Second: I recommend this Brad Blog piece on the new revelations concerning the year 2000 vote scandal which inflicted the current disaster on us. Brad uses the Clint Curtis case (go here for a summary) as his touchstone:
One of the main criticisms of Curtis' striking allegations was that "nobody was even thinking about touch-screen voting systems in Florida prior to the 2000 Presidential Election debacle."Larry Kolb's book Overworld reminds us of an oft-forgotten fact concerning the 2000 Florida vote: Therese LePore, the designer of the infamous "butterfly ballots," worked for Saudi wheeler-dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Kolb hints, but does not state, that the relationship was quite a bit closer than is indicated by this entry on LePore. This old Slate story on the LePore "conspiracy theory" rewards latter-day study
Dan Rather's remarkable investigative report, however, would seem to indicate otherwise: seven Sequoia company whistleblowers reveal on camera that, despite their objections, they were forced to use poor quality paper for the punchcards to be used in Florida in 2000. They also revealed that they had been instructed to deliberately misalign the chads for ballots going to Palm Beach County, FL only
Khashoggi has close ties, from Iran-Contra and elsewhere, to the Republicans, and vaguely defined ties to Dubya's father. (In a 1990 court case, Khashoggi's phone records revealed that Khashoggi had spoken at least twice with George Bush's vice-presidential office during 1985 and 1986.) LePore worked for Khashoggi during the 1980s, when, according to her official biography, she was chief deputy supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County, a job she held until 1996, when she was elected supervisor of elections. Ergo, LePore has been working as a Khashoggi asset to elect the son of Khashoggi's old comrade-in-arms, George Bush!The concept seemed unforgivably paranoid back in 2000, when those words were first written. And nowadays...? Nowadays, we are living in times which help us to understand Lily Tomlin's dictum: "No matter how paranoid you get, you can't keep up."
We shall return to this subject.
In the meantime: I wish dr. elsewhere the best, and I hope she will return to these pages ASAP. I will attempt to resume my usual position of Annoyance In Chief, although the state of my vertebrae still makes sitting uncomfortable.
I did manage to sit upright through an entire film the other day. Although I had my heart set on Shoot 'em Up, my estrogen-laden partner insisted on Becoming Jane, the origin-of-Austen biopic. I must admit, albeit with much crimson in cheek, that the film is excellent. No, really. Afterward, I had to buy some Midol and chocolate because I was feeling all bloated.
(Add Ann Hathaway to the list of Ladies Worthy of a Crush.)
4 comments:
Good to see you up....my friend... and a speedy recovery is my heartfelt wish..
Midol and chocolates do wonders for me ....at times...
Other times....Ohh well...let's just say...nothing can help a "Purist's Heart" ...
Joseph,
You are slipping, two apologies in a span of a month? What will become of you?
And Dan Rather? would you have imagined that his distaste for all things as usual would turn into activism?
I never understood throwing out the entire system of analog punch-card balloting- which led to Congressional assent for dumping the electoral process into the untraceable digital realm- over what happened in Florida in 2000.
Simply use a sandwich of mylar on the ballots, and the "hanging chad" problem is solved.
Here is what David Swanson thinks ought to happen next.
"4. Pull out the third article of impeachment passed by the House Judiciary Committee against Richard Nixon in 1974, the one charging him with refusing to comply with subpoenas, change a few words, and introduce new articles of impeachment against Rice, Cheney, and Bush.
Option #4 would not require that you believe the impeachments would succeed or that a trial in the Senate would result in conviction. It would only require that you desire people to comply with subpoenas.
This would accomplish a couple of very interesting things as well. Congress Members frequently tell their constituents that they cannot impeach Cheney or Bush because they don't have solid evidence or time to dig it up. But Cheney and Bush have INDISPUTABLY refused to comply with subpoenas, which is established by precedent as an impeachable offense. Not only is no investigation whatsoever required, but none is even imaginable. These impeachments could take a day. Do one before lunch and one after. This is instant impeachment. Just add the will to do it.
Were one or more congress members to introduce such articles of impeachment, they would not come up for a vote right away. In the meantime, as they gained cosponsors and attention, the White House might just start complying with subpoenas. Certainly we know that when a serious movement in Congress to impeach Attorney General Alberto Gonzales picked up steam, there were results. Similarly, when Congress moved to impeach Nixon there were results. When it moved to impeach Truman there were results. When it promised never to impeach Ronald Reagan, as when it promised never to impeach George W. Bush, the results were deadly. Both failures left blood on the Democrats' hands and brought losses for Democrats in the next elections. It's hard to imagine why Democrats in Congress would want either of those things. "
When you get up and going Joe, let me know what you think.
It isn't just LePore that should be looked at. All of the Republican operatives at ground zero of the Palm Beach recount should be examined as well. It's odd that two of them landed up at the UN, all of places.
And speaking of ground zero, some of them can be found there as well, albeit after the fact. Cleaning up messes has its rewards, I guess.
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