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The FBI WANTED to investigate the Bin Ladens before the 9/11 attacks because they suspected a plot. However, Bush and his administration blocked the investigation for unknown reasons. A head FBI official even resigned because he was so frustrated that they couldn't investiage what they say clearly as troublesome activities.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=103&row =0

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4 293682,00.html

http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/ar ticleshow?art_id=1030259305

http://dir.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/b ush/index.html

Don't blame the FBI for not investigating, blame the justice department and the higher ups.

Hmm, check out Greg Palast's work on the subject. It's all there.

Didn't know the discussion was "hot". Here's the only chapter relevant to the discussion in pdf.

Ha! Of course both sides believe the other one is the fucking dumbass. Just like Osama and Dubya both say they fight with the help of God. Please read this article, or this one, with an open mind? Sure you say the writer is a liberal, but do you think he just made up his allegations out of thin fucking air?

Ha! Of course both sides believe the other one is the fucking dumbass. Just like Osama and Dubya both say they fight with the help of God. Please read this article, or this one, with an open mind? Sure you say the writer is a liberal, but do you think he just made up his allegations out of thin fucking air?

They messed up in 2000, they made the fraud too obvious. Of course, people still didn't pay attention to it -- they paid attention to hanging chads and that bullshit, but not to the disenfranchisement of black voters which was far worse.

Even discounting the illegally purged 57,000 FL 2000 voters, mostly for Gore, Gore won Florida. Where are your cited facts to the contrary? When will you get off this treadmill of pure denial, and get with the facts? Why do you hate America?

Nader's running is a threat only due to a at a serious flaw - the winner-take-all system. Nader's 2000 take of a few percent in Florida was still smaller than those erased by Katherine Harris' machinations, so I'd rank voter disenfranchisement as a greater threat than a legal run by a competitive candidate. If the erroneously counted "Buchanan" votes were properly counted for Gore, the Florida electoral ballots would have been properly allocated, the national popular and electoral votes would have been synchronized, and the Constitutional crisis would never have arrived.

As for the Iran-Contra resumes of Bush's current public/private partnership for hegemony: you really should look more closely at that cancer on your party. It has taken over the brain. Poindexter, North, their druglord buddies, even Lee Hamilton the Democrat whitewasher... do they really represent you?

Hank Asher provided the unprecedentedly expensive Democrat scrubbing campaign in Florida 2000, and flew cocaine for Iran-Contra, now profiteering from domestic spying. These criminals kept the Iranians propped up, and defend them even now, as they get played by the Ayatollahs in Iran and Shi'ite Iraq building a nuclear superstate which will threaten us for generations, if we even all survive that long.

FDR, united with his party, the opposition, the American people, and substantial global allies, could wage war in both Europe and the Pacific - mainly by merely supporting Europe (primarily Russia) while leading in the Pacific. The US fought a well defined enemy, in a war novel in scale, not so much complexity. While the Bush administration seems to be unable not only to fight in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but unable to run a reelection campaign and even one successful war. And they're taking us down with them. Neither you nor I depends on the "one man" at the top of this administration, or all hope of any survival would be lost at the hands of George the Squanderer, who has never won any fair competition in his life, certainly not without help from a family fixer. 2004 won't be fixable, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Wall Street, the jobs market, or anywhere else except possibly the voting booths in November. Let's hope he screws that up as well.

"This is bullshit. The ACLU and NAACP wanted shorter lines and a felon list that included only, you know, felons.

No. The list included people with *misdemeanors* from outside the state of Florida. The decision to throw out their votes was that of data mining company ChoicePoint, a private entity."

The problem with the 'felon list' in Florida is that it had several errors that caused it to illegally exclude many voters. For example:
- People who were felons who had their right to vote restored (35 states allow felons to vote once they've served their time, and you retain that even if you move to Florida).
- People with similar names, age and race as a felon from another state. Yes, if any white male named something like "John Smith" around the age of 30 was arrested anywhere, all similar John Smith's in Florida lost their votes.
- They initially matched anyone who was a rough match, which was then supposed to be "scrubbed" by DBT (the private contractor) calling the person to verify their identity and status. DBT was told by the state not to actually call any "felons" but blocked all possible matches from the lists.

The result was that a huge number of non-felons (who happened to have the wrong name) and ex-felons who were legally allowed to vote were denied their votes. For example, Madison County's elections supervisor Linda Howell ... found her own name on it, and "The one county that checked each of the 694 names on its local list could verify only 34 as actual felony convicts."

Given the documentation provided by the private contractor (they warned that the list had significant overcounting, and were told by the state not to attempt to cross-check or call the "felons" in order to eliminate false records) I personally suspect that this was an intentional attempt by the state to eliminate a significant number of likely Democratic voters.

I know you have alternative parties, but they're not really viable choices.

Voters were clearly still happy with Bush in 2002 or else they would have moved to limit his power.

