Peeling Back The Mandate: An excellent "election theft" op-ed in the MSM

[Fly by night]

Peeling back the mandate: Voting rights are once more at the forefront of the civil rights movement

http://www.commonwonders.com/archives/col285.htm


This recent column from Robert Koehler, a Chicago Tribune syndicated columnist, was carried in the Nashville paper last Friday, March 11, under the title: "White House has a lot of show, no go on voting rights". So I expect it was run in a number of other papers in the country around that same time. It is an excellent review of the high points of the election theft story, and mentions Conyers, Blackwell, Franklin County, New Mexico, etc, etc.

Here's a sample sentence;

"Peel back President Bush's grinning 'mandate' from November and what you find is a shadow world of widespread anti-democratic maneuvering, harassment and deceit, blatantly targeting African-American and other primarily Democratic voting blocs."

Visit the link and be pleased that the "light" from this story of the century continues to leak out from under the Republican oil barrel that is covering (and staining) the corporate media. Enjoy the column, comment on it here and pass it on.

We were so pleased that the column appeared in the Nashville paper that we asked Mr. Koehler to participate in the Nashville conference, and he has accepted. He will discuss the role of the corporate media in the post-election period and will be on a panel with Brad Friedman, Bob Fitrakis and perhaps others. Y'all come.

[Goldeneye]

1. Thats a good article.

I've never heard of common wonders before though. What is it?

[Fly by night]

3. I don't know myself; just one of the places where the column was posted..

... on Google. I discovered that the syndicated columns are not archived at the Nashville Tennessean web-site. If other DUers saw the column in other papers, let us know -- links would be appreciated.

As would encouraging papers that use the (Chicago) Tribute syndicate for their op-ed pages to consider running the column "as is". And thanking the author for his well-written piece that many Orange Staters read last week. (His email address is in the linked column.)

[davidgmills]

2. Still no mention

Of the exit poll discrepancy. Seemingly unaware of USCountVotes.

I see this is my 500th post.

[Fly by night]

4. There's still much of this story to tell. It's our job to ...

... keep reminding the MSM, the alternative and the totally uninformed media that this story won't go away. And a great place to start now would be to encourage every reporter and columnist who has written worthwhile stories and opinion pieces about this issue (e.g., William Raspberry, Christopher Hitchens, etc.) to re-visit the story, now.

Because it is getting bigger by the day. You're right -- there is much to tell. We hope the two day Nashville conference will be a place where the story can be "refreshed" by the volume of information and evidence that now exists and that continues to grow, and by the strengthening opinions for, and collective movement toward, election reform and election justice. Well-written columns by Mr. Koehler are another brick (removed) in the wall of silence around this story.

But it is a big wall and there are many stories left to tell. I'm just glad this morning that we've got good writers who are beginning to tell and re-tell this story in the public arena.

Chip, chip, chip .... Just chipping away.

Congrats on your 500th post. It's all smooth sailing from here.

[Peace Patriot]

8. If you can get people to understand what happened in Ohio, Florida and

...New Mexico, and the magnitude of it, then they sometimes say things like, "But Bush won the popular vote...," and that's where the following comes in...

1. THE EXIT POLLS. Kerry won the exit polls--a method used worldwide to verify elections--and numerous Ph.D.'s in statistics have stated that the weird skew to Bush in 7 of 50 states, in the exit polls vs. the official tally, is virtually impossible (10 million to one odds against it). The official tally has been cast into very serious doubt. And all these top statisticians have called for an investigation.

2. WERE THE EXIT POLLS FLAWED? The exit pollsters brought forth an explanation for why Kerry won the exit polls--that Republicans were shy of the pollsters. Nine Ph.D.'s examined the data, and found just the opposite--evidence that the exit polls actually favored Bush (contrary to news reports). This official excuse is without foundation. And Kerry's margin was likely even higher than his exit poll 3%.

3. THE TV NETWORKS CHANGED THE EXIT POLLS. Why didn't people know that Kerry won the exit polls? Because the TV networks CHANGED the exit poll data on everybody's TV screens late on election day--adjusting it to fit the official tally--a dubious practice, bad journalism; not done anywhere else in the world. (And the numbers for this change don't add up--90% of the late voters voted for Bush?--another statistical impossibility.)

