olneydailymail.com/articles/2005/02/21/news/news01.txt

[dzika]

11. Why isn't Bob Novak going to jail?

Friday, February 18, 2005

Why isn't Bob Novak going to jail?

By Tony Norman


Will someone please explain in simple, easy-to-understand language, why we never see right-wing pundit Bob Novak's name mentioned in the same breath as reporters facing jail time for contempt in the Valerie Plame affair?

Earlier this week, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington upheld an earlier court ruling that New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper should be jailed for contempt for failing to disclose the source of a story neither had any intention of publishing in the first place.

Meanwhile, Bob Novak, the only columnist in the country who actually published Plame's identity in violation of federal law, sits comfortably ensconced on CNN's "The Capital Gang" bloviating as usual.
...
Congressional investigations were threatened and a grand jury convened. In the perverse logic of the nation's capital, subpoenas were sent to reporters who merely sat on the information Novak published. While Miller and Cooper face serious jail time for upholding the principle of source confidentiality, Novak continues perfecting his million-dollar scowl on "Crossfire."
...
The persecution and prosecution of reporters is taking place at a time when the White House has perfected the art of manipulating the Fourth Estate. With recent revelations that three prominent columnists were paid "consultants" for administration policies, it's easy to see why the First Amendment isn't taken particularly seriously these days.

And then, with the announcement that "Jeff Gannon," a proud sycophant of the White House press corps, is actually James Guckert, a Republican dirty trickster and homosexual prostitute, one has to wonder whether this administration's contempt for journalists knows any bounds.


more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05049/459428.stm

---

Videos - Recent news and commentary about prosecuting journalist in Plame leak

CNN: Howard Kurtz interviews Matt Cooper - 2/20

CBS: Meet The Press Bob Schieffer Commentary - 2/20

HBO: Bill Maher Show - Leslie Stahl "dispairs" about jornalist prosecution - 2/19

DemocracyNow: Journalists prosecuted in Plame leak - 2/16

MSNBC: Phone interview with Matt Cooper after loss of appeal - 2/15

CNN: Jounalist lose appeal in Federal Court - 2/15

MSNBC: Journlist lose appeal and may go to jail - 2/15

[dzika]

12. The Proverbial 'Live Boy' - By William Rivers Pitt

Monday 22 February 2005

The Proverbial 'Live Boy'

By William Rivers Pitt


"The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy." - Edwin W. Edwards


Author Hunter S. Thompson raises his arms to exhort the crowd of supporters gathered on the west steps of the Colorado State Capitol on Monday, May 15, 2001, during a rally for Lisl Auman, who is serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison for her part in the slaying of a Denver Police Department officer in November 1997. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of journalism in books like 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' fatally shot himself Sunday, February 20, 2005, at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.



In the same month the planet gets to know the 'journalist' James/Jeff Guckert/Gannon, Hunter S. Thompson decides to make The Big Bit-Spit and eject from the planet. This could be sacrilege, and I hope his family will forgive me, but there is something wretchedly fitting in the confluence.

Hunter was a drunk and a drug-sucker. He would go to cover an event and slather himself with LSD. He went to the '72 GOP convention as a wild-eyed liberal and elbowed his way into the activist bullpen, grabbing a sign reading 'Garbage Men Demand Equal Pay' before charging the floor with the Nixon-shouters to howl “Four More Years!” at John Chancellor. He wanted to write about motorcycle gangs, so he went out and joined the worst of them, and got his ass stomped in. And wrote about it.

Hunter Thompson is the reason I write politics. Period. He was the most honest man in the business. Everyone else had and has an angle, a reputation, or a source to protect. Hunter stripped it down to the raw throbbing nerve and let it fly. How is this for prose:

"How many more of these goddam elections are we going to have to write off as lame but 'regrettably necessary' holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me at the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils? I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing, this year, is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 - and as far as I can tell, we've gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same."
...
It comes down to this. The Bush crew has been caught in bed with the proverbial 'live boy.' Someone in that White House either eased Gannon/Guckert/Whoever through the 'hard pass' application process, which requires a thorough background check, or else smoothed the way for him to get day pass after day pass after day pass. Some complain that Gannon/Guckert/Whoever is being victimized for his political views. This misses the point. Someone let a working, advertising whore into the White House, and then was stupid enough to let him walk around alive and free after he blew his own cover. That's the point.