On top of this, Al Qaeda unfortunately chose that time to instigate their terrorist attacks; that is a situation which only worked in the administration's favor. It was a unifying event, bringing Americans together, and giving the president an opportunity to launch a war which America supported, bolstering Bush's popularity. After taking Afghanistan, Bush used the momentum to pursue his personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein. Whether or not this will have worked in his favor has yet to be seen. He may have miscalculated; if Iraq would have resisted more, he might have been able to draw out the war through the elections. In the past 100 years, presidents who were running during a period of war that hadn't yet "turned sour" were reelected. If he can keep the spin on the war in Iraq up, he might have a chance. On the other hand, no president who ever lost the popular vote has won a reelected. In any case, it should be an interesting election.

yes, a tiny percentage of voters could have changed the outcome, but when 40% of the people don't vote, clearly it doesn't really matter to the majority who wins.

So, the majority of voters (the only "majority" who counts) were disenfranchised in 2000. It wasn't even the first time that it had happened, just the most obvious.

We may be in a situation where the flawed electoral system in the USA is beginning to collapse. It may be at the point where what the majority of voters wants doesn't matter, because the elections are being fixed, as they were in Florida. I'm not sure we're there yet, but I do know that the system is flawed and needs to be changed.

Greg Palast documents this very well too. Online you can find his Jim Crow in Cyberspace article. For the grueling details you can get his Best Democracy Money can Buy book.

"In the Salon Politics article "Florida's flawed 'voter-cleansing' program," it was incorrectly stated that Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris hired a company, ChoicePoint, to create a voter "purge" list. The company was hired in 1998 before Harris was elected to her post. Also, Rick Rozar was incorrectly identified as a founder of ChoicePoint. Rozar was the president of a company, CDB Infotek, of which Choicepoint owned 70 percent, and which ChoicePoint eventually bought. Salon regrets the errors.

[Corrections made 12/19/00]"

If your point was to show he makes mistakes, no argument. I'll explain my view when I get to your challenge over "my point."

"There were thousands of journalists in Florida to cover the election fallout. Any one of them would have loved to blow open a story that proved misconduct by Harris or Gov. Bush. Instead we only have Palast tooting his horn to promote his own books because he somehow thinks that Katherine Harris complying with a law that was passed before she even took office is scandalous."

This is a subjective view, granted, but when the press is scared they're going to get lynched for being "Un-patriotic" or the "liberal media" etc, this kind of acts as a deterent. There are of cource numerous other possibilities. One of the Palast quotes points out how despite having a juicy bit on Clinton (I kinda wish he would elaborate), no one wanted to hear it. They where too busy scrutinizing slick willie's little sexual escapades to care about it. At least that's the jist I got. Just because it is news doesn't mean it gets reported. The rest, again I will try to explain at "the point."

"No- whats your point?"

THE POINT:
The point is that while being hired under some supposedly opposing force, in a system where this can change to a supposedly friendly group, this can allow for collusion where it was difficult before.

Simplified example: It can be alot easier to extort from the corporation you work for if your father replaces your alienated ex-wife as CEO.

Again this does not necessarily happen by any means nor is it necessarily the situation, so by this point it is necessary look for facts if you wish to figure out if this is happening. Unfortunetly, I am unlikely to find such facts directly, so I rely from third parties. So far we both seem to be in a struggle over "my facts are bigger/better than yours!"

You know, kinda like all the special interests get all giddy when someone the bri...err donate to gets elected or selected as it where?

Oh, and about Ms. Harris. Despite not hiring the company responcible for the list, wasn't she responcible for working with the company? Despite saying he wasn't involved, wasn't Jeb's office responcible for overseeing this was done and approved? Damn, I wish I had some sources handy...

"It is not illegal, afterall, to be the President's brother."

No, it is not. It does, however, lead to a situation of conflit of interest.

"Ok- fair enough.

Alright, lets have a looksee.

"Here is the USCCR report..."

"Am I a bit too rough on the Republicans? I recognize that the selling of America is a bipartisan business. If I spill more ink here on the Bushes than the Clintons, it's primarily because a journalist's first job should be to discomfit those in power. Regarding the Democrats, my policy is to let sleeping dogs lie and lying dogs sleep."

"The question remains, why were these stories (and their author)exiled to Europe? Where are you, America? Don't you want to know how your president was elected? How the IMF spends your money?

Mike Isikoff, a Newsweek reporter, suggested an answer. A couple of years ago, he passed me some truly disturbing information on President Clinton, not the usual intern-under-the-desk stuff. I said, "Mike, why don't you print this?" And he said, "Because no one gives a shit.""

"Palast, who now reports for the Guardian and Observer in London, as well as the BBC, distinguishes himself from many other advocacy journalists both left and right with his near obsession with documentary evidence--memos, correspondence, e-mail, briefing reports and raw data, much of it stamped confidential--and his painstaking research methods."

Herm...i thought it was because the head of the Bush campaign in Florida also happened to be the person in charge of Florida elections and worked with a Republican headed company and George Bush's brother Jeb to have ~51,000 people wrongfully taken off the voter rolls who where later found to 90% Democrat. (I don't know how the conclusion was reached that they would vote Democrat since they wheren't allowed to vote at all. Maybe previous voting habits?)

