Still think Ohio wasn't stolen...twice!!! (NY Times article)

[edhopper]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/us/15ohio.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

Yeah, the Sec. of State was the corrupt head of the Bush campaign in Ohio, but nothing underhanded was done.
Stop pissing on my head and telling me it's raining.

[driver8]

1. That is the biggest "conflict of interests" I have ever heard of...

How in the hell is the head of the Bush campaign in Ohio allowed to preside over the elections?

Jesus -- I still cannot believe that this was allowed to happen.

[OzarkDem]

4. The GOP controlled all state government all Ohio news media

For the last dozen years or so, the GOP has been in total control of Ohio government, Supreme Court, radio, tv news, and all major daily newspapers. They had complete control and were the "go to" state for the national GOP when it came to:

1. stealing elections
2. headquartering the center of the GOP publicly funded campaign money laundering machine (the Tom Noe scandal just scratched the surface)
3. developing rancid, reactionary right wing legislation
4. using GOP operatives to infiltrate news media, financial institutions, pollsters, government bureaucracies, etc. to hijack them for use by the GOP in controlling news, twisting public opinion, stealing taxpayer dollars for GOP campaigns, etc.
5. developing a laboratory for training crooked GOP politicians in tactics to tie up government and thwart legislative opposition. Virtually every dirty trick that Bush and the GOP in Congress use today to intimidate Dems, tie up bills, pass legislation w/o letting the opposition read it, keeping votes open past midnight for arm twisting, etc., using sleep deprivation to coerce the opposition into voting for legislation - all were developed and fine tuned in the Ohio General Assembly.

Ohio government was the Harvard Business School for crooked GOP politics.

[blm]

9. I often point out that the theft of 2000, 2002 and 2004 started in mid90s

and also wonder why the Dem party and OUR executive branch and justice department were asleep at the wheel while all the machinations were being made throughout the 90s - especially AFTER 2000's theft and those hearings that brought much of it to light - why did our party IGNORE it all? Bill Clinton was the head of the party and directed the party chairs. What the hell did he GUIDE them to do? Protect 2008 for Hillary?

[edhopper]

10. See

my post #5.

[spanone]

2. and this will also happen BIG TIME in 2008.

[OzarkDem]

3. SoS Jennifer Bruner is fantastic

She's done an excellent job since taking office. Her work does more than root out malfeasance in Ohio, its hopefully helping other states figure out where their problems are.

BTW, the last I heard, Cuy Co Commissioners wanted to go back to punch cards, since the system is cheaper, more mobile and easier to respond to problems on election day.

A major problem (or GoP scheme) with the electronic voting machines was in not having enough at busy polling places on election day. Once the lines begin to back up, its almost impossible to quickly deliver additional machines - they're too expensive and there aren't enough, difficult to set up, etc. With punch card voting, if someone screws up and doesn't have enough machines, its easy to call and get more delivered - they're inexpensive and very portable.

[edhopper]

5. I think sometimes

beyond just a conspiracy that the powers that be cannot get past the cognitive dissonance that a Presidential Election was stolen in America, the Land of the Free. So they won't even look.

[Enthusiast]

6. Edhopper you have it

That is it exactly. My GOP friend sneers at the suggestion that Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 was stolen (he has the ugliest sneer this side of Dick Cheney). No one even believes it. We don't do that kind of thing in The United States of America. Except for Chicago Illinois where the Daily machine was/is corrupt.

Again, with a complicit media, what do we expect. There is no evidence of tampering with the votes. If there is evidence why isn't it all over my TV channel.

[driver8]

11. If you mention to people that the election was stolen, they look at you like you

have two heads! Many people refuse to believe that this could (or would) happen in America.

After all of the shit that this administration has pulled, why would anyone be surprised?

[warren pease]

12. The powers that be *create* that cognitive dissonance...

... and they're the people who stole the elections, with the complicity of a mass media dedicated not to pursuing the truth but creating an artificial construct that allows people to pretend that everything's hunky dory in the land of uninformed, apathetic armchair flag-wavers.

