I did not say he should have run as an independent from the beginning, but
rather that if Billary wins the Democratic nomination, he should then run as an
independent…I don’t think anyone can claim not to have heard of him at this
point...
On Apr 30, 2016, at 2:28 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
But if he'd run as an independent, and this is what Chris Hedges wanted him
to do, no one would have heard a word he said. When people ask me who I'll
vote for if he's not nominated and I say, "Jill Stein of the Green Party",
they say, "Who?" And when I tell them she stand for the same things as
Bernie stands for plus she's clearer about wars and Israel Palestine, they
shrug because, of course, she can't be elected. She can't even get on the
ballot in every state. I've been sending $5 a month to the Green party, my
token support. I sent more to Bernie because he was being heard. I would
like to feel financially secure enough to continue sending him money as his
emails request, about every hour on the hour. But I have my own personal
problems to deal with. Everyone is talking about building a movement, but
it's a fragmented movement with several different leftist parties working at
cross purposes and Bernie having to commit to send is supporters to Hillary
if she wins the nomination. There's happy talk about influencing her. Yes,
that's what they said when Obama began disappointing everyone after the
first 100 days. But all those Obama supporters were co-opted and silenced
and I'm afraid that will happen to Bernie's supporters unless they switch en
masse to the Green Party. But their stated plan is to move the Democratic
Party to the left. I am old and cynical and a lot more bitter and less
optimistic than Carl about the future.
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alice Dampman
Humel
Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2016 11:47 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Is Hillary Stealing the Nomination? Will
Bernie Birth a Long-Term Movement?
yes, Hillary is now spouting a few good lines.but you used the correct word,
it's all talk.
Yes, Occupy got people *talking* about the 1%, but still, not a one of the
banisters has been prosecuted, let alone jailed.
Too big to fail, too big to jail.
As I just said in my response to Carl, people like us, progressives,
radicals, and other assorted even politicians and government officials, have
been talking about the progressive ideals, the inequities, poverty, health
care, a chicken in every pot, the Great Society, the New Deal (that one was
ore than talk), opportunity, on and on, for a very long time, and if you
line it all up on a timeline, you begin to see that very, very little gets
done to change it.Obama is the last example of this, whatever reasons for
that one wishes to subscribe to.
Bernie is the first in a long while to actually propose actions to make
things different.
I, like you, cling to the hope that he will prevail. I'm disappointed he
will not run as an independent, and I"m disappointed in all the people who
say oh, I"d vote for him, but he does not have a chance. As I said with
Nader.if *every* single person who said, I like him, but he doesn't have a
chance, so I"ll vote for the least of all the evils, ad indeed voted for
him, he might have won.it's back to that nice, old-fashioned sentiment, vote
your conscience, something I think no one does anymore, it's all
pragmatism.and if all those who have contributed to Sanders's campaign, all
those who have turned out for his rallies and speeches, all those who have
worked for him, volunteers and staff alike, would hit the polls and vote for
him, he could win, but there are far too many who have already thrown in the
towel, who will either stay home and not vote, for for Clinton, hell, some
have even said they'd vote for Trump.and you wonder why I begin to see the
ugly vapors of defeat?
On Apr 30, 2016, at 11:01 AM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Actually, I'm not sure that, that's true. First of all, I've read
several
articles which indicate that he still could, mathematically, gain
enough
delegates, pledged not super delegates, to best Hillary. The next
states all
allow independents to vote in their primaries and he does better
with
Independents than with Democrats. And even if that doesn't happen,
because
he has had so much support, his ideas, which are the ideas of the
political
Left, have become part of the discourse. In the same way that Occupy
got
people talking about the 1%, Bernie has them talking about a single
payer
health system, free college tuition, a $15 minimum wage, the impact
of trade
agreements on employment, fairness toward Palestinians, and the
consequences
of regime change. None of these things would have been mentioned on
TV in a
debate or talked about during the campaign at all, had he not done
it. His
effectiveness was proven to me when my older daughter, the one who,
last
year, questioned why we should have a $15 minimum wage, actually
voted for
Bernie in the Primary. Debbie, who spends much energy
differentiating
herself from me, actually voted for this old Jewish guy spouting
socialist
and New Deal rhetoric.