Greg Palast has a good write up on it. ...Then there's that whole thing where Bush Jr. got appointed President by the people his daddy appointed into office. Was that even legal? Or did the court just give itself the right to do that?

You don't steal elections at the top
Watergate more or less proved that: George Bush (or any of the Democratic candidates) can't decide to steal an election. Much as the Democrats would love to prove otherwise, the governor of Florida did not "steal" the election for his brother. The people who might have stolen the election were the judges who were evaluating all of those chads. The people who absolutely, positively, did their damndest to steal the election were the "community organizers" who were rounding up people on the streets, crowding them onto buses, and shipping them to the polling place. But that involved voter registration cards of dead people--and that's another subject.

So what do you have to say about the claim that the republicans wrongly removed thousands of Florida voters from the registry shortly before the election on the false claim that they were felons?

It got leaked, the press got ahold of it, it involves the Florida Secretary of State (and who knows who gave her the marching orders since she isn't talking) and yet it just disapeared into the ether. It still gets mentioned from time to time, but there was no real outcry or investigation. Even if it really was an accident it's still a serious issue, but one way or the other no one seems to be really bothered by it. Sure, secrets leak, but what happens when the press, the people and the courts don't seem to care?

MATRIX is the product of the drug-running covert actors who brought us the Iran-Contra connection. Seisint is the data warehouse in Florida for these Matrix apps, started by Hank Asher. He also founded DataBase Technologies, which purged the 2000 Presidential election rolls of 57,000 voters, 95% in error, the majority of them Democrats. Prior to that, Asher flew drugs off Florida through the Bahamas for Iran-Contra. His boss was John Poindexter, director of the "doomed" federal TIA, the mother of all Matrices. A French webpage has the Seisint/DBT (translated to English) connection: Hank Asher. For extra points, Diebold's eVoting division has been run by another convicted Iran-Contra cocaine dealer.

Now the Matrix, after being rejected by Georgia for its unwarranted invasions of privacy, is making the rounds of the rest of the states which owe Bush Jr favors. Idaho governor Leavitt succeeds Governor Kempthorne, just named the previous Idaho governor, to head the EPA, as it abandons the penalty financing of SuperFund. Check your own state government for the favors it owes Bush Corp., before they sell you to the Bush cronies. Drug dealers, vote fixers, Big Brothers: these are the people we have given the power of the US government. Take a stand now, before you have nothing left to defend.

This project was started by Hank Asher. He had to take his name off the company, because of his past. Following are links to info regarding this man. You tell me? Is this the guy we trust to secure this kind of information?
Florida's flawed "voter-cleansing" program
Old American Century google for more.

There was no attempt made to change the 'electoral process', only to cause it to adhere to its principles

Florida law has provisions requiring an automatic recount in the event of a close election. Florida law also requires that the election results be certified at 5PM on the 7th day after the election. After the initial recount was finished (with Bush still in the lead), this deadline passed and the results were certified. Gore then sued to force a selective recount in counties where he stood to gain the most votes after the deadline for certification, effectively changing the existing Florida election law.

It's simple to make unfounded assertions.... You gave no information that suggested anything other than Mr. Palast belives that George Bush is a Bad Guy, not that there was any vested interest in that position for him.

Mr. Palast is an expert at making unfounded assertions. Lets start at page 1 of his book:

Here's how it worked: Mostly, the disks contain data on Florida citizens - 57,700 of them. In the months leading up to the November 2000 balloting, Florida Secretary of State Harris, in coordination with Governor Jeb Bush, ordered local elections supervisors to purge these 57,700 from voter registries. In Harris's computers, they are named as felons who have no right to vote in Florida.

Mrs. Harris and Gov. Bush didn't "order local elections supervisors" to purge votor registries - they didn't even have the authority to do that. This came from the Florida Legislature, because in the US the Legislature writes the laws, not the Executive branch (which most people should have learned in 5th grade US Government, but apparently not Mr. Palast - maybe thats why he moved out of the country). In fact, the Florida Legislature passed this requirement in 1997, before Harris or Bush were elected to office in Florida (see this Salon.com correction from when they published the original Palast article), and this list was compiled at the direction of Ethel Baxter, the Democrat Florida Director of Elections. In addition, this law in no way forced local election officials to purge anybody off the voter registries. In fact, there were several counties that scrapped the entire list without using a single name. You see, county election officials control county election rolls, not the Department of State or the Governor. This means that any voter disenfranchising in heavily democratic, minority counties was done by county election officials, who happen to be Democrat minorities in such counties.

Explain to me what Mr. Palast's 'vested interest' is ... in this issue?

