Just One Example
This from the Republican Party Platform:
Federal government should not interfere with states’ rightsWe must acknowledge that the federal government’s role should be to set expectations in policies, then get out of the way and let the states implement and operate those policies as they best know how. Washington must respect that one size does not fit all states and must not overburden states with red tape attached to its policies.
–Republican Platform adopted at GOP National Convention Aug 12, 2000
Of course, like so many other “principles” of the GOP, this one is not as much a principle as it is a facade justification for a wide range of issues. Many GOP stands have little or no widely accepted justification, so to look legitimate, the GOP resorts to the old standard of states’ rights. Abortion? It’s a religious issue, but they can’t frame it that way because it won’t appeal to most Americans, who want separation of church and state. State’s rights to the rescue! The states should decide, that’s the justification.
But because it is a facade, it is not applied universally: whenever there is an issue which the GOP thinks can or should be banned nationally, or when a state decides that it wants to take a stance that the GOP doesn’t want them to take, then the states’ rights suddenly vanish and the federal government overrules them:
The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court yesterday to block the nation’s only law that allows physicians to help terminally ill patients die more quickly.The appeal from Attorney General John D. Ashcroft had been expected since May, when a lower court ruled that the federal government could not punish Oregon doctors who prescribed lethal doses of federally controlled drugs.
Oregon voters approved the law, and since 1998 more than 170 people have used it to end their lives. Most had cancer.
This hypocritical use of states’ rights as a false justification is bad enough, but it becomes somewhat laughable when the GOP tries to restrict states’ rights more often than it pretends to defend them.
BlogD: I could not find an email address so I am posting here. I notice that your link to BlackBox voting in a downstream post isn’t working this morning.
Then there is this email I received from a friend, notice the first few paragraphs are most pertinent. Please edit as you find appropriate for your site.
Thanks,
Tim Kane
Original Message
From: Votergate?
To: (my friends email address)
Sent: Monday, November 08, 2004 4:33 PM
Subject: SPREAD THE WORD!
BLACKBOXVOTING.ORG: http://www.blackboxvoting.ORG/
Help America Audit — 5 Things You Can Do Immediately
Posted by BevHarris
Mon Nov 08th 2004, 07:39 AM ET
I was tipped off by a person very high up in TV that the news has been locked down tight, and there will be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2. Even the journalists are pretty horrified.
My source said they’ve also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time, and he was calling from somewhere else. He was trying to figure out how to get the real news out on vote fraud.
This is a person I’ve worked with off and on for nearly two years, and the voice was so somber it really bothered me.
At any rate — and perhaps, especially important due to the tipoff above, there are things you can do to take back America.
====================
We have a different list for lawyers, computer people, statisticians. But if you are a regular person like most of us, and want to help, here’s what to do.
Please distribute: If you have not done so already, sign up at Black Box Voting — http://www.blackboxvoting.org — to audit the election and deal with vote fraud.
HELP AMERICA AUDIT: 5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Reclaim Democracy
You’re our greatest hope. If you choose to accept it, your job is to spread the word in order to build a fast-growing grass roots movement — a voting integrity project so powerful that it cannot be mowed down.
1. BE THE MEDIA — See below.
2. CRUNCH THE NUMBERS: Discrepancies please, and hurry. E-mail them to tips@blackboxvoting.org .. Pass the word. Need source documents, too. ASAP. Follow your nose, or join the Black Box Scavenger Hunt: Pick a county. Look at small counties, as we are seeing many discrepancies in those. Look in any state. Get the official number of registered voters, Dem and Republican. Get the number of votes cast on Nov. 2, Republican and Dem. Make a grid like this, filling in the right numbers:
# reg. voters % # votes cast %
Rep 100 33% 150 50%
Dem 200 67% 150 50%
Totl 300 100% 300 100%
We can find out a lot from this procedure, very hard data, that will make a real difference. As soon as you have finished a county, e-mail it to us. Do as many counties as you can.
3. HAVE A HOUSE PARTY: Show the film “Votergate” (the real one, which you can download for free at http://www.Votergate.tv .) Organize “Be the media” actions and set up investigative teams to help dig up information like you have in #2. Timeline is NOW, to get action before seating the electoral college.
4. HELP CONNECT THE WIRES: Hook Black Box Voting (.ORG) up with powerhitters you know, people who can make things happen.
5. DONATE to any of 3 organizations: Black Box Voting (.ORG), the consumer protection group for elections; or the new recount fund (information upcoming, contact DU’s Hedda_Foil), or send contribution to Votergate.tv (The REAL Votergate film, by Russell Michaels, Robert Carrillo Cohen, and Simon Ardizzone. There is another by someone else, make sure you get the right one.) The real VOTERGATE is the most powerful investigative film on this topic, and consequently it has been attacked and blocked repeatedly. They deserve your support.
“HOW TO BE THE MEDIA”
Don’t expect to see vote burglary on TV. To get the message out fast, you’re going to have to become the underground railroad. Do it now. Take pictures of each other doing it. Have house parties to show others how to do it. Here’s how to “be the media.”
BE YOUR OWN REPORTER: We will send you new information as we get it. We need your e-mail to get you on the list, so if a friend sent this to you, please shoot an email to crew@blackboxvoting.org to sign up.
Spread the information we send you to every blog, listserv, forum you know and throughout your personal network. Talk about it at work and to people you meet everywhere, lots, quickly, all the time.
SELF SERVE SOUND BITES: Frequent, very short messages to immediately increase public awareness. Assume you won’t see it on TV.
Put vote fraud related messages on:
– Yard signs
– Car windows
– Write them on duct tape and wear them
– Print REMOVABLE stickers and stick them on things:
– Bathroom door at the gas station.
– On telephone poles in the dead of night
– At bus stops
– On the back of bus seats
– Stick them into your junk mail and send it back via return mail
– Slip them into menus at restaurants
– Leave them in books at the bookstore
– Share new self serve sound bite ideas with us and we’ll send them out with new messages.
ELECTION “TRUTH TOURETTES”. Please excuse the political incorrectness, as it is not meant to be hurtful. It is for a good purpose. This the antidote to “watch what you say.” It is a good icebreaker at a party. Have your guests make up truths, like those below, and mix them into the conversation at surprise times throughout the party. Unexpectedly and urgently blurt them out:
Recount!
Electile Dysfunction!
Gotta audit-Gotta audit-Gotta audit
Florida!
–mathmatically impossible!–
Count all the votes! Count all the votes! Count all the votes!
Votefraud.
Paperballots! Handcounts!
–where’s my vote?–
Where’s the paper?
Feel free to interchange and mix it up, or even try a game where different people have to interject with different truths.
– WHO REALLY WON — I DUNNO — GOTTA AUDIT!
Also, here are more ideas.
– Magnetic signs for your car
– If you know a trucker, have them put a message in the window as they drive across the county.
– Make a patch and put it on the front of your baseball cap
– Carry a sign and stand in the window outside the Today Show
If we have to be our own media, so be it. We will not sacrifice democracy just because TV executive producers have a problem with this issue.
I heard the exact text of the above email read on the Randi Rhodes show yesterday…is this just some mass circulated email or what? They read it on the radio like someone sent it specifially to Randi…or it may have even been the dialogue of one of her guests on a phone call, turned itno an email….let’s keep it real here..