November 30, 2006

Will Pelosi and crew "stay their course?"

 
 
In ‘88, Pelosi Voted to Impeach Hastings
 -- Will She Support Him Now?

Pelosi, Hoyer, Conyers, Rangel, Frank, Waxman
 -- they all voted to impeach.


By Byron York


On August 3, 1988, the House of Representatives voted on a resolution, co-sponsored by Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, to impeach Alcee Hastings, the federal judge in Florida accused of conspiring to take a bribe. On that day 18 years ago, some of the Democrats who are today preparing to take power in the House were relatively new to the job; others were, even then, veterans who had served in Congress for years. For both, the vote was a rarity; Hastings was just the 10th judge in U.S. history to face impeachment.

One of the newcomers to the House was the future Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had been in office a little more than a year. She voted to impeach Hastings.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, the future Majority Leader, also voted to impeach. And so did the lawmakers who will soon chair powerful House committees. Rep. Conyers, now in line to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Charles Rangel, soon to chair the Ways and Means Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Barney Frank, in line to head the Financial Services Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Henry Waxman, next chair of the Government Reform Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. John Dingell, in line to chair the Energy and Commerce Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. George Miller, soon to head the Education and the Workforce Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. David Obey, in line to chair the Appropriations Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Ike Skelton, next chair of the Armed Services Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. John Spratt, next in line for the Budget Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Howard Berman, next head of the Ethics Committee, voted to impeach. Rep. Tom Lantos, in line to chair the International Relations Committee, voted to impeach. And Rep. Louise Slaughter, next chair of the Rules Committee, voted to impeach.

So did other well-known Democratic lawmakers like Rep. John Lewis, Rep. (and later Sen.) Barbara Boxer, Rep. (and later Sen.) Charles Schumer, Rep. (and later Sen.) Richard Durbin, Rep. Ed Markey, Rep. Ron Dellums, Rep. Julian Dixon, and Rep. Richard Gephardt.

In fact, just about everybody in the House voted to impeach Judge Hastings: the vote was 413 to 3. (Just for record, the three who voted against impeachment were Reps. Gus Savage, Mervyn Dymally, and Edward Roybal.)

A few of those members have left the House, moved on to the Senate, or died. But the ones who remain — the ones who now have the seniority to hold influential positions — have another tie to Hastings: They’ve been his colleagues for more than a dozen years. Hastings, who was convicted in the Senate but not barred from holding future office, ran for Congress himself in 1992, winning a seat from Florida’s 23rd District. And now, because incoming Speaker Pelosi has apparently ruled out the appointment of next-in-line Rep. Jane Harman to chair the House Intelligence Committee, Hastings appears to be headed toward the top position on that panel — one of the most sensitive and responsible posts on Capitol Hill.

The question of whether Hastings should be put in charge of the Intelligence Committee is not as clear-cut as the vote to impeach him years ago. For one thing, these days the 43-member Congressional Black Caucus is solidly behind Hastings, who is black. That’s a much different situation from 1988, when Conyers, a founding member of the CBC, voted against Hastings, along with fellow founders Rangel, Dellums, William Clay, and Louis Stokes. (In fact, all the founders of the CBC who were in the House in 1988 voted to impeach Hastings.)

Late last week, the CBC sent a letter to Pelosi affirming the group’s support for Hastings “The CBC sent a letter to Ms. Pelosi just to let her know that the CBC is behind Mr. Hastings 100 percent,” CBC spokesman Myra Dandridge told National Review Online Friday. CBC officials declined to release the letter itself, but Dandridge said it was sent after CBC members discussed the Hastings issue at their weekly meeting on Wednesday.

On the other hand, the 37-member Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate Democrats, has sent a letter of its own to Pelosi, this one in support of Harman (a Blue Dog member herself). “She exemplifies all the reasons the American people instilled their trust in our party on November 7th to protect them here and abroad,” the letter said. “We believe she is supremely qualified for the job.”