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alice
Dampman
Humel
Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2016 10:14 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Is Hillary Stealing the Nomination?
Will
Bernie Birth a Long-Term Movement?
it really doesn't matter anymore, because the media, whether in
cahoots or
individually, has effectively stonewalled Sanders into
oblivion.unbelievable.
On Apr 29, 2016, at 3:20 PM, Richard Driscoll <llocsirdsr@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
Carl:
A very interesting analysis.
Richard
On 4/29/2016 11:33 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
I think that it is true of many Sander supporters, Richard.
Right Wing or Left Wing, we are still driven by the same
emotions, and
we still come from the same gene pool.
But still, Sander's followers appear to be turned toward
collective
power, while Trump's followers are simply angry, revengeful
individuals, thrashing out at anything that moves.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/28/16, Richard Driscoll <llocsirdsr@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl:
I would conjecture that one could say or make the
same comments
regarding Bernie Sanders. Are his followers
'malcontents'? Do they
visualize him as a 'Savior'? Is he fanning their
anger?
Richard
On 4/28/2016 11:39 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Exactly so, Miriam.
What is unnerving are the numbers of
malcontents who see Donald Trump
as their Savior. Rather than challenging
them to think for
themselves, Trump is fanning their anger.
It's interesting, two
leaders, one stirring up hatred and
violence, while the other is
teaching the value of a cooperative,
involved society.
The lines are very well defined. I know
which side the Empire is on.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/28/16, Miriam Vieni
<miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I think that Bernie did articulate,
for a lot of people, what their
discontent and anger was about, and
he provided them an opportunity to
show
the establishment, how they were
feeling. Yes, movements come from the
people, but they always have
leaders, and this just has to do with
differences in people's temperaments
and talents. The people had to be
ready, and Bernie had to be there to
say what they were feeling. But he
did
a lot of educating during those
speeches. He taught them socialist
theory.
He talked about class structure and
he talked about how the ruling class
tries to divide people. It was a
two way interaction.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From:
blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2016 11:12
AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Is
Hillary Stealing the Nomination? Will
Bernie Birth a Long-Term Movement?
Did Bernie Sanders "energize"
millions of people? Or were they already
out
there, just waiting for a Bernie to
rise up and lead them.
Whatever the real answer is, this
upheaval has been a long time in the
making. If Bernie is not allowed a
fair run at the nomination by the
Democrat Central Bosses, and the
current Movement is moved, by the
Corporate
Media, to nothing more than a back
page story, millions of discontented
Americans will still be there,
waiting for another opening, educating
themselves in the College of Hard
Knocks, to be better prepared to take
on
Goliath.
While I am no fan of Clinton, she is
not the one stealing the election
from
Sanders. The Party leadership will
not accept Sanders as their
representative, period.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/28/16, Miriam Vieni
<miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Excerpt: "Whatever happens with the
nomination, we respectfully
request that Bernie soon organize a
broad series of grassroots
gatherings where those who have
worked so hard for him will get the
best possible training and
inspiration toward becoming lifelong
activists who'll make a tangible
difference in the day-to-day business
of saving this planet."
Hillary Clinton. (photo: Justin
Sullivan/Getty)
Is Hillary Stealing the Nomination?
Will Bernie Birth a Long-Term
Movement?
By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman,
Reader Supported News
27 April 16
At this delicate moment in the
primary season, we all need to take a
deep breath and evaluate what comes
next.
Bernie Sanders has a mathematical
chance to win. But Hillary seems the
likely Democratic nominee.
Donald Trump has an army of
delegates. But if he doesn't win on the
first ballot, Paul Ryan could be the
Republican nominee.
Oy!
For a wide variety of reasons, we
believe Hillary and Bernie could
beat Trump. But we're not sure about
Ryan, who we find absolutely
terrifying.