4. WHO CONTROLS THE OFFICIAL TALLY? How could the official tally be wrong? The official tally comes from central electronic vote tabulators, run on secret, proprietary software, owned and controlled by major Bush donors (and in one case a Bush/Cheney state campaign chairman). The electronic tabulators fed the data to AP which fed it to the networks. One third of the country had no paper trail for these new electronic voting machines. Precinct checking is difficult, expensive and rare--and what efforts there were, were blockaded. The election SYSTEM itself was fraudulent, going in--non-transparent, unverifiable, and under partisan control. There is in fact no solid proof that Bush won.

5. DEMOCRATIC NEW VOTER REGISTRATION. The Democrats had a blowout success in new voter registration in 2004--Dems 57%, Repubs 41% (59% to 39% in some accountings). What became of all those new Democratic votes, the big jump of Nader voters to Kerry, and the Gore 2000 repeat voters, which add up to a 4 to 8 million advantage for Kerry (Dr. Steven Freeman calculation)? Something is very amiss here.

6. AMERICANS' OVERWHELMING DISAPPROVAL OF BUSH'S POLICIES. Numerous opinion polls are showing Americans' continued high disapproval, in the 60% to 70% range, of every major Bush policy, domestic and foreign, and unprecedented low approval ratings for Bush himself. Clearly, Bush does not represent the majority of Americans.

7. CHUCK HERRIN. Easy demo of how insecure voting machines are, by Republican hacker Chuck Herrin: http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm. Enough said. (--or maybe throw in the Curtis affidavit).

A preface to this laying on of the facts might be: Prove to me that Bush won the popular vote. How do you know that?

Means. Motive. Opportunity. And these same perps had stolen a prior election--in that case, without the advantage of the widespread use of electronic voting machines and tabulators controlled by major Bush-Cheney partisans, in which vote stealing (or manufacture) can occur at the speed of light, with the mere insertion of a few lines of computer code, leaving not a trace.

[Peace Patriot]

9. P.S. Of course, after you get these facts known, and understood...

...then some will say, "Why aren't the Democratic leaders saying anything? And why did Kerry concede?"

Ah, me! Maybe because they don't want to get lined up against a wall and shot?

Or because some of them are Vichy?

That remains for the voters and investigators to find out.

Maybe Teresa Heinz-Kerry and Howard Dean will be heard at last.

As for what ordinary citizens can DO, we all know the answer to that: reform of the election system at the state level--however we can get that done--and achieve honest, fair, transparent elections. Step one. Bottom line.

[roseBudd]

5. Great opinion piece...

I just added it to the Cheater Proof links page on BushCheated04.Com

[Kip Humphrey]

6. The biggest scandal is that they get away with it

We need the same level of grassroots effort that helped bring enough voters to the polls to elect Kerry last fall. Corporate media and Bush malfeasance can be overcome by truth telling and educating the public via teach-ins, meetups, letters-to-the-editor, mail campaigns (e- and snail), spreading the word, flyers, potests...

[Fly by night]

7. kick for re-mobilizing

[Amaryllis]

10. Great article.

[Helga Scow Stern]

11. Kick.

[Fly by night]

12. Kick

[go west young man]

13. Kick, kick and a triple kick!

I too believe that the country will be revisiting this colossal issue again soon and its important for us to keep it out there. There are still many unanswered questions. The media is complacent in the crime but they can only ignore it for so long.

[Fly by night]

14. One last kick

[BeFree]

15. Worth Repeating...from PeacePatriot post above

"Means. Motive. Opportunity. And these same perps had stolen a prior election--in that case, without the advantage of the widespread use of electronic voting machines and tabulators controlled by major Bush-Cheney partisans, in which vote stealing (or manufacture) can occur at the speed of light, with the mere insertion of a few lines of computer code, leaving not a trace."

[LatePeriduct]

17. Don't forget...

Don't forget that Diebold and the world renowned fundies control the code networks for how the votes go through.

Can't forget we live in a country run by machines.

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. This is excellent, and the panel sounds like a dream group.

I hope you post on what happens, so we can all follow along. If the time limit hadn't expired, I would have voted this page for Greatest so more people could see it. It's easing to the spirits to see signs that the truth is indeed starting to leak out.

[Fly by night]

18. One more last kick

[Nothing Without Hope]

19. Please PM me if you repost on Civil Rights/Voting rights like this

If it can be gotten onto the Greatest Page, then people will be able to see it. There's all sorts of things going on in this area, as you know, and we can bring in some of the other threads of reports on them and start trying to put it together into a more complete picture.