The decision is Pelosi’s to make; the head of the Intelligence Committee is chosen by the Speaker. But the Hastings case is not just a problem for Pelosi. It could present an agonizing choice for other Democrats who were in the House in 1988 and went on the record in favor of Hastings’s impeachment. If they support Hastings, they will likely feel some pressure to explain why they once believed him unfit for office but now feel he is the right choice to occupy such a critical position.

The pressure might be particularly acute for Conyers, who not only voted for Hastings’s impeachment but also chaired the House Judiciary subcommittee that investigated the case, co-sponsored the impeachment resolution, and argued for Hastings’s conviction as an impeachment manager in the Senate trial. As such, Conyers left a long record explaining his belief that Hastings was guilty.

“No one could have been more skeptical than I at the start of this process,” Conyers told the Senate during the trial. “No one more anxious to ensure that this man be neither penalized for his race or insulated by his race, from the consequences of wrongful conduct. No one was more predisposed to believe the best of Judge Hastings and his case and to doubt his accusers. I said so.”

But as chairman of the subcommittee, Conyers continued, he examined the evidence that Hastings conspired with a close friend, a man named William Borders, to solicit money from defendants in return for favorable treatment in Hastings’s court. And that evidence changed Conyers’s mind. “I heard some evidence that forced me to reevaluate my position, the evidence presented, not only in my subcommittee but over here as a manager,” Conyers said. “I have heard this thing twice. And what I have seen and heard and studied and listened to and reread and argued with my staff counsel and back and forth has only matured my conclusion that, measured by any standard, Judge Hastings’ guilt has been established and Congress has an obligation to protect the integrity of the judiciary.”

“There is an enormous amount of evidence that makes no sense at all unless Judge Hastings conspired with William Borders and lied at the trial,” Conyers concluded. “It is the mass of evidence that makes the case, but it may be just one of the undisputed facts that convinces you that Judge Hastings is not to be believed on this and many, many other facts made both in and outside of this legal process.”

“Justice and the integrity of our government depend on the importance of these impeachment proceedings, and they argue that the judge should be removed from the bench.”

  Byron York, NR’s White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They’ll Try Even Harder Next Time.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Posted by Choice America Network at 11:10:08 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

November 26, 2006

JFK - Words of Wisdom

 

 

 JFK

WORDS OF WISDOM

CLICK TO VIEW

 

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

 

 

 

Posted by Choice America Network at 10:29:39 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

November 18, 2006

Secret Human Experimentations

 
A History Of U.S. Secret
Human Experimentation


1931 Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations, infects human subjects with cancer cells. He later goes on to establish the U.S. Army Biological Warfare facilities in Maryland, Utah, and Panama, and is named to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. While there, he begins a series of radiation exposure experiments on American soldiers and civilian hospital patients.
 
1932 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study begins. 200 black men diagnosed with syphilis are never told of their illness, are denied treatment, and instead are used as human guinea pigs in order to follow the progression and symptoms of the disease. They all subsequently die from syphilis, their families never told that they could have been treated.
 
1935 The Pellagra Incident. After millions of individuals die from Pellagra over a span of two decades, the U.S. Public Health Service finally acts to stem the disease. The director of the agency admits it had known for at least 20 years that Pellagra is caused by a niacin deficiency but failed to act since most of the deaths occured within poverty-striken black populations.
 
1940 Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.
 
1942 Chemical Warfare Services begins mustard gas experiments on approximately 4,000 servicemen. The experiments continue until 1945 and made use of Seventh Day Adventists who chose to become human guinea pigs rather than serve on active duty.
 
1943 In response to Japan's full-scale germ warfare program, the U.S. begins research on biological weapons at Fort Detrick, MD.
 
1944 U.S. Navy uses human subjects to test gas masks and clothing. Individuals were locked in a gas chamber and exposed to mustard gas and lewisite.
 
1945 Project Paperclip is initiated. The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects in the United States.
 
1945 "Program F" is implemented by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). This is the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoride, which was the key chemical component in atomic bomb production. One of the most toxic chemicals known to man, fluoride, it is found, causes marked adverse effects to the central nervous system but much of the information is squelched in the name of national security because of fear that lawsuits would undermine full-scale production of atomic bombs.
 
