Republicons cheat to win going back to the 2000 Florida Vote recount, using Enron , thug operatives

[louslobbs]

and phony, astroturf Koch like tactics topped off with a right leaning Supreme Court ruling to help Bush steal the 2000 election from Gore. This rehash of history is just to remind all of us how desperate the Republicons can get and the degree to which they will cheat, steal, lie and create fake organizations to get their way. They are desperate now and for those who didn't know what went down in 2000, here is a brief of what they will do to get their way. They continue today, think 2010,,,,,Koch astroturf bought and paid for mobs, health reform townhalls with bought and paid for screaming Republicon shills to disrupt discussions, guns and semi automatic rifles at political gatherings where the President will appear and of course FOX GOP Fraudcasting and the 1000 or so radio stations across the nation, broadcasting right wing propaganda. If we don't stop them now, then when? Here's what went down with the vote recounts down in Florida in 2000, Dirty tricks and mobs of Republicons "Brooks Brother's riots", that were planned and carried out by the thugs to cause the recounts to stop and the Supreme Court to rule and pick Bush as the US President. Here's the story, and they continue to do this stuff today to get what they want:

This is how Republicons have been beating us and it's time we stop them before they crush Unions, steal Social Security, kill Medicare, kill unemployment insurance, kill food stamps, kill everything they can that helps the average 98% of us. Here's how they did it then, and since they have gotten worse and crazier since, imagine how they will do it to us now, and how many will die and suffer as they force their lunatic will upon us?

More than three decades apart, two political riots influenced the

outcome of U.S. presidential elections. In 1968, protests at the

Democratic National Convention in Chicago hurt Democrat Hubert

Humphrey and helped Republican Richard Nixon eke out a victory. On

Nov. 22, 2000, the so-called “Brooks Brothers Riot” of Republican

activists helped stop a vote recount in Miami -- and showed how far

George W. Bush’s supporters were ready to go to put their man in

the White House.

But the government reaction to the two events was dramatically

different. The clashes between police and Vietnam War protesters in

1968 led the Nixon administration to charge seven anti-war radicals

with “conspiring to cross state lines with the intent to incite a

riot.” The defendants, who became known as the Chicago Seven, were

later acquitted of conspiracy charges, in part, because the

protests were loosely organized and because solid documentary

evidence was lacking.

After the Miami “Brooks Brothers Riot” – named after the

protesters’ preppie clothing – no government action was taken

beyond the police rescuing several Democrats who were surrounded

and roughed up by the rioters. While no legal charges were filed

against the Republicans, newly released documents show that at

least a half dozen of the publicly identified rioters were paid by

Bush’s recount committee.

The payments to the Republican activists are documented in hundreds

of pages of Bush committee records – released grudgingly to the

Internal Revenue Service last month, 19 months after the 36-day

recount battle ended. Overall, the records provide a road map of

how the Bush recount team brought its operatives across state lines

to stop then-Vice President Al Gore’s recount efforts.

The records show that the Bush committee spent a total of $13.8

million to frustrate the recount of Florida’s votes and secure the

state's crucial electoral votes for Bush. By contrast, the Gore

recount operation spent $3.2 million, about one quarter of the Bush

total. Bush spent more just on lawyers – $4.4 million – than Gore

did on his entire effort.

Extended Deadline

The new evidence was submitted by the Bush recount committee to the

IRS under an extended deadline for disclosures of soft-money

spending by so-called “527 committees,” which are not directly

related to a candidate’s campaign. Bush lawyers had argued that

they were not obligated legally to disclose how they had raised and

spent their money.

The Bush committee finally reversed itself and filed the records on

July 15. The records were released to the public on the IRS Web

site in late July. Gore's committee submitted its records in line

with the original IRS deadlines.

The documents show that the Bush organization put on the payroll

about 250 staffers, spent about $1.2 million to fly operatives to

Florida and elsewhere, and paid for hotel bills adding up to about

$1 million. To add flexibility to the travel arrangements, a fleet

of corporate jets was assembled, including planes owned by Enron

Corp., then run by Bush backer Kenneth Lay, and Halliburton Co.,

where Dick Cheney had served as chairman and chief executive

officer.