If you can't see how he doesn't profit from three high-on-emotion, low-on-fact-but-we-hate-republicans books on this very subject, then maybe you don't understand what a vested interest is.

for instance, Cheney's Vested Interest in the Iraq war is that he will profit from the assignment of Halliburton as the primary contractor - that is a 'vested interest'

Ah, yes, the left wings favorite whipping boy. You do realize that Dick Cheney divested himself of all financial ties to Halliburton (with the exception of an insured retirement annuity, which doesn't change no matter how much or how little money Halliburton makes)? I guess you also realize that Halliburton has been working almost exclusively on Government contracts for the last 60 years, not just from when Dick Cheney became associated with them. And I guess you would also know that most of the so-called "no-bid" contracts that Halliburton has been awarded in Iraq were because Halliburton is the only company that does what the contractors were looking for. After all, how many companies out there have the oil fire expertise of Kellogg Brown & Root? Never mind all of these facts, lets just complain about the rich white guy!

You were saying?

Where did your invented information come from?"

How about her own words?

"Last year, the Florida legislature passed virtually all of my bills as part of its landmark Election Reform Act."

Maybe things happened different in your alternate reality.

Although, in his defense, him and his wife have done a lot of good human betterment stuff. If you look past the whole Microsoft thing, the're actually good people. And no, this isn't a troll!! Just look at their foundation.

Yes, let's look at the Bill Gates Foundation

--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?

American Weblog in London

ERR,, scrap that - doesnt that already happen anyway... oh dear

(krafy koder goes into "move along now - nothing to see here" mode)

Flordia's constitution required a full recount and cert by x date,

I see nothing in the Florida constituion regarding this, though my look was brief. Citation, please?

the SCOTUS ordered flordia to obey its constitution.

State laws are a matter for state courts. The right of every voter to be counted trumps arbitrary deadlines anyway.

could Gore have won?

If by "won" you mean "received more votes in Florida", the answer is clearly yes. He did. A full statewide recount would have favored Gore. (Gore blew it by not demanding a full recount.)

That's not even considering the many voters - mostly black, and more likely to be Gore voters - illegal disenfranchised, or the illegal and self-contradictory Palm Beach "butterfly ballot", or the invalid absentee ballots that were counted. (I assume the later are the ones you're refering to. However, Gore didn't challenge such absentee ballots - if he had, the Bush team might have had a harder time committing their fraud. Another blown opportunity.)

More voters - in the U.S. as a whole and in Florida - went to the polls to cast their ballots for Gore than for Bush. The fact that in Florida, more Gore voters had trouble getting their votes counted shows the absence of equal protection when different methods of vote-counting are used in different areas. (With rich counties generally having more accurate tabulation.)

Frankly, I don't kneed my prty hosht telling me when I'm too drunk to drive.

I live in Canada. Things continue along their current trajectory, neocon "new America" corporatists will be stomping all over us for our oil and water, and drug laws. Things like 'homeland security' and other civil rights debacles like the war on drugs and the social weight of your prisons, ghettos, and "you're either with us or against us" don't seem very pluralistic, endless war that breeds endless enemies amongst an official plan for unchallenged global domination doesn't seem very stable.

You live in the most propagandized environment in history. (Well, so do I, but we have Canadian Content rules which puts a different slant on things.) Why would you think the election was rigged? If you care to look sideways through the media muck, you can start with corporate fraud-buster Greg Palast's investigation.

Hank Asher founded DataBaseTechnologies (FL), which purged the FL voter rolls of 57,000 voters (majority Democrats, 95% entitled to vote). Asher apparently flew drugs through the Bahamas for Iran-Contra, which was masterminded by John Poindexter, sleazing his way back into the Bush payroll after Bush senior pardoned him for lying to Congress. Back in the 80s, these evil bastards seemed like just the seamy underbelly of a government fronted by a demented old actor. Now they're running the show!

I think that your support of Cynthia McKinney speaks volumes about your ability to choose reliable leaders!
These are the lies of the lazy corporate right biased media.

Greg Palast on Cynthia McKinney Lies

BTW, Al Gore NEVER said he invented the Internet.
More Lies about Al Gore and the Internet

Oh yeah, and Jennifer Flowers is a liar. She never had an affair with Clinton. We just assumed she did because the media told us so.
Jennifer Flowers Can't keep her lies straight

For more instances of the lazy corporate right serving media, see www.dailyhowler.com

For more information on WHY the corporate media is lazy, right biased and overall DUMB, read "Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them: A Fair and Balanced look at the Right".

Neocon, your points on England, the Netherlands, and Denmark, compare civil penalties, restrictions, and impositions to criminal imprisonment. I agree that prior restraint, restrictions and impositions on the practice of journalism, and warrantless searches are bad, but who thinks that they are anywhere near as bad as the U.S. pandering to powerful prison guard unions resulting in mandatory minimum sentencing fiascos?

From the July 2000 report, Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States:

Nearly one in four persons (23.7%) imprisoned in the United States is currently imprisoned for a drug offense. The number of persons behind bars for drug offenses (458,131) is roughly the same as the entire prison and jail population in 1980 (474,368).

From a utilitarian perspective, this situation is pointless because as far as I can tell, both prescription and illicit drugs are as available now as they were in 1980. And crime rates in general are within 20% of 1980 levels -- but we have four times as many people in prison! Does that trend lead you to believe that we are becoming more or less free?

