chief of sales in Calif just appointed to run San Diego elections.
I mean, it boggles the mind. Daily.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x472482 And L.Coyote is right to point us at the Medicare fraud and other Puke corruption cases--very, very relevant to the US Attorney firings/replacements-with-toadies.
Clearly, they had multiple purposes in putting spineless, unprofessional, Bible-thumping Bushites in these legal positions. Another reason was to groom spineless, unprofessional, Bible-thumping judges, for Bush appointment at the end! Outrage might get rid of some of them, but not all. And such damage they could do! When we get Congress back (I mean, fully--when it's truly representative of the American people) (--after we restore our right to vote), their next cover for massive theft and other abominations will be the courts. Also, to kill civil suits and other prosecutions of them for their many crimes.
The wrongdoing is so vast, that sometimes I think Rove is throwing more stuff out there just as red herrings. For a long time, I thought of the Iraq War itself--horrible as it is--as a red herring, in the sense that it clearly WOULD stir up an antiwar movement, but would they focus on the right thing: Diebold/ES&S and vote suppression? And, so far, they have not. Bush/Cheney and their war profiteer puppetmasters don't give a fuck what we THINK. We can protest all we want. The real danger to them is that the American people will figure out how they remained in power. Power is the issue. Not how horrified we all are at the war. They laugh at that. The only thing important to them is the power to do it, despite what anyone thinks. The sheer power. And what is OUR power? What is our ONLY real mechanism for exercising our rightful control of our government--and our sovereignty as a people? Our vote = our power.
By some guestimates, Diebold/ES&S are putting a 5% to 10% "thumb on the scales" for Bushites, warmongers and corporatists (of either party; they "count" the primary votes, too, with "trade secret," proprietary code). So this is the heart of the problem: power.
And almost any kind of scandal is a red herring, if our votes are not being counted properly. (And they most certainly are not being.) Congress can put on a show. What does it matter? "Impeachment is off the table." A table we weren't invited to sit at. The war goes on--gets ESCALATED, just like Vietnam. $100 billion more. And how many more lives? NOTHING WE DO, AND NOTHING THEY SAY, MATTERS, while Diebold/ES&S is "counting" all the votes under a veil of corporate secrecy!
However, the will to restore transparent vote counting might well be spurred by exposure of these humongous scandals. And, in that regard, the Medicare fraud one has a lot of resonance. It touches people personally--Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Greens and others alike. Its ravages are bipartisan, and close to home. The faraway war, or military contracts, or even treason (Plamegate) are a little abstract, for some people. Transparent vote counting, and basic fairness, are also close to home, and bipartisan. (How did these fascists take over the Republican Party? A lot of ordinary Republicans are NOT happy with it--and have been discontent for some time, from what I hear. Maybe THEY will be the key to restoring transparent elections. It's quite possible that most of the vote stealing was from THEM--the easiest place to shave off percentages of votes, without raising eyebrows, being in Republican precincts.)
I would never, ever pooh-pooh anyone's activism, outrage at corruption, energy at investigation and exposure, and protest of war, fascism, treason, or whatever moves them. I have only been trying to think strategically. What do all these mind-boggling scandals--the unprecedented corruption, and the sheer number of instances of it--come down to? The POWER to perpetrate crime and get away with it. The POWER.
True, there are many other things at work. How could there have been such a colossal breakdown of ethics, across the board, in government? Where did it start (Reagan Era of Greed)? How did it develop? What are the different threads of corruption, and how to fix each of them now? But first we have to crack the edifice in some way. Restore sufficient people power to get things moving. Perhaps it has already begun--with the people outvoting the machines, in some cases, in '06. But I think it should be apparent to many people by now that the problem is not just in the Republican Party. We elected a Democratic Congress and they let Bush ESCALATE the war--and they say they don't have the votes to do anything about it, but who's fault is that? They all voted FOR rightwing Bushite corporations "counting" all OUR votes in secret! That wasn't just a Bushite idea. The fascist edifice still stands. And we're all just swarming at the foot of it, shouting louder and louder.
And Rove, he's like the gamekeeper throwing meat to the dogs. He likes to see them yawp and brawl over the scraps. It more than likely amuses him to see all these scandals exposed that we can do nothing about. He knows the secret "math."
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