PALAST: BUSH TEAM HELPS RULING PARTY “FLORIDIZE” MEXICAN PRES. ELECTION

[Dems Will Win]

The Republican fascists have to make up 5% to beat Obrador. That's a lot. They don't have the e-voting I assume.

I have no doubt, however, that the Republicans can do that--just through sheer fraud and thuggery.

When are we going to make our own Progressive USA Today newspaper and get the truth out?

BUSH TEAM HELPS RULING PARTY “FLORIDIZE” MEXICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

by Greg Palast

Friday, June 30 — GEORGE Bush’s operatives have plans to jigger with the upcoming elections. I’m not talking about the November ‘06 vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too). I’m talking about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.

...

When we received the document, we obtained as well its classified appendix. The target nations for “foreign counterterrorism investigation” were nowhere near the Persian Gulf. Every one was in Latin America — Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and a handful of others.

...

Most provocative is the contractor to whom this no-bid contract was handed: ChoicePoint Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia. ChoicePoint is the database company that created a list for Governor Jeb Bush of Florida of voters to scrub from voter rolls before the 2000 election. ChoicePoint’s list (94,000 names in all) contained few felons. Most of those on the list were guilty of no crime except Voting While Black. The disenfranchisement of these voters cost Al Gore the presidency.

Having chosen our President for us, our President’s men chose ChoicePoint for this sweet War on Terror database gathering. The use of the Venezuela’s and Mexico’s voter registry files to fight terror is not visible — but the use of the lists to manipulate elections is as obvious as the make-up on Katherine Harris’ cheeks.

...

Wholesale theft is expected on Sunday in forms both subtle and brutal. How the US’ purloined “counterterrorism” lists will be used, we don’t know. We are certain however, that the Administration did not siphon off these Latin voter files to fight a War on Terror. It appears, rather, part of the Bush Administration’s and GOP’s hemispheric War on Democracy — along a battle line which runs from Florida to Ohio to Juarez.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE! -
http://www.gregpalast.com/stealing-mexico#more-1439

IF THIS MAKES YOU ANGRY, REMEMBER TO RECOMMEND AND GET THE WORD OUT ON THIS. IF THE MSM PICKS THIS UP, BUSHCO IS REALLY UP THE CREEK.

[Dems Will Win]

1. kick

[WarNoMore]

2. Kick!

[Jazzgirl]

3. Kickety kick!

:kick:

[Dems Will Win]

4. kick

[Greyhound]

5. K & R we need one more to get the front page. n/t

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

6. i knew an imminent lopez obrador victory was too good to be true

choicepoint is at it again

[babsbunny]

7. Would Keith Olbermann cover this?

Well, he should!

[mod mom]

10. I wish Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert would have Palast on!

[Terran1212]

20. He's a BBC reporter, right?

I hope at least this can break into the major media there!

[EFerrari]

8. Poor Mexico, so close to the United States. n/t

[helderheid]

9. recommended

[Dems Will Win]

11. kick

[Critters2]

12. I saw a Faux news report on the Mexican election, and

based on what they were saying, I thought to myself "They're looking for ways to steal THIS election, too!" I mean, the reporting just felt creepy. "Look what a bad guy Obrador is, but don't you worry none, we've got everything under control." Just creepy.

Why can't people see through this kind of thing?

[MissWaverly]

13. yeah, Obrador is such a lefty

He organizes bi-weekly dance parties for old people to dance to latin big band music, he's
a real radical all right. Oh, he's not BIG OIL, we all know what that means, it's all about the
oil, 24/7.

[Critters2]

14. Dance lessons?!

OMG! It's worse than I thought!

:eyes:


Wish I could vote there.

[MissWaverly]

15. Here's the story from PBS Jim Lehrer/the News Hour

ANDRES MANUEL LOPEZ OBRADOR

RAY SUAREZ: Lopez Obrador's potent slogan is "For the good of all, but first for the poor." And while all the candidates have some crossover appeal, Lopez Obrador supporters cheer when their man describes his plans to collect unpaid taxes from the wealthy and renegotiate the part of NAFTA that exposed farmers of beans and corn to American competition. In the administration he's just finished in Mexico, the government of the city has the least expensive public transportation in the country, has better employment opportunities. He created a public university for the people with low incomes and for those over 40.

RAY SUAREZ: And Lopez Obrador attracts support from many Mexico City residents who are well past the age of 40. The Salon Los Angeles (ph) is a Mexico City dance hall where older residents take to the floor twice a week and show off their moves to Latin big band music.
Their social benefits were raised by Lopez Obrador during his term as mayor of Mexico City. And now he's pledging to do the same for elderly Mexicans all over the country.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/north_america/jan-june06/mexico_06-30.html

[Critters2]

16. For the good of all, but first for the poor

Well, now I know why the BFEE is nervous!

[MissWaverly]

17. Yes, you got it

I hope that Obrador can win, he's very popular, and it was very sad, the Mexicans are really
pissed at the US for criticizing their illegals, it seems that Walmart has gone down there and
is selling among other things tequila and a lower price than the locals can sell it, this
has had a damaging effect to the Mexican economy since they can't compete. It shows middle
class people who have lost everything and are now street vendors.

[MissWaverly]

23. More on Walmart in Mexico here

A full decade after that beacon of corporate globalization, the North American Free Trade Agreement, kicked in, the commercial physiognomy of Mexico is indistinguishable from that of its distant neighbor to the north. The marketplaces in these two deeply disequal trading partners are fast becoming mirror images of each other, "total convergence" as Mexican NAFTA negotiator Luis de Valle proudly boasted to the New York Times. "Mexicans and Americans now buy the same products and pay the same prices." Often they do so at the same mega-stores.