For what reason do you suggest that prior restraint and the Official Secrets Act make people less free than mandatory minimum drug sentences? You can compare the two by simply determining whether the other nations in question have a greater proportion of people in prison for violations of the laws you cite. There is no greater loss of freedom experienced in the industrialized world than to be put in prison, save for execution (which, of those countries, is only practiced in the U.S., by the way.) To compare imprisonment to restrictions on freedom of speech resulting in civil penalties, or even warrantless searches, is simply absurd. I'll agree that we are more free in some ways, but nowhere near the most free overall.

DEMOCRACY:

``disqualification of voters'': this accusation ... is nothing more than FUD -- extensive investigations by a number of groups have failed to turn up any significant number of people who were disqualified from voting who were not, in fact felons.

Not according to:

• John Ashcroft's Justice Department
• The New York Times, contrary to your assertion
• The United States Civil Rights Commission -- excerpt:

  Estimates indicate that approximately 14.4 percent of Florida's black voters cast ballots that were rejected. This compares with approximately 1.6 percent of nonblack Florida voters who did not have their presidential votes counted.

• direct inspection of the database tables used

of the nations you name, only one, Australia, uses anything resembling preferential voting of any sort, as you can verify at the Center for Voting and Democracy. Other than them, only Ireland, Malta, and Nauru, in all the world, use any form of such voting. Secondly, this system does not, as you seem to think, necessarily result in a `more democratic' outcome.

While you are technically correct about Austrailia, the systems in use in Canada and Brazil, and parts of England, e.g., the metropolitan London area, and France, also serve to eliminate the spoiler effect. Without the spoiler effect, Ross Perot would not have kept G.H.W. Bush from being re-elected, so this cuts both ways. Any nation incompetent enough to eliminate the spoiler effect, so easily done, is centuries behind in democracy.

POVERTY:

Funny someone should mention the Best Democracy Money Can Buy Or check out the author's website

Ok, how about:
Article on Salon...

Harpers...

Bradenton Herald...

Harvard U. School of Gov't Reseach Paper...

One or these days, they're going to declare it treasonous to be so criminally ignorant. Wise up before then.

Yeah but sore right-wingers attacked Clinton's lifestyle and the allegation that he lied about sleeping around with his intern and instructed her to lie. Sore left-wingers make the allegation that many traditionally Democratic Party-voting constituents were deliberately denied their right to vote via a deliberately unverified list of supposed felons.

One's a sad commentary on the President's sex life and our nation's attention to it. The other's a sad commentary on the state of democracy in this nation and our nation's attention to it. Guess which one of these two made headlines for months on end.

Now is the time, GOP congress and President? An especially "pro-business" well pro-big-business with deep-pockets administration in an anything goes legislative spree is the *perfect* time to peel away some fair use rights. It would be foolish if they didn't try, not that I condone this.

Look at the success of Patriot Act II, just attach it to a spending bill and it passes while we were all sleeping. No debate, no nothing. The RIAA knows this is a good thing, for them.

Whatever your political persuasion, its fairly obvious that legislative reform should have happened a long time ago and the current congress and executive branch are pulling every dirty trick they can.

Greg Palast chronicles a lot of the abuses we don't hear about in his book The Best Democracy Money can Buy. Worth checking out if you want to know how stuff like this happens and why non-monied interests have little say in the affairs of government.

WAY too much attention has been focused on the ballot. I highly suggest reading "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" by Greg Palast which documents Jed Bush's role in election fraud in the presidential election. The ballot was a diversion, in my opinion, for those who really care about free and fair elections. And as an American I am embarrased when the Albanians feel compelled to come and observe whether our elections are free and fair!

The real issue IMO, centers around the way that due diligence was not used when disenfranchising 17000 Florida residents due to the fact that their names were on a list of convicted felons. No verification was ever performed that they WERE convicted felons who could be denied the right to vote. These disenfranchised were largely African-American, and would almost certainly have made the Florida race go the other way.

For additional reading, I suggest the following links:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/06/08/politics /main295656.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/14/politics /main301511.shtml

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=27&row= 1

It seems that electronic voting isn't the only way to get ahead-- the problem is that we have to ensure that it is trackable.

The Supreme Court did not appoint him. The Electoral College did, however, through the usual process of election.

And the Supreme Court - acting in violation of federal, state, and international law, as well as judicial rules of procedure - selected Florida's electors.

All the Supreme Court did was refuse to bother with a frivolous appeal filed with them. They in effect did nothing and let the real results of the election stand.

Your recall of events is hazy. If they'd done nothing, the recount would have continued.

The "real results" are that:

• slightly more more people in Florida cast ballots for Gore than for Bush
• if a large number of black voters had not been illegally disenfranchised, the margin would have been higher
• if ballots conforming to Florida law (and to internal consistency) had been used in Palm beach, the margin would have been higher still

I can tell you all about the ne're-do-wells that sent us back to the Dark Ages last week. I came up against these characters -- First Energy and the Niagara Mohawk Power Company -- some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers.

