Bush Deposed in D.C., Blackwell Stalls in OH, Gregoire Leads in WA, Plans Get Rolling in Congress and Americans Take to the Streets
It may be Christmas...But Election 2004 still ain't over.
By Brad Friedman on 12/22/2004, 6:40pm PT  

We continue to be unable to report as many Election 2004 Irregularity issues as we might like due to developments in the continuing Clint Curtis story. Some of those developments we've reported on here (see the "Special Coverage" sidebar at right), others we are still unable to discuss publicly. But there is more to come.

We take some comfort, however, in the fact that there are now many more folks covering the story than there were in the lonely days just after November 3rd.

So while we stay on top of Curtis coverage like a dog with a bone, we offer a few recommendations for superb coverage of all the latest breaking Election 2004 items (and there have been many of them of late!).

We recommend daily reads at CannonFire, Democrats.com, the Columbus Free Press, and of course, RAW STORY. There are many, many more folks doing similary exhaustive and important coverage right now, many such sites will be linked from some of those that I just mentioned.

But to get momentarily back here to the growing confidence crisis that is quickly eroding the very core of our democracy...even while the Mainstream Media shamefully fails America by missing the story entirely...here are several of the latest and most noteworthy developments in this saga, and a few opportunities for the people to stand up for the country we love...Because somebody's got to...

RAW NUMBERS VIA RAW STORY

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) continues his heroic fight as Democratic leader of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. After getting snubbed by Warren Mitofsky, the head of the news consortium that sponsors Election Day Exit Polling (the mysterious numbers that seemed to indicate that Kerry should have won in so many of the places that he "didn't"), Conyers is now going over his head to get a look at those numbers.

Conyers had asked Mitofsky for the raw, unadjusted polling data so that it might be examined, and also for him to appear and give testimony at the hearings held in D.C. last week. Mitofsky declined to do either.

Now Conyers is calling on the news organizations themselves to release that important data. We can't imagine what news organization would not comply to such a request from a member of the U.S. Congress, or on what grounds. So we truly hope that at least one of them will soon be forthcoming.

We'd suggest these media organizations now have a duty to do so. Read to the bottom of this item for an idea why. Raw Story, meanwhile, has the raw numbers scoop with the actual letter sent by Conyers to the Mainstream Media brain trust.

PAPER BALLOTS ARE A GOOD THING...

After several machine counts, and one manual hand count, it looks like Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire may end up edging out Republican Dino Rossi in the final tally.

Out of 2.9 million votes cast on Election Day, Rossi ended up with an astoudingly slim 261 vote lead. An automatic machine recount narrowed his margin to 42 votes. And now --- after paper ballots were counted by hand! --- Gregoire is now up by just 10 votes!

Meanwhile, three are still 700 wholly uncounted absentee ballots that were discovered as uncounted several days ago in Democratic-leaning Kings County.
You thought because it's Christmas that the Election was Over?
Think again....

Republican officials fought tooth-and-nail to keep the ballots of those Americans from being counted (go figure), but a late decision by the Washington Supremes has ruled in favor of counting peoples votes (go figure). So we'll see where the final final final numbers end up. More details here.

Moral: Paper Ballots that can be recounted, by hand, are a very good thing.

THINGS GET EVEN HOTTER IN OHIO...

Bob Fitrakis and his crack team of actual reporters continue their yeoman's work at the Columbus Free Press. Covering the growing national crisis that the national media seems to regard as a local affair.

Their latest report (worth reading in it's entirely for all of the details that I can't hit for the minute here) details the subpeonas and depositions-a-flyin' now in the Buckeye State and beyond.

Of particular note:

On December 21, notice of depositions were sent to President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to appear and give testimony regarding the legal challenge of Ohio's elections results in the case Moss v Bush et al.

But Republican Blackwell's attorney at the Secretary of State's office told the attorneys issuing the notice of deposition and subpoena that Blackwell will not testify under oath. The Republican-controlled Attorney General's office has labeled any attempt to put Blackwell under oath, "harassment." Blackwell supervised the November 2 vote in Ohio at the same time he served as co-chair of the state's Bush-Cheney campaign.

As to the actual petition file with the Ohio Supreme Court to have the election results in that state set aside, a bevy of attorneys who have descended upon the state in recent days, are reporting runarounds from Election officials all over the state:

The election challenge lawsuit claims that statewide vote patterns reveal vote count fraud on a scale that incorrectly awarded the state's majority – and the presidency – to George Bush. They are using the litigation process to document that fraud.

“Maybe this (the explanation of the Ohio vote) is much closer to the surface than anybody thinks,” said Pete Pectarsky, a lead challenge attorney. “It doesn't add up. If everything was above board, why are they hiding everything?
...
The election challenge suit was filed Dec. 17. Blackwell, the Bush-Cheney campaign, and Ohio's Republican electors have 10 days to respond. Then, according to court procedural rules, each side has 20 days to do discovery – or additional evidence gathering, with those bringing the suit going first. With January 6 being the date Congress accepts the Electoral College vote, and January 20 being the inauguration, the GOP seems determined to make the recount drag on as long as possible.

ON THE HILL AND TO THE STREETS...

Meanwhile, Jesse Jackson has called for a rally in Ohio on January 3rd where, according to the Free Press Jackson "has pronounced Ohio's vote fraud fiasco 'the biggest deal since Selma' and has called for a national rally at 'the scene of the crime'"

Another rally is then scheduled in DC for the 6th, the day that Congress is to ratify (or not) the votes of the Electoral College.

Several efforts are underway, both behind the scenes and out in public, to begin to get at least one U.S. Senator to join with several U.S. Congressmen to file an objection to the Electoral Results in Congress on Jan 6th. Such an action would then throw the entire election back into both the House and Senate, leading to a potential Constitutional Crisis in this country unlike anything we've seen for quite a while.

At this time, The BRAD BLOG officially endorses such an action in the U.S. Congress, based on so many of the reports we have now seen that no longer give us confidence in our electoral system. If such an action is necessary to bring attention to this growing confidence crisis, then we heartily endorse it and will work to help ensure that at least one Senator comes on board this time around. One is all it will take.

The Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) have set up an easy online form, to help convince a few key senators. Click here to take action.

As well, we have been receiving more and more comments and email in regard to people hitting the streets to reclaim their democracy based on everything we have seen, reported on, and helped to ferret out since November 2nd.

To that end, it is now the official BRAD BLOG position that people should indeed begin "hitting the streets" in this regard.

We have held our tongue on this issue for some time in the hopes that the media would be more responsible in doing their job to investigate and report on so much of what has been going on. It was our hope that perhaps they could demonstrate that our concerns were for naught, and perhaps help to assuage the concerns of so many who are paying attention --- and don't like what we've been seeing --- with good common-sense, investigative journalism to put such concerns to rest.

But the corporate media has failed America in that regard, and so it is now time for America to do what we must in order to help them take notice of what seems to be going on in our democracy.

A velvet revolution worked in the budding democracy of Ukraine, and it's time that Americans similarly take their own democracy, back into their own hands.

We will have more to say on that specific topic soon.

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