1946 Patients in VA hospitals are used as guinea pigs for medical experiments. In order to allay suspicions, the order is given to change the word "experiments" to "investigations" or "observations" whenever reporting a medical study performed in one of the nation's veteran's hospitals.
 
1947 Colonel E.E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Comission issues a secret document (Document 07075001, January 8, 1947) stating that the agency will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to human subjects.
 
1947 The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used with and without their knowledge.
 
1950 Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates.
 
1950 In an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Franciso. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms.
 
1951 Department of Defense begins open air tests using disease-producing bacteria and viruses. Tests last through 1969 and there is concern that people in the surrounding areas have been exposed.
 
1953 U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how efficiently they could disperse chemical agents.
 
1953 Joint Army-Navy-CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of thousands of people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.
 
1953 CIA initiates Project MKULTRA. This is an eleven year research program designed to produce and test drugs and biological agents that would be used for mind control and behavior modification. Six of the subprojects involved testing the agents on unwitting human beings.
 
1955 The CIA, in an experiment to test its ability to infect human populations with biological agents, releases a bacteria withdrawn from the Army's biological warfare arsenal over Tampa Bay, Fl.
 
1955 Army Chemical Corps continues LSD research, studying its potential use as a chemical incapacitating agent. More than 1,000 Americans participate in the tests, which continue until 1958.
 
1956 U.S. military releases mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, Ga and Avon Park, Fl. Following each test, Army agents posing as public health officials test victims for effects.
 
1958 LSD is tested on 95 volunteers at the Army's Chemical Warfare Laboratories for its effect on intelligence.
 
1960 The Army Assistant Chief-of-Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) authorizes field testing of LSD in Europe and the Far East. Testing of the european population is code named Project THIRD CHANCE; testing of the Asian population is code named Project DERBY HAT.
 
1965 Project CIA and Department of Defense begin Project MKSEARCH, a program to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior through the use of mind-altering drugs.
 
1965 Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Viet Nam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.
 
1966 CIA initiates Project MKOFTEN, a program to test the toxicological effects of certain drugs on humans and animals.
 
1966 U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.
 
1967 CIA and Department of Defense implement Project MKNAOMI, successor to MKULTRA and designed to maintain, stockpile and test biological and chemical weapons.
 
1968 CIA experiments with the possibility of poisoning drinking water by injecting chemicals into the water supply of the FDA in Washington, D.C.
 
1969 Dr. Robert MacMahan of the Department of Defense requests from congress $10 million to develop, within 5 to 10 years, a synthetic biological agent to which no natural immunity exists.
 
1970 Funding for the synthetic biological agent is obtained under H.R. 15090. The project, under the supervision of the CIA, is carried out by the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the army's top secret biological weapons facility. Speculation is raised that molecular biology techniques are used to produce AIDS-like retroviruses.
 
1970 United States intensifies its development of "ethnic weapons" (Military Review, Nov., 1970), designed to selectively target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in DNA.
 
1975 The virus section of Fort Detrick's Center for Biological Warfare Research is renamed the Fredrick Cancer Research Facilities and placed under the supervision of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) . It is here that a special virus cancer program is initiated by the U.S. Navy, purportedly to develop cancer-causing viruses. It is also here that retrovirologists isolate a virus to which no immunity exists. It is later named HTLV (Human T-cell Leukemia Virus).
 
1977 Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research confirm that 239 populated areas had been contaminated with biological agents between 1949 and 1969. Some of the areas included San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Key West, Panama City, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.
 
1978 Experimental Hepatitis B vaccine trials, conducted by the CDC, begin in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ads for research subjects specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men.
 
1981 First cases of AIDS are confirmed in homosexual men in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, triggering speculation that AIDS may have been introduced via the Hepatitis B vaccine
 
1985 According to the journal Science (227:173-177), HTLV and VISNA, a fatal sheep virus, are very similar, indicating a close taxonomic and evolutionary relationship.
 