The power outage began in First Energy's Ohio operation. This company was the model for the film, "China Syndrome." Really. Then First Energy's Pennsylvania unit fumbled the power ball. These are the very same Homer Simpsons who melted Three Mile Island.

...

Is last week's black-out a surprise? Heck, no, not to us in the field who've watched Bush's buddies flick the switches across the globe. In Brazil, Houston Industries seized ownership of Rio de Janeiro's electric company. The Texans (aided by their French partners) fired workers, raised prices, cut maintenance expenditures and, CLICK! the juice went out so often te locals now call it, "Rio Dark."

So too the free-market British buckaroos controlling Niagara Mohawk raised prices, slashed staff, cut maintenance and CLICK! -- New York joins Brazil in the Dark Ages.

I can tell you all about the ne're-do-wells that sent us back to the Dark Ages last week. I came up against these characters -- First Energy and the Niagara Mohawk Power Company -- some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers.

The power outage began in First Energy's Ohio operation. This company was the model for the film, "China Syndrome." Really. Then First Energy's Pennsylvania unit fumbled the power ball. These are the very same Homer Simpsons who melted Three Mile Island.

...

Is last week's black-out a surprise? Heck, no, not to us in the field who've watched Bush's buddies flick the switches across the globe. In Brazil, Houston Industries seized ownership of Rio de Janeiro's electric company. The Texans (aided by their French partners) fired workers, raised prices, cut maintenance expenditures and, CLICK! the juice went out so often te locals now call it, "Rio Dark."

So too the free-market British buckaroos controlling Niagara Mohawk raised prices, slashed staff, cut maintenance and CLICK! -- New York joins Brazil in the Dark Ages.

One situation, where the government completely privatized a utility.

You're being naive, if you think that the laws of economics only apply in the U.S. You could learn a great deal from looking internationally.

This describes what happened in Bolivia, right after privatization of a utility.

I honestly haven't read it, but this seems like a pretty good document on the subject:

Here

So. Let's ask ourselves again. How did Bush "steal" the election? How did the Supremes "select" Bush? How was the Constituion thwarted? Just because the guy with the most votes lost does not mean that anything broke. The Consitution is not a democratic document.

Besides the funny business that went on before the election (ordered by Jeb Bush) to remove tens of thousands of Democratic voters from the lists of registered Florida voters [...] You mean the order to actually enforce the law purging convicted felons from the list of eligible voters? Are you saying crooks tend to be Democrats? B-)

As to the few non-felon Democrats (AND Republicans) who got zapped by accident because they happened to have the same name as a felon, they had plenty of time to correct the error.

My god, NO! They're worse than these voting machines, I afraid you're living in a fools paradise :-

- GTech must prove its fitness to keep running lottery
- Just one of the concerns raised in the British Parliament over the years (Hansard).
- Watchdog investigates lottery company's ethics

etc, etc. Not so long ago there was technical problems with their kit resulting in tickets not being centrally registered, they tried to cover it up but an employee resigned an blew the gaff, he was subsequently threatened in various ways.

Mind you, that's nothing compared to the various political mud pools they find themselves in.

And how is that better than the current system?

In the current system people aren't arrested for massive voter fraud.

Uhhhh... I'm guessing you get your news from a "fair and unbiased" source like Roger Ailes, Media Director for George HW Bush's campaigns and creator and producer of Rush Limbaugh's TV show.
There are some FACTS that get in the way of your straight-from-the-GOP arguments. I figure it's probably a lost cause to try to convince you, but here they are...
(First, for the record, I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican, and am horrified at the increasing narrowness of the American political "spectrum" after having lived for 3 years in a thriving Democracy (Brazil), where there are more parties than anyone can name, and virtually all points of view are represented, with no one or two or even three parties able to dominate)
That said, on to the uncomfortable facts...
Yes, there was some serious rigging in the 2000 Florida election, but it looks like most of it was done by the Republicans. Besides the funny business that went on before the election (ordered by Jeb Bush) to remove tens of thousands of Democratic voters from the lists of registered Florida voters, and besides the numerous African-American (likely Democratic) Florida voters who were denied their right to vote, there is the matter of the leaked Diebold memos, which show that there was some election night hanky-panky with the 2000 Florida presidential vote totals (made possible by Diebold, a company whose top man has declared that it is his mission to deliver Ohio's electoral votes to George W Bush). Best of all, Diebold does not deny that these things happened; it is trying to use the DMCA to shut down any site hosting copies of the incriminating memos, alleging that these company memos are copyrighted material. IANAL, but that looks to me like a direct admission of ownership and verification of the authenticity of those shocking memos. If I had a site hosting those memos and I were to get a Cease and Desist from Diebold, I'd simply tell them "no way" and hope hope hope to get the chance to discuss the contents of those memos in front of a judge.
Bad as all this is, as they say on infomercials, "that's not all!" Recounts were stopped because the Supreme Court, loaded 6-3 with Republicans, including one major political activist (Scalia) and his apprentice (Thomas) basically said that if the recounts weren't stopped, George W Bush might not be President. Worse, they basically recognized the ridiculousness of their own arguments and said that this case could never be used as a precedent for a future case. Funny that... (in a distinctly non-humorous way, of course)

I'm guessing Ann Coulter didn't mention these things. I wouldn't be surprised if the presenters at Fox News forgot to mention them either...
Don't even get me started about the fact that exit polls unanimously showed Gore winning Florida... or on the recent election in Georgia, where every poll (exit polls, third-party pre-election polls, Democratic AND Republican internal tracking polls) showed the Democrat winning handily, but the Republican ended up winning with relative ease. Small but possibly important detail: an unverified patch was applied to the Diebold (that name again!) voting machines after they'd been certified by Georgia election officials.