Only a handful of the Brooks Brothers rioters were publicly

identified, some through photographs published in the Washington

Post. Jake Tapper’s book on the recount battle, Down and Dirty,

provides a list of 12 Republican operatives who took part in the

Miami riot. Half of those individuals received payments from the

Bush recount committee, according to the IRS records.

The Miami protesters who were paid by Bush recount committee were:

Matt Schlapp, a Bush staffer who was based in Austin and received

$4,276.09; Thomas Pyle, a staff aide to House Majority Whip Tom

DeLay, $456; Michael Murphy, a DeLay fund-raiser, $935.12; Garry

Malphrus, House majority chief counsel to the House Judiciary

subcommittee on criminal justice, $330; Charles Royal, a

legislative aide to Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. $391.80; and Kevin

Smith, a former GOP House staffer, $373.23.

Three of the Miami protesters are now members of Bush’s White House

staff, the Miami Herald reported last month. They include Schlapp,

who is now a special assistant to the president; Malphrus, who is

now deputy director of the president’s Domestic Policy Council; and

Joel Kaplan, another special assistant to the president.
Herald, July 14, 2002]

The Bush committee records show, too, that Bush’s operation paid

for the hotel where the Republican protesters celebrated after the

Miami riot at a Thanksgiving Day party. At the party, the activists

received thank-you phone calls from Bush and Cheney, and were

serenaded by crooner Wayne Newton, singing “Danke Schoen,” German

for thank-you very much.
Consortiumnews.com's "W's Triumph of the Will"]

The IRS records show that the Bush recount committee paid

$35,501.52 to the Hyatt Regency Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.,

where the party was held.

The House of Masquerades

A number of miscellaneous expenses, reported by the Bush recount

committee, also appear to have gone for party items, such as

lighting, sound systems and even costumes. Garrett Sound and

Lighting in Fort Lauderdale was paid $5,902; Beach Sound Inc. in

North Miami was paid $3,500; and the House of Masquerades, a

costume shop in Miami, had three payments totaling $640.92,

according to the Bush records.

The Brooks Brothers Riot – carried live on CNN and other networks –

marked a turning point in the recount battle. At the time, Bush

clung to a lead that had dwindled to several hundred votes and Gore

was pressing for recounts. The riot in Miami and the prospects of

spreading violence were among the arguments later cited by

defenders of the 5-to-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Dec. 12, 2000,

that stopped a statewide Florida recount and handed Bush the

presidency.

Backed by the $13.8 million war chest, the Bush operation made

clear in Miami and in other protests that it was ready to kick up

plenty of political dust if it didn’t get its way.

A later unofficial recount by news organizations found that if all

legally cast ballots in Florida had been counted – regardless of

which kinds of chads were accepted, whether punched-through,

hanging or dimpled – Gore would have won Florida and thus the

presidency. Gore also won the national popular vote, defeating Bush

by more than a half million votes, making Bush the first

popular-vote loser in more than a century to be installed in the

White House.
House"]

Across State Lines

The evidence also is clear that the Bush campaign organized the

transportation of Republican activists across state lines into

Florida. As early as mid-November, the Bush campaign called on

activists to rush to Florida and promised to pay their expenses.

“We now need to send reinforcements,” the Bush campaign said in an

appeal to Republicans on Nov. 18, 2000. “The campaign will pay

airfare and hotel expenses for people willing to go.”
Down and Dirty.]

These reinforcements – many of them Republican staffers from

Capitol Hill – added an angrier tone to the dueling street protests

already underway between supporters of Bush and Gore. The new wave

of Republican activists injected “venom and volatility into an

already edgy situation,” wrote Tapper.

“This is the new Republican Party, sir!” Brad Blakeman, Bush’s

campaign director of advance travel logistics, bellowed into a

bullhorn to disrupt a CNN correspondent interviewing a Democratic

congressman. “We’re not going to take it anymore!”

Around the country, the conservative media apparatus, led by talk

show host Rush Limbaugh and pro-Bush pundits, rallied the faithful

with charges that a hand recount was fraudulent and amounted to

"inventing" votes.

Bush himself did nothing to temper the inflammatory rhetoric. Nor

did he urge his supporters to respect the legally sanctioned vote

counting.

Instead, Bush's recount representative, James Baker, and Bush

himself denounced the Florida Supreme Court, which had ordered that

recount results be included in the official vote tallies. Bush

accused the court of abusing its powers in a bid to "usurp" the

authority of the legislature.

