Hard Rain Journal 7-15-06 Weekend Edition: Updates on US Election Fraud, Treason as a Tort Case, & "Once-Boastful President...Reduced to Pathetic Bleats"
By Richard Power
Here are updates on three stories that Words of Power continues to monitor closely, i.e. election fraud in the US, the ongoing investigation into the revealing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, and the failure of the Bush-Cheney national insecurity team. For daily updates on election fraud go to Brad Blog or Mark Crispin Miller's Notes from the Underground. [NOTE: I will post more news on the disputed Mexican presidential election soon. For more frequent updates on this crisis, go to Greg Palast's site.]
The legal struggle promised by Bobby Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Papantonio has begun. And it is already accelerating the pace of events. Here are two posts from Brad Blog, one on Mike's fiery interview with Air America's Mike Malloy, and the other on a statement from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Voters Rights Institute condemning the handling of the Busy-Bilbrae election and demanding a "swft" and "verifiable" handcount:
The first of several federal whistleblower qui tam (fraud) suits have now been filed against one of America's major electronic voting machine companies, The BRAD BLOG can now report. Florida attorney Mike Papantonio who, along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. hosts Ring of Fire, weekends on Air America Radio, was a guest on Mike Malloy's radio program last night...Speaking of the level of fraud to be revealed by the suits, which must be sealed by law for 60 days as the Attorney General decides if they will join the complaint, Papantonio told Malloy: "When you hear the details, when you hear the caliber of the fraud… you… it'll make Americans feel like they're living in a damned banana republic, a third world country. I have never heard such outrageous facts." "And you know what?" he continued, "We've had our investigators look at it. We verified everything...." [SNIP] Papantonio said. "Some day these hacks are gonna be across the table from me, and they're gonna have to answer the questions that nobody else has been able to ask them." Pap excoriated the DNC, "the indolent Democrats and the lazy media," for not participating in any of this, and decried the fact that he and RFK Jr. were essentially forced to take action on their own, given the Dems' failure to do anything.
FIRST RFK JR. VOTING MACHINE WHISTLEBLOWER LAWSUIT NOW FILED IN FEDERAL COURT!, Brad Blog, 7-14-06
In a harshly worded statement, the DNC's Voting Rights Institute has issued a statement condemning the administration of the recent U.S. House race between Democrat Francine Busby and Republican Brian Bilbray, joining a growing national outcry in calling for "a swift and verifiable 'manual count' of all 150,000 ballots cast in California's 50th District's 'bellwether' June 6th special election." [SNIP] Massive security breaches were reported the day after the election, in regard to the deployment of the county's Diebold optical-scan and touch-screen voting machines...The progammed, election-ready voting machines, poll workers have informed The BRAD BLOG, were stored unsecurely in home garages and cars...Due to the presumed-contamination of the extremely hackable voting systems used in the race - as allowed via the lengthy, unsupervised "sleepovers" in the days and weeks prior to the election - nobody, even the Registrar's office, has been able to prove the accuracy of the results as announced by Haas.
DNC's Voting Rights Institute Issues Statement Calling for "Manual Count" of All Ballots in Busby/Bilbray Election, Brad Blog, 7-14-06
I am happy to see a post from Truthout's Jason Leopold on the latest news on the revealing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. The Plame-Wilson civil suit against Cheney, Libby and Rove is a welcome development. It will keep this issue alive. Of course, it it is a sad state of affairs when treason has to be adjudicated as a Tort case instead of a trial for high treason. But until Patrick Fitzgerald speaks out, we will not know where it all leads, or what Rove or Cheney's status really is. The pronouncements of Rove's lawyer, absent substantiation of some kind by Fitzgerald's office, are not compelling. Stay tuned...