1986 According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (83:4007-4011), HIV and VISNA are highly similar and share all structural elements, except for a small segment which is nearly identical to HTLV. This leads to speculation that HTLV and VISNA may have been linked to produce a new retrovirus to which no natural immunity exists.
 
1986 A report to Congress reveals that the U.S. Government's current generation of biological agents includes: modified viruses, naturally occurring toxins, and agents that are altered through genetic engineering to change immunological character and prevent treatment by all existing vaccines.
 
1987 Department of Defense admits that, despite a treaty banning research and development of biological agents, it continues to operate research facilities at 127 facilities and universities around the nation.
 
1990 More than 1500 six-month old black and hispanic babies in Los Angeles are given an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. CDC later admits that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental.
 
1994 With a technique called "gene tracking," Dr. Garth Nicolson at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX discovers that many returning Desert Storm veterans are infected with an altered strain of Mycoplasma incognitus, a microbe commonly used in the production of biological weapons. Incorporated into its molecular structure is 40 percent of the HIV protein coat, indicating that it had been man-made.
 
1994 Senator John D. Rockefeller issues a report revealing that for at least 50 years the Department of Defense has used hundreds of thousands of military personnel in human experiments and for intentional exposure to dangerous substances. Materials included mustard and nerve gas, ionizing radiation, psychochemicals, hallucinogens, and drugs used during the Gulf War .
 
1995 U.S. Government admits that it had offered Japanese war criminals and scientists who had performed human medical experiments salaries and immunity from prosecution in exchange for data on biological warfare research.
 
1995 Dr. Garth Nicolson, uncovers evidence that the biological agents used during the Gulf War had been manufactured in Houston, TX and Boca Raton, Fl and tested on prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections.
 
1996 Department of Defense admits that Desert Storm soldiers were exposed to chemical agents.
 
1997 Eighty-eight members of Congress sign a letter demanding an investigation into bioweapons use & Gulf War Syndrome.

2006 You didn't have a clue,... did you?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Posted by Choice America Network at 11:41:30 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) |

November 14, 2006

Generals want Iraq strategy change,...

 
US army 'to suggest Iraq changes'


US military leaders are preparing to recommend changes
in strategy on Iraq, America's top military officer says.

 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace said commanders were having their own dialogue and would make the changes that were needed.

President George W Bush is to meet members of a panel drawing up proposals for ending the conflict on Monday.

Iraq was a key factor in the Republican defeat in mid-term polls and US defence chief Donald Rumsfeld's resignation.

Mr Rumsfeld will be replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates, a member of the Iraq Study Group set to report to Mr Bush next week.
 
"We have to give ourselves a good honest scrub
about what is working and what is not working"
General Peter Pace
 
The White House says it is open to new thinking on the conflict, and correspondents say it would not be surprising if a real change of policy emerged soon.

Democrat calls

Gen Pace told CBS that military leaders were taking a hard look at what they were doing in Iraq.

"We have to give ourselves a good honest scrub about what is working and what is not working... and what should we change about the way we are doing it."

But Gen Pace said Mr Rumsfeld's departure would not have a direct impact.

"We continuously review what's going right, what's going wrong, what needs to change," he added.

His comments came as the White House announced Monday's meeting with the bipartisan task force asked by Congress to examine the effectiveness of policy in Iraq.

The panel, which is led by former US Secretary of State James Baker, reportedly think that "staying the course" is an untenable long-term strategy.

It is said to have been looking at two options, both of which would amount to a reversal of the Bush administration's stance.

One is the phased withdrawal of US troops, and the other is to increase contact with Syria and Iran to help stop the fighting.

Democratic Party leaders visiting the White House in the wake of their poll victory have raised the idea of an Iraq summit.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat set to be the next speaker of the House of Representatives, has called for a change of strategy, describing the current policy as a "catastrophic path".

'War dead 100,000'

In Iraq, the health minister has said between 100,000 and 150,000 civilians have been killed in the war, far more than other previously accepted figures.

Officials say the total is based on estimates of the number of bodies brought to mortuaries and hospitals.