The Battle of Miami

On Nov. 22, 2000, after learning that the Miami canvassing board

was starting an examination of 10,750 disputed ballots that had

previously not been counted, Rep. John Sweeney, a New York

Republican, called on Republican troops to “shut it down,”

according to Down and Dirty. Brendan Quinn, executive director of

the New York GOP, told about two dozen Republican operatives to

storm the room on the 19th floor where the canvassing board was

meeting, Tapper reported.

“Emotional and angry, they immediately make their way outside the

larger room in which the tabulating room is contained,” Tapper

wrote. “The mass of ‘angry voters’ on the 19th floor swells to

maybe 80 people,” including many of the Republican activists from

outside Florida.

News cameras captured the chaotic scene outside the canvassing

board's offices. The protesters shouted slogans and banged on the

doors and walls. The unruly protest prevented official observers

and members of the press from reaching the room. Miami-Dade county

spokesman Mayco Villafana was pushed and shoved. Security officials

feared the confrontation was spinning out of control.

The canvassing board suddenly reversed its decision and canceled

the recount. “Until the demonstration stops, nobody can do

anything,” said David Leahy, Miami’s supervisor of elections,

although the canvassing board members would later insist that they

were not intimidated into stopping the recount.

A Sample Ballot

While the siege of the canvassing board office was underway, county

Democratic chairman Joe Geller stopped at another office seeking a

sample ballot. He wanted to demonstrate his theory that some voters

had intended to vote for Gore but instead marked an adjoining

number that represented no candidate.

As Geller took the ballot marked “sample,” one of the Republican

activists began shouting, “This guy’s got a ballot!”

In Down and Dirty, Tapper writes: “The masses swarm around him,

yelling, getting in his face, pushing him, grabbing him. ‘Arrest

him!’ they cry. ‘Arrest him!’ With the help of a diminutive DNC

aide, Luis Rosero, and the political director of the Miami Gore

campaign, Joe Fraga, Geller manages to wrench himself into the

elevator.

“Rosero, who stays back to talk to the press, gets kicked, punched.

A woman pushes him into a much larger guy, seemingly trying to

instigate a fight. In the lobby of the building, a group of 50 or

so Republicans are crushed around Geller, surrounding him. …

“The cops escort Geller back to the 19th floor, so the elections

officials can see what’s going on, investigate the charges. Of

course, it turns out that all Geller had was a sample ballot. The

crowd is pulling at the cops, pulling at Geller. It’s insanity!

Some even get in the face of 73-year-old Rep. Carrie Meek.

Democratic operatives decide to pull out of the area altogether.”



Despite the use of intimidation to influence actions by election

officials, Bush and his top aides remained publicly silent about

these disruptive tactics. The Washington Post reported that "even

as the Bush campaign and the Republicans portray themselves as

above the fray," national Republicans actually had joined in and

helped finance the raucous protests.
2000]

The Wall Street Journal added more details, including the fact that

Bush offered personal words of encouragement to the rioters in a

conference call to a Bush campaign-sponsored celebration on the

night of Thanksgiving Day, one day after the canvassing board

assault.

"The night's highlight was a conference call from Mr. Bush and

running mate Dick Cheney, which included joking reference by both

running mates to the incident in Miami, two staffers

in attendance say," according to the Journal.

The Journal also reported that the assault on the canvassing board

was led by national Republican operatives "on all expense-paid

trips, courtesy of the Bush campaign." After their success in Dade,

the rioters moved on to Broward, where the protests remained unruly

but failed to stop that count.

The Journal noted that "behind the rowdy rallies in South Florida

this past weekend was a well-organized effort by Republican

operatives to entice supporters to South Florida," with DeLay's

Capitol Hill office taking charge of the recruitment.

About 200 Republican congressional staffers signed on, the Journal

reported. They were put up at hotels, given $30 a day for food and

"an invitation to an exclusive Thanksgiving Day party in Fort

Lauderdale," the article said.

Upper Hand

The Journal said there was no evidence of a similar Democratic

strategy to fly in national party operatives. "This has allowed the

Republicans to quickly gain the upper hand, protest-wise," the

Journal said.