Novak, in his interview on Fox News, where he now works as a consultant, called the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA status an accidental slip by one of his sources during the course of an hour-long background interview on foreign and domestic policy issues. An all too willing Brit Hume, and for that matter the rest of the Washington press corps, lapped up Novak's version of the truth, and have treated the Wilson story as a non-issue, without so much as disclosing the documentary proof that has surfaced during the course of a three year federal investigation that would prove Novak and others in the media have been peddling lies...A month ago, Robert Luskin, the attorney defending Rove in the CIA leak case, claimed he received a faxed correspondence from Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicating that Rove would likely not be charged with crimes - barring any additional evidence - related to his role in the leak. Fitzgerald's office would not confirm that the prosecutor sent such a letter nor would his office confirm that Rove is truly free from the burden of a criminal indictment. But that has not stopped the media and even some naïve bloggers from taking Luskin at his word and printing news stories with sentences like "Fitzgerald said Rove won't be charged" when in fact Fitzgerald said no such thing....Earlier Thursday, the Wilsons filed a civil suit against Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, who is the only White House official who has been indicted in the leak case. The civil suit may help vindicate the Wilsons and hold these officials accountable for their actions three years ago...
Jason Leopold, Why Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Filed, Truthout, 7-14-06
After six years of reckless, feckless and weak-minded leadership in Beltwayistan, the pace of world events is being dictated from Pyongyang, Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, Tel Aviv and Beirut instead of from the White House. Sidney Blumenthal provides some scathing insight of the colossal failure of the Bush-Cheney national security team and its foreign policy "strategery." Sidney's crisp and brilliant analaysis explains why he writes from London, and for the Guardian and Salon, and also why you don't see him on US network or cable news shows.
Just two years ago, he appeared before the Republican Convention boasting of his "swagger, which in Texas is called walking." But in the face of the consequences of his failures, he has not adopted a new doctrine so much as swaggered into a corner. The cowboy's White House has become Fort Apache. His policy is paralyzed toward North Korea, reduced to kowtowing to China in the forlorn hope it would implore the hermit kingdom to forswear developing nuclear weapons and firing test missiles. The Chinese, however, have declared they will veto any U.S.-initiated sanctions in the United Nations Security Council. When Bush was president-elect, Bill Clinton's national security team informed him that a treaty with North Korea was essentially wrapped up. Incoming Secretary of State Colin Powell was enthusiastic. As president, Bush not only cut off diplomacy but also humiliated Powell and then South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung for seeking to continue the process associated with Clinton.[SNIP] On Israel's reoccupation of Gaza in response to Hamas' terrorism, Bush has regressed to embracing no policy, just as he did when he first entered office....Similarly, less than a month after the celebrated Camp David sleepover of senior administration officials, ostensibly to bring new clarity to Iraq policy, Bush has returned to mouthing inane platitudes about "victory." [SNIP] But as the North Korea debacle shows, Bush's ruinous approach began before the Iraq invasion, indeed before Sept. 11. His latest policies, or pantomimes of policies, recall Gertrude Stein's description of Oakland, Calif.: "The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, there is no there there."
Sidney Blumenthal, Swaggering to Nowhere: As the Mideast burns and North Korea threatens, the once-boastful president has no policy and is reduced to pathetic bleats, Salon, 7-13-06
RELATED POSTS:
Hard Rain Journal 7-6-06: Axis of Drivel, and From Russia with Loathing -- The Failed Foreign Policy of Bush-Cheney
Hard Rain Journal 7-4-06: Latest Report on Fitzgerald Investigation -- Bush Told Cheney to "Get It Out!"
Hard Rain Journal 6-28-06: NYU Law School's Brennan Center Reports E-Voting Software Attacks are a Real Danger
SPECIAL EDITION: “Until this issue is burning on the mind of every citizen” -- Words of Power Interviews Mark Crispin Miller
Words of Power #22: Election Fraud As Information Warfare, and a National Security Issue
Richard Power is the founder of GS(3) Intelligence and http://www.wordsofpower.net. His work focuses on the inter-related issues of security, sustainability and spirit, and how to overcome the challenges of terrorism, cyber crime, global warming, health emergencies, natural disasters, etc. You can reach him via e-mail: richardpower@wordsofpower.net. For more information, go to www.wordsofpower.net
Information Warfare, Cyber Security, Voting, Elections, Election, Vote, Vote Fraud, fraud, cybercrime, cyber crime, Plame, Rove, Cheney, Bush, Libby, Karl Rove, Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, Partrick Fitzgerald, geopolitics, terrorism, Iraq, Bush, 911, Putin, Russia, Nuclear Proliferation, Iran, North Korea, Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Palestine, Iran, Iraq