Having jumped the gun on NAFTA by buying into the 122 store Aurera-Bodega chain here in 1992 and taking it over five years later, Wal Mart now owns 687 super stores in 71 Mexican cities under the marquis logos of Wal-Mart, Aurera-Bodega, Superama, and Sam's Club --plus 52 Suburbias, a more upscale department store chain, and 235 VIP's restaurants. Total Wal-Mart sales of $10.8 billion USD in 2003 dwarfed the $8 billion taken in by the next three retailers together. But the transnational bonanza raises national hackles. "It is not good for our sovereignty that all our clothes and our food come from another country," asserts Vicente Yanez, director of the National Association of Self-Service Stores.

http://www.counterpunch.org/ross03172005.html

[burrowowl]

18. KICK!

[Dems Will Win]

24. kick

[Terran1212]

19. McKinney took ChoicePoint to task in Atlanta

The only filmed viewing of the investigation is in the film American Blackout. Scary stuff.

[dusty64]

21. Hmmm.

:kick:

[Dems Will Win]

22. kick

[MissWaverly]

25. Mods, Please put this on the home page

It is essential that we know what is going on in our neighbor to the South, since so much hatred
has been stirred up in this country over illegals it would help for us to realize that much of this problem is US. Obrador has been portrayed as a lefty on many news segments, there is no coverage at all of his record or that he is loved by the voters. Most American do not know that Mexico has been Walmarted and that even the tequila makers have been busted by the Walmart lower prices. PBS is running excellent coverage of the election thanks to Ray Suarez!

Plus Mr. Obrador is a big fan of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and so am I, so I guess, that I
am a biased observer.

:-)

[Joanne98]

26. Can somebody put this on a spanish language site?

[Joanne98]

27. The Narco News Bulletin is expecting voter fraud.....

And the Winner in Mexico Is… The Zapatista Other Campaign
There Are Four Possible Election Results In the Mexico of Above, but the Mexico from Below Has a Surprise Waiting for Each of Them


By Al Giordano
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Mexico
June 30, 2006


“The elections will happen later, don Fermín, and we’re going to be here. Maybe the majority of the Mexican people will support López Obrador and the PRD (Democratic Revolution Party) with their votes. If they don’t recognize his victory, you and many like you will mobilize. Believe me that we will be at your side, shoulder to shoulder, fighting against that injustice and denouncing it, just as we did against the desafuero…”

– Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos
Open Letter to don Fermín Hernández
August 2005
Sunday, July 2 will be Election Day in Mexico. The current men in power – most visibly, President Vicente Fox and the country’s business elite – are in a panic.

Anything can happen on Sunday, including an attempted electoral fraud, as occurred here in 1988. But this time the Mexican people will not swallow it. If Mexico’s dubious Federal Electoral Institute (IFE, in its Spanish initials) tries to repeat that dark history, the revolution will begin on Monday. Those in power can’t be that stupid. Or can they?

All objective signs – if the vote is to be tabulated fairly and accurately – point to a punishing electoral victory by former Mexico City Governor Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The big boys – at least the domestic ones who seem to believe their own hype that López Obrador is a “leftist” (foreign capitalists are much more sanguine about the probability of victory by the candidate with the initials AMLO) – have tried everything to stop it. In 2005, they tried to remove López Obrador from the ballot with a legal maneuver called the desafuero. They only ended up making him stronger. Lately, they’ve attempted an Election of the State to impose a whiney little man named Felipe Calderón of the PAN (National Action) party as Fox’s successor, but this week they were caught red-handed trying to rig the voter lists, among other old-style maneuvers, on Calderón’s behalf. They were undone at each step through a medium known as the Internet, which did not exist in Mexico in 1988. They may still attempt to impose Calderón on Sunday but your correspondent doubts it because, if so, it bears repeating, a revolution will break out on Monday.

http://www.narconews.com/Issue42/article1945.html

[MissWaverly]

28. interesting facts from conservative site

Here is an illuminating comparison. In 1970, average incomes in South Korea were about half those of Mexico. By 2004, average per capita Korean incomes ($19,148, expressed in constant "2000 dollars'') were more than twice Mexico's ($9,178).

It's not that Mexico has made no progress. Its economy was once crisis-prone, inflation-ridden and heavily insulated from foreign trade. Now it has quelled inflation (about 4 percent, down from 17 percent in the late 1990s), controlled government spending and opened up to trade. Before adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, tariffs on covered imports averaged 12 percent (and were much higher in the 1980s); by 2001, they were 2 percent. In recent years, its economy has grown almost 4 percent annually.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/06/mexicos_missing_prosperity.html

[Dems Will Win]

29. Gee they only left out that corn prices

dropped 79% since 94 and that's why they are flooding our borders. Walmart and dumped corn have ruined their economy in 90 micro-regions and that's where the immigrants are coming from.

[MissWaverly]

30. starve them then blame them

it's like blaming those who drowned in New Orleans, how dare you be our victims

[robertpaulsen]

31. I hope Mexico's response is more like the Ukraine's as opposed to US.

You know, mass protests in the streets shutting down a fraudulent government? We could have used some of what they had in the Ukraine here in the US in 2004. I hope the Mexicans get righteously pissed, because what's coming down the track is SO fucking transparent. Choicepoint?! Geez, who do they think they're kidding?!