What? Brit Hume didn't mention that? Color me shocked!

As for your comments about people engaged in shady activity loudly bla

Florida's debacle was not about hanging chads. It was about what went on behind the scenes[PDF!!] before anyone got to the voting booths.

Sorry, you've misunderstood the source of the number of votes being between 20,000 to 200,000 votes. It's not somewhere within that range, from one source - there were multiple sources of confusion, error, and law-breaking that result in some number between about 20,000 and 200,000 votes being either not counted, never received in the first place, or counted despite them not being legal votes. Whether you personally think the number is 20,000 or 200,000 or somewhere in between depends on which sources of error estimation you trust, which reports of illegal activity you credit, and how paranoid you are. I personally don't think the number is as high as 200,000 - but I think it's definitely more than 20,000. Why am I admitting that I don't believe every piece of information that Palast cites? Because I'm a skeptic, and I'm trying to be honest.

This is a pretty good listing of some of the articles Palast based his book on.

I really, honestly, appreciate your calling me on this point of my argument - and it was based on poor communication on my part. You're sick of me saying this, but THE BOOK does a far better job (obviously) of communicating the frightening facts in the Florida election.

Error rates for punch card machines were being quoted at around 3.5%. We remain within the statistical noise.

Trusting in the flat distribution of error rates for the punch card machines assumes equal programming of them in all districts. They were ordered (by Harris) to be programmed to silently eat errors in strongly Democratic regions (voiding the vote with no warning), and the same machines were ordered to complain to the operator (at the time of the vote) about any detectable errors in the ballot in strongly Republican errors, thus allowing the person to re-vote.

The number of votes that were possibly mis-counted or thrown away by this mechanism is documented in the book, which I don't happen to have handy.

If you want to read one article, and one article alone, which documents some of what I'm talking about, I think this is a pretty good one. It doesn't list all of the voter numbers that Palast found, but it does list the biggest.

Conspiracy or no conspiracy the vote was too close to be resolved in a way that would remove any doubt.

You may be right. But that doesn't make me less pissed that the law was broken, legal voters were intimidated, and I get lectured by people (not you, really) telling me that the Democrats tried to steal the election. The Republicans DID steal the election, in my opinion - and I'm trying to share some of the facts that I'm basing that opinion on. Whether they won inside of an error rate is a disturbing question (can't we come up with a better voting system? MOST elections are within 3.5%!!!), but it's not the one I've been posting about. I'm not saying Gore won because of a 3.5% error margin, I'm saying that I think he would have won, but for the illegal (and immoral, and CRAZY) actions of Harris. Whether or not he should have won, if no laws had been broken, or should have won on a political basis - those are other questions for other debates.

Sorry, you've misunderstood the source of the number of votes being between 20,000 to 200,000 votes. It's not somewhere within that range, from one source - there were multiple sources of confusion, error, and law-breaking that result in some number between about 20,000 and 200,000 votes being either not counted, never received in the first place, or counted despite them not being legal votes. Whether you personally think the number is 20,000 or 200,000 or somewhere in between depends on which sources of error estimation you trust, which reports of illegal activity you credit, and how paranoid you are. I personally don't think the number is as high as 200,000 - but I think it's definitely more than 20,000. Why am I admitting that I don't believe every piece of information that Palast cites? Because I'm a skeptic, and I'm trying to be honest.

This is a pretty good listing of some of the articles Palast based his book on.

I really, honestly, appreciate your calling me on this point of my argument - and it was based on poor communication on my part. You're sick of me saying this, but THE BOOK does a far better job (obviously) of communicating the frightening facts in the Florida election.

Error rates for punch card machines were being quoted at around 3.5%. We remain within the statistical noise.

Trusting in the flat distribution of error rates for the punch card machines assumes equal programming of them in all districts. They were ordered (by Harris) to be programmed to silently eat errors in strongly Democratic regions (voiding the vote with no warning), and the same machines were ordered to complain to the operator (at the time of the vote) about any detectable errors in the ballot in strongly Republican errors, thus allowing the person to re-vote.

The number of votes that were possibly mis-counted or thrown away by this mechanism is documented in the book, which I don't happen to have handy.

If you want to read one article, and one article alone, which documents some of what I'm talking about, I think this is a pretty good one. It doesn't list all of the voter numbers that Palast found, but it does list the biggest.

Conspiracy or no conspiracy the vote was too close to be resolved in a way that would remove any doubt.