Casualty figures are a controversial topic, with estimates or counts ranging from 50,000 to 650,000 deaths.

Separately, the US military says three of its personnel have been killed in two separate incidents in Iraq.

At least 23 US troops have been killed in November.

In October, at least 105 soldiers were killed, the fourth highest monthly toll since US forces overthrew Saddam Hussein, and the worst for US casualties in nearly two years.


 
 
Posted by Choice America Network at 08:56:48 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

November 04, 2006

A Blow for Republicans - Haggard Resigns

 
Sex-row US pastor 'bought drugs'


The head of a US evangelical body
who quit after being accused
of paying for sex with a gay prostitute
has admitted he bought drugs.

 
The Reverend Ted Haggard, ex-leader of the 30m-strong National Association of Evangelicals, said he bought methamphetamine but "never used it".

He denies having sex with the man but said he did receive a massage.

Mr Haggard has also stepped down temporarily from his 14,000-strong, Colorado-based New Life Church.

The issue is being played out against the backdrop of a vote in Colorado and seven other US states on Tuesday on whether to ban same-sex marriages.

Mr Haggard, 50, has been a vocal opponent of the unions.

'Pastor Ted'

Mr Haggard told journalists outside his home that he had bought methamphetamine.

"I bought it for myself but never used it. I was tempted but I never used it," Mr Haggard said. He said he threw it away.
 "It made me angry that here's someone preaching about
gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex"
Mike Jones
  

Denver man Mike Jones, 49, this week told a radio show he had been paid to have sex with Mr Haggard nearly every month over the past three years.

Mr Haggard said he had not had sex with Mr Jones but did receive a massage after being referred to him by a Denver hotel.

The man who has temporarily replaced Mr Haggard as head of the New Life Church, Ross Parsley, said in an email message on Friday: "It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true.

"He has willingly and humbly submitted to the authority of the board of overseers, and will remain on administrative leave during the course of the investigation."

 Mr Jones said he had stepped forward because of the gay marriage issue.

"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," he said.

Mr Jones said he was contacted by a man through the internet called Art.

Mr Jones said Art, who he later recognised as Mr Haggard, used methamphetamine to heighten their sexual encounters.

Influential ties
Mr Haggard, who is also known as "Pastor Ted" and has five children, has close contacts with the White House.

He became president of the National Association of Evangelicals in 2003.

The BBC's Jane Little in Washington says he is one of America's most influential and politically well-connected religious leaders.

His resignation comes as a blow for Republicans, who are hoping to energise a demoralised Christian base ahead of mid-term elections, our correspondent says.


 
 
 
Posted by Choice America Network at 11:01:31 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

November 01, 2006

No time for apathy, despair and surrender

 

Reflections on the Eve
 of
Another 
Rigged Election
 

By Ernest Partridge


The Bush administration can not allow the Democrats to take control of either house of Congress. And they are in a position to prevent it, regardless of the will of the American voters.

These are the two controlling facts that make all other conditions of the coming election trivial in comparison, or even irrelevant. The failure of the media and even the Democratic Party to acknowledge and deal with these facts in no way diminishes their significance. Quite the contrary.

And why can’t the Busheviks allow the loss of even one house of Congress to the Democrats? Such a loss might, of course, result in the halting and even some reversal of the Bush/GOP agenda. But that is the least of their concerns. Far more important would be the reestablishment of Congressional oversight -- of investigations, with the penalties of perjury and contempt of Congress, into vast array of crimes committed by the Bush administration. Among these crimes are bribery, the disappearance of billions of dollars in Iraq, war crimes, the disregard of acts of Congress, lying to Congress, and fraudulent elections. In a new, Democratic, House of Representatives, the incorruptible Henry Waxman, as the new Chair of the Government Affairs Committee, would doggedly examine and expose the corruption of the Bush Administration, and John Conyers, the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, would, at long last, energetically investigate the issue of stolen elections. Accordingly, Bush and his partners in crime face far more than a curtailment of power; they face possible indictment, prosecution, and prison sentences for their crimes.