My hero died tonight. He was a flawed man, a maniac, in so many ways the antithesis of what a journalist is supposed to be. Worst of all, he told the truth. There is now one less warrior on this planet filled with Guckert clones, drones who get fed shit and regurgitate it wholesale for the masses because that is what we are trained to eat.

more: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022105Z.shtml

---

Video - Compilation of Thompson annoucements from DemocracyNow, CNN, and MSNBC



Video in Real Media format:
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/BushVideos/dn_cnn_msnbc_hunter_thompson_dies_050221-01.rm

[dzika]

13. A New Target for Advisers to Swift Vets

Published: February 21, 2005

A New Target for Advisers to Swift Vets

By GLEN JUSTICE



Charlie Jarvis, left, the president
of USA Next, with the group's national
chairman, Art Linkletter.


Taking its cues from the success of last year's Swift boat veterans' campaign in the presidential race, a conservative lobbying organization has hired some of the same consultants to orchestrate attacks on one of President Bush's toughest opponents in the battle to overhaul Social Security.

The lobbying group, USA Next, which has poured millions of dollars into Republican policy battles, now says it plans to spend as much as $10 million on commercials and other tactics assailing AARP, the powerhouse lobby opposing the private investment accounts at the center of Mr. Bush's plan.

"They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts," said Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under secretary of the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. "We will be the dynamite that removes them."

Though it is not clear how much money USA Next has in hand for the campaign - Mr. Jarvis will not say, and the group, which claims 1.5 million members, does not have to disclose its donors - officials say that the group's annual budget was more than $28 million last year. The group, a membership organization with no age requirements for joining, has also spent millions in recent years vigorously supporting Bush proposals on tax cuts, energy and the Medicare prescription drug plan.

So far, the groups dueling over Social Security have been relatively tame, but the plans by USA Next foreshadow what could be a steep escalation in the war to sway public opinion and members of Congress in the days ahead.


more: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/21/politics/21social.html

---

Videos - Campaign tactics continue with Bush Social Security plan

CNN: Social Security ad-wars heat up - 2/16

DemocracyNow: RNC "warns" TV Stations about MoveOn Social Security Ad - 2/08

[dzika]

14. ACTION ITEM - 5 quick things to do - fight Bush propaganda

ACTION ITEM - 5 quick things to do - fight Bush propaganda

5 things to do: (and forward this to friends)

Do your part to make sure that the Gannon/Guckert story -- and, most
importantly, the Bush administration's massive propaganda effort --
gets the media attention it deserves:

1) Sign up to receive Keith Olbermann's daily newsletter
this will show the "big bosses" at MSNBC that Keith's got a big following among the "hoi polloi" out here who care about the truth (when everybody else was too chicken, Olbermann was giving a lot of
airtime to the Gannon/Guckert story)

http://www.msnbc.com/tools/newstools/e/EmailExtra.asp?n...
(go down to second box "MSNBC Text Only newsletters", check 2nd box from the bottom, go to the bottom of the page and type your e-mail and then hit "submit" -- only takes a minute).


2) Send a quick e-mail to Dotty Lynch,
who wrote a great piece at CBS.com called, "Rove-Gannon Connection". The more good feedback CBS gets, the more they'll run with the story: [e-mail]
Her article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/18/opinion/lynch...


3) E-mail Frank Rich's NYT article
it's the best piece yet on how the Gannon story is one piece in the Bush administration's giant propaganda effort. Rich's article being on top of the Time's "Most e-mailed list" will help get it the attention it deserves: E-mail to a friend (or even just yourself -- I think the site lets you do that).
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/arts/20rich.html
?
(See box at right for e-mailing feature)


4) Send a quick e-mail to Anderson Cooper
saying he did a great job on the Gannon interview and ask him to keep covering the story as well as other aspects of Bush's propaganda efforts (e.g., suggest he have Frank Rich on his show or someone you like from Air America).
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form4.html?5


5) e-mail this to your friends so they do them, too.


Hundreds of people contacting the media can have an impact -- it's
better to do something than nothing....

[Amaryllis]

15. Mellissa, what happens to these threads? Are they just archived and there

as a reference?