The Bush campaign also worked to conceal its hand. "Staffers who

joined the effort say there has been an air of mystery to the

operation. 'To tell you the truth, nobody knows who is calling the

shots,' says one aide. Many nights, often very late, a memo is

slipped underneath the hotel-room doors outlining coming events,"

the Journal reported.

On Nov. 25, the Bush campaign issued “talking points” to justify

the Miami protest, calling it “fitting, proper” and blaming the

canvassing board for the disruptions. “The board made a series of

bad decisions and the reaction to it was inevitable and well

justified,” the Bush campaign said.

Still, other recounts in Broward County whittled down Bush's lead.

Gore was gaining slowly in Palm Beach's recount, despite constant

challenges from Republican observers.

To boost Bush's margin back up, Republican Secretary of State

Harris allowed Nassau County to throw out its recounted figures

that had helped Gore. Then, excluding a partial recount in Palm

Beach and with Miami shut down, Harris certified Bush the winner by

537 votes.

Bush partisans cheered their victory and began demanding that Bush

be called the president-elect. Soon afterwards, Bush appeared on

national television to announce himself the winner and to call on

Gore to concede defeat.

"Now," Bush said, "we must live up to our principles. We must show

our commitment to the common good, which is bigger than any person

or any party."

Changed Course

To many Gore supporters, the aborted recount in Miami changed the

course of the Florida events, preventing Gore from narrowing Bush’s

small lead or possibly edging ahead.

The Brooks Brothers Riot also represented an escalation of tactics,

demonstrating the potential for spiraling political violence if the

recount battle dragged on. The Republicans were putting down a

marker that they were prepared to do what was necessary to win,

regardless of what the voters had wanted.

After the Florida Supreme Court ordered a statewide recount to

determine who won the state and thus the presidency, Bush sent his

lawyers to the U.S. Supreme Court where five Republican justices

decided on Dec. 9, 2000, to stop the counting of votes. Then, on

Dec. 12, the same five Republicans blocked a resumption. The

disruptions in November had played out the clock so a slim majority

on the U.S. Supreme Court could effectively award the White House

to Bush.

Unlike the Chicago Seven case three decades earlier, no one faced

charges for disrupting the Miami recount.

In the Chicago Seven case, the jury acquitted all defendants of

conspiracy charges, though finding five defendants – David

Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin

– individually guilty of inciting a riot, charges that later were

reversed on appeal. Separate government investigations also faulted

the Chicago police for using excessive violence to quell the 1968

protests.

Ironically, the kind of documentary evidence that might have proved

valuable in tying up the loose ends of the Chicago Seven conspiracy

is present in the new filings that the Bush recount committee made

to the IRS. The evidence is clear that the Bush committee organized

the movement of protesters across state lines, paid for their

lodging, moved them into a position for the riot, and then defended

their actions.

After the incident, Bush personally thanked some of the

participants at a celebration paid for by Bush’s organization.

Since taking office, Bush has further rewarded some of the

participants with high-level government jobs.

But the biggest reason for the very different government reactions

to the Chicago Seven case and the Brooks Brothers Riot is obvious:

the ultimate beneficiary of the Miami riots was George W. Bush who stole the Presidency of the

United States.

[Freedom Pill]

1. I think there is more, . . .

You missed mentioning, a particular news event, . they televised a news broadcast showing Bush involved with some kind of mishap that occurred on election night or morning when the votes were counted that involved the State of Pennsylvania, . . I missed it to and only recall a vague report of some confusion there, . . have any idea what happened ?

[louslobbs]

2. I actually looked for that, but could not find the information, sorry

Lou

[Freedom Pill]

3. Thanks Lou

I have been out fighting to survive the continuous pile of Sh__ Manure,
that is like a mud slide that never seems to let up, you know the one that
spews out as a defense and survival mechanism and is produced by, the combined efforts of Wall Street, Hollywood and Washington DC, to form the new age of organized crime, I mean I like to win to but for some reason, I have a hard time getting away with stealing lieing cheating and murder,
I guess it I'm considered an intellectual, and not being able to join the ones I can't beat, is part of their persecution of intellectuals.

but your attempt is appreciated, but are you saying that you recall it ?

I do have to get back and read what you have written, I find what I skimmed through, looking for someone who may have one of the questions in life I pursue, as I may or may not have something to express or ad.

[Kurmudgeon]

4. Heed the warning, be ready, it could happen again! Thanks Lou for posting! n/t