How, then, might the Busheviks avoid accountability for their crimes by remaining in control of the Congress? The same way that they seized control of the White House in 2000, and maintained control of Congress and the White House in 2004, namely by rigging these elections through their surrogates in “the election industry.”

The accumulated weight of evidence has moved e-vote fraud well beyond the status of mere accusation. To those willing to examine that evidence scrupulously and objectively, it is now a proven fact. The refusal of the media to deal with this issue and the pathetically weak rebuttal-by-ridicule of the debunkers has not mitigated the force of the evidence. Because I have written repeatedly and at length about the stealing of the national elections, I will not argue the point here. Those still unconvinced are urged to examine these sources.  Significantly, despite the aforementioned media silence and weak rebuttals, a Zogby poll reports that less than half the public is “very confident that Bush won [the 2004 election] fair and square,” and a third if the public is “not at all confident that he won fair and square.”

Given the likelihood of another rigged election, does this mean that those of us who desire a Democratic victory – apparently a sizeable majority of likely voters – should simply give up, accept the inevitable, and stay at home?

By no means. We should redouble our efforts. For even if the GOP retains control of Congress through still more of the same electronic vote fraud combined with their familiar vote-suppression schemes, this could be the election that finally exposes and puts an end to the paperless, non-verifiable e-vote scam. If the election precincts are flooded with crowds of angry citizens demanding the ouster of the Republican majority in Congress, the GOP just might be made to pay an exorbitant price for one more rigged election. For all their advantages, including their control of the election processes, the GOP faces a daunting dilemma: on the one hand, steal one more election and risk, at long last, exposure of this crime, or on the other hand, “allow” the Democrats to take control of one house of Congress with the expectation that the crimes of the Bush administration, including election fraud, will be rigorously investigated.

I expect that the GOP strategists will opt for the former course of action. Even so, it is just possible that the GOP will still lose the House, although, given their control of the e-ballots, their continued the Senate is a lock for the Republicans. To win the Senate, the Democrats must lose no seats while winning almost all of the contested seats. Should the GOP “fix” just three close elections, say in New Jersey, Missouri and Ohio, their control of the Senate is assured. Even so, that might not be the end of it. If, by over-reaching this time, the election-fraud machinery is finally exposed, those ill-gained Senate seats might be contested and overturned by court challenges.  And these would be decided by state courts, out of reach of the GOP packed federal courts.

The House of Representatives, however, is a different story. If the election is close, the Republicans, by “fixing” from one to two dozen of the most endangered seats, will salvage their majority. That many individual electoral finagles are quite do-able.

But if as many as a hundred GOP seats are at risk, this may overwhelm the resources of the Dieboldian (etc.) shock troops. Moreover, the more individual contests on the “fix-list,” the larger the circle of election conspirators and the greater the risk that one of these scams will misfire and blow open the e-voting crime wave. Then a chain-reaction of disclosures might follow, reaching back to Ohio in 2004, Georgia in 2002, and Florida in 2000, to mention just a few electoral crime scenes.

And it appears now that a tsunami of voter discontent might strike the ballot boxes on November 7. The latest Newsweek poll reports that “fully 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win control of Congress next month..., compared to just 35 percent who want the GOP to retain power.” This 18% gap is considerably more than that which preceded the 40 seat sweep of the “Republican revolution” of 1994.

Accordingly, Paul Krugman observes that

a huge Democratic storm surge is heading toward a high Republican levee. It's still possible that the surge won't overtop the levee -- that is, the Democrats could fail by a small margin to take control of Congress. But if the surge does go over the top, the flooding will almost surely reach well inland -- that is, if the Democrats win, they'll probably win big.

And the much-respected and non-partisan observer, Charlie Cook  notes that

For Republicans, it is a time to defend every seat, no matter how secure those seats appear. If things don't change, GOP incumbents, who never even contemplated having a difficult race, may well lose this year. And if I were a Republican, I'd start praying that something happens to take the spotlight away from Iraq and scandals, because this current issue mix is lethal.