Key is the stripping of our voter
rolls. Millions of Democrats have
already been disenfranchised. In a
close race, that could make the
difference.
Also key is the flipping of the
electronic vote count, which few on
the left seem to be willing to face
in all its depressing finality.
Both are explored in our new Strip &
Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim
Crows & Electronic Election Theft
(introduced by Mimi Kennedy and Greg
Palast) at www.freepress.org and
www.solartopia.org.
As Greens, we believe this
election's most critical imperative is that
Bernie convert the HUGE upwelling of
mostly young grassroots
discontent he has ignited into a
long-term multi-issue movement. His
success won't be measured by whether
he wins the nomination or
presidency. Miles Mogulescu has
written nicely about this at The
Huffington Post.
It matters most that those he's
energized emerge after November full
of commitment and heart. We've seen
too many electoral campaigns feed
into a general "disillusionment"
when they don't win the vote count.
We've seen too many youthful
uprisings too quickly dissipate.
As geezer vets of the civil rights,
anti-war, No Nukes, social
justice, election protection and
other campaigns, we desperately want
all these brilliant folks of all
ages to take on the issues nearest to
their hearts with renewed ferocity
in the coming months, years,
decades.
Having awakened this glorious beast,
we need Professor Sanders to
teach this class of '16 the ultimate
lessons in staying power (of
which he is such a sterling
example).
So whatever happens with the
nomination, we respectfully request that
Bernie soon organize a broad series
of grassroots gatherings where
those who have worked so hard for
him will get the best possible
training and inspiration toward
becoming lifelong activists who'll
make a tangible difference in the
day-to-day business of saving this
planet.
We all know that some meaningful
changes can be made by putting better
people in office. But in in the long
run it's the nitty-gritty grind
of facing down the corporations
issue by issue, place by place, nuke
by nuke, that will save us.
Along the way there's the collapse
of our electoral system. From Jimmy
Carter to Harvard to the UN and so
many others who've studied it, it's
patently obvious the mechanisms by
which we conduct elections in this
country are ridiculously decrepit
and corrupt.
As a partial solution, we've
concocted the "Ohio Plan," which demands:
universal automatic voter
registration at age 18; a four-day national
holiday for voting; voter ID based
on a signature that matches the
registration form with stiff felony
penalties for cheating; universal
hand-counted paper ballots.
We also want money out of politics,
public-funded campaigns, an end to
gerrymandering, and abolition of the
Electoral College.
In 2016, the first thing to face is
the massive disenfranchisement of
millions of voters, mostly citizens
of color and youth. We are
heartened to see Bernie and Hillary
joined together in an Arizona
lawsuit.
But the long lines and urban
registration stripping that we saw in
Phoenix, Madison, and elsewhere this
spring will spell doom for the
Democrats if they cannot guarantee
their constituencies' the right to
vote in November.
At this point, we're not optimistic.
The efforts at re-enfranchisement
are little and late. Among those
doing superb work on this stripping
of our voter rolls are the great
Greg Palast (www.gregpalast.com), Ari
Berman ofThe Nation, and others.
But the electronic flipping of the
alleged vote count remains a demon
black box. The 2000 election was
turned from Gore to Bush by
electronic manipulations in Volusia
County, Florida. The 2004 election
was turned from Kerry to Bush in a
Chattanooga basement which
transformed a 4.2% Democratic lead
into a 2.5% GOP victory in 90 dark
minutes.
All that could happen again in 2016.
Over the years we've respected the
work of The Nation's Josh Holland,
who's expressed concern about our
reporting on indications of
irregularities that seem to favor
Hillary over Bernie.
But our stated conclusions on them
remain far from conclusive. If we
thought we had definitive evidence
that the Clinton campaign was
stealing the nomination from the
Sanders campaign, we'd say so in
direct, explicit and unmistakable
phrases.
Simply put: we do NOT at this point
believe they rise to the level of
provable theft, as we are certain
was the case in 2000 and 2004.
We understand concerns and welcome
the dialogue. But we'd like to
avoid the usual circular firing
squad.
Writing in The Nation, Josh has
deemed it important to mention
disagreements with our former
collaborator Steve Rosenfeld, and our
good friend Mark Hertsgaard.
Mark's writing on global warming has
been legend. In 2004 he
criticized some of our reporting on
the Ohio vote count. We disagreed
with him then and still do. Nothing
in the past 12 years of our
research and writing while based in
central Ohio has surfaced that
would make us change our reporting
on how the 2004 election was
stolen. Quite the opposite.
But other comments on the nature of
electronic election theft throw up
a HUGE red flag. And here we worry
about a dangerous gap in the work
from The Nation and the left as a
whole.
If international election standards
were applied to the 2016
primaries, eight states - Georgia,
Massachusetts, Alabama, Texas,
Mississippi, Ohio, New York,
Tennessee - would be investigated for
suspected fraudulent election
results, because the actual vote
deviates so greatly from the exit
polls. Also, the exit polls
indicated that Sanders won in
Illinois, Massachusetts and Missouri.
The bottom line is this: there is no
viable method for monitoring or
verifying the electronic vote count
in 2016. In a close race, which we
expect this fall, the outcome could
be flipped in key swing states
where GOP governors and secretaries
of state are running the
elections. This includes most
notably Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and
Arizona, plus North Carolina and
Florida (where the situations are
slightly different).
Steve has called this "a stretch."
He and Josh seem to dismiss the
assertion that an election can be
electronically stolen as "conspiracy
theory,"
apparently based on the idea that
such thefts would become obvious
fodder for an infuriated media and
public outrage.
This we find this overly trusting
and dangerous. Under our current
system there is no way to
counter-indicate a stolen electronic vote
count except by exit polling, for
which Josh has expressed contempt.
Exit polls in other countries
(especially Germany) are highly
reliable; here the raw data is too,
but can be hard to get. And it's
now standard procedure to have the
public numbers "adjusted" to fit
official vote counts, fraudulent or
otherwise.
And even raw data exit polls have no
legal standing. Nor, apparently,
does the court system itself.
After the 2004 election, we won a
ruling in the King Lincoln
Bronzeville
v.
Blackwell federal lawsuit. Bob was
lead attorney, Harvey a plaintiff.
Judge Algernon Marbley ordered
Ohio's 88 county election boards to
compile their records and bring them
to Columbus for an official
recount. But 56 of those
88 counties failed to produce the
requested records. Some boards of
elections "accidentally" destroyed
all of the requested ballots. No
one was prosecuted. There was never
a recount.
Admitted into evidence in the
lawsuit was the Ohio secretary of
state's architectural map of the
computer network used to count Ohio's
votes. It is included here so
everyone can take a look.
The votes were counted by private
contractors in Chattanooga,
Tennessee.
The
three main companies involved were
all heavily linked to the Right to
Life movement in Ohio. The Free
Press also uncovered the contract
where these companies arranged with
the Secretary of State's office a
year prior to the
2004 election to move the Ohio vote
count to Tennessee should Ohio's
supercomputers fail on Election Day,
which would happen for the first
time in known history.
Cyber-security expert Stephen Spoonamore told
the Free Pressthat the computer
configuration was set up to allow a
"man in the middle attack" to alter
Ohio's votes.
The late night shift in the 2004
electronic vote count in 10 decisive
swing states was by all accounts a
"virtual statistical
impossibility," with the odds
against that happening in the millions.
But now we are being told the idea
that this could indicate a stolen
election is "conspiracy theory."
PLEASE!!! If someone - anyone! - can
demonstrate EXACTLY how the
electronic vote count will be
monitored, verified and made clear to
the media in 2016, and then
guarantee that the public and the courts
will react with enforceable fury, we
will be eternally grateful.
We hope in the meantime The
Nationwill add to Ari Berman's fine
reporting on the stripping of voter
eligibilities an in-depth
investigation into the "other shoe"
of election theft - the flipping
of the electronic vote count.
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) raised the
"Diebold question" at a
Congressional Black Caucus hearing
on April 21, 2016. Johnson noted
how easy it would be to hack the old
voting machines, many that are
over 20 years old, and vowed to
introduce legislation that would make
voting secure.
Finally, we are often asked how, if
the 2000 and 2004 elections were
stolen, Obama won in 2008 and 2012.
We did, after all, write in 2004
that the 2008 election was being
rigged.
The answer is simple: it was. But
Obama won by far too many votes to
have that election credibly stolen.
And his campaign was not in denial.
We are happy to hear from Steve that
our reporting on Ohio 2004 might
have enhanced Obama's scrutiny on
the 2008 vote count.
But it should be made clear that
Obama's victory could easily have
been flipped had the vote count been
closer and had fewer states been
so definitively won. We believe he
actually won by more than 10
million votes in both 2008 and 2012,
but was officially credited with
far
less.
Where, exactly, is the line beyond
which an election can't be stolen?
Do the Democrats need to win by 5%.
10%. to get an official victory?
And what then happens to the
down-ballot races?
We prefer not to see those limits
tested again.
And we need to have people prepared
to take tangible action. In 2012
Bob Fitrakis filed a successful
Election Day lawsuit preventing
illegal computer patches being
rigged into Ohio's electronic machines.
In a closer race, those patches
might have made the difference. We
believe the expectation that they
would work did cause Karl Rove to do
his legendary flipped-out
double-take on Fox News as he was told Mitt
Romney had lost Ohio.
We also reported (as did The Nation)
that voting machines in key
Cincinnati precincts were
financially linked to the Romney family. We
each wrote separate articles about
that and were each blacklisted by
Daily Kos for doing so, even though
the vast bulk of Harvey's 150+
previous blogs on that site were
about nuclear power and renewable
energy.
Some publications that aren't
progressive understand the problem.
Twenty-three minutes into the 2012
Election Day, Forbes took the Free
Pressreporting seriously, and warned
voters of the dangers of private,
for-profit companies owning and
maintaining voting machines.
Over the years we've been repeatedly
told that we should stop
reporting on electronic election
theft because it might discourage
voter turnout. And that the key to a
Democratic victory in 2016 will
be another massive vote count
victory that will be "too big to steal."
Frankly, we don't see that happening
this year.
And we find such talk deeply
disturbing. We have no doubt that
innumerable US House and Senate
races have been stolen over the years,
along with governorships, control of
state legislatures, referenda and
more, all of it producing a deep
reinforcement of the corporate control
of
our government.
We're also reasonably certain that
neither Hillary nor Bernie is
likely to amass in November a margin
of victory over either Ryan or
Trump that would be big enough to
negate the possibility of massive
disenfranchisement and electronic
vote flipping in key states like
Ohio, Michigan, Iowa or Arizona.
And anyway . why the hell are we
even thinking about leaving such a
problem unsolved?
This disease needs a definitive
cure.
We look forward to further reasoned
and reasonable dialogue. We invite
Josh and Ari to join us on our panel
at the upcoming Left Forum in New
York in May. We welcome a public
discussion with Steve and Mark in
California.
Above all, we hope to see those
millions of Bernie supporters joining
us at the reactor sites, the banks,
the women's health centers, the
shelters, the schools and so many
other critical hot spots in our
corporate-plagued society, no matter
who wins (or how) in November.
________________________________________
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
are co-authors of six books on
election integrity, including the
new Strip & Flip Selection of 2016:
Five Jim Crows and Electronic
Election Theft(www.freepress.org and
www.solartopia.org).
Bob's Fitrakis Files are at
www.freepress.org. Harvey's Organic Spiral
of US History is coming soon at
www.solartopia.org.
Reader Supported News is the
Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with
credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not
valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
valid.
Hillary Clinton. (photo: Justin
Sullivan/Getty)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Is Hillary Stealing the Nomination?
Will Bernie Birth a Long-Term
Movement?
By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman,
Reader Supported News
27 April 16
t this delicate moment in the
primary season, we all need to take a
deep breath and evaluate what comes
next.
Bernie Sanders has a mathematical
chance to win. But Hillary seems the
likely Democratic nominee.
Donald Trump has an army of
delegates. But if he doesn't win on the
first ballot, Paul Ryan could be the
Republican nominee.
Oy!
For a wide variety of reasons, we
believe Hillary and Bernie could
beat Trump. But we're not sure about
Ryan, who we find absolutely
terrifying.
Key is the stripping of our voter
rolls. Millions of Democrats have
already been disenfranchised. In a
close race, that could make the
difference.
Also key is the flipping of the
electronic vote count, which few on
the left seem to be willing to face
in all its depressing finality.
Both are explored in our new Strip &
Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim
Crows & Electronic Election Theft
(introduced by Mimi Kennedy and Greg
Palast) at www.freepress.org and
www.solartopia.org.
As Greens, we believe this
election's most critical imperative is that
Bernie convert the HUGE upwelling of
mostly young grassroots
discontent he has ignited into a
long-term multi-issue movement. His
success won't be measured by whether
he wins the nomination or
presidency. Miles Mogulescu has
written nicely about this at The
Huffington Post.
It matters most that those he's
energized emerge after November full
of commitment and heart. We've seen
too many electoral campaigns feed
into a general "disillusionment"
when they don't win the vote count.
We've seen too many youthful
uprisings too quickly dissipate.
As geezer vets of the civil rights,
anti-war, No Nukes, social
justice, election protection and
other campaigns, we desperately want
all these brilliant folks of all
ages to take on the issues nearest to
their hearts with renewed ferocity
in the coming months, years,
decades.
Having awakened this glorious beast,
we need Professor Sanders to
teach this class of '16 the ultimate
lessons in staying power (of
which he is such a sterling
example).
So whatever happens with the
nomination, we respectfully request that
Bernie soon organize a broad series
of grassroots gatherings where
those who have worked so hard for
him will get the best possible
training and inspiration toward
becoming lifelong activists who'll
make a tangible difference in the
day-to-day business of saving this
planet.
We all know that some meaningful
changes can be made by putting better
people in office. But in in the long
run it's the nitty-gritty grind
of facing down the corporations
issue by issue, place by place, nuke
by nuke, that will save us.
Along the way there's the collapse
of our electoral system. From Jimmy
Carter to Harvard to the UN and so
many others who've studied it, it's
patently obvious the mechanisms by
which we conduct elections in this
country are ridiculously decrepit
and corrupt.
As a partial solution, we've
concocted the "Ohio Plan," which demands:
universal automatic voter
registration at age 18; a four-day national
holiday for voting; voter ID based
on a signature that matches the
registration form with stiff felony
penalties for cheating; universal
hand-counted paper ballots.
We also want money out of politics,
public-funded campaigns, an end to
gerrymandering, and abolition of the
Electoral College.
In 2016, the first thing to face is
the massive disenfranchisement of
millions of voters, mostly citizens
of color and youth. We are
heartened to see Bernie and Hillary
joined together in an Arizona
lawsuit.
But the long lines and urban
registration stripping that we saw in
Phoenix, Madison, and elsewhere this
spring will spell doom for the
Democrats if they cannot guarantee
their constituencies' the right to
vote in November.
At this point, we're not optimistic.
The efforts at re-enfranchisement
are little and late. Among those
doing superb work on this stripping
of our voter rolls are the great
Greg Palast (www.gregpalast.com), Ari
Berman ofThe Nation, and others.
But the electronic flipping of the
alleged vote count remains a demon
black box. The 2000 election was
turned from Gore to Bush by
electronic manipulations in Volusia
County, Florida. The 2004 election
was turned from Kerry to Bush in a
Chattanooga basement which
transformed a 4.2% Democratic lead
into a 2.5% GOP victory in 90 dark
minutes.
All that could happen again in 2016.
Over the years we've respected the
work of The Nation's Josh Holland,
who's expressed concern about our
reporting on indications of
irregularities that seem to favor
Hillary over Bernie.
But our stated conclusions on them
remain far from conclusive. If we
thought we had definitive evidence
that the Clinton campaign was
stealing the nomination from the
Sanders campaign, we'd say so in
direct, explicit and unmistakable
phrases.
Simply put: we do NOT at this point
believe they rise to the level of
provable theft, as we are certain
was the case in 2000 and 2004.
We understand concerns and welcome
the dialogue. But we'd like to
avoid the usual circular firing
squad.
Writing in The Nation, Josh has
deemed it important to mention
disagreements with our former
collaborator Steve Rosenfeld, and our
good friend Mark Hertsgaard.
Mark's writing on global warming has
been legend. In 2004 he
criticized some of our reporting on
the Ohio vote count. We disagreed
with him then and still do. Nothing
in the past 12 years of our
research and writing while based in
central Ohio has surfaced that
would make us change our reporting
on how the 2004 election was
stolen. Quite the opposite.
But other comments on the nature of
electronic election theft throw up
a HUGE red flag. And here we worry
about a dangerous gap in the work
from The Nation and the left as a
whole.
If international election standards
were applied to the 2016
primaries, eight states - Georgia,
Massachusetts, Alabama, Texas,
Mississippi, Ohio, New York,
Tennessee - would be investigated for
suspected fraudulent election
results, because the actual vote
deviates so greatly from the exit
polls. Also, the exit polls
indicated that Sanders won in
Illinois, Massachusetts and Missouri.
The bottom line is this: there is no
viable method for monitoring or
verifying the electronic vote count
in 2016. In a close race, which we
expect this fall, the outcome could
be flipped in key swing states
where GOP governors and secretaries
of state are running the
elections. This includes most
notably Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and
Arizona, plus North Carolina and
Florida (where the situations are
slightly different).
Steve has called this "a stretch."
He and Josh seem to dismiss the
assertion that an election can be
electronically stolen as "conspiracy
theory,"
apparently based on the idea that
such thefts would become obvious
fodder for an infuriated media and
public outrage.
This we find this overly trusting
and dangerous. Under our current
system there is no way to
counter-indicate a stolen electronic vote
count except by exit polling, for
which Josh has expressed contempt.
Exit polls in other countries
(especially Germany) are highly
reliable; here the raw data is too,
but can be hard to get. And it's
now standard procedure to have the
public numbers "adjusted" to fit
official vote counts, fraudulent or
otherwise.
And even raw data exit polls have no
legal standing. Nor, apparently,
does the court system itself.
After the 2004 election, we won a
ruling in the King Lincoln
Bronzeville
v.
Blackwell federal lawsuit. Bob was
lead attorney, Harvey a plaintiff.
Judge Algernon Marbley ordered
Ohio's 88 county election boards to
compile their records and bring them
to Columbus for an official
recount. But 56 of those
88 counties failed to produce the
requested records. Some boards of
elections "accidentally" destroyed
all of the requested ballots. No
one was prosecuted. There was never
a recount.
Admitted into evidence in the
lawsuit was the Ohio secretary of
state's architectural map of the
computer network used to count Ohio's
votes. It is included here so
everyone can take a look.
The votes were counted by private
contractors in Chattanooga,
Tennessee.
The
three main companies involved were
all heavily linked to the Right to
Life movement in Ohio. The Free
Press also uncovered the contract
where these companies arranged with
the Secretary of State's office a
year prior to the
2004 election to move the Ohio vote
count to Tennessee should Ohio's
supercomputers fail on Election Day,
which would happen for the first
time in known history.
Cyber-security expert Stephen Spoonamore told
the Free Pressthat the computer
configuration was set up to allow a
"man in the middle attack" to alter
Ohio's votes.
The late night shift in the 2004
electronic vote count in 10 decisive
swing states was by all accounts a
"virtual statistical
impossibility," with the odds
against that happening in the millions.
But now we are being told the idea
that this could indicate a stolen
election is "conspiracy theory."
PLEASE!!! If someone - anyone! - can
demonstrate EXACTLY how the
electronic vote count will be
monitored, verified and made clear to
the media in 2016, and then
guarantee that the public and the courts
will react with enforceable fury, we
will be eternally grateful.
We hope in the meantime The
Nationwill add to Ari Berman's fine
reporting on the stripping of voter
eligibilities an in-depth
investigation into the "other shoe"
of election theft - the flipping
of the electronic vote count.
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) raised the
"Diebold question" at a
Congressional Black Caucus hearing
on April 21, 2016. Johnson noted
how easy it would be to hack the old
voting machines, many that are
over 20 years old, and vowed to
introduce legislation that would make
voting secure.
Finally, we are often asked how, if
the 2000 and 2004 elections were
stolen, Obama won in 2008 and 2012.
We did, after all, write in 2004
that the 2008 election was being
rigged.
The answer is simple: it was. But
Obama won by far too many votes to
have that election credibly stolen.
And his campaign was not in denial.
We are happy to hear from Steve that
our reporting on Ohio 2004 might
have enhanced Obama's scrutiny on
the 2008 vote count.
But it should be made clear that
Obama's victory could easily have
been flipped had the vote count been
closer and had fewer states been
so definitively won. We believe he
actually won by more than 10
million votes in both 2008 and 2012,
but was officially credited with
far
less.
Where, exactly, is the line beyond
which an election can't be stolen?
Do the Democrats need to win by 5%.
10%. to get an official victory?
And what then happens to the
down-ballot races?
We prefer not to see those limits
tested again.
And we need to have people prepared
to take tangible action. In 2012
Bob Fitrakis filed a successful
Election Day lawsuit preventing
illegal computer patches being
rigged into Ohio's electronic machines.
In a closer race, those patches
might have made the difference. We
believe the expectation that they
would work did cause Karl Rove to do
his legendary flipped-out
double-take on Fox News as he was told Mitt
Romney had lost Ohio.
We also reported (as did The Nation)
that voting machines in key
Cincinnati precincts were
financially linked to the Romney family. We
each wrote separate articles about
that and were each blacklisted by
Daily Kos for doing so, even though
the vast bulk of Harvey's 150+
previous blogs on that site were
about nuclear power and renewable
energy.
Some publications that aren't
progressive understand the problem.
Twenty-three minutes into the 2012
Election Day, Forbes took the Free
Pressreporting seriously, and warned
voters of the dangers of private,
for-profit companies owning and
maintaining voting machines.
Over the years we've been repeatedly
told that we should stop
reporting on electronic election
theft because it might discourage
voter turnout. And that the key to a
Democratic victory in 2016 will
be another massive vote count
victory that will be "too big to steal."
Frankly, we don't see that happening
this year.
And we find such talk deeply
disturbing. We have no doubt that
innumerable US House and Senate
races have been stolen over the years,
along with governorships, control of
state legislatures, referenda and
more, all of it producing a deep
reinforcement of the corporate control
of
our government.
We're also reasonably certain that
neither Hillary nor Bernie is
likely to amass in November a margin
of victory over either Ryan or
Trump that would be big enough to
negate the possibility of massive
disenfranchisement and electronic
vote flipping in key states like
Ohio, Michigan, Iowa or Arizona.
And anyway . why the hell are we
even thinking about leaving such a
problem unsolved?
This disease needs a definitive
cure.
We look forward to further reasoned
and reasonable dialogue. We invite
Josh and Ari to join us on our panel
at the upcoming Left Forum in New
York in May. We welcome a public
discussion with Steve and Mark in
California.
Above all, we hope to see those
millions of Bernie supporters joining
us at the reactor sites, the banks,
the women's health centers, the
shelters, the schools and so many
other critical hot spots in our
corporate-plagued society, no matter
who wins (or how) in November.
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
are co-authors of six books on
election integrity, including the
new Strip & Flip Selection of 2016:
Five Jim Crows and Electronic
Election Theft(www.freepress.org and
www.solartopia.org).
Bob's Fitrakis Files are at
www.freepress.org. Harvey's Organic Spiral
of US History is coming soon at
www.solartopia.org.
Reader Supported News is the
Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with
credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast
antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