You may be right. But that doesn't make me less pissed that the law was broken, legal voters were intimidated, and I get lectured by people (not you, really) telling me that the Democrats tried to steal the election. The Republicans DID steal the election, in my opinion - and I'm trying to share some of the facts that I'm basing that opinion on. Whether they won inside of an error rate is a disturbing question (can't we come up with a better voting system? MOST elections are within 3.5%!!!), but it's not the one I've been posting about. I'm not saying Gore won because of a 3.5% error margin, I'm saying that I think he would have won, but for the illegal (and immoral, and CRAZY) actions of Harris. Whether or not he should have won, if no laws had been broken, or should have won on a political basis - those are other questions for other debates.

• In 2000, 5 of the 12 directors of Diebold, a leading voting machine manufacturer, made donations totaling $94,750 to predominately Republican politicians;
• Former Florida Secretary of State Sandra Mortham (R) and Former State Election Supervisor of California Lou Dedier (R) both have ties to Election Systems and Software (ES&S), one of our nation's leading voting machine manufacturers and tabulators. Sandra Mortham was a lobbyist for ES&S and the Florida Association of Counties during the same time period. The Florida Association of Counties made $300,000 in commissions from the sale of ES&S's voting machines;
• In Georgia's most recent election, William Wingate, a lobbyist for ES&S, contributed $7,000 to Gov. Roy Barnes (D), $1,000 to Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor (D), and $500 to Secretary of State Cathy Cox (D);
• Michael McCarthy is the Chairman of the McCarthy Group, of which ES&S is a subsidiary. According to Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filings, McCarthy is also the Primary Campaign Treasurer for Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who (according to FEC filings) is also financially tied to the McCarthy Group by substantial investments (valued between one and five million dollars). According to officials at Nebraska's Election Administration, ES&S machines tallied around 85 percent of votes cast in Hagel's 1996 and 2002 senatorial races.

Occasionally, politicians have used their ties to voting machine companies for fraud and illegal activities:

• Former Louisiana State Elections Official Jerry Fowler (D), is currently serving five years in prison for charges related to taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from voting machine scandals.
• Bill McCuen (D), former Arkansas Secretary of State, pled guilty to felony charges that he took bribes, evaded taxes, and accepted kickbacks. Part of the case involved Business Records Corp. (now merged with ES&S) for recording corporate and voter registration records.

• In 2000, 5 of the 12 directors of Diebold, a leading voting machine manufacturer, made donations totaling $94,750 to predominately Republican politicians;
• Former Florida Secretary of State Sandra Mortham (R) and Former State Election Supervisor of California Lou Dedier (R) both have ties to Election Systems and Software (ES&S), one of our nation's leading voting machine manufacturers and tabulators. Sandra Mortham was a lobbyist for ES&S and the Florida Association of Counties during the same time period. The Florida Association of Counties made $300,000 in commissions from the sale of ES&S's voting machines;
• In Georgia's most recent election, William Wingate, a lobbyist for ES&S, contributed $7,000 to Gov. Roy Barnes (D), $1,000 to Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor (D), and $500 to Secretary of State Cathy Cox (D);
• Michael McCarthy is the Chairman of the McCarthy Group, of which ES&S is a subsidiary. According to Federal Elections Commission (FEC) filings, McCarthy is also the Primary Campaign Treasurer for Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, who (according to FEC filings) is also financially tied to the McCarthy Group by substantial investments (valued between one and five million dollars). According to officials at Nebraska's Election Administration, ES&S machines tallied around 85 percent of votes cast in Hagel's 1996 and 2002 senatorial races.

Occasionally, politicians have used their ties to voting machine companies for fraud and illegal activities:

• Former Louisiana State Elections Official Jerry Fowler (D), is currently serving five years in prison for charges related to taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from voting machine scandals.
• Bill McCuen (D), former Arkansas Secretary of State, pled guilty to felony charges that he took bribes, evaded taxes, and accepted kickbacks. Part of the case involved Business Records Corp. (now merged with ES&S) for recording corporate and voter registration records.

This isn't even the point at all. Black voters were systematically deprived of their right to vote. Clearly if these voters had been alloud to vote instead of being removed Gore would have one recount or no recount. This is the real issue.

[from the article]:
" Other partners include Lehman Brothers; TransCore, the company that created the E-ZPass electronic toll system; and ChoicePoint, a Georgia company that will screen the customers."

• Lehman
  
• EZPass
  
• ChoicePoint
  

[from the article]:
" Other partners include Lehman Brothers; TransCore, the company that created the E-ZPass electronic toll system; and ChoicePoint, a Georgia company that will screen the customers."

First Class Citizens, without any of those troubling "black marks on their permanent records" that their high school gym coaches warned them about, will be recommended by some of the best liars in the business. These card carrying inoffenders will be vouched for by the Lehman fraud company, the EZPass system (that we bought under assurances of court-order privacy protection, now for sale to lawyers for divorce investigations), and ChoicePoint, which "arbitrarily" erased the names of >55,000 Florida 2000 voters (probably >80% Gore voters). Weapons of Mass Deception.