If that “tsunami” strikes on November 7, just as the “fixers” are at work on the presumably “endangered” seats, a strange and suspicious profile will emerge: close “contested” seats will be won overwhelmingly by the Republicans, while many “safe” Republican seats will be lost to the Democrats.

Now suppose that despite the polls and the well-publicized discontent of the voters, the Republicans retain control of both houses of the Congress. Suppose further, that this is the result of numerous allegedly “miraculous upsets,” none by Democratic candidates, and all by GOP candidates who overcome fifteen to twenty point polling deficits. (Among these, Ken Blackwell, the Ohio Secretary of State who “administered” the 2004 Ohio election, now a candidate for Governor, is trailing his opponent Ted Strickland by eighteen points).

Should this occur, can the dirty secret of stolen elections still be contained? Or might not, instead, the backbone of public denial and media silence finally be broken?

If, this time, the GOP control of the vote counting once again frustrates the will of a large majority of the voters, the proportion of doubters (half of the population, according to Zogby) will likely increase. Perhaps then much more than half will seriously doubt the validity of the elections, while many more “somewhat” doubt these results. At some point of no-confidence, the public at large will finally come to realize that the government of the United States no longer rules with “the consent of the governed” and thus lacks the legitimacy to govern.

What then? Worst case: Bush imposes the dictatorial powers given him by the Patriot Act and by the Military Commissions Act (of September 28), and the United States becomes in fact what it is now implicitly, a dictatorship. Best case: the people, united, overthrow the illegitimate regime. This has happened recently, in Ukraine in 2004 and in the Soviet Union in 1991. Most significantly, it happened in July, 1776, justified by a document known as “The Declaration of Independence,” which proclaimed:

That to secure these Rights [to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That, whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...

It is not without justification that some have called the upcoming election of November 7, 2006 the most significant non-presidential election in the history of the United States of America.

Now, at long last, the balance of power might be turning against the Busheviks, as their “establishment” corporate supporters and traditional conservatives seem to be having second thoughts, and as these qualms are reflected in the mainstream media.

Traditional conservatives, such as Richard Viguerie, Paul Weirich, Bruce Fein, and Joe Scarborough, are publicly proclaiming that the Bush administration has abandoned their core principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility, and that a Democratic victory in November, and the resulting divided government, “might not be a bad thing.” Dissenting opinions are becoming ever more conspicuous in the media, among them Bob Woodward (at long last!), and the disaffected evangelical Christian and former official of Bush’s “Faith Based Initiatives,” David Kuo, both of whom appeared in successive appearances in CBS’s 60 Minutes.

As I have repeatedly suggested, where the Bush regimes leads, enlightened corporate and media interests should not choose to follow. These interests flourished under the Clinton administration, during unprecedented economic growth when the United States and its political principles were respected throughout the world. Moreover, these same “establishment” interests must appreciate that in the coming collapse of the United States economy, there will be no winners.

Who could have predicted a month ago the present disarray of the GOP and the decline of its prospects in the upcoming election?  The Foley scandal and its aftershocks were nowhere in sight, and continuing Republican control of the Congress seemed secure. Likewise, we can only guess at what surprises might suddenly appear in the remaining four weeks of the campaign.

When it is all over, we may discover that this contest will have been won by the side that responded to these developments, promptly, intelligently, and decisively.

This is no time for apathy, despair and surrender.

Dr. Ernest Partridge is a consultant, writer and lecturer in the field of Environmental Ethics and Public Policy.  He has taught Philosophy at the University of California, and in Utah, Colorado and Wisconsin.   He publishes the website, "The Online Gadfly" (www.igc.org/gadfly) and co-edits the progressive website, "The Crisis Papers" (www.crisispapers.org). His book in progress, "Conscience of a Progressive," can be seen at www.igc.org/gadfly/progressive/^toc.htm . Send comments to: crisispapers@hotmail.com .


 

10/19/06 "Information Clearing House"

Copyright 2006 by Ernest Partridge

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

 

 

Posted by Choice America Network at 08:23:10 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |