Apologies if this is a dup. I just read this at EDM and I can’t believe my laptop didn’t burst into flames when I turned it on. This was posted 18 hours ago. Just go read the damn story if you haven’t already,
it’s here.
It’s fucking disgusting. And diabolical. I don’t even know what to say about these sleazeballs. They deliberately conspired to disenfranchise Black American Servicemen serving overseas, and they’re busted. They did it in Florida, especially.
We all may have missed the Big One by focusing on Ohio and Diebold generally. This is what they’re afraid is gonna come out. They can’t spin this shit, they can’t hope it’ll be too technical for most people to process. This shit is black and fucking white.
People are going to go to jail.
Update: This story is now available in
Orange. Those of you who aren’t banned from the Orange place, please go and show our friends some love. I get the feeling some guys at the RNC are crapping their pants right about now.
Update II: There is a big fuss at the Dkos diary about the dates in which the story was published. Typical group behavior. My diary isn’t about that, whatever they’re on about. I tried to follow it, but it didn’t make sense. My diary links to Emerging Democratic Majority, a blog run by professional pollsters who know everything there is to know about elections. If you check their archives, you’ll find they’re anything BUT sympathetic to the Diebold CTs. This is about emails that Palast has revealing the RNC scheme to challenge Black Soldiers attempting to vote from overseas. If EDM says this is legit, then I think it is.
If this isn’t legit, I’d be shocked if they fail to print a retraction. The Press needs to pursue this specific story thorougly, because it would represent a deliberate violation of Federal Law by the RNC.
I served in the US Army during the 2004 Election cycle. My unit deployed to Iraq that year. All military personnel (US servicemen voted for Bush by a 2 to 1 margin in 2004) were strongly urged to vote in that election. But I went over with a National Guard unit from Corpus Christi, Texas. I never got my absentee ballot, alot of us didn’t. Corpus Christi is a heavily hispanic district which votes Democratic.
Things that make you go hmmmm.
One reason that the vote rigging hasn’t gotten more traction in the MSM is the incredible variety of the schemes by which a relatively small number of votes each were shaved (adding up to more than enough to swing the election). For example, the Sproull voter registration cams where DEM registrations were trashed, the disenfranchisement of servicemem described in this diary, the shortage of voting machines in Dem precincts, the rigged e-voting machines, the possibility of rigging tabulators, the jamming (in NH) of Dem phone banks, the threatening calls (in OH) to Dem voters,….
The complexity and variety of these schemes, and the lack of good TV pictures is one reason this hasn’t gotten traction, but isn’t that what newspapers are for.
In at least some cases the vote-rigging (or legal fees when they got caught) was directly paid for by the Republican National Committee. There obviously is a central organization behind these efforts. You’d think even a halfway competent investigative reporter or an attorney for the Dem. Natl Committee could put the pieces together and do something to haul this shameful story out into the open.
That’s exactly what the EDM post says at the end.
Shame indeed. Shame on the DNC, the Press, and us too is we don’t raise holy hell over this.
Is it established that a successful challenge to a soldier’s registration at home prevented voting overseas?
This is the deal as I understood it, and bear with me as I threw this together quickly, they figured out which black military men were overseas by sending mail marked “do not forward” to their homes. Once the mail was returned, they used the return mail to challenge their votes once they came in. They targeted black soldiers. That’s illegal.
When questioned about it, they had no answer. They are busted. I don’t understand why no one seems to be too pushing this story. It was on BBC last night, and EDM is a major, reputable election blog.
This isn’t truthout we’re talking about. I know it’s the weekend, but seriously people… get cracking.
Would someone please post a diary on this at Daily Kos, if it hasn’t already happened? I’m banned from DK, or I would.
It seems to me that this is the Downing Street Memo of the election fraud scandal. It’s a stinging indictment of the RNC, but the media won’t cover it without being pressured to do so.
It’s up in orange at the following linkBombshell: BBC Uncovers GOP Memos Used to Thwart Black Votes
by pronin2 Sat Jun 17, 2006 at 08:53:09 PM PDT. It can still be recommended.
Not by me. But please encourage others to do so.
In fact, I’ll do it myself.
EVERYBODY GO TO DAILY KOS AND RECOMMEND THE LINKED DIARY!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!
At least I rec’d it. Damn, I tried. Thought that was it too. Fuck!!! Not mad at you, mad at this damn computer!
Apologies to all.
I just sent a link to the EDM piece to a reporter at our local paper who had a column printed about Kennedy’s Rolling Stone piece last Wednesday. Let’s see if he picks up on it.
Some people in the Kos diary were questioning the links provided, but they were using a different portal. EDM is a reputable blog, it looked legit to me. The press needs to pursue this story, to confirm or refute the existence and authentity of these emails.
It’s the same old shit at DKos.
The knee jerk reaction to election fraud stories is bordering on obsessive. This isn’t some Jason Leopold “scoop”. If EDM linked to a sexed up blog post without doing any due diligence, well I’d be suprised if they did that.
I think this is real.
Yes, exactly.
Here’s what I posted at Dkos as a response to such complaints. Doubt it will convince the usual ostriches….
Good job posting the link. And I agree with your point, it’s unacceptable that we don’t know exactly what kind of shenanigans went on in 2000 and 2004. Obviously, the GOP is doing whatever they think they can get away with. The less we hound them for this stuff, the more they can get away with.
One must take into account that Markos and those who yell the loudest over there haven’t changed their position one micro dot since right after the 2004 election. In their view, it didn’t happen, it is all tin foil hat, and even if it did happen, SHUT THE F**K UP or those in the rest of the world will think we are all crazy conspiracy nuts and not pay attention to us.
Logic, investigative proof of anything, or enough evidence to warrant at least a deep investigation mean nothing to them. They don’t want to look bad. For me personally, I think it is time they grow up, but then they don’t care what I think or what you think. Don’t worry yourself over trying to change minds there. It isn’t going to happen.
Thanks for this info and add it to the huge pile of everything else we have that stinks to high heaven about the 2004 election. We have a few corageous ones who are willing to speak out, I will be surprised if any of the mainstream press want to touch it, apparent proof or not.
Never mind that their justification for the whole “SHUT UP AND MOVE TO THE RIGHT!” dialog gets derailed the instant you admit the 2004 and 2000 elections might not have been legitimate…
Hey i live and travel abroad and most of the people i talk to believe US elections are rigged and have been since Florida 2000, so i dont get the “rets of the world will think we are crazy…” stuff!
Apparently this article is from 2004. People are unrecommending the cross posted diary at dKos.
Can you confirm the date of this, here in this diary?
I don’t know what the hell all that is about. Something to do with the links provided in that diary.
I linked to Emerging Democratic Majority, who link to the original story. I consider EDM a reliable source. Did you check that link?
I’m kinda asking you. I can’t get back into dKos right now, server error. But I checked the links here and couldn’t find anything that says it was written in 04. But like I said, I can’t get back to dKos to follow up on the naysayers over there.
Well there was a story by the BBC dated October 2004 about black voters being scrubbed from the rolls. This was just generic vote suppresion like what was seen in 2000.
Pravost broke this story on BBC last night, apparently. When links posted in the DKos diary weren’t working properly, I think someone did research and found the old link and, confused about what the issue was, claimed it to be the valid link. Enter the naysayers…
Now people have concluded the story is bogus Wayne Madsen style shit flinging. I disagree. This is a specific charge, with evidence and knowledge of exactly how the scam worked, that the RNC conspired to challenge the absentee ballots of Black Soldiers deployed overseas. By collecting the addresses of returned mail sent to Soldiers from mostly black districts, the RNC could justify flagging their ballots, which made it very unlikley they would ever br counted.
This doesn’t mean the outcome of the election was changed, it doesn’t need to. It appears the RNC focused heavily on Florida, which Bush won by 5 points. That’s not the point, the point is that they targeted Black Soldiers. Not Black homeless people or guys living in the projects… but the troops.
For better or worse, Americans revere their military and they admire those who serve in it. If this story gets traction, it would put the GOP in a desperate bind. You see, GOP policy in Iraq is all about domestic politics/winning elections. It’s all they care about. The Dems should have been saying this for years, because it’s true and it would expose the GOP for exploiting the troops and manipulating people’s patriotism to gain political power. That’s why I believe this story is big. What better opportunity could the Dems get to make such a statement?
EDM have consistently rejected and even mocked the Diebold claims. They don’t believe it’s plausible that the exit polls were accurate and they certainly don’t think millions of votes were switched. But this seems much more plausible, it’s SOP for the GOP to run this kind of scam. It fits their MO, and I do believe that they’re stupid and crooked enough to do it.
People will go to jail for this.
The guys name is Palast, not Pravost. It’s bedtime for Brownie.
I need the exact link or I will be poking around forever…probably because that is my favorite site to get lost in…
Damn, damn, damn no can do!!!!!!!!! Am I pissed!!!! )&(^&%&^$&^()#$%^$&*^&@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why the hell didn’t you say it was an MP3 link? Shit!
How about the BBC links from ’04 and last nite? I’ll try another freelance. Why the hell not? Might work.
BBC Link from 2004
Thanks. Gotta play this one on a friend’s computer. Will give it my best.
The particular item cited here is very recent. But the first stories on this were printed in 2004. However, it’s not like the problem has been fixed, so until it is it warrants our attention.
Palast is pushing this right now because he’s got the new book out and he’s doing a tour in support of it. I’m not sure when he actually developed the story itself, but it’s one of the main things he hits in the book promotions.
Knowing Palast’s work, I’m sure the story’s sound… and, like the proof he came up with for Florida 2000, which ALSO turned out to be sound, I’m sure it’ll accomplish not one single thing. USians would rather go back into the middle ages and be ruled by Divine Right than admit that they trusted the wrong people and haven’t been doing their own jobs right….
He reported on the story for the BBC back in Oct. 2004. Before the election obviously.
Palast’s BBC report
I cited this piece yesterday in Steven’s excellent diary. My printout (from Information ClearingHouse, I think — forgot to snag the url) indicates up top that the Palast first reported the story for BBC & Democracy Now! No date. This may be an excerpt from his new book, Armed Madness — a number of other excerpts have recently appeared. So it’s not new news exactly; it’s old news that never got adequately reported in the first instance. The appearance of trhe book (& thus its contents) make it newsworthy.
Btw, Happy Fathers Day to any Daddys out there.
Alright, I went back to dKos and followed the links that some commenters left there.
First, this information was first reported back in Oct. 2004, before the election when internal RNC emails were mistakenly sent by republican election insiders, to George W. Bush.org, a parody site, instead of GWB.com, Bush’s official reelection site.
I read through the list of emails and some of them are pretty startling. Not surprising though, knowing what we do about them in hindsight. Within the list are some word docs and pdf files of what the republicans called caging lists. These are, as far as I understand it, lists of Florida voters, primarily Black, and some Black military. There are also more muddane emails about appearances by Karl Rove, who would be in attendance, like media personalities, and members of Congress and so on. Interesting stuff actually. Here is the link to one of the actual cage/scrub lists.
Military scrub list
Here is a likn to Palast’s site
Greg Palast
Here is the link to the email list, mistakenly sent to GWB.org, not .com.
Internal RNC emails
Here is Palast’s BBC report from Oct. 2004
BBC Report
And here are some of the more pertinent emails:
No doubt this is important. But if people should go to jail for this, how come we haven’t heard anything about this since Oct. 04?
Either way, we should try to reaquant the media with it.
I screwed up the links in the last two emails above. But they can be found in the above linked email list.
“them” over there, so they won’t be votin over here!
We need vote by mail, with paper ballots, counted by civil servants.
We need civil servants registering voters and keeping track of those voter registrations.
Join the Liberal Democratic Party of the United States of America.
http://groups.myspace.com/liberaldemocraticpartyoftheunitedstatesofamerica