Same wonderful conniving folks that brought you the 9/11 myth, the proxy wars fought on behalf of the fossil fuels industry, the noose of domestic repression tightening around the necks of those who call bullshit on all official excuses, the phony build-up to an attack on Iran, the theft of absolutely everything that's not nailed down under the big con of privatization, the unconscionable waste of maniacal war spending enabled by the full complicity of the alleged opposition party, and so much more pap, swill and drivel brought to you by professional liars pitching infotainment on TV and funded by their corporate masters.

And who would these overlords be? The leading lights of corporate America along with the old-money elites, who are sick and tired of sniveling, rebellious little people getting even a crumb, and who want each of us to function as wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate model, which is a merger of the Stalinist security state with the good old days of free-form unregulated capitalism.

Looks to me like the end-game is in sight. All systems are in place and just waiting for the official go-ahead. And as TheWatcher notes in post # 7, anyone who dares question the official happiness model is branded as a paranoid fantasist and conspiracy nut.

Companies spend fortunes and still can't buy the kind of PR mass media gives these snakes for free. And because the big con is omnipresent and has the buy-in of a critical mass of unquestioning American simpletons, it actually wins the competition among competing versions of reality.

Therefore, the creators and distributors of the big lie get to dictate the dominant social control mechanisms for the New American Century. And so far, that's been all about supplying an external threat, and scaring the shit out of our former swaggering rugged individualists -- the same chowder heads who now cower in terror that some swarthy fanatics might do them in. They try to cover up their fear through the use of totems like the flag and little magnetic ribbons and tribal screams of USA! USA! USA! But they're still living narrow little lives, limited by the scope of their cowardice and their visceral dread of the official bogey men.

Pretty amazing job when you think about it, considering the whole sorry act has played out in less than seven years. But hardly revolutionary. Reichsmarschall Goering knew all about this stuff:

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

From an interview in his jail cell while awaiting trial on war crimes at Nuremberg

This kind of social control was understood long before this sorry pack of thieves and sociopaths was even born. All they had to do was follow the script. And even BushCo must have somebody around who can read and comprehend a user manual.


wp

[TheWatcher]

7. I feel your pain Ed.

But you have to understand, there are too many Americans who simply don't WANT to know anymore.

Everything that doesn't make one feel good, feel comfortable, or fit the paradigm they desperately wish to live in is a conspiracy, those who try and shed light otherwise are bad, nut-jobs, and everything is always fine in Pleasantville as long as we believe it to be so.

You've got to get with the program.

The Official Story of 9/11 is the only acceptable reality, therefore the only reality possible.

All Elections are fair and untampered with.

The Democrats in Congress are cleverly playing a brilliant chess game, giving the Republicans just enough rope to hang themselves before they realize what's happening.

The Economy is Robust. Anything posted that is remotely gloom and doom is conspiracy and automatically not real.

The Election in 2008 will magically make everything right and whole again.

Nothing's real. Only things that sound good, feel good, and fit the acceptable view are real.

So sit back and fire up the DVR and watch some Dancing With the Stars Re-Reruns.

Everything Is Fine In Pleasantville.

[helderheid]

8. rec'd

[me b zola]

13. k&r

[Balbus]

14. Yep.

I believe in the stolen election looniness about as much as I believe the hologram planes - UFO's shooting down WT7 craziness.

[NMDemDist2]

17. ha. I was all set to like you until I read your post. what's not to like about that

cute sigline character and the heeler pup avatar?

but the elections were stolen by a few different means. none large, but all set to incrementally change the totals.

for instance, in Tempe AZ (your neighborhood) I personally know of a young black woman who was refused a ballot.

I had a gourmet coffee store in Chandler at the time and urged my young customers to be sure and register and GOTV leading up to the election in 2004

one young lady came in the day after the election in tears. the election workers refused to give her a ballot, even though she could see her name listed on their rolls. they claimed she wasn't listed and she's have to go a another precinct, she told them that was her name *right there*

they denied it and tried to send her to another polling location at 6:50PM. they wouldn't let her vote provisionally, they wouldn't let her vote at all.

read some Greg Palast if you don't believe me, it's been a pattern for years now.

[lovuian]

15. it was very obvious that it was stolen

and history will report it was

[HuffleClaw]

16. "“It is important to note,” he said, “that there has not been a single documented case..."

...of a successful attack against an electronic voting system, in Ohio or anywhere in the United States.”

oooookay.